2 Peter 1 (Part 2)

You know, it's kind of rare when we're going through a book study, that we look at the same verses that we looked at the week before. But we're kind of going to do that today because as I went over these first few verses of second Peter, they are so rich and they're so full of insight that I just felt like they deserve some further examination. So even though we read and went over some of these last week, we're going to reread verses three and four. So here we go. Verses three and four. 2 Peter, chapter one, verses three and four:

Stop there. Let's pray. Father, you know my heart. You know that I struggled last night as I was putting all this down. And I pray that you'd help me to be able to convey your Word in a way that honors both you and your Word. And we all pray together Father, that you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see. And Lord, these are spiritual truths. And we know that they require the ministry and the grace of your Holy Spirit to enable us to really, really, truly hear and to embrace them. And so, we're asking you, Lord, to do that work in us that would allow us that privilege of hearing from you, hearing your voice, hearing as you speak to our hearts through your Word. We ask it in Jesus precious name. Amen. I told you that one of the prominent themes here in second Peter is this whole issue of having our lives transformed.

Once again, I sat over there during worship and I just kind of giggled to myself as Ken started, led us in prayer, starting worship, and he prayed multiple times. I don’t know if you remember, and I'm, my mind is thinking about this because he prayed about being transformed and that's exactly what, second Peter is largely about. And honestly, this is such a needed message, not just for Life Bible Ministry, but for the body of Christ. Because, obviously, we're living in a world today where the moral fabric of our society is rapidly deteriorating, and we're seeing it happening all around us. But, that's not all that we're seeing, and that's not the only problem that it's happening all around us. The problem is it's not just all around us. The reality is that the immorality and the corruption that we see in the world today is something that we are also personally battling every single day. And what I'm saying to you is that the moral decline of our culture has reached inside the church. Yeah, that's the sad reality. And the body of Christ has, we're seeing all this on a very personal level. It has become our battle. The good news is we're battling, the world isn't battling immorality. We are. We're battling immorality. We don't want it. And yet we find it in our midst and we're battling against it. And that's what Peter is addressing in this first part of this second letter and in these two short, but very powerful verses. And one of the, one of the most encouraging statements that I see Peter making in these verses has to do with this whole idea of being transformed, being changed. Literally being changed, by the power of God. And he not only tells us here in verse two that, that we can be changed. He tells us it's our calling. I don’t know if you caught that. He says, it's our calling. And I find it fascinating. Here we are living in a culture, we're talking about being transformed as believers, but you know that the culture around us wants to be transformed too. Yeah, the whole world wants to be transformed. They, the world, is fixated on it in a very different way. It's a different kind of transformation. In fact, they've taken the word transformation and they've just shortened it to trans. I'm not trying to be funny. This is the reality of the world that we're living in. Do you understand people that everything God does for his people, Satan has a counterfeit. Do you know that? Everything. We're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Some people are actually possessed by demonic spirits. That's just a counterfeit.

That's all it is. That's not to say that everybody that isn't a believer is possessed. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that Satan has his counterfeits and God's reality for you and me is that we can be transformed, and Satan has his own counterfeit. And that is this whole idea of being transformed into something. And of course, with the world though, everything is sexual. Everything. Right? For the body of Christ, it's spiritual. But for the world of course, it's physical and it's sexual. And every day, frankly, people in the world are being transformed. Males are being transformed, or at least trying to, into females. And females are trying to be transformed into males. And males and females are trying to redefine or transform their gender in other ways. Some people are even trying to eradicate the whole idea of gender altogether. They don't want to be any gender. Don't call me anything, call me something that is non-gender specific or whatever like that. But you see that's the way of the enemy. That is the M.O. of the enemy. He takes an idea of something that God does, which is good and sets people free, and Satan has a counterfeit, which he perverts, and he distorts, and then he hands that to his children. It's the way it goes. It's just the way it is. It's the way of the enemy. But except rather than doing it God's way, which brings things, brings us into freedom, Satan’s way, corrupts and enslaves in the final analysis. But that's his goal. That's the enemy's goal. Don't let anybody mess with your head on this stuff. All this gender confusion and all this stuff. You can come up with all your psychological babble in the world. Satan is enslaving people, period. And that's his goal. And that's the whole, that's the whole purpose. But that's not what God has in store for those of us who are called by the Name of Jesus. Let's read verse two again. Actually, verse three,

Isn't that interesting? Notice that it says that he is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. We know what godliness is, we'll talk about that here in just a moment. That's Christ's likeness. We'll deal with that. But he says that He's also given us everything that pertains to life. Isn't that interesting?

Now, the word “life” here is not talking about just your physical life. In fact, it's really not talking about physical life. This is the Greek word, “zoey.” The other word that talks about physical life is “biolife.” This is the word zoey. In case you were wondering what that name means. We have little girls named zoey today and big girls I suppose. But the word Zoey in the Greek has a broader meaning than just simply biological life. It goes on to speak of the quality and the abundance of life. Jesus said, “I've come that you might have life.” That's zoey. That's not just physical life. I've come that you would have abundant life. And Peter says that he has given us all things that pertain to this abundant life. Right. We'll talk about how in just a minute, but the next thing we see Peter reminding us here once again, that there is a calling, a specific calling on our lives to do something. Look at, he also said, he says through, I'm reading again from verse three,

I want you to take note of that. We are called to His glory and His excellence. Now, I want you to know that this is not a glory and an excellence that we can make happen. Peter tells us we're called to His own glory and excellence, right? I want you to think about that for just a moment. I mean, I say those words and they're even kind of, I don't know, they, it's like, what all does that mean even? We're called to His glory and His excellence. What are we talking about here? Is God promising me an excellent job? Is He promising me an excellent income? Is He promising me someday an excellent house to live in? No. The Greek word here that is translated excellence actually means, moral excellence. It can be translated virtue, but I think moral excellence is a good phrase. That is what you and I, as believers, have been called to. His moral excellence. Did you catch that? Not yours, His. Right? His moral excellence. How in the world are we going to do that? You hear, you read things like this in the Bible, you're called to God's moral excellence , isn't that just wonderful? And you kind of read it and you kind go whoopee, how in the world am I ever going to do that? I'm still trying to dig myself out of the moral failures I've had in life. And you're telling me I'm called to God's moral excellence? How in the world is that going to happen? The Apostle Paul asks the same kind of a question when

--- he wrote to the Romans. Let me put this on the screen from Romans chapter seven. He says: (slide) Romans 7:23-25 (ESV)

We'll keep that up there. And so this is the question. This is the question of every born again believer. When we recognize that we're caught in this fleshly existence, and we say, who's going to deliver me from this? Well, you guys know that that isn't the way that the Apostle Paul actually ended that passage. He actually added something to the very end. Here's what he said, we'll put it on there highlighted. Romans 7:23-25 (ESV)

Wow. What a change of attitude. Just one minute he's going, “what a wretched man that I am.” And then he says, “who can deliver me?” And then he goes, “praise God.” And we're kind of going, what? Why are you suddenly, you are asking this very poignant and powerful question, and then you start praising God. What's the reason? What accounts for this upturn in attitude? Well, if you'll notice, Paul doesn't actually give it right there in this specific passage of Romans. He doesn't tell you why he's had this uptick or this upturn in his attitude. But Peter does answer the question in verse four. Look with me in your Bible. What we're reading right now, verse four, when he says, “4by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises…”

We'll come back to those adjectives of precious and very great in just a bit. But he says, and this is important, “4…so that through them (circle those words in your Bible) you may become partakers of the divine nature…” Boy, this is really important guys. I want you to really focus on those words. “Partakers of the divine nature,” because that's the moral excellence that you're called to, that's the moral excellence that you're called to. That's what he's talking about. And this is the reason Paul rejoiced in that passage in Romans, after decrying his own moral failures and his moral inability to change himself. It's because there's a powerful bonus to being a partaker of God's nature. Keep reading. in verse four, how does it end? 4 “…. having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” That's why there's corruption in the world because of sinful desire. But we've been given the opportunity to escape it. We've been given the power to escape it. So what does it mean to escape the corruption? It's in the world? Well, this is where we come back to that word “Christlikeness.” He's talking about being Christlike. When he says, escaping the corruption that is in the world, he's talking about just being Christlike. Now, I'll admit to you that the word Christlike is not in the Bible. But don't let that mess you over because the idea behind it is absolutely found throughout the Scripture. There are tons of passages that talk about this whole idea of taking on the nature of Christ, being Christlike. In other words, literally reflecting His character. Right. Let me show you one from Galatians chapter four, verse 19. Paul writes and he says: (slide) Galatians 4:19 (ESV)

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Those are wonderful words, but Paul is describing what was his greatest wish for those believers in Galatia, and of course all believers that they would experience what Peter is talking about, becoming a partaker of the divine nature. Paul just said it in a different way. He talked about it as having Christ formed in you. Do you understand believers that that is the end goal of what God is doing in your life? He is forming Christ in you. That's the goal. In case some of you got it messed up and thought that he was hanging out with you to make you happy. Or to give you things. That's not the goal. The goal is to form Christ in you. And that particular transformation can be a painful one, from time to time. The apostle Paul also wrote about it when he wrote to the Corinthians, let me show you this and I highlighted it again: (slide) 2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV)

In other words, talking about being Christlike. Progressively becoming more Christ-like. Now, what's the benefit of becoming progressively more Christ-like? Escaping the corruption of the world. That's what Peter is talking to us about. So how do believers lay hold of this transformation into Christlikeness? How do we do that? How can I begin to live a life of moral excellence? Well, let me assure you of one thing in the strongest words possible. It is not going to come from you. So, stop trying. You know, it's funny, every once in a while, when I'm putting together a teaching, I will take I'll figure out eventually as I'm writing my notes what my theme is. Because I don't often know going into it, but I finally figure out what my theme is. And sometimes I'll google the theme. I'll see, I'll just see what somebody else came up with in terms of just, their thoughts. You know what I landed on when I Googled, moral excellence? I landed on an LDS website. Yeah, they talk a lot about moral excellence. There's only one problem. They're trying to get there without God. They're just trying to be good people. And you can only go so far with that because I don't want to bum you out, but you're not a good person. And so that's, it is just not going to work. It is just flat out not going to work. In fact, I believe that the first step to moving toward a life of moral excellence is recognizing and confessing our own moral bankruptcy. I really believe that with all of my heart. Jesus referred to this as being poor in spirit in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the poor in Spirit. You know what that means? It means bankrupt of self. Blessed are those who are bankrupt of self, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That is the recognition that I am morally bankrupt, and I don't bring anything to the party in and of myself as it relates to this whole issue of moral excellence. Right? Do you guys remember to the rich young ruler, remember what Jesus said? He comes to Jesus and he goes, what must I do? What must I do? Remember what Jesus said? Jesus said: (slide) Luke 18:19 (ESV)

Because, he said, what good thing must I do? What, Lord master? What good thing must I do? Jesus said, nobody's good but God. Do you know what he was saying, by implication? Nothing. There's nothing you can do because you're not good. Do you get it? So Jesus was saying and then Paul, in Romans, he said: (slide) Luke 18:19 (ESV)

Romans 7:18 (ESV)

Nothing good. Now he's talking about in his flesh. Now, obviously as believers, something pretty good dwells in us now through the Holy Spirit. We're not talking about that right now.

We're talking about me, myself, and I, what is in me, my flesh, Paul? Nothing good. Nothing good. So, understanding that this moral excellence is not going to come from my power, it's not going to come from Paul, right? We have to go, on to recognize obviously that it must be a work of the Holy Spirit. It must be a work of God in our lives, the one who lives within us. And Peter tells us that there is a key that we need to find in these verses that will begin to unlock this idea of allowing the Spirit to take hold of our lives in such a way as to convey the moral excellence of Jesus, in our lives. And He explains that key. But instead of having you look at your Bible, I'm going to put it up on the screen so we can all look at it together. Here's the key. I highlighted it, underlined it. (slide) 2 Peter 1:4 (ESV)

, Through what? Those very precious and very great promises. That's the key. That's how you lay hold of the divine life. The life, the moral excellence that is Christ's that He wants to convey through you, as a believer. All right? So now we're getting somewhere. Now that we have the key, the key to living a godly life, we understand it now, is more I need to lay hold of the promises of God, and it's through those promises that it is possible for me to escape the corruption of the world. And we all know what we're talking about when we talk about the corruption of the world. Sexual sin, drunkenness, the filth and misery, the pride, the lawlessness, the disorder, all those things. Now you're probably wondering yourself, what promises are you talking about when you say lay hold of the promises that unlock this power this ability to walk in this moral excellence. What? Well, the promises of God are scattered all over the Word of God and they refer to different things from time to time. For example, when spiritual attacks take place in your life, here's what the Word says: (slide)

James 4:7 (ESV)

. That's a promise, right? Next, Ephesians 6:16: James 4:7 (ESV)

. Ephesians 6:16 (ESV)

; There's another promise. Let's go on. How about when you're tempted to sin? First Corinthians 10: (slide) 1 Corinthians 10:13 (ESV)

. Galatians 5:16 (ESV)

. (That's a promise) Hebrews 2:18 (ESV)

. (That's a promise) These are some of the promises that God has given us in his Word. Now, some of you're thinking right now. Okay, wait just a minute, hold the phone. So that's the answer? That's the answer to partaking of the Divine Nature and Walking in Moral Excellence? Just quoting from scripture passages? No, no, no no. Not quoting. Believing. Believing, because I think we all know by now, there's a vast difference between reading, quoting, and believing right? I mean a huge difference. You see when Peter explains to us that becoming a partaker of God's nature is ours through God's promises, what he’s not saying, but it's implied. Is that you believe those promises, right? I mean, he says These are all available through God's promises. Through God's promises, you can become a partaker of the divine nature. Wow! Wonderful! Does that mean that you automatically believe those promises? No, but the implication is that you do. You see? Isn't that something? So, he's telling you and me, implied though it may be, as we believe in the promises of God and really believe the power to overcome the world is right there. It's right there at our fingertips. All keeps coming back to faith, doesn't it? Isn't that something? It all keeps coming back to faith. Even being Christlike and having victory over sin is a matter of faith. Isn't that something? Let me show you how the Apostle John worded it. I love it. (slide) 1 John 5:4 (ESV)

Says it right there. He's talking about faith that hears and believes the promises of God. Doesn't just hear them. But believes the promises of God. And just like that, what I've just introduced to you guys here this morning. Still morning? Still is for a few more minutes. What I've just introduced to you is this issue of God's promises, and the balance that you have to hold onto that, concerning your own personal responsibility. Do you understand believers there's a balance in God's Word. God's Word is always balanced, but there's a balance that He gives us in the Scriptures between promises, which is His part, and the responsibility that is our part. Because there is an “our part” that goes along with it. God gives us all these wonderful promises. Calls them precious. Do you know that the word precious means valuable. And it's valuable because it has a benefit. Allowing us to escape the corruption of the world. He gives us those, but our responsibility is to believe them. Do you get that? There's a balance and you have to maintain that responsibility. It would be nice, I suppose, if God just made a promise and we just had to sit back and kind of go, okay, hit me, hit me God. I'm just, you made the promise, just, and it was all just automatic. He makes the promise and it’s just POOF, and I'm just a godly man. But it doesn't work like that, does it?

We have to believe them. So, I want to share some illustrations with you of this whole thing about the balance between God's promise and our responsibility, okay? Because there's balance, like I said in everything. But I'm going to share with you, and I'll do it on the screen here a story from Matthew's Gospel account. It's a wonderful story. You guys know it in fact it involves the guy that we're, whose letter we're reading, (slide) Mathew 14:22-31 (ESV)

(In case you’re wondering that is the promise. Come. It’s very simple, a one-word promise) So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. And there, by the way, is the responsibility that was on Peter’s end. He had to respond to the word of God. He didn't just stand in the boat and say, okay, pick me up and move me in your direction. I'll just float. This'll be fun. No, he had to get up. These were good sized boats. Crawl up onto the side of the thing, throw his legs over the boat and then push off onto the water. That was his part. Responding, right? I got a promise. He gave me a promise. He said, come. So now I'm going to respond to that promise. Right? Wonderful. But just like most of us, Peter didn't respond perfectly. Goes on to say: (same slide again to finish the verses)

--- Mathew 14:22-31 (ESV)

I want you to really take note of those words, because that's the answer. People ask me all the time. Pastor Paul, I fell into sin this last week and it was bad, and I don't know why. I have no idea why it happened. I'll tell you why it happened. The answer to every little sinful slip up and backslidden moment is the statement by Jesus: “Oh you of little faith. Why did you doubt?” We fail in part because we know that God has given us wonderful promises, but we don't fully believe in them. We don't fully believe. But thankfully, you know, when we fail and we do fail from time to time, we can do exactly what Peter did. We can cry out to Jesus. And Jesus is going to do exactly what he did to Peter, take hold of us and pull us up out of our own mess. And that's wonderful. But make no mistake about it, we are of little faith, and we do doubt. But we have to be careful not to lose sight of this balance that we're seeing here in the Word of God between God's promise or promises, and our responsibility. And again, it's translated, it just communicated throughout the whole Bible. Let me give you one more example. This one's from Isaiah. We'll go to the Old Testament. (slide)

Isaiah 7:1-9 (NIV84) When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of (the Northern kingdom of) Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it. Now the house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with Ephraim”; (and that means Aram has come together with the northern kingdom of Israel, now referred to as Ephraim) so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, and meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field. (It goes on, says like this) Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood (I love that) because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.”(It goes on to say) Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: (I want you to notice this) “‘It will not take place, it will not happen, (by the way, in case you’re wondering, that’s the promise. OK? So, he goes on to say) for the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is only Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people. The head of Ephraim is Samaria, (that was their capital city) and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son. (But I want you to take note of this last statement) If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.’” That’s his responsibility. Are you with me? God makes a promise. Your responsibility is to stand firm in that promise. Faith, that's not a work. God doesn't call faith works. That's why it is through faith that we're saved, not by works. But faith is still a responsibility. Confidence in God is still your responsibility from the standpoint of saying, “I choose to believe what He said. I believe the promises that He made. Right? So let me end with just a kind of a, this is kind of like a firework show. You know how at the very end they do the grand finale. So I'm just going to throw out a whole bunch of scriptures here. This is the grand finale. All right, here we go. Boom. (slide) Ephesians 6:13 (ESV)

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--- 1 Peter 5:9 (ESV)

… 1 Corinthians 15:58 (ESV)

… Philippians 1:27 (ESV)

… 1 Corinthians 16:13 (ESV)

. Philippians 4:1 (ESV)

. There it is. Over and over and over and over and over. In God's Word, we are exhorted to take hold of the promises of God and stand firm. So, we've been given this wonderful promise in God's Word that says that we can be partakers of the divine nature. We can literally have his moral excellence. In fact, we're called to that. To live in a world that is full of corruption, full of darkness, full of evil, and you can be, literally, a reflection of the moral excellence of Christ. How does that happen? Lay hold of His promises. And believe them. And believe them. Act on them. Believe that He's going to give you the power. Believe that when temptation comes, He's going to give you a way out. People have asked me, pastor Paul, why doesn't it say in that passage what the way out is? Because it's going to be different. He couldn't sit and enumerate all of them. He's going to, you’ve got to trust that He's going to do it. When the enemy attacks just trust that, as you resist the devil, he will flee from you. That is the key to walking out our faith. Trusting in the Lord, believing His promises. Let's stand together. We're going to pray and then worship one final song, and then we're going to be dismissed. We'll have our prayer team up front here if you need prayer today, we'd be more than happy to pray for you, with you. Father God, I want to just confess for all of us here today that there's nothing in us of any moral excellence that the world is going to ever take note of, or is going to in any way make us different, or enable us to escape the corruption in the world. But Lord, since you saved us, something radically changed in our lives. And that is we've received your Holy Spirit and through your Spirit, now that power resides in us. Literally the character of Christ, that Christ likeness. But you've shown us Lord here today in Second Peter, that there's a key to unlocking that power and it is taking hold of the wonderful promises of God in believing them. Trusting, knowing that you can do what we cannot. So Heavenly Father, we present ourselves to you today in the name of Jesus Christ, and we ask you to do that work in us. Filling us with your Spirit, empowering us, enabling us. And Lord, we take up the responsibility to believe your promises every day. And to walk them out, knowing that it is you who works in us to will, and to act according to your good purpose. We ask this in Jesus precious name. ---