Grow In Grace

Introduction to 2 Peter

2 Peter 1:1-2

Transcript

in the 60s AD, and when he writes, Peter is imprisoned in Rome during the reign
of the infamous and crazy Emperor Nero. And the apostles, they all had to face
their own mortality and recognize that at some point, all the living
eyewitnesses of Jesus were going to die. And they knew that false teachers had
come and were coming who would distort their teaching. So with that in mind,
Peter labored to make his directions very, very clear. If you look at 2 Peter 1
verses 12 through 15, you see the urgency of Peter as he understands that his
time on earth was drawing to a close. You'll see that he knows this and that it
gives great urgency to his words. 2 Peter 12 through 15, Peter says, therefore I
intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are
established in the truth that you have. I think it right as long as I am in this
body to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my
body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make
every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall
these things. This helps us understand what's going on in the letter of 2 Peter.
This is a farewell letter from the apostle Peter before he's executed. He's
recognized his time on earth will not be long. Jesus has made that clear to him.
So there's an urgency in the letter. Picture yourself writing to loved ones,
wanting to leave behind some lasting encouragement and exhortation when you're
gone. There would probably be a strong element of repetition in that letter. You
probably would not spend that letter talking to your loved ones about a bunch of
things that you had never talked about before or that they never knew you cared
about. Rather, you would probably want to express and clarify the things that
are most important, the things that you would want to be on the forefront of the
minds of those who would outlive you and follow after you. How many of you can
think of those types of reminders? Or you might be able to say, my mom always
said, my dad always told me, my coach, my teacher always said, some of us have
parents or teachers who told us the same things hundreds of times. This letter
is a reminder to people who have already been instructed. Look at what Peter
says. He said, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know
them. He said, I think it right to stir you up by way of reminder. And then he
said, I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able to
recall these things so that they're not brand new truths or unfamiliar truths
that are being unpacked. But sometimes a short timeline, which is all Peter had,
helps us get very, very clear on what we need to get across. So we can ask, what
is Peter's burden? What does he want these believers to know after he departs?
He wants them to grow. He wants them to grow in the grace and knowledge of our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The time is drawing near for these believers when
Peter will not be part of their lives. All they will have is these letters. He
doesn't want his readers to ever be able to say, I wonder what Peter thought. I
wonder how he thought we should finish the Christian life without him. He wants
them to grow in grace. And here's the situation kind of surrounding this. We
just said in chapter one, Peter says he recognizes he's going to die shortly. If
you look at chapter one, verse 16, we see some of his critics are criticizing
apostolic teaching as cleverly devised myths. That's part of the false teaching
that's infiltrated the church. People are criticizing the apostles' teaching as
cleverly devised myths. In chapter two, at the beginning of that, he says, there
will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive
heresies. In chapter three, we see that scoffers will come in the last days with
scoffing, following their own sinful desires, and they will say, where is the
promise of his coming? So there will be criticism of the apostles, there will be
the infiltration of false teachers, and there will be those who are very
skeptical about the idea that Jesus will ever return. And in summary, he's gonna
be gone, people are already discrediting the apostles, false teachers are gonna
rise up, and there will be some who doubt Jesus' return at all. Peter knows all
these things. So here's his burden for the churches that he's writing to. He
knows what they're up against, he knows what they will be up against, and he
wants them to grow. He wants them to keep on growing, to persevere, to finish
well, to stand strong. He wants to do everything he can do to help get them to
the finish line. And the letter is really directions provided from a man who is
about to die on how to finish well, how to keep on growing in the grace and
knowledge of God. So a few months ago, we worked our way through the letter of 1
Peter. Now we've made it to the sequel, 2 Peter. And in this message, I just
wanna briefly introduce to you, walk through the first two verses of this
letter, and introduce you to kind of the letter as a whole. And as I said, this
letter is about growing in the grace and knowledge of God. So let's talk about
who the author is and what this letter is getting at. First one, we read the
greeting, Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. So you figured
this out by now. The author is Peter, one of Jesus's 12 disciples, one of the
apostolic fathers of the early church, one of the most well-known figures in the
whole Bible. He's got two names, Simeon and Peter, and two ways of describing
himself, two titles, servant and apostle. You might be wondering, why is he
calling himself Simeon? Haven't you read Simon before? Simeon is just the
original Hebrew translation of his name that was transliterated Simon into
Greek. But there's a significance here to both names, which we don't see in 1
Peter. Simeon was Peter's birth name. It represents the man that Peter was.
Peter is the name given to him by Jesus, and it represents the man that Peter
has become, the one who's now writing. When the letter's written, it's 30, 35
years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Peter's now writing as an older
man. And there are things that we know about Peter. He was the first person, the
first of the disciples, to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, and yet he denied even
knowing him in the hours before the crucifixion. He's the boldest of all the
disciples, but he probably said the wrong thing or put his foot in his mouth
more times than all the rest of them combined. We know that he was restored by
Jesus and that he preached the gospel on the day of Pentecost, and there was
great response. But even later, even later in his mature life, we see that Peter
was rebuked by Paul because he was afraid of the Judaizers. And when Peter is
now using both of his names, Simeon and Peter, he's addressing these churches
both as the man that he used to be and the man that he now is, that he's become.
He's in that greeting, in his self-reference, acknowledging the whole story
without hiding. The grace of God allows Peter to be honest about who he was. In
fact, some of the most unflattering details that we know about Peter come from
the Gospel of Mark, and Peter's the primary oral source of Mark. It's his own
testimony. He goes by two names, and there are two words for the work that he's
done, servant and apostle. At different points in his life, Peter has led the
church and he's served the church. He's speaking as an apostle now, meaning this
is authoritative teaching commissioned by the Lord. And all that serves to
underline the weight and the authenticity of his words that he's going to speak
to this audience. He's an older man with a full biography. He's fallen in the
past, and yet he's also a man who's going to make it to the finish line. His
failure was not final. He's a man at the end of his life who wants to impart
some final words to the church that he loves. And Peter's life ought to be an
encouragement to all of us who have periods of our life that we look back on
with guilt and with regret. Think about this for a moment, about Peter's
testimony and the way that Jesus has enabled him to endure. In Luke's Gospel, we
read that Jesus said to Peter in the night before the crucifixion, Luke 22 verse
31, Jesus speaks to Peter, and he says, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to
have you, that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your
faith may not fail, and when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.
And at that moment, Peter understood none of what Jesus was saying. The idea
that he would fall seemed impossible. And Luke tells us, he replies like this.
Peter said to him, Lord, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death.
And Jesus said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you
deny three times that you know me. So Jesus, in the hours before his
crucifixion, is perfectly aware that Peter and the rest of the disciples are
going to fail him. And he refers to the denial that's about to happen, but he
has also prayed for Peter and given him a future charge. When you have turned
again, strengthen your brothers. And that ought to be really encouraging for us,
because what we see that Jesus is saying is that you can fall down, and you can
still finish well. Because how many of us can look back on seasons of our
Christian lives, and feel shame and regret about that period of our lives? You
might feel as though you can never serve God again. But you can fall down, and
yet by the grace of God, you can still finish well. The pastor and the
songwriter and the abolitionist, John Newton, said these words about himself. He
said, I am not what I ought to be. I'm not what I want to be. I'm not what I
hope to be in another world. But still, I am not what I once used to be. And by
the grace of God, I am what I am. And not only can you survive falling, you can
serve. And Peter is given this task to strengthen his brothers. That's what
Peter did as an apostle. And that's his burden now, three decades later, after
this commissioning from Jesus, to strengthen this church and to put these
believers on a sure foundation, knowing that its departure is near. Let's talk
for a minute about the audience that he's writing to. If you recall, 1 Peter is
not written to one specific church. It was addressed to churches scattered
across Asia Minor. You remember those words, Pontius, Galatius, Cappadocia,
Asia, Bithynia. In other words, modern Turkey. And in that letter, Peter refers
to his audience as elect exiles, meaning people who are chosen by God for
salvation and yet who are exiles, out of step with the prevailing norms and
tides of this world. 2 Peter seems like it's being written to the same network
of churches because in chapter three, when Peter, we see that in chapter three,
because Peter says, this is now the second letter that I am writing to you,
beloved, in both of them, I'm stirring you up, stirring up your sincere mind by
way of reminder. So this seems as though it's written to the same network of
churches. Yet in this letter, Peter does not refer to the geography of his
hearers. He refers to their spiritual state, to those who have obtained a faith
of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus
Christ. So this letter has application to the people it was originally written
to, but it's addressed to all who have obtained true faith in Christ. In other
words, it's also addressed to us as Christians today. First, it is addressed to
those who have obtained a faith. We just talked about this with the kids, but
faith is not earned. It's not self-created. It's not self-generated. It's given.
It's a gift from God. To those who have obtained a faith, and next Peter uses
the phrase equal standing, a faith of equal standing. Let's recall for a moment,
Peter's one of the 12 disciples He's a personal friend of Jesus. He was the one
to whom Jesus said, upon this rock I will build my church. And yet Peter says,
as an apostle, you have obtained a faith of equal standing with me or of ours,
meaning the apostles. So we ought to ask, what's the basis of that equality?
Everyone, not just the people, everyone who has obtained a faith in Jesus
Christ, in other words, everyone who's been given the gift of faith and who now
trusts in the work of Christ on their behalf, the work of Christ on the cross on
their behalf, for their standing before God, now shares the same equal spiritual
privileges before God. This is amazing to think about because it means Peter,
James, John, the apostle Paul, Ruth, Esther, St. Augustine, Martin Luther,
Charles Spurgeon, Billy Graham, Susanna Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and you and I
share the same equal spiritual privileges, meaning forgiveness of sins, a
restored relationship with God, adoption into his family, gifts from his Holy
Spirit, life with God in eternity. We think, how is that possible? The answer's
right there in the text. It's possible by the righteousness of our God and
Savior, Jesus Christ. That's how we obtain this standing. Jesus Christ is the
righteous one. Jesus Christ lived the perfectly righteous life and perfectly
obeyed God's law. Nobody else did that. Nobody else could do that. Each one of
us, historically, presently, each one of us have fallen woefully short of God's
perfection. And because of that, we justly deserve God's judgment and we deserve
complete separation from God. The only way that we can ever stand before God is
on the basis of Christ's righteousness, but by faith in the work of Christ, we
can be covered in the righteousness of Christ. The apostle John said it like
this in 1 John 2. He said, if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And this is amazing to think about. Jesus
told Peter that Satan had demanded to have him, to sift him like wheat,
similarly to the way that we hear about Job in the Old Testament. And yet while
Peter did panic and fall, Jesus prayed for him that his faith would not fail.
And now if we think about our own situations, the temptations that we face, the
struggles we have, the besetting sin, the weaknesses that we are aware of in our
own hearts and minds. Romans 8, 34 tells us that the resurrected Jesus today is
at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. We have an advocate today
in Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And we become righteous right with God as a
gift received by faith through our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's the
atoning work of Christ on the cross, through which sinners can be made right and
find standing before God. One last thing that I want you to notice there in
verse one, please notice here that Jesus is described as our God and Savior. If
you hear someone today, if you ever hear someone today say that Jesus was not
truly divine or truly God, that nobody thought that at the time that he was
simply an inspired teacher and that this was a later invention of the early
church, please look at this text. Some modern people like to insist that Jesus
was a very good teacher and a very inspired man, but the idea of his divinity
was something concocted by the early church. Please, or in church history,
please see that Peter in the first century is describing Jesus as fully divine.
He is our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So the conclusion of this introduction
comes in the form of a prayer. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. You might read that and think that's
like a nice Bible convention. That sounds nice. That sounds like a longer
version of what some people put at the end of their emails. But in this case,
it's very significant. When Peter gives a blessing here, as he does in verse
two, he's not just expressing some, just some type of pleasantry. He's doing it
as someone who was a great sinner and knows what the grace of God is. He prays
that these believers would know the grace and peace of God multiplied, that it
would be overflowing more of it than they have ever experienced before. Often
when you study a New Testament letter, you can learn a lot about what it's about
by looking at the beginning and the end, by looking at both the introduction and
the conclusion of the letter and seeing what overlaps. Often the end of a letter
in the New Testament is kind of bookended. There are the top and the end mirror
itself in some way. And in this way, we can get to the emphasis. And look at
what Peter says at the end of 2 Peter about this idea of growth and grace in 3
18. At the beginning of the letter, he's praying, may grace and peace be
multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord. And at
the end of the letter, he's urging his listeners, but grow in the grace and
knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and
to the day of eternity. Amen. We receive grace and peace through the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord. And I know these are familiar Bible words and
sometimes we need fresh definitions. This is how J.I. Packer describes grace in
his classic book, Knowing God. In the New Testament, grace means God's love in
action toward people who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving
heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves.
Grace means God sending his only son to the cross to descend into hell so that
we guilty ones might be reconciled to God and received into heaven. That's
grace. And how is that received? How do we grow in that? In the knowledge of God
and of Jesus Christ our Lord. The knowledge of God happens as we take the truths
that we hear and read about God and actually meditate on them and let those
truths marinate and sink into our hearts. This might help as a way of thinking
about this. So I know it's been raining all weekend so far, but some of you are
probably still maybe Monday planning a Memorial Day weekend barbecue or cookout.
If you're just putting hamburgers or hot dogs on the grill, that's a cookout.
But if you have some other meat, if you have ribs, if you have brisket, if you
have some sort of chicken that's soaking in the fridge, you might be having a
barbecue. And chances are that is going to take some time to slow cook and to
marinate. And the knowledge of God is a little bit like that. We have to take
the truths that we're learning about God and actually talk about them and write
about them and meditate on them and turn them over and ponder them and pray
about them and praise God for them. That's what Peter wants for his readers to
grow in the grace and knowledge of God. He wants them to grow in grace. He wants
them to grow in the knowledge of God. And we see this throughout the letter. 2
Peter 1 verse 5 says, For this reason make every effort to supplement your faith
with virtue. The end of chapter three verse 14 says, Therefore, beloved, since
you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or
blemish and at peace. So we ought to ask ourselves as we kind of enter into this
letter, am I growing spiritually? Am I growing in the knowledge of God? That is
a real question for self-examination, especially for those of us who may be
older or feel like we are more mature Christians. Am I growing in grace? Am I
growing in the knowledge of God? Am I diligently making efforts to grow in the
knowledge of God? Or have you perhaps stagnated in that knowledge of God? Are
you perhaps coasting? If you're in that place today where you kind of know
you're coasting, let me just encourage you, confess that to God. Make that a
matter of prayer and ask another brother or sister in the church to pray with
you. And then begin taking the truths about God that you read and spend time
meditating on them. Peter knew that he had this one chance to write some final
words to the church before he departed. And he wanted them to make it to the
finish line and finish well. He wanted them to grow in grace. So as we conclude
this kind of introduction into the letter, we'll take a moment to pray now. And
then at the end of our worship service, we're going to sing two songs by John
Newton, who I quoted earlier. One of them is very familiar. It's a song that I
know you've heard before. One is a song that it's possible you've heard before,
but we've never sung it as a church. Both songs function as a prayer of
response. The first one, thanking God, celebrating his grace. And the second
song, asking God that we might grow in the knowledge of him. So let's take some
time to pray together, then we'll sing. Lord God, we thank you for these words.
And I pray for each one of us that we would grow in the grace and knowledge of
God. For those of us who have fallen and are discouraged, Lord, I pray that we
would look at Peter's example and know that you restore and that you pour out
grace and that you advocate for us and that there is fruitful work for us to do.
I pray that you would encourage those who feel like they have failed or fallen.
And Father, I pray for those that may be struggling with complacency or
stagnancy or apathy, where we can't really look at ourselves and say we're
growing. Lord, I pray that by your Holy Spirit, you would cause us to grow, that
we would begin to pursue you with fresh diligence, that we would see the truth
about who you are, and that it would sink deeper into our soul, that we would
grow in the knowledge of God. Lord, I pray that for each one of us in this
church, that we would grow in grace and knowledge. In Jesus' name, amen. Will
you stand with me now and we'll respond to God's word by singing together.
["Amazing Grace"]