Do you know God? (2Ptr. 1:1-4)

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I seem to like to start things out with a question, so let me ask you a question tonight.
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What's the hardest subject you've ever taken in school? The most difficult thing you ever had to learn?
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Bible doctrines, Old Testament.
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You're getting warmer. I think philosophy, yeah, that was pretty miserable.
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I think about my own academic career, and believe me, it was a career started right after high school.
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Let's see, when did I finally get my bachelor's degree? I think that was in 2002.
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That's a career right there. I think that maybe the hardest semester
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I had was the semester I took. Now, this is the junior college level, which really shows you how smart
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I am. It was calculus one, first semester of calculus, and macroeconomics.
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And while I was doing that, I was also working patrol, which didn't leave me a lot of free time.
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And I'm telling you, I worked very, very hard that semester. But I have to say, the hardest single subject
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I ever took was Hebrew. And my well -tossed
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Hebrew grammar book would show you all that you need to know about how much
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I struggled with that. In fact, if the Hebrew grammar book could be here tonight, the stories it could tell.
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But, oh no, he threw me around, he treated me worse than a dog.
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But somehow, Christians, and I kind of talked about this a little bit in Sunday school this morning, Christians tend to treat theology like I treated that Hebrew grammar.
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Get this thing as far from me as it will go. Keep it away from me, I don't want to know anything about it.
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I asked this morning, and for those of you in Sunday school class, you had a little head start. How many of you are theologians?
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Everybody's hands should be up. Everybody's hands should be up. And let me just give you a brief explanation of why, for those of you who are slackers and not here this morning.
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As Christians, we know God. We claim to know
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God. We claim to have a relationship with Him. Our desire should be to know more about God.
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And what is that? It's theology. And if you are in the habit of studying about God, then you are a theologian.
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So one more time, how many theologians do we have here tonight? Very good. Very nice.
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But it is, it can be defined this way, theology, the field of study and analysis that treats
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God and God's attributes and relations to the universe. Study of divine things or religious truth.
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Sounds like we should be theologians. Where are we going to learn about the attributes of God?
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Divine things, religious truth. We have but one source, the
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Bible. And I would encourage you and invite you to open up your Bibles tonight to the book of 2
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Peter. 2 Peter, the purpose of 2
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Peter. Written to a group of Christians that were going to be visited by false teachers.
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This is Peter looking into the future and saying false teachers are going to arise. They are going to come into the church.
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Now how do you recognize, as Christians, how do you recognize bogus, counterfeit, false teaching?
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You have to know the truth. To know God salvificly is not, ought not, should not be the end of our theological journey.
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We don't just say, well, you know, I'm saved, I'm done. Imagine this. Imagine Jesus telling his apostles, congratulations, men, you're saved.
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Don't worry much about the details. You're done. That's it. That's all you have to know. But what did he say?
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When he gave him the great commission, he didn't say, hey, don't sweat the details. Don't sweat the small stuff.
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You just focus on making sure that people know that there's salvation available to them.
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He said, what? Go and make disciples and teach them all that I commanded you.
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Why would he do that? Why would Jesus tell them, look, tell them everything that I've told you.
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Teach them everything that I've commanded. Why? Nobody knows.
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I'll tell you why. Because the more we understand about God, the more we understand about ourselves, how far short we fall of his glory.
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The more we grasp how much God has done on our behalf, the more we love him.
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The more we recognize that we've been forgiven for, the more we love God. Tonight, as we go through this text, we're going to read, we're going to go through the first four verses.
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And I want to draw your attention to five apostolic answers to the question, do you know
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God? I have two purposes. First, I want you to examine your own life and make sure that you are in Christ.
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And secondly, I want you to realize that you cannot ever know too much about God.
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Is there somebody who knows everything there is to know about God? No. And you cannot know too much about him.
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And the more you know, the more you will love him. I want you to see five reasons to rejoice in God's goodness to you.
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So that you will revel, rejoice in the simple truths of the gospel and long for a deeper understanding of the things of God.
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Why? Because it's a protection. A protection against false teaching.
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Let's read the text. Second Peter, chapter one, verses one to four.
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Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ.
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To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours. By the righteousness of our
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our
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Lord. Seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.
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Through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.
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For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises.
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So that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.
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Having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
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Do you know God? Well, if you know God, here are five truths.
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Five apostolic answers to the question, do you know God? I just have a feeling
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I'm going to hit that. And our first one is, if you know God, you have been changed.
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There has been a change in your life. God doesn't save you and leave you exactly as you were.
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You can look back, you know, my wife often says, you know what, I don't know when I got saved. But I know now, if I look back at my life,
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I can see the work of God in my life. I know that I'm saved now. And that's the key for all of us. Look at the text.
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Very simple things. First of all, notice two names. Simon Peter.
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Not his first and his last name. But do you think
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Peter knew something about a changed life? Who was Peter? Who was he before he was a
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Christian? Fisherman, a nobody, a nothing. He was a fisherman in the
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Sea of Galilee. Minding his own business with his brother Andrew. I guess they might have had a family business.
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Just fishing one day when Jesus approached and said what? Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
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And what was the response? Immediately they left their nets and followed him. It's not like Peter, though, instantly manifested a magnificent level of sanctification.
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He didn't grow into a magnificent apostle, apologist, preacher overnight.
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What were some of the things that Peter did wrong? Some of the sins that he committed, even while he was being taught by the master teacher.
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We could probably come up with an extensive list. Just some of the things that came up off the top of my head. He participated in a debate about who was the greatest disciple.
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He rebuked Jesus. Remember this? Jesus foretold about his own death and Peter says, no, not going to happen.
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I'm not going to allow that. He denied the Lord three times. He cut off the ear of the high priest's slave.
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And, you know, if you examine his life or his time of ministry alongside Jesus, he really wasn't much of a leader until Jesus ascended up into heaven.
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And then we see him in Acts kind of taking over in Acts 2. What a great sermon he gives.
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Simon. Or in the Greek it's actually Simeon, which is the
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Hebrew version of Simon, which is derived from Samuel or God has heard. And that was a very common name.
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But he was given the name Peter by Jesus, meaning rock.
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Before salvation, Simon, a fisherman, no one of importance, no one of significance.
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After salvation, struggling, stumbling, fumbling, bumbling, sinning.
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And then what? Sanctification, discipleship.
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And eventually a fearsome weapon in the hands of a living God. No one of consequence.
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And then one of the greatest preachers who ever lived. So two names.
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Secondly, two positions. Our text tells us that he was a bondservant, a slave, not with all the baggage of slavery as we think of it, but because, not because he had to be, not because he was bought, but because he wanted to be.
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He viewed himself as, and rightly so, as a bondservant, as a slave of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Because Peter understood what had been accomplished on his behalf, and he thought, you know what?
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It is only right, it is only my, the right level of sacrifice for me to present my body, what, as a living sacrifice to this
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God who has saved me from myself, from my sin. Peter knew the demands the
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Lord placed on those who followed him. He listened to Jesus preach over and over again.
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He understood what it meant to be a Christian. He understood what it meant to be a disciple. It was duty.
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All of us have that duty. But do you imagine for a moment that Peter took upon himself grudgingly?
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Do you think he thought, I don't want to be an apostle. I don't want to go do all this. But, you know, if that's the way it has to be.
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He did it with joy, as we all should. He was, as our text says here, an apostle of Jesus Christ.
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He was specifically called and sent by the Lord Jesus to preach the gospel.
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And who better than someone who had been with the Lord since the beginning of his ministry?
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A man who had struggled to grasp the truth that he was living with, side by side for three and a half years.
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Stood there as he heard Jesus preach over and over and over again. And really didn't get it.
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Didn't grasp it. Two names.
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Two titles. Two positions. One Lord. Again in our text,
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Jesus Christ. Who had taken this simple fisherman and transformed him into the church's first preacher.
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Peter is, in one sense, an illustration of what Christ does with every believer. He redeems his or her life from the pit.
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Transforms his or her way of thinking. And his or her entire life. He gives them a new purpose.
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To proclaim Christ and him crucified. No Christian, no
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Christian can remain the same. You can't be the same as you were before you got saved.
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It just cannot happen. Why? Because sin, things that used to bring you pleasure, now bring you sorrow.
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There's no joy anymore in sin. Christians love the
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Gospel. They love the Word of God. Unbelievers hate the
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Gospel. They don't understand the Word of God. What's in a testimony?
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What was in Peter's testimony? My testimony. Your testimony. Peter's testimony.
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Paul's testimony. Everybody's testimony. There's a time before Christ. There's a time when they have their eyes and hearts opened by him.
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And then there's their life after Christ. Every single testimony comes down to that. And Peter was certainly no different.
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None of us are. All of us are changed by the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Secondly, second apostolic answer. If you are, if you know God, you have received the faith.
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The faith. Look again at verse 1. To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Interestingly, Peter didn't write this to a specific location as he did when he wrote to the churches in Asia Minor and First Peter.
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He wrote it to a specific group of people. Christians.
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Believers. And note well the verb have received is literally have obtained by lot.
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With the implication that God alone has determined they should obtain, they should obtain what they have received.
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You ever think about, you know, people win the lottery, and I'm not in any way endorsing the lottery.
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In fact, I've done Sunday schools, I think about 12, against the lottery.
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But do you ever consider for a moment that whoever wins the lottery, God ordained that beforehand?
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It's God's choice to give that person $187 million or whatever it is they get. Nothing happens by chance.
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It might appear to be chance, but it's not by chance. And that verb indicates that someone has received something.
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When it says that they've received a faith, it has the idea of obtained by lot.
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But if we understand lot or randomness or chance, that we understand that that doesn't actually exist, when they cast lots in the
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New Testament or the Old Testament, what were they really saying? We don't know what to do, so God, you decide, you choose, and we'll go with your choice, whoever the lot fell on.
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That same verb, by the way, is used, Peter talking about Judas Iscariot. In Acts 1 .17,
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he says, For he was counted among us and received his portion in this ministry.
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Well, think about it. Did Judas Iscariot receive his reward by anything other than sovereign design?
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He was the one marked out. He was the son of perdition. None of us receive anything by lots.
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When he says that we have this same precious faith, that same kind of faith, it reminds me very much of Galatians 3, verses 26 through 28, where Paul says this,
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For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
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There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free man. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
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There is an equality. All of us are equally needy, and we all receive that same gift.
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We all receive a faith that is as precious as, he says, ours.
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Meaning what? Meaning as precious as every single apostle.
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The same faith. This faith is an amazing gift when we consider it bestowed by God.
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All the results of it being transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.
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All these blessings that attend to it. Listen to what one man writes. He says,
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When one wins the lottery, the winner is elated at the victory, but should feel no sense of pride in the outcome.
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His winning had nothing to do with him, his merit, or his worth. It simply fell to his lot to win.
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So it is with our reception of the gospel. It was given to us by grace, by divine decree, so we could take no pride in it.
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That's how we receive the gospel. Not because we're smarter, but because God designed it. The lot fell to us.
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Now can I tell you something that I just absolutely, I'm going to take a little side detour here. Something I absolutely loathe.
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I won't say hate, but I absolutely loathe. And it's this modern concept when you go out and you talk to people, and I would encourage you to talk to people.
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It's a good thing to do. Of people saying or telling you, You know what?
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I am a person of faith. You ever heard that? I am a person of faith.
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Sometimes I don't even know what that means, so I'll ask them, What does that mean? That's a good thing to do.
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What does that mean? Exactly how does a person, Here's another question. Exactly how does a person of faith get to heaven?
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How does a person of faith reconcile to God? What are they really trying to say?
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What they're really trying to say is something like this. I don't believe in any objective truth, but I believe there is something more to our existence than meets the eye.
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But I'll define it for myself. Thank you very much. Don't tell me what to believe.
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I am a person of faith. But Peter stresses again and again that faith is the result of divine impartation of knowledge, that God gives us faith.
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He enables us to know about him, to know him. And this letter is written to warn believers of a future invasion of false teachers, to protect themselves.
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And so what does Peter want them to do? He wants them to know the scriptures as we're going to see.
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Even in 2 Peter 3, you don't have to turn there. Verses 1 and 2, he says this.
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This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you. And that's why we think this letter went, by the way, to Asia Minor, because that's where the first one went.
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The second letter I'm writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the
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Holy Prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. No one can be a
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Christian without knowledge. You have to, you have to have a, there's a foundational knowledge that you must get.
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You must have, it must be given to you. And that's, that's our faith is not devoid of content.
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Our faith is dependent on knowledge. We can't, you can't be a person of faith and have that absolutely empty of any kind of biblical knowledge.
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In fact, as he just said there, what are the elements of that knowledge? He said, it's the
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Old Testament. It's the words of Jesus. It's the words of the apostles. It is the word of God through the spirit of God that convicts of sin.
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It is that which God uses to convert us in the first place. He said in, in, uh, chapter three, remember the words.
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Christians need to remember the words of the prophets, the savior and the apostles. Christianity is not empty headed.
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Christianity is not a blind leap of faith. Christians are not persons of faith.
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They are persons of the faith, the once for all delivered faith.
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We believe what the apostles taught, that which they received from the Lord and through the Holy Spirit.
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We are not obliged to follow experiences, feelings, because we have objective truth.
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The revelation given to us at preserved for us by the living God. So every
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Christian, every Christian possesses the objective once for all delivered faith by virtue of divine design.
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But the passage goes beyond that and tells us the means by which we are granted faith, the ground by which we are enabled to believe.
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Look again at verse one by the righteousness of our God and savior, Jesus Christ.
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John Calvin said this righteousness originates with God and through Christ, it flows down to us.
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I mean, this is trickle down that we like. This is good. Righteousness originates with God.
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God is righteous. Everything he does is righteous. We have no righteousness of our own and we need it.
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Romans one versus 16 and 17 talking about righteousness and the power of the gospel.
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Paul writes this, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.
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It is through and by the righteousness of Christ, his perfection, his inherent perfection, imputed, accounted to us, given to us, credited to us that we are saved.
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Our God and savior, the Lord Jesus Christ has righteousness.
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We have inherently within us. We have unrighteousness. We have sin, but at the right time, the godly died for the ungodly.
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Peter wrote that in first Peter. False teachers, on the other hand, may well say that Jesus is not
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God, that this was an invention or an addition by an overzealous Paul, but Peter's teaching is not only consistent.
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He says, what our God and savior, Jesus Christ. He makes it very clear that Jesus Christ is in fact,
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God. Peter's teaching is very consistent with Paul and also with the teaching of the Lord himself.
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Jesus claimed to be God. Lensky says this, the deity of Jesus Christ is the foundation of this entire epistle.
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All of second Peter cancel it. In other words, rule it out, make Jesus not
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God. And a jumbled ruin is left. Jesus Christ did not become
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God. He always existed as God. And if you know God, you believe that. If you know
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God, you have been saved by his imputed righteousness, his righteousness credited to you.
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You believe Jesus is a perfect man, that he lived a perfect life. You believe that he is
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Holy God. You believe that he is the savior of all who believe. You believe in his substitutionary death, his resurrection on the third day.
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You believe all of that. Commentator Hebert says, the double designation,
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God and savior talking about Jesus. It implies that the entire redemptive program in Christ rests on his deity.
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As Lensky said, this is the foundation. This is absolutely the truth of Jesus. Christ is not
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God. He has no inherent righteousness, right? If righteousness starts from God, if he is the source of all righteousness, and he is not
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God, then he has no righteousness to transfer to our accounts. So apostolic answers, first two to the question, do you know
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God? If you know God, you have been changed. Number one. Number two, if you know God, you have received the faith.
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And number three, if you know God, you have grown in your knowledge of God. Just look at the beginning of verse two, grace and peace.
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Very common greeting. Grace, as we well know, the free and unmerited favor of God bestowed on guilty man in and through Jesus Christ.
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When we talk about grace, we understand that there is nothing good about us. That God is going to look at me, you or anybody and say, you know what?
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Steve is such a good guy. I'm going to cut him some slack or he's trying so hard. You know, I'm just going to give him a hand.
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That's not grace. That is not grace. Every man, woman and child old enough to understand the concept of sin.
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Has committed one. And that's enough to merit hell forever.
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Should we talk about merits? Should we talk about what we earn?
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What we deserve? I don't want what I deserve. I want grace. Peace, grace and peace.
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Peace is the effect. This is how Hebert defines it. The effect of receiving God's grace and denotes the state of well -being that flows from the experience of reconciliation and forgiveness.
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You want to have peace? You can't have peace apart from grace. Grace is, as it were, the conduit of peace.
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If you're having difficulty in your life, maybe you're struggling against the grace of God.
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Maybe you don't know the grace of God. Maybe you've forgotten the grace of God. But you cannot have peace.
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Apart from being a recipient of the grace of God. Life apart from God is?
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Is vapor. Proverbs 13 .21 talks about how difficult it is.
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It says, Adversity pursues sinners. If you're in the habit of sinning, if you don't know
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God, you're going to have adversity. Life with God, can it be difficult? Well, sure.
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He wrote all first Peter to tell us what to do when life is difficult. But with the proper heavenward focus, a result of grace, you can only look forward.
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You can only look toward heaven. You can only rest in the promises of Christ. If you know him, if you've been graced, as it were.
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And if you have that heavenward focus, you can rejoice without regard to adverse conditions.
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But Peter doesn't stop with grace and peace. Look at again at verse to be multiplied. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our
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Lord, knowing that his readers are believers. He knows that they have experienced grace and peace, but he wishes that they could experience them in a greater way.
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More of it. How can they experience more grace and more peace? By epigenosis.
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By knowledge. By true knowledge is the concept there. When man defines it this way, true knowledge in the
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New Testament is used of content used, especially of intensive religious and moral knowledge.
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It's an intensive Greek word for knowledge that indicates an increasing or better knowledge or acquaintance with the thing known before.
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In other words, you want to grow in peace. You want to have experienced greater effect of grace in your life.
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No more about God. Become a better theologian. You want greater joy, less stress.
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Here's the solution. Study more. Become a better theologian. You know, it's kind of like earn your theologian merit badges.
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Go through the ranks. You start as a cub scout. You get a couple little. What are those gold arrows, silver arrows, you know, and stuff and you work your way up.
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Some of you are laughing because you once had cub scouts. Probably you work your way up and the more, you know, think about this.
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Do all men and women struggle with sin? Yes. Do they all have times of difficulty?
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Yes. What makes it the easiest way to have peace like a river as that song saying or the song said that we went through earlier?
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It's the more, you know, God, the more you rest on his promises, the more peace you have, the less concern you have for the things of this world and the more focused you are on what awaits you.
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Fourthly, you have everything you need to live a godly life.
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Now, look at verse three, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.
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Commentator, deaf and boss says, false teachers speak of God as the great need meter.
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Not to say that right. He meets our needs is the idea of the false teachers out out here, especially even today.
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The great need meter as the one who is there for us eager and ready to satisfy our fallen desires.
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And Peter speaks of God as all sufficient, who has made provision for all our true needs, not our felt needs.
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We don't go out and do surveys and find out what people think they need. We give them the God who can satisfy all of their genuine, true, real needs.
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Again, look at that verse. We have, according to this, everything pertaining to life and godliness by the grace of God, the divine power of the
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Lord Jesus has granted us. And by the way, that's a perfect tense and it's passive.
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So it is done for us. It is given to us. It happened once and it has ongoing results.
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It is forever. It has been given to us, granted to us everything we need.
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Now, why is this such an important concept in a letter warning about false teachers, everything that we need?
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Think about this. Look at it this way. If the church believed, if today's church believed that we had everything we needed pertaining to life and godliness, would false teachers be able to make a dent?
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Would they be able to do anything? Would we, would we see wolves get up on TV every Sunday or Thursday and all the other times and actually get money sent to them?
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No, because we would know better. And by the way, I did some deep research on the word everything.
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And the Greek word means everything, all things, nothing left out.
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There's nothing that could be added to it. Look, God has brought us a spiritual life from spiritual death and he does not leave us to fend for ourselves.
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It's not like, you know, the kind of this Nebraska law thing, sorry, but where they're just, you know, they're abandoning kids left and right because they don't want them anymore.
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God calls us as sons and daughters. And then he says, listen, I'm going to give you everything that you need pertaining to life and godliness.
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And if we are to excel in this new life, this new life of godliness, which means to be reverent or devout to worship.
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If we are to exhibit a piety, a holiness that it pleases the God who saved us, what do we need?
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What is it that we actually need? Who could, who could tell me what do we need to live?
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Live a life of holiness, a pleasing life to God, the spirit of God.
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What else? Obedience. We need to obey. Can we do that on our own?
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We need the holy spirit, but certainly obedience is part of it. We need to be obedient. Anything else?
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Bernard true knowledge. Where do we get true knowledge? What do we need?
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We need the holy spirit. Some of the things I came up with, I'll give you mine, and then we'll see if you have any others. The holy spirit, the word of God, the church, gifted men, other believers.
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I mean, is the body of Christ not an encouragement when you're having difficulty? It absolutely is. Does the body of Christ not gather around you when you are straying, when you are sinning, and bring you back to a life of holiness, we pray?
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Absolutely. What do we need to stay away from? If God has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness, then what would be the converse?
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What should we stay away from? What are the kind of things that we should avoid? How about anything of non -divine origin?
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Pretending to help us with our new lives. Pretending that they can somehow add something to our new life in Christ and to our holiness.
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Do you suppose that Peter meant that when Christ gave us everything pertaining to life and godliness, he was including
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Freud, Maslow, Dr. Phil, Oprah? What did he have in mind?
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He knew what we needed. He knew that God had given us everything that we needed. Now, what is the agent through which the divine power of Jesus provides all things, everything that we need for life and godliness?
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Look again at verse 3. Through the true knowledge, and I think
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Bernard said that, through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.
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And there's that same Greek word again. And we're going to see this as we go through 2 Peter over and over and over again.
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At least gnosis, but in this case, again, it's epigonosis. It is the intensive religious moral knowledge.
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It's like Peter is trying to stress, I mean, here just in a few verses, again, that same verse, it's like he really wants us to know
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God and to know him intimately. He wants us to be students of God.
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He wants us to develop that relationship, to know everything that we can about God. Hebert says this,
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Believers did not receive the divine gift unconsciously. I love that because I just think, you know, were you asleep when you got saved?
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Its reception involved the rational and spiritual reaction of the recipients.
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Again, Christianity demands faith. It demands belief. But it is not a leap of faith.
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It is a faith informed by the truth of the word of God. And this is not a static situation.
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In other words, nowhere in scripture are we ever told to be simple about our faith. We're told to have a simple, unquestioning, relying upon Christ alone faith, childlike, but we are never encouraged or commanded to be ignorant of the things of God.
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In fact, the writer of Hebrews said this in chapter 5, verses 12 to 14,
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For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles and the oracles of God.
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And you have not, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
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For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
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But solid food is for the mature. Because of practice, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
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Peter's saying the same thing. Listen, don't be a little baby living your entire life on milk and saying, well, you know,
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I'm saved and that's all I need. He's saying, listen, you need to develop. If you're going to stay in that infant -like state, you are going to be susceptible when these false teachers come along.
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You need to be ready. You need to be arming yourself, equipping yourself. You need to be studying the word of God.
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You need to be developing that knowledge, that full knowledge of God.
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Peter also exhorts believers to grow and to grow and to grow.
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Why? Because we can never exhaust the riches of the word of God.
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We can never know everything about God. But he tells us that God or that Jesus called us by his own glory and excellence.
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As the incarnate Son of God, Jesus drew men and continues to draw men to himself because of his manifest glory, his miracles, his wisdom, his preaching, both his divinity and perfect humanity.
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This is the God we are commanded to know better so that we have a greater peace and greater insulation, as it were, from false teachers.
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So apostolic answers to the question, do you know God? Number one, you have been changed.
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If you know God, you have been changed. Number two, if you know God, you have received the faith. Number three, if you know
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God, you have grown in your knowledge of God. Number four, if you know God, you have everything you need to live a godly life.
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And number five, finally, if you know God, you are secure in the promises of God.
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For by these, he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises.
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Again, going back to verse three, because of what? Because of his glory and excellence, because of the glory and excellence of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. He has granted, again, this is a, when we see that has granted, that is a perfect tense, meaning again, done once, with never ending results, they go on forever.
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And he says here, granted to us, to every believer, his promises.
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The promises of God rest on his character and his accomplishments and his attributes.
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And once they are extended to us, we cannot lose them or have them taken from us. God's promises, the text tells us, are first of all, precious.
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And that word, that Greek word, means that they are of great worth or value. But listen to this, it is most frequently used of the blood of Jesus.
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That's how precious it is. These promises are as precious. It's that same concept that they are as precious as the blood of Jesus.
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They're also described as magnificent, which means the greatest.
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The greatest, it's the highest superlative. There is no greater promise than what we have been given.
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So what are the results of these priceless and greatest promises?
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Again, look at verse four. So that by them, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
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The purpose of God in giving us his priceless and greatest promises is really two -sided.
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It's like two sides of the same coin. First of all, to conform us into the image of Christ.
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And secondly, to unconform us from the image of this world.
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The concept of becoming divine, and it is an interesting phrase there, partakers of the divine nature, that's something that was very common where you could actually, the concept was you could actually become divine.
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This was a common heresy out there among the other religions that were there at the time.
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And you know what? It still is. If you listen to some of these new age gurus, you can become God. You can become a
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God. You can become part of God. But Peter does not say that we will become
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God. He doesn't say we're going to become divine. John Calvin put it this way, let us then mark that the end or the purpose of the gospel is to render us eventually conformable to God.
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We're going to be bolded and shaped into the image of Christ. That's the purpose.
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That's the goal. We shall be like Christ. We know that from 1
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John 3 too. But we will not become Christ. The concept of escaping corruption in the world, that summarizes our past lives as well as recognizes our full deliverance from our past lives.
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Listen, we have received a new nature and therefore are no longer subject to the corruption of this world which originally applied to physical degeneration, kind of like rotting or spoiling.
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And here it's just applied to the spiritual decay of the fallen world. We're no longer part of that fallen world.
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We've been rescued out of it. We no longer are destined to spoil, to rot.
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Now how do we find out the full extent of the precious and magnificent promises
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God has granted us? We've talked about it. How do we do that? We study.
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We learn. Knowledge is good. Knowing more is good.
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Becoming a better theologian is good. For the Christian, ignorance is not bliss, at least when it comes to the things of God.
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Now what do false teachers do? Starting with Satan in the Garden of Eden, he certainly was a false teacher.
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What do they do? They twist scripture. They move the truth. They shift the gospel. Sometimes it's a lot.
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Sometimes it's just a little bit. For example, maybe Jesus became God.
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Maybe he wasn't always God. Maybe God does not demand perfection.
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After all, nobody's perfect. Maybe God saves on the basis of good works.
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Maybe the Bible is good, but it's not quite enough. Maybe Jesus is helpful, but he's not quite enough.
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We have the Spirit of God. We have the Word of God. We have the Church of God, the people of God, the promises of God.
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We have everything that we need to protect ourselves from false teachers.
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Do you know God? If you know Him, you have been changed. If you know
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Him, you have received the faith. If you know God, you have grown in your knowledge of God.
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If you know God, you have everything you need to live a godly life. And if you know
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God, you are secure in the promises of God. As I've said, as Christians, every single one of us is a theologian.
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2 Peter is written to insulate Christians from false teachers. How do you recognize bogus, counterfeit, phony, false teaching?
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By knowing the truth. By knowing the truth. Do you know
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God? If so, learn more. If not,
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I'd love to talk to you. We are students with the rest of our lives to learn more about our favorite subject or what we say is our favorite subject.
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We say we love God more than anything. We say that we would forsake anything and anyone for the
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Lord Jesus Christ. If so, we have a lot to learn.
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Let's pray. Father, ours is an overwhelming debt, one that we can never repay.
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So we consider our own sinfulness, how we were corrupted, dead, as it were, even spoiling, subject to the things of this world.
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Father, not having any care for you, for the truth, but you awakened us.
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You gave us the gift. You chose that our lot would be you, that we would know your son whom you sent.
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Father, there's no bragging in that. It was not of our doing. Lord, we rejoice.
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We bless you for that. Father, let us never be lukewarm.
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Let us never lose our passion for you, for what you've done on our behalf. Father, would you just, in each of us, light a fire, a desire to know more of you each and every day to study the things of God, to study the work of Christ, to glory in what you have done in our behalf to praise you every day.
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Lord, as we rise, as we sleep, and as we go through the day, would you just fill our every vacant moment with rejoicing in you.