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Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word.
We continue to consider 2 Peter, and my sermon text this evening is from 2 Peter 1, verses
3 and 4.
You’ll find that on page 1207 in your Pew Bibles.
I’m going to read from the beginning, from verse 1 through verse 4, but again our focus
this evening will be on verses 3 and 4.
Dear ones, this is the Word of God.
Let us as God’s people hear it with reverence and awe.
Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith
of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, may grace
and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through
the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has
granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because
of sinful desire.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of His Word this evening.
Our Lord and our God, gracious Heavenly Father, we stand in awe of you, for you are a God
of infinite white-hot holiness, and yet you in grace have condescended to us.
We O Lord have not honored your name as we ought, and Lord we have not hallowed your
name as we ought, and yet, O Lord, it is through faith in your name and in who you
are and what you have done for us in Christ that we are saved and forgiven fully and freely.
And now, O Lord, as we desire to live faithful, godly lives in Christ, we pray that you would
turn our attention to this portion of Scripture which speaks to all that we need in order
to live a life of godliness out of gratitude for your gift of salvation.
So be with us now, Lord.
We ask once again that you would set a guard over my lips, that I, your unworthy servant,
may only speak that which is faithful and true to your Word.
And we pray, O God, that by your Spirit you would soften our hearts, grant us malleable
teachable hearts, and grant that your Word would find a lodging place in our souls and
bear much spiritual fruit in our lives.
We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people’s said.
Amen.
Congregation, you may be seated.
The title of my sermon this evening is, Everything You Need.
And there are six key words that you can be listening for if you find that to be helpful
in following along, and those words are provision, godliness, promises, corruption, grace, and
sanctification.
Well, my dear friends, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, what is it that we need
more than anything else in the world?
Well, when it comes to living out the Christian life, when it comes to living the life of
discipleship under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, more than anything else, we need the spiritual
equipment that is essential for living a life of faithful and grateful obedience to our
Savior, and doing so in the midst of this lost and sinful world.
Friends, we need both the external means and the internal resources to fight the remnants
of indwelling sin that continue to abide within us, and to engage in the wholehearted, godly
pursuit of holiness in our hearts, in our speech, and in our lives.
But where do we get the spiritual equipment and the spiritual resources necessary to
live a godly life in the midst of an ungodly fallen world, and burdened as we are with
the remnants of a sin nature that constantly threatens to drag us down into the muck and
mire of sin, and which sadly often succeeds in doing so?
Well, beloved in Christ, I’ve got some good news for you this evening.
If you know by sovereign grace, if you know that Jesus Christ as your very own Savior
and Lord, then God has already given you everything that you need for living a godly life, even
in the midst of this ungodly world, and even though you and I continue to possess and struggle
with the remnants of indwelling sin.
Now as we turn our attention to our text for this Lord’s Day evening, which speaks of these
spiritual resources and this equipment that the Lord has granted to us to live a godly
life in the midst of an ungodly world, in this section of his second epistle, Peter,
the apostle, is concerned to urge his readers to make progress in both their understanding
of their faith as well as their practice, their living out of that faith.
To use technical theological lingo, Peter is here concerned with what the theologians
typically call progressive sanctification, or the process of growing in the knowledge
and in the love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
It is this progress in their Christian faith that will equip them to resist the false teaching
that Peter will address later on in this epistle, and that will indeed equip them to live a
godly life out of gratitude for God’s gift of salvation.
So as we turn our attention to verse 3 of our passage for this evening, I want you first
of all to consider God’s abundant provision of the spiritual equipment that we need for
living godly lives in the midst of an ungodly world.
God’s abundant provision of the spiritual equipment that we need for living godly lives
in the midst of an ungodly world.
Peter writes in verse 3,
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through
the knowledge of him who called us to or by his own glory and excellence.
Now first we read in this passage of the power source for godly living, and that’s the first
thing under this, the first sub-point if you will, under this first point that I want us
to consider.
Where are the power source for godly living?
Where do we get the power, especially since we are incomplete in our sanctification and
perfectly sanctified in this present age, where do we get the power for living genuinely
godly lives in the midst of an ungodly world?
Well the first thing that he says in verse 3,
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
Now think about that for a moment friends.
His divine power, that is to say that same power that spoke the universe into being out
of nothing, that same divine power that created the universe, that fashioned the universe,
that same divine power which in God’s providence moment by moment sustains the universe in
its existence, and indeed that same divine power that supernaturally raised our Lord
Jesus from the dead.
Friends that divine power is the power that is at work within you and me to equip us for
godliness.
Peter points us not to our own will, not to our own works or merits, not to our own resolutions
and determinations, although there’s nothing wrong with resolving to do better and to strive
after a new obedience, but that’s not where we get the power source for living a godly
life.
It is His divine power that enables us to do so.
But that raises the question, does the His in His divine power, does this refer to God
the Father, the first person of the Trinity, or the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the second
Or is this referring to the Godhead in His totality, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
Well, interpreters differ on their conclusions when it comes to this particular question,
but I would suggest to you, beloved, that since in the immediately preceding verse,
Peter had referred to Jesus our Lord at the end of that verse, therefore from the context
it makes the most sense that Peter is intending to refer specifically to Christ’s divine power.
Whose divine power?
The divine power of Jesus our Lord, who was referred to at the end of verse 2.
And if that is the case, if that’s the correct way of viewing who the His in His divine power
is specifically referring to, then this would again simply be one more evidence amongst
many evidences in Scripture for affirming the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ’s full
divinity, His full deity.
So why do we believers so often fall short in our walk with the Lord?
Why is it that we struggle?
And there’s many ways to answer that question, but why is it that we so often find ourselves
falling into sin, even as those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, even as those who have
been born again?
Again, a lot of time could be spent answering that question, but I suspect, beloved, based
on this passage, that one of the reasons is that too often we rely on the strength of
our own natural resources, the strength of our flesh, instead of relying upon the Holy
Spirit who dwells within us by virtue of our saving union with Christ.
And therefore we neglect to use all of the spiritual resources that God has already blessed
us with.
One of the evidences of spiritual growth is growing in your understanding of who you are
in Christ, and growing in your understanding of all that the Lord has given to you as His
beloved child, indwelt by His Spirit.
But notice we’ve considered the divine source of, the power source for living a godly life.
Notice the extent of God’s provision.
It says, His divine power has granted to us, how many things?
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
Not just some things, not just the spiritual things, but all things that pertain to life
and godliness.
Now think about it.
Dear ones, God has given to us His Word.
He’s given to us His inscripturated Word, His God-breathed, inerrant, infallible Word.
His Word which is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path.
He’s given to us His Word.
He’s given to us His Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to abide within us, and to illuminate
us, helping us to understand the Word.
He’s given to us His church, our brothers and sisters in Christ, the family of God.
He’s given to us His means of grace, the Word and the sacraments and prayer in the context
of Christian fellowship.
He’s given to us the blessing and spiritual support of Christian fellowship, and on and
on it goes.
He has indeed given to us all things necessary for life and godliness.
That doesn’t mean that walking after holiness, walking after a new obedience is an easy thing.
That doesn’t mean that discipleship is not a struggle, but it does mean that His divine
power has granted to us.
And again, the language here is the language of giftedness.
It’s not that we’ve earned this or attained it by our own worthiness, but by His divine
grace and gift, He has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
Observe also the channel or means through which God equips us.
How is it that we connect to the power source and to the provision that God has made available
to His people?
We’ll observe the channel or means through which God equips us.
That is through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence.
Now I pointed out on the last Lord’s Day afternoon when I preached on verse 2, I pointed out
that one of the big emphases of Peter in this epistle is the importance of true knowledge
of God.
And perhaps Peter emphasizes this because he’s dealing with, he’s counteracting a first
century version of what some have called an incipient Gnosticism.
Gnosticism did not become fully formed or fully developed until the second century,
but there were incipient versions of it that started to show up in the church in the first
century.
And Gnosticism comes from the Greek term gnosis, and the Gnostics claimed to have special spiritual
insights, special esoteric knowledge usually attained through philosophical speculations
or mystical experiences or ceremonies that they would perform or what have you.
And Peter says, no, no, the true knowledge of God comes obviously through the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
And we grow in godliness, how?
Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.
Now if you have the New American Standard Version, that version translates it, and I
think this is probably more correct, it translates it by his own glory and excellence.
Certainly God calls us to participate in his glory and moral excellence on a creaturely
But here the emphasis is on how God calls us by his own glory and by his own excellence.
In other words, it’s all of him, and it’s all of grace.
And as I pointed out just moments ago, the his in his own glory and excellence probably
refers to the glory and excellence in particular of Jesus our Lord, our divine Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, who’s mentioned at the end of verse two.
Now what’s the distinction between glory and excellence?
Well his glory points to his divine nature, his divine luminescence if you will.
And his excellence refers to what one commentator calls the high moral quality of the life and
person of Jesus.
So just a couple takeaways here from this first point.
First of all, beloved, consider our Lord Jesus’ glory and excellence.
He is infinitely glorious.
He is divine.
He is God of God, light of lights, very God of very God, night of light I should say,
very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance or essence with the
Father by whom all things were made as we confess in the Nicene Creed.
And he is also not only is he infinitely glorious with respect to his divinity, he is also sinless.
He is the sinless, spotless lamb of God, the Lord incarnate who was without sin, who was
capable of atoning for sin and who did indeed atone for all of the sins of all of God’s
elect.
Do you, dear listener, look in faith to Jesus Christ as your divine Savior and substitute?
It is only as you receive and rest upon him as the God-man, the divine Savior, your substitute,
that you will indeed not only be forgiven of your sins but receive by his grace this
spiritual equipment and resources that Peter speaks of in this passage for this evening.
But how do we gain this true knowledge of God that Peter speaks of here?
Now the true knowledge of God contains many different aspects to it, but we can, you know,
but we can kind of summarize it in two, by two aspects.
There’s a doctrinal knowledge of God that is important for us to understand and master
if you will, but there’s also what could be called experiential knowledge.
These two aspects of the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord are inextricably intertwined.
They’re closely connected to one another, though they can be distinguished.
How do you grow in doctrinal knowledge of God?
Well, obviously you grow in the knowledge of God through studying his word.
Be in the word, read your Bibles, meditate upon the word, and sit under the preaching
and teaching of God’s word as you folks are doing this Lord’s Day evening.
I would also commend to you reading sound Christian books, listening to faithful preaching
on podcasts and so forth.
And here’s an idea for those of us who are Orthodox Presbyterians or even those of you
who may be listening online who aren’t Orthodox Presbyterians, I’d encourage you to study
the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.
You notice this morning when we welcomed new members, as is our custom, I gave them copies
of our Confession of Faith and Catechisms with scripture proofs and those are made available.
That’s a wonderful resource because it gives you a summary of sound Bible doctrine and
it shows from the scriptures where those doctrines are derived from.
So get into the word, get into sound doctrine and saturate your mind and your soul with
the word of God.
But combine that doctrinal knowledge with experiential knowledge.
Experiential knowledge comes through such things as prayer, worship, the sacraments,
fellowship and obedience.
May we grow in the knowledge and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
May we grow in the true knowledge of God for it is through the knowledge of Him who
called us by His own glory and excellence that we receive and grow in all things that
pertain to life and godliness.
But that brings me to the next point based on verse four.
Let us consider next the very great and precious promises that God has given to us believers.
It says in verse four after mentioning Christ’s own glory and excellence it says by which,
in other words by Christ’s glory and excellence, He has granted to us what?
His precious and very great promises.
So that through them, through these very great and precious promises, so that through them
you may become partakers of the divine nature, we’ll talk about what that means in a few
moments, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of passion or
sinful desire.
The Bible scholar David Wheaton says by which refers to Christ’s glory and excellence and
emphasizes that it is because of the quality of His life that the believer can receive
the promise of sharing the very nature of God.
Let’s think about for a few moments, let’s think about the many precious and great promises
that God has given to us as believers in Christ.
And the list is very long and we could spend, we could be here until midnight exploring
the many spiritual blessings that we’ve been given.
The apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter one talks about how we have received every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
So let’s consider some of those blessings.
One of the greatest blessings that God has given to us in the gospel of Christ is the
blessing of eternal life.
This is one of His precious and very great promises.
One of my favorite passages related to this promise is John chapter five verse 24 where
the Lord Jesus says these powerful words.
He says truly, truly, the Greek is amen, amen, verily, verily.
In other words, pay attention, this is important, I mean it.
You can bank your word on the Lord’s word.
He says you can bank your faith on the Lord’s word.
He says truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word, that’s the gospel, and believes
him who sent me has eternal life.
Not may have, might have, but has eternal life as a present possession.
Not only that, he goes on to say he does not come into judgment, meaning the condemning
judgment of God.
Certainly all of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, but if you are in
Christ you will not stand before God’s condemning wrath.
You will not undergo a condemning judgment, but rather has passed from death to life,
has passed from a state of spiritual death unto eternal life.
In the same apostle, the apostle John reaffirms this in one of the purpose statements of his
first epistle.
If you look at first John chapter five verse 13, we read these words.
John writes to his readers and the Spirit says to us, I write these things to you who
believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
You know what’s so ironic when I read this verse?
In the Roman Catholic Church it is considered a sin of presumption to have certainty or
assurance of eternal life, and yet it’s actually the opposite.
It is a form of presumption to reject God’s promise of eternal life.
If you are a believer in Christ, you may know, not just guess, not just hope, not just wish,
you may know that you have eternal life.
God’s word says it very clearly, very plainly here in first John chapter five verse 13.
By the way, as a witnessing suggestion, I believe that it reads the same way in Roman
Catholic translations of the Bible.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know
that you have eternal life.
Eternal life, the gift of eternal life is one of the many great and precious promises
of God.
We also read in the scriptures of the gift of forgiveness of sins and our justification
before God, which is all by grace through faith, God-given faith and faith alone.
Just to take you to a few quick verses that highlight this promise, Acts chapter three
verse 19.
Acts chapter three verse 19, as the apostle Peter preaches the gospel, he says this in
verse 19 of Acts chapter three, repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted
out.
Those who repents and believe this, the promise is that their sins will be blotted out and
consider Romans chapter four verses four and five, which speaks to our justification and
says now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due and
to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly.
Think about it.
God justifies the ungodly.
What is the promise?
His faith is counted as righteousness.
So eternal life, forgiveness of sins, justification, all of these things are aspects of his great
and very precious promises.
Another precious promise is the promise of peace with God, which Paul speaks of again
in connection to our justification in Romans chapter five verse one.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Not only that though, we are adopted as children of God.
We who spiritually were children of the devil because of our fallenness in Adam, because
of our sin, we who had been slaves of Satan, we are now children of God.
John chapter one verses 12 and 13, where we are told in these familiar words, but to all
who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but
of God.
If you have received and rested upon Christ alone for your salvation, not only are you
forgiven, not only have you received the gift of eternal life, not only has God justified
you, declared you righteous in his sight, but he has adopted you.
You who were a child of the devil, he has brought you into his family, adopting you
as his precious child.
And one of the greatest precious promises of God is the promise that we who are in Christ
will experience no condemnation.
As we’re told in Romans chapter eight verse one, there is therefore now, now, right now
in this present age, there is therefore now no condemnation for whom?
For those who are in Christ Jesus.
If you are in Christ, if he is your Lord and Savior and you’re clothed in his righteousness,
cleansed by his blood, then there is now no condemnation for you and the implication is
nor will there ever be.
And of course, another great and precious promise is the promise of sanctification,
both positional and progressive, and the apostle Paul speaks to that in great detail,
for example, in Romans chapter six.
And the list could go on and on and on.
So let us praise God for the many precious and great promises that he has given to us
believers in Christ.
But let’s also take to heart the benefits of embracing these promises of God that that
Peter speaks to in our passage for this evening.
He says that by these, he says that by which he has granted to us his precious and very
great promises, so that through them, what happens?
What do we receive as a result of embracing by the grace of God, these promises of God,
so that by them, you may become number one, partakers of the divine nature, and number
two, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
So one of the benefits of receiving and embracing the promises of God is a participation in
the divine nature.
Now, at which point some of you may say, whoa, pastor, what are you talking about?
What is Peter talking about?
Is Peter saying that we literally become divine, that we literally become gods when we are
saved?
Our Eastern Orthodox friends talk about divinization, and they have a certain understanding of what
that means.
Does this mean that the distinction between the creator and the creature gets blurred,
that somehow we who are mortal and human can become immortal and divine, literally divine?
Well I think that Dr. Simon Kistermacher offers some helpful comments, and I’m going to share
this quote from him.
He says of Peter that Peter says that we participate in God’s nature, not in God’s being.
He has chosen the term nature because it indicates growth, development, and character.
The expression being, by contrast, points to essence and substance.
We can never participate in God’s essence, for we are and remain human beings who have
been created by God.
What Peter discloses is that we share God’s holiness, which we experience through the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and he references 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9.
In other words, friends, in this language, Peter is not suggesting that we can somehow
become divine, become actual gods.
Rather he is saying that we share, on a creaturely level, in God’s nature, God’s character.
We participate in the divine nature in the sense that we have received the Holy Spirit,
we are adopted children of God, and we are being conformed into the likeness of Christ.
We don’t become God, but we do become God-like.
We don’t become Christ, but we become Christ-like.
And what’s the implication of this?
The implication of this is escape from the world’s corruption, which is mentioned at
the end of verse 4.
Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world, why is corruption?
He’s talking about the corruption of sin.
Sin causes spiritual rot.
Why is it in the world?
Well, because of sinful desire.
Friends, this fallen world is a corrupt and a corrupting place that defiles those who
are subject to its dominion, as is the case of all of those who do not know Christ as
their Savior.
But praise be to God, in Christ and His gospel promises, we are given an escape from the
world’s corruption.
That does not mean that once you are converted, you stop struggling with sin.
In fact, that’s when the battle begins.
That’s when the struggle begins.
The difference between a regenerate man and an unregenerate man is that the regenerate
man struggles with sin.
The unregenerate man may feel guilty about sin but doesn’t really struggle against sin.
In salvation, God not only justifies and forgives us, He also begins the process of sanctifying
us, conforming us into the image of Christ and thereby fitting us for the glories of
the age to come.
Beloved in Christ, isn’t it wonderful to know that in union with your Savior, you have
been provided with everything that you need for life and godliness.
Aren’t God’s promises indeed precious and very great?
May God grant to all of us the grace to live out our daily lives in the light of God’s
promises and to grow into the image of Christ, our Lord and Savior.
Amen.
Let’s pray.
Father, we often cry from our hearts, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this
body of death.
But we are not left with despair, for as the apostle says, thanks be to God who gives us
the victory in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We thank you for the victory we have in Jesus, not in ourselves but in you, and we thank
you Lord for your very great and precious promises.
We pray that through these promises we might grow in the knowledge and love of Christ our
Savior and grow more and more into Christlikeness.
We thank you Lord that you who have begun a good work in us, as you promise in your
word, will carry it through to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
May our confidence be in that very great and precious promise.
In Jesus’ name we pray, and all of God’s people said amen.
Let’s respond to what we’ve heard by rising and we’ll sing number 523, O God, my faithful
God, 523.