Wednesday Bible Study
Amen. Amen. Amen.
All right, we are in 2 Peter. I keep wanting to say 1 Peter, and earlier when I was thinking about it, I wrote down Philippians. So that's kind of how the day has gone for me. So we are in 2 Peter, and in just a few minutes, we are going to pick up in verse 10. But I want to sort of give us a little bit of background to where we are. I need to turn the volume down on my phone. I'll just note if you are watching with us online, I do have the live feed up, so if you have a question or comment that you want to share with us, you're welcome to do that there as well. I just don't want to hear myself talking 30 seconds behind. So 2 Peter, I want to give us a little bit of the argument, and part of the argument that Peter is writing for is to help the church in regards to false teachers and to false doctrine.
And in fact, in chapter 2, we're going to see that he starts chapter 2 with this contrast, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. And so Peter is writing in many ways to defend the church from falsehood and from false teachers. And what I like about how he does this is he doesn't just deal in the negative by saying, don't do this or don't listen to that. He does tell us things that we are to avoid, but he also encourages us in a positive way that one of the best antidotes to the false teachers is to know the truth. And so throughout this letter, sort of over and over again, he'll talk about knowledge and about knowing, encourage us to know and to say that we have these things because we know and to grow in our knowledge.
And so he's encouraging us as an antidote to the falsehood to seek knowledge. And so knowing what's right helps us to avoid what is false. And so he starts like this in verse 3. And sort of think of this as he's sort of building a, putting together a structure. And sometimes when we go sort of slowly through books of the Bible, we only look at the one paragraph and we fail to see how it all fits together. But I want us to see that the structure and the foundation to everything in chapter 1 is in verse 3 and 4 where he says, "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who has 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 might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire."
And so Peter lays this foundation in the fact that God has given us everything we need for life and for godliness. He does so through knowledge, through the knowledge of him who has called us. We have these precious and great promises, and so the question is, what do we do because we have all of this? And so Peter will then begin to sort of build on this foundation by talking about how we respond to what God has done for us by growing in our faith, that we seek to grow. And he talks about all of these different characteristics, that we supplement our faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with self-control, steadfastness throughout this list, very similar to the fruits of the Spirit, to grow. And if we don't, he'll say that we're nearsighted and blind, that we have forgotten, we've focused on the wrong thing.
And that picture of nearsightedness is simply looking at something right here instead of seeing the big picture. And so having said all of that, notice how he continues the argument. In verse 10 he'll say, "Therefore," right, because of all of this, because of what God has done, because of the fact that you are called to grow, he's going to say this, "Therefore, brother, diligent to conform your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall, for in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." And so Paul will talk of this about conforming to our calling, and then in verse 12 we'll see another thing that he builds on top of this. He'll say, "Therefore, I intend to remind you of these qualities." And so, Paul, or Paul, Peter, will sort of continue to build on the fact that God has gifted us, that we are called to grow, and so I want to take a look at verse 10 and 11.
Where he talks about, here, our calling and our election. And when he talks about that, what he's talking about is the fact that we're Christians. And so many times we get caught up in those terms that we miss the point of what Peter is trying to tell us. And the question is, when he talks about, and other translations will say, to make your calling and election sure. And the question here, I think, is confirm to who? Who are we confirming our faith to? And I don't think the answer to that is we aren't confirming our faith to God. God isn't saying, "All right, I need you to prove to me that you are who you are." I think it's 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 14, where it says, "The Lord knows who are His." God doesn't need a confirmation. The people who need confirmation, oftentimes, are us. And so, it seems to me there's probably four different kinds of people. There are those who aren't Christians, and they know it, and maybe they don't want to be. I encounter these people, we'll invite somebody to church, and a lot of times the way it happens, we'll be somewhere, and they'll say, "Oh, what do you do?" And they'll say, "Well, I'm a preacher or a pastor."
Well, if I was ever, you know, in the door of the church, the church would burn down. And I've just started responding to that with, "Well, we have fire insurance, so come on in." Like, it's okay. But what they're saying is that I'm not part of church, I know I'm not part, I don't really want to be, and so there are people who are firmly in the unbelieving category. Now, then there are those who may think that they are believers, but they are not. So, for example, in Matthew, in the seventh chapter, Jesus will say this, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy to your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name, and then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" And that can be a kind of a scary passage, because Jesus
Jesus says, "All these people who say, 'Hey, I'm a believer. I'm following you.'" He says, "I never even knew you." And so there are those who claim to be Christians, but who are not. Then, the next two are people who are saved, who are Christians, and the first group are people who are Christians, but they're unsure of their faith. And so I remember, probably eight or nine years ago, I was talking to this lady, and she was like a very saintly lady. She was obviously, you know, showing the fruits of the Spirit and all of these things, and she said something that was pretty heartbreaking, because she said, "Well, if I get to heaven," and in her mind, even though she had followed Jesus, and, you know, she obviously was displaying growth in the faith, she, in her mind, said, "Well, I don't know." And so there are Christians who aren't sure if they are Christians, and then there are
Christians who are certain they're Christians. So, for example, the Apostle Paul says, "I know who I believe, and I am certain that he's able to hold on to that." And so you have these four characteristics of people, and when we talk about being diligent to confirm your calling, I don't think it's confirm our calling to God. It's confirm to us that we are Christians, so that when we ask ourselves that question, "Am I a Christian?" how do we answer that in a way that says, "Yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I am following Jesus. Yes, there is a heavenly reward. Yes, there is a hope for the future." This is intended to give us a firm foundation in our faith. And for that second group, the ones who aren't but think they are, this is a call to evaluate their life. We don't want to be like that. We don't want to be like those people in verse 9
who have forgotten that they are cleansed from their sins. And so what this does, and how this whole thing fits into the argument of 2 Peter, is remember what Paul says in Ephesians 4:14. He talks about that we are to no longer be children tossed back and forth by waves of doctrine. So if you as a Christian are uncertain of your standing, of your Christianity, what's going to happen when false teachers come? Well, I'm unsure, so I better go here. And somebody else comes, and I'm unsure, and I better go there. And we end up just sort of floating away, oftentimes into apostasy, because we aren't sure where we stand. So I guess it was a couple weeks ago, we were at Lake Anna, and we were swimming, and it was a little bit windy, and these people had this giant inflatable unicorn thing. And it wasn't just like one of those little floaty things. This thing was huge.
Like, you would have to have a back of a truck if you were going to transport it all inflated. It was just kind of sitting out there in the water, and they were playing on it and jumping on it, and then what happens, they kind of got distracted, and the wind blows, and it goes over the swimming area rope out in the lake, and they're trying to swim for it, and the dad's going down the, walking down the beach going, you know how much that thing cost? And it goes out across the second line, and it's out like toward the middle of the lake, and then here comes some people in the pontoon boat. And I looked at the guy and said, well, either they're going to rescue it, or they're going to pirate it.
And sure enough, they kind of drove past it and circled, and they picked it up and put it on the boat, and it was kind of like, what are they going to do? Are they just going to drive off with it and keep it, or are they going to bring it back? And ultimately, they brought it back. But the picture here is that if we don't have an anchor, if we don't have a foundation, the same thing can happen. We can sort of move after the wrong teaching, or as Paul says, be blown around like people on winds on the waves. It says, "Pay much closer attention to what you have heard so that you don't drift away." And so, this is an encouragement, I think, for us as Christians, the people who are called and who are elect, to look to our spiritual life and to evaluate and to know where we stand. And the way that we do that,
as a worm, how do we do that? We look at the growth that we're seeing. All of those things that we saw in the previous verses, supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing. So, we have those things, and if they are increasing, what does he say? We'll keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the ways in which we evaluate where we stand is, are we growing in these things? It's not that we're perfect in all of these, but are we making progress? Have we gone further than when we began? Any thoughts or comments? One of the reasons I think Peter, and he sort of hammers this point home this way, because in a way he's kind of restating what he said about growing and not being unfruitful and being effective, is because a lot of times there are things that we try to go after that we don't really need.
That's what happens with the false teachers, is they're showing up and saying, "You really want to get to know God? This is what you need to do." These people who don't have a firm foundation say, "Yes, I need that." We've all been in that situation where we have been offered something we didn't need. I don't remember what I was buying. It was a couple years ago, and it wasn't very expensive. It was like $8 or $9. I got to the cashier, and they ring it up, and a little prompt comes up on their screen, and it was like $8 or $9, and they said, "You want the extended warranty with that?" And I said, "Extended warranty?" And they said, "Yeah, for $11 for the next year, we will replace this." And I said, "No, I don't think I want the extended warranty."
And they said, "But it'll replace it, even if it's negligence that this breaks." I said, "But it's $8, and the extended warranty, I don't need it," right? Because I knew where I stood. I knew that I didn't need something extra. And the same is true for Christians, that if we know where we stand and how we stand, when the false teachers, when the wrong ideas, the wrong thoughts try to pull us away, we can say, "No, thank you. I don't need that." And so part of what Peter is doing here is encouraging us and giving us weapons in the fight for what is true and what is right. Any thoughts or comments about where we've been or where we've been previously? I think the calling part is interesting because it's like when Paul says that he presses on towards the goal.
When Peter says you're being called in a direction. So you're aiming for something. You're moving towards something. And then Paul will say in Corinthians that we stand upon the Gospel. So when he's talking about confirmation or salvation, it's both movement, but it's also remaining true to what initially you accepted. Think of in Revelation when it says, "Remember your first love." So it's a calling towards movement and some sort of interaction, and it feels like work. There's the Ephesians passage that says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is in you." Philippians. He's pointing towards, because clearly he's working against somebody who is saying, "I have something secret. I have something extra." And I think the picture that Jesus uses that sums up exactly what you're saying is the plant that grows. So it's firmly rooted, and its roots are deep, but it grows up and bears fruit, which is a little bit of what Peter's saying when he talks about that we're not going to be unfruitful for growing in these things.
Any other thoughts or comments? And so in verse 11, which kind of marks a little bit of a transition between what he's just said and into verse 12, he says, "For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." And so I like that picture that he says, "Richly provided," that the picture is that God is not stingy. He's not just giving you just a little bit or enough, or like when you ask your kids for, and they have a bag of chips, you say, "Can I have a chip?" and they pick out the smallest one to give you, that God is not like that, that he richly provides. And we've actually seen a little bit of this, that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. So you have this sort of two-fold picture, which is what Brent was talking about, is that God gives us everything we need, but we also grow in those things. Or as Philippians says, "God works in," and then we work out what God has worked in.
When he says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling," then he goes on to say, "For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work according to his good pleasure," that we are putting into practice the things that God has given us. We are working out what God has provided. And there's this picture of an eternal kingdom. And remember, these are Christians who are likely on the edge of persecution if they're not already in persecution. And there is a picture of a day when they will be safe, when there is a kingdom that is eternal and they don't have to be afraid and they don't have to change. Just look at us as we go into an election year. In our minds, we're going, "Well, what's going to happen?" You know, I hope my guy wins, their guy loses, and it can be whatever group or party you're a part of, but we fear change politically.
You know, we fear things that are different, and what it says here is that there comes a day where we don't have to fear that anymore, that God has richly provided. Not just provided, but richly provided. Any thoughts or comments? All right, look at Paul's next, you can say, brick in the wall or piece of the building, and I think this is the roof that sort of ties the building together. He says, "Therefore," so because of all of these things, because God has richly given us everything we need, because we are growing in these things, and the gifts that God has provided, because we know where we stand, because we look at our growth, because we have an eternal hope laid out in front of us. He goes, "I intend to remind you of these qualities." And so when we think of reminders, a lot of times our tendency is to say, "I already know that."
So I remember after I had brain surgery, one of the things is my short-term memory for a little while was not the greatest. And so Rachel would constantly say, "Well, you already told me that. Well, you already told me that. Well, you already told me that." And that's our tendency sometimes when we hear things, to say, "You've already told me that." And as Christians, sometimes we say, "Well, I don't want to hear what I already know. I want to hear something new." And that's what Peter says. "I intend to remind you of these qualities," look at what he says next, "though you know them and are established in the truth that you have." And so he's saying, "You already know this." And not only that, you're established, that you have a firm foundation, that your roots go down deep.
And he says, "I'm still going to remind you. I'm going to keep telling you this. I think that it is right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know the putting off of my body will be soon. As our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me, I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able to at any time recall these things." And so a couple of interesting things. Peter says to the church he wants to stir them up by reminding them. And the word in Greek is a picture of waking somebody up from a sleep. So it's not just like, "Well, I want to get you motivated. I'm going to give you a good motivational talk to get you all excited and running after godliness," but rather, "You're sound asleep. I'm going to grab your
shoulders. I'm going to shake you until you wake up." You know, Peter is saying that my goal is to stir you up. And what I like about what Peter is saying is he says that this is a serious thing. He's going to make every effort. Do you remember what happens to Peter after he denies Christ? And he goes back, and he sees Christ again. And remember what Jesus says to him, "Do you love me?" And Peter says, "Of course I do." And what does Jesus say? He says, "Feed my sheep." And he doesn't just say it once, right? Jesus repeats this to Peter. He says, "Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Take care of the flock." And what Peter is saying is, "I'm going to do that to the best of my ability until the day that I drop."
That for Peter, there is not a time where he says, "Look at the kingdom. I think I've done enough. I've worked hard enough. I've struggled enough. I've fought enough. Now I'm just going to sit back and enjoy my cushy jail cell for the last few days of my life." What does he say? He says, "I will make every effort." He says, "I know the end is soon. I know that I won't be here forever." And I like the picture that he uses. He says that our bodies are a tent, moving out of a tent, moving into eternity, that he's not fearful of that. But he says, "As long as I'm here, I'm going to work. And if I go home, that's wonderful too." A little bit of what Paul says in the first part of Philippians, where he talks about, "I'm torn. I want to go home and be with the Lord, but I want to stay for the strength of the church."
He says, "As long as I'm here, I will work to strengthen the church." And it is, I think, a wonderful example and an encouragement to us as well. Any thoughts or comments about that? I read this earlier, twice. Does he know when he's going to die, or does he just know that he is? Well, he does know that he is. Because remember, I was in John, where they're following Jesus, and he talks to Peter and says, "This is how you're going to die." And Peter turns to John and goes, "What about him?" And so Peter does know that he's going to die. And the question is, does he know when or how? And everything I've read about that says that there's not really any thought one way or the other. But it's possible. It's possible that, you know, just like, you know, Jesus comes to Paul, says, "You're going to testify in Jerusalem," or, "You're going to testify to me in Rome," you know, that God has spoken to Peter and said, "Yeah, the end is near."
He says, "As our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me." To me, that means he knew. He even knew the time. But, you know, like human nature, I could be wrong. It means that he knows how, you know, because Jesus has told him that he's going to die for him, and now he's in jail, and he knows that it's probably getting close, too. And he said, "God's made it clear to me." And so it could be that God, you know, has spoken to him. You know, like Paul will sometimes be encouraged by God in the midst of trouble. That God has said, "Hey, you know, it's not too long until you're coming home." But, you know, Peter says, "As long as I'm here, I know it's going to be soon, but I'm going to work."
And I think the tradition is that his death kind of kicks off the neuro-killing Christians, which means Rome is burned, so it feels like the world is literally ending, and the apostle gets killed, and he's writing, you know, sort of in that time period to Christians who are, you know, all the big societal things feel like they're crashing down the bottom. Which is, I mean, it seems like something that's pretty applicable to 2020, right? You know, you've got COVID, you've got murder hornets, you've got, you know, it's like, what's going to happen next? You know, flamethrower squirrels? But, you know, it does feel like that. And, you know, it's interesting that in the midst of all of this, with his death, Peter isn't fearful. He's not giving up. He's not going to say, "Well, you know, it's inevitable." What does he do? He says, "As long as I'm here, I'm going to make every effort."
And then I like what he says, "So that after my departure, you may be able..." I'm going to beat this into your heads. You know, one of my favorite Martin Luther quotes that I've shared with everybody all the time is that, when he talks about the gospel, that it is our, you know, our chief duty to, you know, as a minister to know this, to remember it, and then to beat it into our heads and the heads of people around us continually. So Brent took a tree and carved me a giant gospel hammer, you know, so that if I need to literally beat it into somebody's head, that I'm able to do that as well. But what Peter says, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to beat these things. You're growing in them, and until the day I die, I'm going to be a broken record for these things.
And it's good for us, so that when times are tough and everything feels like it's falling apart, we'll be able to remember and recall those things. Any thoughts or comments about what's happening here? So one of the things that I wanted to just sort of point out about what is happening here is notice, you've sort of seen phrases repeated over and over. So we start at the beginning where we hear that we're called, and then we talk about that calling and that direction in verse 10. And then we talk about this idea of knowledge, which we'll see throughout the book that we want to know, we want to know, we want to grow in knowledge, all of these things. And then notice here what he says, "I tend to remind you of these qualities. I'm going to stir you up by way of reminder, so that after my departure you may be able to recall these things."
And so he's pointing there to the importance of remembering. But also notice verse 9, "Whoever lacks these qualities is so near-sighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from sin." And so notice the importance of being reminded, of going back to those things. And one of the things that we tend to do, because we live in a society where we're constantly getting new stuff, right? We're always having new developments. So maybe new technology, new models of cars. I always think about my grandpa and the new Buicks. "Oh, there's a new one!" And so we have a tendency to want new things. And I don't think that's a bad tendency, but it is, I think, dangerous when it comes to our faith saying, "Well, I want something new. I want something different. Give me..." And what Peter is saying is these things that you know,
that you are already rooted and grounded. You've got to go back. You've got to be reminded. You need to recall them, because if you don't, ultimately you'll forget your salvation. It's the same thing that you see throughout Israel. You know, as they get ready to go in the Promised Land, God gives them this, I think, this wonderful warning that says, you know, when you get there and God prospers you, don't look at yourself and say, "The might of my hand has gotten me this wealth," but remember the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, who brought you through the wilderness, who gave you this land. Remember these things, and what happens when Israel doesn't? They fall into idolatry. They fall into sin. And it's like, I've always heard it described, like a tire stuck in the mud, just constantly spinning.
They would forget, and they would dive into sin, and they would remember, and God would save them, and then they would forget. And what Peter is saying is that, as Christians, we are called to continually be people who remember, and to go back and to see what God has done. Any thoughts or comments? I was planning to try to get through the end of chapter one tonight, but there is a lot packed into verses 16 through 21. We have Peter unpacking his credentials a little bit, the firmness of his message. We have this incredible section about the Scripture and how the Scripture is brought to us. We have this picture of prophecy that really points us toward the Word of God. And so I'd like to, instead of getting part of it done and then coming back next week and having to start over to remind us all where we were,
I'd rather just do that all at once. So any thoughts or comments? Going back to verse 9, it kind of keeps jumping out at me. Whoever lacks these qualities and nearsighted is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. So, you know, that's pretty, pretty strong. So, you know, those qualities, Jesus is really saying, are, in a sense, lifeblood. They're oxygen to the Christian. They're things that keep us from forgetting that we've been cleansed. I mean, so, the fact that He says that those are possible, you know, you look at that and say, you know, if I don't really understand, I forget that I've been forgiven of my former sins, I really become blind in my faith. And it's like, I think it's something that's a danger as a Christian. He's always saying,
if we grab hold of these virtues and put them in our life, then that protects us from this blindness and this nearsighted, that we can fall into. Yeah, in essence, it's kind of built the wall around us to keep us where we're supposed to be. And the note in my Bible is that that nearsightest word is like a blinking. It's like you're focusing in the wrong spot. He's calling you back to the focus on the right spot, which kind of ties into his... There's some sort of group in the church who wrote this to that is trying to call people's focus away from what Peter found in the church pond, and Peter said, "No, we need to focus back on what we started out at." That's like today's churches. They're always looking for something new, or what can we do to attract other people?
And they're not just bringing the Bible itself into it. They're just ideas and plays and games to be entertained. Well, and I think that's the danger in all of us. We're always looking for the next new thing. And so, you know, one of the things that I think, you know, like exactly what he said, is Peter saying, "I come back to these truths." Is it Isaiah or Jeremiah that says, "Stand at the crossroads and look. Look for the ancient paths. Know where the good way is and walk in it." For people who were looking for something, you know, to go, he says, "Hey, stand and look. You're at a crossroads. Go for the ancient path that God has laid out." And walk in that. Any other thoughts or comments? It's good. All right. Go ahead and have a word of prayer. Father in heaven, thank you for allowing us to be here this evening.
Thank you for your word. May we evaluate our lives in light of it, where we are building our foundations, where we are growing. And we ask that you would keep us from forgetting, from being distracted, from focusing on the wrong things, and that you would help us as we look at these qualities to grow in, that we would, through the work of your spirit, the convicting power of your word, through the salvation that you've granted us through your son, that you would encourage us and help us,