Called, Equipped, and Encouraged (2 Peter 1:3-4)

Very helpful phrase for when you're working on someone else's house, and that's, "I can't see it from my house," right? You can trade very easily. The ease of doing something for doing it either well or doing it easily. And what happens as humans, we have a tendency to try to trade good for easy. And maybe you've experienced this. It's been a really long day. It's been very busy. You finally make it to the grocery store. Do all your grocery shopping. Bring it home. It's cold. It's windy. The sidewalk's slippery. You carry everything into the house, and then you order pizza, right? It doesn't matter that you have a fridge full of good food, right? It's easy, and you're tired. And that's not always bad in our physical world, because we need rest, and we need to be restored and to be refreshed. But sometimes, spiritually, we fall into the same trap.

We seek what is easy rather than seek what is good. Our text this morning in 2 Peter 1 is not an easy text. It is, however, theologically rich. I would say that this is like steak and potatoes for our soul, and just like steak and potatoes take a little more effort than getting pizza delivered, our text this morning will take a little bit of effort as well. And it's a little amusing to me that Peter, at the end of this letter in 2 Peter 3, talking about Paul's letters in the middle of it, he'll say about Paul's letters, he'll say, there are some things in them that are hard to understand. And it's funny he says that, not just because he looks at Paul and goes, man, some of your stuff is kind of hard to understand. He does equate it to Scripture, but he says it's hard to understand.

in verses 3 and 4 that is also hard to understand. Grammatically, this is a struggle. Logically, it's a struggle, and I don't mean that it's bad grammatically, and I don't mean that it's illogical in any sense of the way, but what Peter is doing is there is so much depth in this text. And all of the different pieces and propositions that he is saying, they all fit together so tightly, and they all support each other so well. wonderfully. It's like looking at a woven basket, and you try to pull one piece out, but it's connected to the vertical and it's connected to the horizontal pieces above and below it. There is so much richness filled into this text that it can be a struggle for us as we read it. So I want to read our text and then we will spend some time taking a look at what Peter has to say. He says this, "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 his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine power of God.

Divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." And at the heart of this text is this, that there is a knowledge of him who called us. There is a knowledge that focuses on Christ and what he has done and that in knowing Jesus, you and I have all that we need. Now, knowledge is a theme that runs throughout this letter. It begins it, it ends it, it's all the way in between. And when Peter speaks of knowledge, specifically in this place, he's talking about a close-in knowledge. It's not just a memorization of facts, but an experience of the reality. And so it's like yesterday, as I was sitting at the computer in our living room, looking outside through the window, and you can hear the wind, and you can see the effects of the wind, and it just looked cold, and it looked miserable, and it looked windy, and I'm like, "Man, I am so glad to be inside."

And then Rachel and the kids come back from the library, and from picking up some groceries, and now I have to go over, and I, in my infinite sacrifice, will hold the door open for them as they come down the icy walk into the house, and it's in that moment my knowledge goes from intellectual, right, to experiential, right? I see the wind, but now I feel the wind. I acknowledge that it might be cold, now I'm shivering and wishing I had put on shoes. And what Peter is saying here in this text is, right, there's a difference between knowing about Jesus, and there is a difference between experiencing Jesus. That this knowledge includes both our head, knowing the facts, but also seeing how they transform us. So I want to point you to just a few of these wonderful truths that we are given in Christ.

And the first is just simply this, that we are called to follow. Peter says, "Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence." Now the church, over the last several thousand years, has very much discussed this at great length and sometimes with great emotion. The when, the where, the how, and the call of what Peter's talking about, what Paul talks about when we are called. I don't have time for a sermon series in the midst of a sermon series. So what I want to do is just show you from Peter just a small picture of this call. To try to help us understand the reality of the fact that Christ calls us. And one of the helpful ways, if you're ever trying to understand Scripture, is to look in other places, at other points,

and to see what Scripture says about itself. Think about throwing a rock into a pond and seeing the ripples come out. And so Peter has said that we are called, and so we throw a rock into the pond, and one of the first ripples that we find is this verse that I love so much in 1 Peter. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, a picture of Israel, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. So these are the pictures that we see in the call that is on our life. And I want to zoom into that last phrase, this call from darkness to light. Not that we go and find the light, but that Jesus the light comes

and calls us out of darkness. And darkness for us can be a terrifying thing because darkness tends to amplify and increase our fears. We were talking at dinner last night with some friends about those times as a kid where maybe you go down into the basement to get something, and like real basement, not like walkout basement with nice windows. But you go down in a dark basement, and then your siblings, what do they do? They turn out all the lights from upstairs, and they shut the door, and there you are in absolute darkness trying to pretend like you're not scared so that they won't make fun of you. But the reality is it's absolutely terrifying. And then the light comes on, and safety is restored. There is a sense in the call of Jesus on our life that he has

taken us very literally out of the darkness of sin and shame and brokenness and brought us into the light. Out of that terrifying place where we were to a place of light where we are. But it's so much more than that as well. At the end of my junior year in college, I preached at this little church. It was about 90 miles from my college, and so you have to get up early to drive and to make it to church in time. And long story short, on my way not very far from the town in which I was going to college in, I came about this close to being hit head-on by another car. And it turns out a bunch of the bones in my left foot were all smashed and broken, but the adrenaline of the moment made it that I didn't feel any pain whatsoever,

a feeling I've been trying to experience by increasing my caffeine consumption, right, to get to that point, where I just don't feel any pain because it's all adrenaline. And so Missouri, the problem is, on this road, not a big major road, it's 6 a.m., there's no cars, and I stand there looking with my very, very crippled car, and there's nobody. But there is a house, and at the time it seemed like it was three miles away, but it was probably like 50 yards, and so I kind of run, hobble across, and I'm feeling no pain, and I'm standing there beating on the door, and it's getting increasingly more hopeless because there's no cell phones really at that time, no walkie-talkies, there's no way of calling for help whatsoever, and then I hear my name called behind me.

And one of my buddies, who preached at a church near where I was going, usually left about 20 minutes after me, was standing on the side of the road just yelling for me because he couldn't see me. And I'll tell you what, the relief that flooded into me in that moment was both a wonderful relief, and then all of a sudden I realized I couldn't really walk anymore, right, because all the adrenaline just disappeared. But there is a picture in that of the call of Christ. Our lives, filled with brokenness, and like we read in Jeremiah, running from place to place to try to find something that refreshes and restores our soul, and every spring we go to is dry, and every door we knock on is empty, and then Jesus calls our name, and we can collapse into his strength and his loving arms.

One more biblical example. There's a person that Jesus interacts with who, first of all, comes from a wrong family. And when I say wrong family, I don't just mean that they're from the wrong side of the tracks, although they are from the wrong side of the Jordan River, but this is a family and a people who have feuded with the Israelites, involving violence and threats and insults and hate for centuries. Not only is this person from the wrong family, they're the wrong religion. When they sought to worship with Israel, they were rejected and they said, "You know what? We're going to go get our own mountain, start our own religion with our own theology and our own books." And so instead of worshiping at the Temple Mount, they've got their own mountain that they go to worship at.

And not only are they from the wrong family and they're the wrong religion, but in the first century they're also the wrong gender. Because men and women were treated very differently then than today. Women in many cases treated as lesser, as objects, as people with no will of their own. But it gets even worse that this person that Jesus meets, she's had a pretty terrible life. And in town she has a terrible reputation because of, I think the most polite way to say this is her romantic decisions. And so in her shame, instead of coming with everybody to get water to refresh her soul, in the early morning or in the early evening when it was cool, she comes in the middle of the day when nobody else would be there. But you know who was there? And who knew she was going to be there? Jesus.

And he knows her more deeply. In fact, she will tell the town, "He knows everything that I've done." And what became a moment of shame before Jesus? She meets him. She says, "He knows everything. He still wants to talk to me." She brings the town to Jesus. Jesus stays with them for several days teaching them. And it is not an accident that Jesus was where he was at the time he was and that his disciples had gone somewhere to find bread and to buy bread. What you find is that the call of Jesus isn't just out of the darkness. It's not just in our moment of weakness as we're searching for something else, but it is intentional upon our lives. And what Peter is doing is he's calling us to see that call, to remember that we were once lost in darkest night thinking we knew the way.

Just as we sing, "The sin that promised joy in life had led us to the grave, but as I ran my hell-bound race, indifferent to the cross, you looked upon my helpless state and led me to the cross." And what's remarkable, as we grow in Christ, the more we know him, the more wonderfully we see how he has called us so much more clearly. And so if you are a Christian, you are wanted, you are loved, you are called, and if you are not a Christian, there is a call for you. Let's take a look at what he says next, the wonderful truth that comes. He says this, "You are equipped for all things." What he says in the text, "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness."

One of my first jobs outside of working for family, I was supposed to be trained for two weeks, and it was a fast food job. And I showed up, walked in in my uniform, ready to watch the instructional video, fill out the instructional workbook, and then learn how everything works. But it was in the middle of the lunch rush, and the manager in charge goes, "All right, I need you over there making french fries." And I'm like, "I don't know how to make french fries. I don't know where the french fries are. Do we even have french fries?" Like, "How do I tell what people are ordering? How do I..." I had absolutely no idea. Thrown into the deep end. And it's not a good feeling when you find yourself overwhelmed in a brand new situation.

But maybe it's not a feeling of being overwhelmed with not knowing what to do, but maybe it's you know what you need to do, but you don't have what you need to do to finish it. This week, in the middle of the snow, when one of our kids decided to make bread, thinking we had parchment paper. We get a call, "Is there any parchment paper at the church because we can't find ours, and there's what we need, and we don't have it." Right? It's a frustrating feeling as well. And in our life, and in our Christian walk, there is sometimes this feeling that I'm not enough. I'm not good enough, and I'm not strong enough. And that feeling is true and right, but the reality is that God is enough, and He is strong enough, and He is good enough.

Look at what Peter says. "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness." And if you want to break down that phrase very quickly, it starts with God's power. One who speaks creation into existence. The one who is made and controls the moon and the stars and the sun. The one who upholds all things by the word of His power. In Jesus, we see it's the one who can calm the storm, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, make the blind see, and the deaf hear. This is the kind of power, the power of God that we're talking about, and has granted. The word just means gifted. Not earned. Not deserved. It's not like exercise or experience where we can sort of build ourselves up and improve, but this is a gift. And notice what he says.

His power has granted or given to us all things. Do you know what all things means? All things. Like it's everything that pertain to life and godliness. And Peter has this habit of sort of putting two words together to describe sort of a big, big idea. And in this, he's describing the Christian life, promise, and journey. The life here that he's describing is eternal life. The godliness is that transformation of our character and our behavior in Christ. So Peter says life eternal and godliness, summing up our transformation in Christ. We have gone from death to life. We have gone from sinful desires at the very end of the text to now seeking godliness. And what he's simply saying is you have all that you need. If you're discouraged, you have what you need. There is nothing that you need that you do not have in Christ. Now our hearts sometimes don't feel that way, right?

And sometimes, for me at least, that's an indication of me confusing what I want and what I need. But it can also be an indication that my heart is not looking as closely at Christ as it should be. And in Christ, we have all that we need. And maybe you're not a Christian, and you're considering Christ. You say, "I don't know if I can." And the answer is simply, "You can't." But Christ can. And He does. And He calls. And He equips you for all things. The third thing I want you to see this morning from these verses is that we are encouraged through difficulty and conflict. Listen to what Peter says. I do not have a slide for that. He has granted to us all 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. We have been called out of darkness, given all that we need, but that doesn't mean that the journey we find ourselves on is easy, right? It's easy to find ourselves overwhelmed and discouraged. So sometimes we joke about people walking to school uphill both ways. There were a few times, not a lot of times, but a few times I rode my bike to school. And it really was uphill both ways. So leaving our house, we went down the hill, up a little hill over the railroad tracks, down that little hill, up a hill, down a hill, up a really big hill, down a really big hill, and got to school. Straight line, right to the school. Now on the way back, it's up a hill, down a hill, up a hill, down a hill, and then an uphill ride to our house.

And I remember one day, I was so tired, because at recess, we had gone really, really hard. And then we had phys ed, where we had, like, run a ton of laps, played a bunch of soccer. It was like one of the few days I rode my bike, and I got done, and the kids had gone home, and I was, you know, they went home with mom, and I was going to ride my bike home, and I'm sitting there going, "I don't want to do this." And this is a confession for me, which evidently is good for the soul, because I don't think my mom knows this. But I was like, "You know what? I wouldn't have to ride home if I had a flat tire." So I just unscrewed the valve stem, took my finger there, let the air out of my tire,

and called mom, "Mom, I got a flat tire. I can't ride home." Right? Please don't tell my mom she's downstairs in class, because I think she was really annoyed that she had to come get me. But sometimes, as a Christian, that's how it feels. Like, we look at the road in front of us, and yeah, there's some times where we're coasting downhill, but there's a lot of times where it just seems like it is uphill. You see, you can have all that you need and still feel like a struggle. Look at the life of the prophets. Look at the life of the apostles. It may be struggling with sin. It may not be sin. It may be the mission that you're called to. It may be situations of grief and loss and heartbreak. And what does Peter do?

In our discouragement, and I don't think I can do this, Peter calls us to see the good promises of God. Right? They're rooted in God's character, His glory and His excellence. They're bigger than we can imagine. And I love this. It says, "The great, very great, and precious promises." And Peter wants to emphasize the size of these promises. And so mega means great. And the Greek word Peter uses, like, intensifies mega. It's like mega, mega promises. And I remember leaving Vermont the first time that I really thought about going to the Midwest. And the first time I was on my own, I was visiting, went out and visited college, and then my cousins and I road tripped back to Vermont by ourselves. And I remember walking into a gas station, and I thought sodas were all kind of came in this size.

And if you've been in the Midwest gas station, right, you can get, like, a really, really big soda. Like, I don't remember. There was, like, 48 ounces at the time. This would have been, like, 2000, or 1999. And I'm looking at this, it's like 48 cents for 48 ounces, and we're like, "Yeah, let's do it!" So we fill up and then get stuck in traffic around Chicago. It was a nightmare. But, right, drinks have gotten bigger and bigger, right? So, "Yeah, oh great, 48 ounces." We can get that at Starbucks now filled with iced coffee and have a heart attack. Or, I don't know if this is available everywhere, but, you know, the bucket, like, KFC chicken comes in? Like, you can get that filled with soda. Like, it's in a little bag, right? And stick your straw in your KFC bucket. Like, that's the mega bucket, right?

Everybody's trying to outdo each other inside. And here Peter comes and goes, "Let me tell you about the promises of God." They're not just good. They're not just big. They're not just really big. These are exceedingly great. That God's promises, and not just His promises, but the reality and the power and the strength and the gift behind them are more that you will ever see or need. He goes, "This has a practical impact on your life." He talks about being partakers. This does not mean we become God, but rather we are not an outsider. You are called into a family. You are equipped with the power of God with all that you need. You are encouraged by the promises of God. And it's a call to not just hear this and know this and say, "Oh, I'm encouraged." Peter would ask, "What are you going to do with it?"

John Bunyan, who spent a portion of his life in captivity, says this in the midst of his suffering: "The pathway of life is strewn so thickly with the promises of God that it is impossible to take one step without treading upon them." And as we look at what God has called us to, and then we begin to look at our strength. It can feel a little bit like Peter in the storm. The wind is very fast, and the waves are very big, and I am very small. And Peter at the beginning of this letter says, "I want you to know that if you know Christ, that you're called, you're equipped, you're encouraged and empowered with these promises of God." And if you are not in Christ, right, there is a contrast in this text. He says this, "His divine power has granted us all

things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who comes 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." Here's the contrast, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. We're all going to desire something throughout our life. The choice is, will you know Christ and be transformed in your desires, not by your strength, but by his, through his calling and his equipping and his promises, or will you chase those empty sisters that leave you thirsty and wanting more? Let's pray. Father in heaven, help us and encourage us in those struggles and difficulties of life. Help us to see that we are not alone,

that you have called us, equipped us, and we are encouraged by your promises. We ask that you walk with us, encourage us through your words. In Jesus' name we pray.