All Things Given for Life and Godliness

Transcript

GR 1956
06/22/2016
All Things Given for Life and Godliness
II Peter 1:3-4
Gil Rugh

We are going to II Peter and the first chapter. It is amazing how the Lord used this fisherman from Galilee to make such a great impact in the world in which he lived and an impact that continues down to our day through the way the Lord used him not only in writing these two letters but in the record Luke wrote in the book of Acts in the opening chapters of the great role that Peter played in bringing the church into existence and getting it established.

II Peter is of a similar vein emphasis as his first letter in that it deals with suffering and difficulty that God’s people are having. These are Jewish believers scattered outside the land of Israel. They are now part of the church that God has established but they are Jews in their identity. We saw that in his first letter and then in chapter 3 of this letter he says he’s writing this second letter to the same group of people.

The first letter dealt primarily with the persecution and opposition that came from outside the church. This letter deals with persecution and difficulty and trial and opposition but that is coming from within the church. The church being infiltrated by those whose doctrine and life style was contrary to the truth of the Word of God. And Satan is a master opponent of God’s people and he doesn’t just use one methodology. He’s happy to attack from without and sometimes that is less effective so he moves to infiltrate among God’s people with counterfeits which tend to be more disruptive and damaging.

The nation Israel is a picture of what Peter is concerned about. Come back to the book of Hosea. You know where Daniel is so if you get to Daniel the next book after Daniel is Hosea in your Old Testament. So you would move through those large prophetic books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel then you come to Daniel, then you come to Hosea and we move through those smaller prophetic books that conclude our Old Testament.

In the book of Hosea chapter 4 note how the chapter begins: “Listen to the Word of the Lord, O sons of Israel for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land.” So this is written to the nation that He had chosen for Himself. He said, “Pay attention, the Lord has a case against you because there is no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land. Rather there is swearing, deception, murder, stealing, adultery, vileness, blood-shed.” I mean this is a nation that God has chosen for Himself. There is no knowledge of God in the land. That is where it has come to. The people to whom God had revealed Himself most fully, the people to whom God had given His Word, the New Testament reminds us that one of the greatest blessings of Israel was they were given the Word of God. The prophets brought their message to the nation Israel.

Down in verse 6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge I will also reject you from being My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.” That is what had happened to Israel in the Old Testament. “They are destroyed because of lack of knowledge because they had rejected knowledge.” They have in their possession; they have the law, the prophets. Hosea is a prophet bringing God’s truth but it is something they reject. They choose to have a lack of knowledge by rejecting the knowledge God gives.

So when you come to Peter in II Peter chapter 1, Peter is concerned that a thorough correct knowledge of God is absolutely essential as the foundation for God’s people. It is this true knowledge of God that transforms. It is the true knowledge of God that enables His work to go on in His people, to build His character in them. So his concern for these Jewish believers is that they not deteriorate into the condition of Israel but rather they continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the greatest defense against error. It still is the pattern that Satan follows. Not just to directly attack the Word of God or infiltrate, counterfeit. First you have to weaken people and you do that by what? Progressively making them more comfortable with less of the knowledge of the Lord. And so they become – “Oh we still want to worship the Lord but we want it to be practical. We want it to be moving. We want it to be interesting. We want it to be enjoyable” and there is less and less serious consideration of the Word of God and the less you understand of God’s Word the less equipped and prepared you are to deal with those who would corrupt the Word of God. And so the people of God find themselves accepting things that are contrary to God’s truth under the guise of things like, well, I don’t see any harm in it. I think there could be some good in it. I think we want to be open to what God is doing in other ways in other people and this kind of thinking erodes confidence in the Word of God.

I was thumbing through some of the recent theological quarterlies I receive from Evangelical institutions and it just appalls me what is presented as something we ought to be open to. They are really undermining your confidence in the Word of God. What you thought the Word of God was saying, it’s doubtful whether that’s really what it is saying. People want to speak of the value of men that in the past time would have been viewed as heretics, men like Carl Barth noted to neo-orthodoxy which is neither new nor orthodox but now Christians want to honor him. What in the world is going on? How does this infiltrate here? And it will come down into the churches. It comes a little different way. We just become more comfortable with lighter, less, you know, more practical, helpful and we end up with a superficial knowledge of the Word of God.

I had an opportunity a few years ago to have lunch with a person who has spent most of his adult life as a professional person, well-educated and spent most of his adult life in an evangelical church. I was appalled at the inability to talk about what we would consider basic Biblical truths and understand how essential they were to us as believers so that weakening goes on subtly.

I sometimes talk to people who are moving to other places and so on, to other churches but remember you have to continue to grow in your knowledge of the Lord and you are going to raise your children in this environment and in this context. If they are not being taught the Word we ought to be praying regularly for those who work with our children and young people that the Word of God would be built into their lives, seriously and we praise God for those who take that ministry seriously.

So here is where Peter is. He opened up identifying himself, those he is writing to in verse 1. He is “writing to those who have received the faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of God our Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” You know that grace, saving grace and peace that is continual. It is multiplied to us. It is through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. We are not done. We continue to grow in that knowledge and His grace and peace are multiplied to us.

So we pick up with verse 3. It starts out: “Seeing that” or you could begin it as a new sentence as all things have been granted to us. Really at the beginning of that sentence as Peter wrote it is “to us everything.” And the emphasis is on “the everything, the all things that have been provided for us in Christ.” “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” Basic truth, basic foundational truth. His divine power is central here. This is provided by God. Perhaps the person we are talking about is Christ at the end of verse 2 but either way the point is the same. God the Father, God the Son, the power comes from God. It is divine power that is necessary. It is foundational to everything. We are talking about what only God could accomplish for us. His divine power has granted to us. He has given something to us. This perfect participle which indicates something that has happened in the past but it continues on. His divine power has granted as an abundant gift to us. That is emphasis. God is a generous God and He has bestowed upon us, granted to us, given us as a generous gift; to us, to us, everything, all things, no limitation here. This is what begins the sentence as we have talked about before in Greek as in some other languages. You can rearrange the wording and so here what you want to put the emphasis on you just put it at the beginning of the sentence. So “As to us, all things, everything has been granted by His divine power.” It is the completeness of the provision made for us in Christ, “His divine power has granted to us all things, everything pertaining to life and godliness.” Now he is not primarily focused here on physical things, houses, you know those kinds of things. He is talking about spiritually. Some would combine this, “pertaining to life and godliness” to a life of godliness which would be the same idea. To our spiritual life to living godly. Everything pertaining to our spiritual life, to a godly life has been granted to us in Christ Jesus. It is a life that is pleasing to God. That is what a godly life is. Godly is to be pleasing to God, to be living as God would have us live.

You will note and as believers it is a reminder to these believers that Peter is writing to and it is recorded for our benefit. There is not something more, there is not something else. In the package of our salvation is included everything necessary for the life that we now live. This relates to what we talked about earlier today, with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit taking up residence within us so that John could write in his first epistle “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” That’s the almighty God who dwells within us, has come to us as part of His provision in salvation so that in Christ He has provided everything necessary for life and godliness. That solves a lot of the problems in the church right away. Well, how does this come to us? He continues on “Through the true knowledge of Him who called us. Through the true knowledge of Him who called us.” You note in verse 2 he had said, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God.” The basic Greek word for knowledge, ginosko. You have translated here it says, “True knowledge” because sometimes the word for knowledge ginosko has a preposition on the front and you have epiginosko and sometimes that is taken, depending on the context to denote perhaps a fuller knowledge, a more complete knowledge, emphasizing knowledge. That is the same word as in verse 2 as it is in verse 3 if my memory serves me correctly. It only lasts about 45 minutes these days but I remember, I think it is the same word even though in our English we put true knowledge, that full knowledge, that real knowledge. It comes “Everything pertaining to life and godliness comes through that knowledge of Him who called us.” That is why we continue to focus our time in the study of God’s Word, in learning it, in building it into our lives because His grace and peace is multiplied to us as we grow in this knowledge and it is in this knowledge of Him that everything we need for life and godliness is provided.

You know why Christians get off track and churches get off track? Somewhere along the line they begin to think that what we have in Christ is sufficient up until here. When I was in seminary so that is not new teaching, they said, “Well, as a pastor and Bible teacher you will have to realize that when some of the problems that you face in people’s lives are beyond your ability to deal with.” Even then how does a student – that doesn’t make any sense. You are telling me that the Word of God is sufficient for the smaller issues of life. He tells me this is everything necessary for my life of godliness. So dealing with sin, dealing with temptation, dealing with trials, the world sends people to anger management. The Bible sends us to Christ. That is how we deal with sin. The world sends people to institutions to help them with alcoholism. The Bible says drunks ought to come to Christ and on and on and on. Somewhere we wander away. Well, you know what happens? The grace and peace is not multiplied to us. We are off the rails. We have left the path. He has provided for us as a generous gift. That is the word granted, everything, all things necessary for our spiritual life and godliness. That is a great encouragement. It comes through the true knowledge, the full knowledge, the correct knowledge of Him who called us. He calls us. We are talking about believers. He is addressing believers, reminding them of the foundation. He called us. That refers to what we call the effectual call of God. It is effectual because it is always effective. In other words when the Epistles of the New Testament, what we talk about those whom God has called it is always a call that has resulted in salvation. It is true in the Epistles. It is not just a general invitation to all men. The call here refers to that call that brought them to salvation in Christ. “It is through the true knowledge of Him who calls us.” That One who through His work drew us to Christ.

Back in I Peter chapter 1, verse 15: “Like the holy One who called you. Be holy yourselves in all your behavior;” the One who called you. In effect drew you to His salvation. While you are in I Peter look down in chapter 2, verse 9, the last part of the verse: “That you may proclaim the excellency of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” That is His call.

Come back to Romans 8, Romans chapter 8 and verse 28: “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” If He called us according to His purpose we know that all things will work together for good because He has laid out what is for us. “For whom He foreknew He always predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” That is the process that is going on right now that we talked about earlier today, our sanctification that will be brought to ultimate realization when we are glorified. “So that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. To these whom He predestined He also called and those whom He called He also justified.” So you see those who were called that is part of God’s predetermined plan to bring them to salvation so that when God calls there is a supernatural drawing on the person’s heart and mind that causes them ultimately to see that they are sinners in need of the Savior and turn in faith to Him and they are the ones then justified, declared righteous by God and those who will also be glorified. So that call of God in the Epistles. In the Gospels it is a broader call. There “Many are called, few are chosen.” When you come into the Epistles it is used in a more limited way, almost synonymously in that sense with chosen.

Come back to Peter. He called us through the knowledge of Him and granted to us all that is necessary; “Through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” The point being the call of God was not based on something in you or in me, a value and worth to God. He called us on the basis of His own glory and excellence. Similar words in their meaning, His glory, excellence, that which is worthy of praise and honor. He called out of His own person. He didn’t call, you know sometimes it is going around a while and hopefully it has died its own death, well Christ died for you because you are so valuable as though God was going to gain something, a benefit for Himself. We never want to lose sight of our true condition apart from God’s saving grace. He called us out of His own glory and excellence. It came out of His own person; nothing in us but Himself.

Back up to Ephesians chapter 1, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and the first chapter. And you pick up in verse 3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” Very similar to God having provided everything for us for a life of godliness. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. It is all there as part of what He has given us in Christ. “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before Him. We were predestined to adoption as sons to the praise of His glory.” We have forgiveness of our trespasses because of the redemption He provided in His blood in verse 7. Verse 12: He accomplished this all “to the end that we were the first hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.” This is all His doing. Verse 5 said “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the kind intention of His will.” What you have in the margin is the way the King James had it. I think it sounded maybe too harsh. He did it according to His good pleasure. We have the “kind intention of His will.” It was the good pleasure of His will. Why would God save you? Why would God save me at the cost of His only begotten Son? It pleased Him to do it. Out of His own character, the glory and excellence He chose to intervene on our behalf. That is the point.

Come back to 2nd Peter. You know what this does is remind us that salvation is God’s work from beginning to end. We have a responsibility and an accountability before God. Now as His child I exercise my will. Sadly sometimes I exercise my will not to draw upon the power and enabling grace that is there for me to live every moment of every day pleasing to Him but He has provided – it is there and the fact that I do and you as a believer do, live lives that are pleasing and honoring to Him, producing fruit as a testimony of His ongoing grace in our lives.

Verse 4: “For by these, (His own glory and excellence) He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises.” He has granted. Same word as we had in verse 3, “granted.” Here you have a perfect tense to denote something that happened in the past the results continue. “He has granted to us” so they are ours in an ongoing way. He granted them to us when we came into a relationship with Christ by faith. “He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises.” These promises center in the salvation He provided in Christ. They are precious, magnificent promises. The promises that we have, what? We have life in Christ. We have the hope of glory in Christ. We have the assurance of a cleansing that is so complete that someday we will be able to be presented in the presence of a holy God as those holy and blameless and without spot. How great are these promises, how magnificent. I love that word here. “He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises so that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature.” By these promises – “Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son in order that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.” I mean what great promises and through believing in them, through these promises, through the truth of the Gospel you become a partaker of the divine nature. These are the promises of our salvation.

Back in I Peter chapter 1 Peter referred to this. Verse 17, verse 18 for time: “Knowing you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” Verse 22: “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren. Fervently love one another from the heart for you have been born again not with seed which is perishable but imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God” and then verse 25: “This is the Word which was preached to you.” The riches of what God has promised. In chapter 1 of I Peter: “Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance.” These are those precious, magnificent promises. We come to believe in what God has promised. He will save us from our sins. He will cleanse us, make us new.

We become partakers of the divine nature. What an awesome statement. It doesn’t mean we become deity. We can’t become deity. One of the attributes of deity God is eternality. I had a beginning. I can’t be God. We can become partakers of the divine nature. What He is in His moral character is going to be reproduced in His children. “So by this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious” John wrote in the I John chapter 2. It is obvious who are the children of God and the children of the devil. “Those who practice sin are of the devil. Those who practice righteousness are the children of God. They partake of His divine nature.” He changes us from the inside. That is the point. Before we proceed with this note the last part of this, “Having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” This goes together. When you became a partaker of the divine nature you escaped the corruption of the world which is there by their sinful desires. You must see that together.

Here is another way the church gets off track. We want to reform the world. We want them to stop their sinful practices. How can they do this? How can they…? We end up denying the Gospel. You must become a partaker of the divine nature to escape the corruption that is in the world because of lust and those who do not become partakers of the divine nature have no hope of escaping the corruption that is in the world because of lust and those under the guise, we’ve got evangelicals involved in the political system and everything else and they are undermining what we are here to proclaim regarding the truth of the Gospel. I mean because you have this in your presidential platform what? Therefore God will be more pleased. Obviously we are happy to have sinful practices curtailed but you know it doesn’t help. Jesus had to tell the most religious people of His day what? The harlots and the thieves and everyone else are going to be going into the kingdom and you are going to be kept out. He didn’t say, “Well at least you have some standards of immorality and that is better.”

What is the Gospel? Does the church know it? We get drawn in and think we are a power block. We have something. “You escape the corruption that is in the world by lust by becoming a partaker of the divine nature.” There is no other escape. You must be born again. That’s it. You must be born again. Like Nicodemus coming to Christ in John 3. “Unless you are born again you will never see the kingdom.” When you are born again, what? You are born into God’s family. He becomes your spiritual Father. You become a partaker of the divine nature, now life is changed and if it is not changed you never partook of the divine nature. That doesn’t mean you live a sinless life but you do live a new life. That is why John could say, “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Those who practice sin are of the devil. Those who practice righteousness…” That doesn’t mean we want to tell people stop practicing sin. They can’t clean up their life and thus make themselves acceptable to God.

Key verse. I hope you will remember it and fix it in your mind. “You become partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” That is the only hope. Of course the world is on a sinful pattern, consumed by the lust, their sinful desires. Where do they come from?

Come back to Mark chapter 7, Mark chapter 7. What does he say? Their problems are not external, their problems are internal. It is not the outside things that are your problem, it is your inside condition in verse 20 of Mark 7 “that which proceeds out of man is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulterers, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these things proceed from within.” It is Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things.”

We as believers begin to drift when we begin to minimize the seriousness of sin. Men are simply reflecting what is in their heart. As soon as certain sinful practices are accepted by enough people everybody is ready to jump in and then they begin to condemn those who say it is sin. Now we are not going to say that is not sin, it is sin, but the solution is not for you to try to clean up your life and stop practicing that sin. The solution is for you to recognize you can’t clean up your life in such a way that it will make it acceptable to God. Only God can change a heart. That is the whole argument.

The Pharisees and religious leaders of the Jews were in the business of cleaning up the outside of the cup, of whitewashing the tomb, the pictures that Jesus gave but nothing has changed the inside. The church gets involved and they set the Gospel on a back shelf. We feel like we are really doing something. We have abandoned what God has placed us here to do.

A couple of other passages, one or two and then we will stop. Come to Ephesians chapter 4. You note how chapter 4 opens up. He has talked about the doctrine, about the salvation that God has provided in the first three chapters and then he begins to apply that in chapter 4. In Ephesians 4:1: “I therefore the prisoner of the Lord employ you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” We have been called to be holy as He is holy we saw in Peter’s first letter and what characterizes that, humility, gentleness, patience and so on and then you come down to verse 17 you have the contrast: “This I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer as the Gentiles walk in the emptiness of their mind.” So you see you walk in a manner worthy of your calling. You don’t walk like the unbeliever walks.

Verse 22: “In reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old self which is being corrupted in accord with the lust of deceit. You made new in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self (the new man) which is in the likeness of God.” Because what? We become partakers of the divine nature; “Created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” That is why it comes out.

He goes on down to chapter 5: “Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love just as Christ loved you.” Down in verse 8: “You were formerly darkness, now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” Verse 15: “Be careful how you walk.” You live your life under the control of the Spirit in verse 18. This is what God has provided for us in Christ. Think about it. We become partakers of the divine nature. The moral character of God now produced in us so we can be a testimony before the world of God’s transforming grace. It is an encouragement to us that this is His plan and His provision to provide for us everything necessary for us to live these godly lives and a reminder. It is not because we are better than other people, not because we don’t do some of the worst of the sins that other people do. It is because we have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust by becoming partakers of the divine nature. You must be born again. There is no other way. There is no other hope.
So we don’t come to the world with the message, clean things up. God is unhappy with you the way you are. God is your enemy the way you are but you can’t clean yourself up. In trying to clean yourself up just emphasizes your enmity toward God and your resistance toward what He has provided. I say “Stop trying to clean up yourself and recognize you can’t do it and place your faith in the Savior God has provided.” He provides the cleansing within that enables us now to live differently.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for so great salvation. Lord may we hold on to these basic foundational rich truths. Lord may they shape our thinking. May they influence and determine how we live our lives day by day. May we be encouraged, strengthened and be reminded that You have provided everything necessary. You are there with Your enabling grace, Your sufficiency and that is why we can live for You every moment of every day. May that be the commitment that we have as we face the week before us we pray in Christ’s name, amen.