Today’s message is again from 2 Peter 1:1-15. Last week we covered the greeting part of the passage, verses 1 and 2 (really I talked mostly about who Peter was—about his life). This week, after reviewing last week’s part of the passage, we’ll cover the rest of the passage, verses 3-15. The apostle Peter’s purpose according to verses 12 through 15 is to be sure that his readers (that includes us) will not forget Jesus or the message of salvation or what’s necessary for us to live our lives in Jesus. Further on in this letter (not in today’s passage), Peter will warn us against false teachers and false and destructive teachings.

So we have what Peter has written, the word of God, to instruct us and to warn us, but we have to read it. Verse 15 says, “And I will also make every effort that after my departure you may be able to recall these things at any time.” We can “recall these things at any time” by reading and thinking about what Peter has written—by reading and thinking about what God has revealed to us through Peter.

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim.~3:16-17) So, as always, I encourage each of you to read your Bibles every day. (Come to our Bible study on Wednesdays, too.)

³For His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. ⁴By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires. ⁵For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, ⁶knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, ⁷godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. ⁸For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted, and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins. ¹⁰Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. ¹¹For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly supplied to you.

¹²Therefore I will always remind you about these things, even though you know them and are established in the truth you have. ¹³I consider it right, as long as I am in this tent, to wake you up with a reminder, ¹⁴knowing that I will soon lay aside my tent, as our Lord Jesus Christ has also shown me. ¹⁵And I will also make every effort that after my departure you may be able to recall these things at any time. (2 Peter~1:1-15)

In verse 1 Peter identifies himself as the writer of the letter. He identifies himself as a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ. A slave is a person who does the will of his master (or is at least supposed to). As a slave Peter’s purpose was to do what Jesus wanted him to do. (And I don’t think I pointed this out last week, but if you want to know what God’s will is, you have to be willing to do God’s will. The apostle Paul says in Romans 12:1, 2, “Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” If you want to be able to discern God’s will, you have to be willing to do it. Do you ever have trouble discerning God’s will? Maybe there’s something you think you ought to do (or maybe not do) and you really don’t want to do it (or stop doing it) but you’ve prayed and are still not sure. In order to know for sure, you have to be willing to do God’s will whatever it may be. And, by the way, it says that God’s will is perfect—good, pleasing and perfect.)

“Repent,” Peter said to them, “and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” And with many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, “Be saved from this corrupt generation!” So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about 3,000 people were added to them. (Acts~2:38-41)

Peter was a slave to Jesus and also an apostle. An apostle is someone who is sent on a mission. Peter’s mission was to spread the gospel and he did. Peter was not perfect just as we are not perfect. I talked about his life in more detail last week. But peter loved Jesus and he served Jesus.

This letter that Peter wrote is from Peter, a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ. It’s addressed to “those who have obtained a faith of equal privilege with ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” It’s addressed to all who believe in Jesus. The “faith of equal privilege with ours” is the faith that saves you. The letter is addressed to all of those down through the ages who have believed in Jesus and to all of us who believe in Jesus today. We have our salvation through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. (If you don’t have that righteousness, give yourself to Jesus and ask for it. He doesn’t turn anyone away.)

Now, let’s go on to verse 3. These are the things that Peter wants us to remember even after he’s dead and gone. Let’s look at both verse 2 and verse 3: “May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. For His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.”

I wanted to repeat verse 2 because it leads into verse 3, but especially because of Peter’s reference to God’s grace. God’s grace is God’s favor that he has shown toward us, his favor that we didn’t deserve but that he has shown us anyway. It’s because of Jesus. Peter, in verse 2, wanted God’s grace to be multiplied to those who read his letter—to those who had obtained (and remember the word translated ‘obtained’ means to get through no effort of your own) ...to those who had obtained a faith of equal privilege with the faith of the apostles and to us, also. (And remember, this favor is not for everyone, but for those who believe in Jesus.)

Peter says God has given us everything we need for life and godliness. What is life and what is godliness? First, what is life? We have an idea about the meaning of the English word ‘life’. There’s physical life. You eat and grow and reproduce. People have physical life and bacteria have physical life. We ask questions like, “Is there life on Mars?” That’s the most common meaning of life. But we also talk about spiritual life.

If you want to know what a word in the Bible means, you can look at how the word that’s translated to the English word you’re interested in is used in other passages. (You don’t have to know the original language to do it either. There are reference books and computer programs to help you.) If the word is only used once or twice the method doesn’t work. But the word translated ‘life’ (which is the Greek word ‘zoe’) is used 135 times in the New Testament. A lot of the time it has the word ‘eternal’ in front of it—‘eternal life’. Where it doesn’t have ‘eternal’ in front of it, it still means eternal life most of the time. I didn’t check out all 135 occurrences of ‘life’ (‘zoe’), but quite a few of them. Here are some examples:

You have the choice of death or of life. You either are in one place or in the other. You can choose to pass from death to life. (The NIV I think gives a better idea. You can choose to ‘cross over’ from death to life.) You do it by hearing (or reading) Jesus’s words and believing God the Father who sent him.

Acts 3:14, 15 (This is Peter preaching to the crowd at the temple after he healed the crippled man.): But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked to have a murderer given to you. And you killed the source of life, whom God raised from the dead; we are witnesses of this.

So that’s what ‘life’ is. Although it may not seem like at any given moment, there is nothing more important (for us as individuals, anyway) than having life! Do you want to have life? Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance. (John 10:10)

Peter also says in verse 3 that God has given us everything required for godliness. There are 15 places in the New Testament where the word translated ‘godliness’ is used. (Two of them are further on in today’s passage.) It turns out that ‘godliness’ is one of those words that you can’t really tell what it means from the New Testament. But it’s clear that it’s something desirable to have. One example of where it is used is from the same passage that I mentioned a minute ago where Peter was preaching to the crowd at the temple after he had healed the crippled man. This is from Acts 3:12: “When Peter saw this (that the people were amazed at the healing), he addressed the people: ‘Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this? Or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk?’” The lexicons say that the word is used in other ancient writings besides the Bible to refer to reverence to God (or to pagan gods) and also to refer to respect for your parents. According to verse 3, we have everything required for life and godliness through knowing God and knowing Jesus—through the knowledge of Him who called us by his own glory and goodness. We have everything!

Well, as far as the great and precious promises go, I’d sure say that having life sums it up. That is a promise that’s precious beyond anything we can have or experience from this world. And it’s more than just staying in existence and remaining conscious. You can stay in existence and remain conscious in hell. I’m going to read a couple of passages. The first one is what the apostle Peter says in 1 Peter. It’s from 1 Peter 1:3-9:

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by God's power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to be distressed by various trials ⁷so that the genuineness of your faith-- more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸You love Him, though you have not seen Him. And though not seeing Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter~1:3-9)

⁵Then the One seated on the throne said, “Look! I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” ⁶And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give to the thirsty from the spring of living water as a gift. ⁷The victor will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son. ⁸But the cowards, unbelievers, vile, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars—their share will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” (Revelation~21:3-8)

What is the divine nature that we may share in, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires? I’ll talk about it in just a second. It’s what’s in verses 5 through 8. The corruption that’s in the world because of evil desires is everything that selfish. It’s serving yourself at the expense of others. You can do it in big ways and in small ways. If we fix our eyes on Jesus, we can escape the world’s corruption.

Let’s look at verses 5 through 8: “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Verse 5 starts out “For this very reason...” For what reason? It’s because God has given us these great and precious promises. Peter is telling us to live up to them. Why should we live up to them? It’s so that we won’t be useless or unfruitful. But before I say anything more about that, let’s look at the list of what I guess you would call personality traits that Peter has given us.

The list starts out with faith. Peter is assuming that we already have faith. He is writing to those who have a faith of equal privilege with his. (And by the way, what is faith. It’s trusting God. It’s trusting Jesus. And, it’s also, as I’ve said before, the same Greek word that’s translated ‘faithfulness’ in many places in the Bible. Faith and faithfulness go together. Trusting God and faithfulness go together.) So Peter is assuming that we already have faith. He wants us to build on what we have—what God has given us. It’s a step-by-step process. The next step is ‘goodness’. It’s virtue, moral excellence. It’s a characteristic of God—part of his nature. It’s the same word that Peter used in verse 3 when he said, “For His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” ...his own glory and goodness, his virtue, his moral excellence. Our goal is to become like God.

The next step is to add knowledge. This means wisdom and understanding—to add wisdom and understanding. It’s the word Peter used in 1 Peter 1:7 that I read a little while ago. It’s translated ‘understanding’: “Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives with understanding of their weaker nature yet showing them honor as co-heirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.” Peter also used the word in chapter 3 verse 18 of 2 Peter: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” It’s knowing Jesus. Peter wants us to know Jesus more and more day by day. This is a process of growth in Christ.

After self-control comes godliness. I’ve already talked about godliness. It’s showing respect and reverence for God in all that we do. We absolutely should show great respect and reverence for God when we talk and when we pray. I hear many jokes about what God did or how he reacted to some situation or other. Some are told as if God could not hear. If you want to pass on some of these jokes or make a joke yourself, think carefully about whether you are showing reverence for God.

Next is brotherly affection and then finally, love. (I don’t think we necessarily learn these characteristics in the order Peter gave them, but it starts with faith and ends with love.) Our goal is love: “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor~13:13) Our goal is to become like God. He is almighty and all knowing—all wise. But his fundamental nature is love. Without love, all the other things are meaningless. Love is giving yourself on behalf of others. That’s what Jesus did. I fail every day. But the apostle John says that when we meet Jesus face-to-face, we will be like him: “Look at how great a love the Father has given us, that we should be called God's children. And we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn't know Him. Dear friends, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.” (1 John~3:1-3)

Verse 8 says, “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” What does it mean to be unfruitful? Fruit is what you expect to harvest when you plant a crop or an orchard. ‘Fruit’ in the Bible doesn’t just mean what we call fruit in English. It’s produce. It could be grain or vegetables or grapes. When you plant seeds, you want to harvest something. Fruit is what God wants to see in us. It’s all of the things Peter talked about in verses 5 through 7. Here’s a parable that Jesus told about being fruitful:

⁶A man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷He told the vineyard worker, “Listen, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it even waste the soil?”

The apostle Peter says that it starts with faith. But in verse 9 he says, “The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted, and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.” And James, the Lord’s brother, says, “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26)

Let’s look at verses 10 and 11: “Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly supplied to you.”

You know, I firmly believe that salvation is a gift from God. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. As a matter of fact, you can’t earn it. If you are trying to earn it, you probably don’t have it. Peter talked about obtaining a faith of equal privilege. I talked about the fact that the word translated ‘obtaining’ referred to something that you got without any effort on your part. Yet, we are always told to make every effort. Peter says it. Paul says it. And Jesus says it. I’m going to read Luke 13:22-25:

He said to them, ²⁴“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because I tell you, many will try to enter and won’t be able ²⁵once the homeowner gets up and shuts the door. Then you will stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up for us!’ He will answer you, ‘I don’t know you or where you’re from.’” (Luke~13:22-25)

Peter is not expecting to live much longer. Maybe he is referring to the way Jesus told him he would die—by crucifixion—I talked about it last week. Or maybe Jesus was speaking to him shortly before he wrote this letter. In any case, he is making every effort to make sure we are able to recall the things he is saying—and we are able to recall them almost 2,000 years later. So let’s make every effort. Study and meditate on the word of God. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (James~1:22) Let’s be doers of the word.

Now to Him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now, and forever. Amen.