2 Peter
1:3-4
(A
Bible Study Led by Dr. Larry Reynolds)
February
27, 2014
1. I
recently read about young mother who was preparing lunch for her 5 year old
daughter...opened a new bottle of ketch-up and was doing her best to get the
ketch-up to come out of the bottle...was beating on the bottom of the bottle
when the telephone rang...thinking the ketch-up was just about to start flowing
and not wanting to stop, the mother said, “Honey, would you answer the
telephone for me?”...the little girl walked into another room picked up
the telephone and had a brief conversation with the caller...when she returned
to the kitchen the mother asked, “Who was it?”...the little girl
said, “It was the preacher.”...the mom said, “What did he
want?”...and little girl replied, “I don’t know. When I told him you were hitting the bottle
he said he would call back at another time.”
2. Story
reminds me that sometimes the simplest things in life can be
misunderstood...while I don’t think it’s accurate to characterized the
Christian life as simple, I do think that we have a tendency to make it more
complex that it needs to be and to misunderstand the life to which God calls
us...
3. In
first chapter of 2 Peter the Apostle Peter gives to us a beautiful, well
thought out description of the Christian life...I think his purpose in writing
this chapter was to make sure that we don’t misunderstand the life to which we
are called in Christ...in 2 Peter 1 at least 7 specific things about the
Christian life are spelled out...
·
Of
equal standing before God (v.1)
·
Of
grace, peace, and knowledge (v.2)
·
Of
power and promise (vv.3-4)
·
Of
personal discipline (vv.5-9)
·
Of
perseverance (vv.10-11)
·
That
is rooted in an historical event (vv.12-18)
·
That
is focused on God’s Word (vv.19-20)
4. We
have already dealt with 2 of those 7 things...
--from
2 Peter 1:1 we saw that the Christian life is a life of equal standing before
God...in God’s kingdom there are no second or third class citizens...we saw
from verse 1 that we are all the same before God...that is true because we all
are saved in the exact same way--through faith in Jesus Christ...
--from
2 Peter 1:2 we that the Christian life is a life of knowledge...as recipients
of God’s grace we are privilege to be characterized by a growing, intimate,
personal knowledge of Him...
In
this session we will focus on verses 3-4 which tell us the Christian life is a
life of power and promise...
5. All
of us have three dimensions to our lives...we have a past...a present... and a
future...it is interesting that for those who come to faith in Jesus, God makes
full and complete provisions for every dimension of life...we find in Christ--
--forgiveness
for the past...
--strength
for the present...
--hope
for the future...
In
the first part of first chapter of 2 Peter, Peter alludes to God’s provision
for each of these three dimensions of life...
--vv.1-2
speak of the salvation and grace that we have received through faith in
Christ... it is this salvation and grace which provides us cleansing/
forgiveness for the past...
--v.3
speaks of God’s provision for the present...He gives us strength/power for
living today...
--v.4
speaks of God’s promises which provide for our future...
GOD GIVE US POWER FOR TODAY
1. The
first part of v.3 tells us that God’s “...divine power has granted to us
everything pertaining to life and godliness...”...that is an amazing statement
and it needs to be broken down phrase by phrase to be understood...
--”His
divine power” - The word translated power is “dunamis”...same
word used in Acts 1:8 where Jesus said, “You shall receive power after
the Holy Spirit has come upon you...” …our words dynamite and dynamo
both come from the word dunamis...and those words provide for us a clue
as to what kind of power is being described by this word...it is explosive
power like dynamite and it is continuing/lasting power like a dynamo or generator...and
the key thing I want you to see in the phrase “...His divine power...”
is that this power comes from God...it does not originate with us...it is not
dependent on our intellectual ability or our physical strength or our
cleverness or our stamina...it is God
power...
--”...has
granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness” - Important
not to misread that phrase...not “has granted to us everything...”...to
stop with the word “everything” will cause you to misinterpret
the purpose of God’s power in our lives...and too many people stop with that
word...
--the
purpose of God’s power in our lives is not to grant us “everything”
in terms of financial resources...
--the
purpose of God’s power in our lives is not to grant us “everything”
in terms of physical health...
Look
carefully at what this verse says...it says God’s “...divine power has
granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness...”
--word
translate “life” in this context refers to our spiritual
well-being...it’s the way Jesus used the word when He said in John 10:10, “I
come that you might have life and have it in abundance...”
--the
word translated “godliness” is very interesting...it’s a compound
word...first part means good or well...second part means to be
devout or to worship...the word carries the idea of worshiping well
or being very devout...this word is used several times in the NT to summarize
what God expects from believers..
And
when Peter says that God’s “divine power has granted to us everything
pertaining to life and godliness...” he is saying that God has given us
everything we need to live in the present the life to which he calls us...
2. Want
to make one quick point of application from this verse to our lives...if God
has really already given us “everything pertaining to life and godliness”
it logically follows then that we don’t need more...unfortunately, many
Christians just don’t understand that...they always seem to be looking for
more...a deeper revelation...a new experience...a more powerful feeling ...and
they think without such things they can never live the life they should...
3. The
people to whom Peter addressed this letter may have been thinking like
that...early in the history of the church some false teachers arose claiming to
have secret knowledge or special insights that no-one else had...they were
teaching that unless believers were privy to their carefully guarded spiritual
secrets they were in some way spiritually inferior...but in this verse Peter
repudiates such thinking...says we already have what we need...
4. Warren
Wiersbe in his commentary on 2 Peter illustrates this principle this way...he
says just as baby is born with a full genetic structure to enable that baby to
grow into a mature adult, so when a person is born again (becomes a Christian)
that person receives from Christ a complete spiritual genetic structure to
enable that person to grow into a mature Christian [Wiersbe,
Be Alert, p12]...doesn’t mean we should be stagnant...stop
growing ...stop maturing...but does mean that in Christ we already have all
that we need...
GOD GIVES US PROMISE FOR TOMORROW
Notice
how Peter describes the promises of God in that verse... he calls them “precious
and magnificent”...
--”precious”
which is one of Peter’s favorite words, means highly valued or very
costly...was used to describe something which obviously had great
value...didn’t need an expert appraisal, could tell just by looking that the
object was very costly...that’s how God’s promises are, Peter says...on their
face it is obvious they have great value...
--”magnificent”
- The root of that word is the Greek word megas from which our word mega
comes...it means large, huge, of great significance...
What
is it that makes God’s promises to us highly valued and very significant? In 2 Peter 1:4 the Scripture answers that
question in two ways...
God’s promises are precious and
magnificent because of their source
1. There’s
an important thing about 2 Peter 1:4 want you to see...notice begins with the
phrase “For by these...”...”For by these He has granted to
us His precious and magnificent promises...”....that phrase looks back
to the end of v.3 where the “glory” and “excellence”
of God are mentioned...those are two great words...
--”glory”
comes from a word which originally meant reputation or fame...
--”excellence”
is sometimes translated virtue and it refers to excellence of
character...
2. And
what Peter is saying by beginning this verse about God’s promises with the
phrase “For by these...” is that the promises of God rest upon
His reputation and His character...we can depend on them...rely on them...trust
them because they come from God, Himself...
1. Sounds
redundant and elementary to say God’s promises are from God... but it is
important that we not overlook that...Peter does not speak in this verse of
just “...precious and magnificent promises...”...he speaks of “...His
precious and magnificent promises...”...and that pronoun “His”
makes all the difference in the world...the promises are great because they
come from a great God!...
2. Obviously,
a promise is only as good as the person making the promise... if the “promiser”
is unreliable, then the promise is unreliable...but if the “promiser” is
reliable, then the promise is reliable as well...
God’s
promises are precious and magnificent because of their purpose
1. It
would not be inaccurate to describe the Bible itself as a book of
promises...someone has calculated that there are approximately 3000 promises in
God’s Word...in this verse Peter sums up the purpose of God’s promises to
us…that purpose is ”...that by them you might become partakers of the
divine nature...”
2. The
biblical message is that we have in us the “imago deo” - the image of
God...God made us to be like Him...but we have chosen our way over His
way...disobedience over obedience...and because of that we have fallen and we
are less than God intended for us to be...and all the promises God gives us in
Scripture are aimed at reconciling that relationship and renewing that divine
nature which God has placed inside of us...
3. Think
that is what Peter means when says at end of this verse that through the divine
nature God has given us we have “...escaped the corruption that is in the
world by lust...”
4. What
want you to see in all that the purpose of God’s promises to us is to equip us
to live the full, complete, meaningful lives God created us to live...
CONCLUSION
I
remember reading about a very poor family from Europe taking a ship to the
United States....on night before they sailed, some friends gave them a basket
of bread and cheese for the journey...and that is all the family had to eat for
the first few days of the trip...finally tired of stale bread and moldy cheese,
the sone begged his father for something different...the father took a small
portion of their limited funds and allowed the son to search the ship for food
to purchase...when the boy did not immediately return, the father went to look
for him...he found the boy sitting at a large table in the dining room which
was covered with food...the father was stunned...he knew the small amount of
money he had given his son could not possibly cover the cost of such food...he
chastised the boy for bringing shame on the family by eating food for which
they could not pay...and the boy said, “But father, you don’t
understand. All of this food is included
in the cost of our passage. We could
have been eating here every day!” [Raymond
H. Bailey, quoted in Brian’s Lines, V.18, Issue 2, March/April, 2002,
p.23]
And
like that uninformed family, many Christians are trying to live on stale
spiritual bread and moldy cheese when in reality God’s “divine power has
granted to us…” and we are the recipients of “His precious and magnificent
promises…”
