Power, Promise, and Transformation (2 Peter 1)

[0:00] This past Friday, I'm sure you noticed this, I hope you noticed this, if you noticed things like this, another movie, if you noticed this about Queen Elizabeth I, Elizabeth I, has opened.

[0:16] I think I want to hear that, see that movie. She, Elizabeth I, she's apparently an endlessly interesting figure for a lot of reasons.

[0:30] And she was born in 1533, died in 1603, became Queen, I believe, 1559, so 1559 to 1603, that is a long reign, isn't it?

[0:44] And when her part, she's going to be played by Kate, it is played by Kate Blanchett, it becomes a must-see, I would think, you know, she's a great, great woman, Kate Blanchett.

[0:56] Apparently, it was in the later years of her reign that one Richard Hooker, an iconic founder figure you might call Richard Hooker in the world of Anglicanism, Richard Hooker, he wrote and summarized the doctrine of justification in his what's called Learned Treatise of Justification.

[1:21] And I want to begin today by just reading a bit of it. It's a bit, it's a bit of a long paragraph, but I hope you'll bear with me. I'll leave and keep the old-fashioned language in there, but I think it's very much, I trust it, it's very much worth, worth hearing.

[1:37] This quote, so Richard Hooker, I don't know if you're familiar with, he's a great Anglican thinker of that day. It's from A Learned Treatise of Justification.

[1:48] You'll find it in his famous book that keeps him famous in the world of theology and church history, laws of ecclesiastical polity.

[1:59] So from that famous volume, this paragraph from, again, A Learned Treatise of Justification, this learned man says, The righteousness wherein we must be found, if we will be justified, is not our own.

[2:18] Therefore, he continues, we cannot be justified by any inherent quality. Very profound thing to say. Cannot be justified by any inherent quality.

[2:31] Christ has merited righteousness for as many as are found in him. In him, God findeth us, if we be faithful. For, he says, by faith, we are incorporated into him.

[2:46] Then, he continues, then, although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man, one, which in himself is impotent, full of iniquity, full of sin, him, this man, being found in Christ and through faith, and having his sin and hatred through repentance.

[3:10] Him, God, beholdeth with a gracious eye, puteth away his sin by not imputing it, taketh quite away the punishment due thereunto by pardoning it.

[3:21] Includes like this, and accepteth him, this one, in Jesus Christ, as perfectly righteous, as if, as if he had fulfilled all that is commanded him in the law.

[3:37] And a quote from Richard Hooker. Again, there's a lovely statement about justification by faith from a great Anglican. So says, so writes Richard Hooker.

[3:49] Hooker was self, I can't talk about him anymore today, but he was self, I'm glad Jim Packers might be here just now, he was self-consciously not a Puritan. But he was also very self-consciously not a Roman Catholic.

[4:03] And here, he stands, doesn't he exactly, could you bring me Luther, he stands exactly with Luther there, almost the language of, at the same time, a sinner and justified, that punch in language that Luther made famous, at the same time, I'm a sinner and I'm justified.

[4:24] That's how it is with me in Christ. They almost rise right up out of Hooker's word there. He's obviously in that tradition. In the 16th century, so stood the Protestants, instructed chiefly by, again Luther, and certainly instructed by Calvin.

[4:45] It was then, and should be now, I take it heard or as seen as lightning. Those words are the most radical words of the gospel in the church, I think.

[4:59] There are no more radical words than that. They are. They were received in the 16th century as just shocking. They're filled with implications for life, for how human beings live together, what the church will look like, what a society will look like.

[5:17] Again, it should be seen as lightning. Karl Barth, the famous theologian, talked about lightning from Geneva. And it certainly is. Those words are lightning. God confers righteousness.

[5:31] You have nothing in you inherently that can achieve it. God confers it. Again, this is further by way of introduction. Elizabeth I's father, you'll recall, was Henry VIII.

[5:44] And good old Henry, a blessed Henry, dissolved monasteries, didn't he? Why did he do that? Well, of course, the historians go to town on that kind of question, and they say things like, aristocracy of England wanted all that wealth.

[6:00] And probably they did. Or urbanization was occurring for different social, technological changes were occurring, causing urbanization, and it was centering economic and social power amongst the rising commercial class.

[6:18] And monasticism was therefore a social and economic anachronism just waiting to die away. It just needed a push. There are many explanations out there. But the real reason, the theological reason, speaking bluntly, is that the very nature of piety, if you will, the nature of life with God, was being revolutionized by this new doctrine that's received in the 16th century, this new doctrine of justification by faith.

[6:50] That hard work, being an athlete for God, and Neil talked about those chaps who went off into the desert to seek to be closer to God. That was a tradition that was honored by the reformers when they put this doctrine front and center, Luther's great discovery.

[7:09] It had an impact on how, a massive impact on how the church would look like. So things like what Elizabeth's father, Henry, did in the monasteries, was one of the results of it probably.

[7:20] Around this idea, everything turned in that day. Beneath the tragic fog of wars and revolutions and tumults of that time, tragically again, the question was, is this doctrine true?

[7:38] That is to say, you can firm that up more. Did Jesus and the apostles intend us to know and believe what this doctrine asserts? Of course, reform said yes, and late medieval Catholicism said no, more or less no.

[7:54] They sometimes came very close to saying yes to the return. But they kind of said no. These two trajectories were quite different. Thinking through these issues, especially this issue, with real intellectual and moral integrity, is hard work.

[8:09] Perhaps it's the hardest work of all for the Christian. As in all disputes, pride and vanity and pardoned spirit and caricature of the other guy's position is always rampant.

[8:22] But there he is. Each side, ultimately, thought that to be wrong, finally wrong about this, this issue meant everything.

[8:35] Who will stand, who will be destroyed on the day of judgment? was here decided. And hence, this fed the intolerance of those centuries.

[8:46] The passionate engagement and the wise tolerance are very rare. They were rare then. They are probably still quite rare today. How can I find justification?

[8:58] Isn't that a perennial question? It leaps out of the 16th century. It's the question that every human being has to have dealings with. How can I find justification?

[9:11] I like the way one modern Anglican, as it turns out, theologian puts it in another, sort of, just another slight view of it. He says, how, that question is, how can I defeat accusation?

[9:25] As you go through life, something will accuse you. We know we fall short. How can I defeat the accusations that are leveled truly against me?

[9:37] Justification by faith answers that for the final question. How we read a passage like 2 Peter chapter 1 will be shaped, I would say, shaped decisively by the kind of theological sensibility, this is pointing out the obvious, theological sensibility, I may call it that, which we bring to our reading of this morning will be sent in passage to Peter chapter 1.

[10:02] So, as we read through 2 Peter chapter 1, I hope it's an interesting passage and it's just to ponder from the word of God, the word of God, 2 Peter 1, we receive it as, to keep in mind, let me just make, we'll gesture back at Hooker's words about justification by faith.

[10:22] Luther's teaching, Calvin's teaching, the teaching of the great formularies of the ancient church. I'll have reference to it as we go through 2 Peter chapter 1.

[10:34] It's going to turn now to that passage and struggle with it. Allow it, that's the important thing, isn't it, when we attend to the word of God, allow it, 2 Peter chapter 1 of his case, to speak to us.

[10:49] And since we're listening to an apostle, let's begin by hearing an apostle, just before we move into the passage itself. And then, since we have heard from an old Anglican, very old Anglican, we'll pray the prayer of another old Anglican as we begin.

[11:08] The apostle says, therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Just as there we are.

[11:18] We are justified by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

[11:33] As I said, Paul, please. Archbishop, pray for our opening prayers. Bow our heads. Almighty Father, who has given thine only Son to die for our sins and to rise for our justification, grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve thee in pureness of living and in truth through the merits of the same thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

[12:06] Amen. Amen. So let's have speech from me. Paul, Cranmer, and now back to Peter. I hope you got up. Bill decided we're going to have the scriptures in pink today.

[12:19] We've got a pink sheet in front of you which has 2 Peter chapter 1. I'm just going to jump in and just look at the word of God for a while.

[12:32] See how it begins up there, up there or in front of you or in the scriptures if you have them open. Simeon, Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.

[12:43] I was writing this out and I was doing it from memory and I think I've got a lot of NIV mixed in my work here with there. So sometimes it jiggles a bit.

[12:54] That's the reason. Simeon, Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. Famously, for some reason, you know, Simon, that is without the E up there, is Greek and Simeon is a transliteration of the Hebrews.

[13:10] I mean, this is the commentary I get around going on and on but that. Peter always had, more to the point, Peter always had name issues, didn't he? As he was renamed by his Lord.

[13:23] I can't imagine what that was actually like for Peter. It was always noted in the gospel but then it's forgotten. Peter one day was told by this man as well, why do I am renaming you? He had a big name issue.

[13:36] What have you thought about that every day? Jesus Christ, if you are his disciple, owns you and may rename you. Have we got that straight as Christians?

[13:48] Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ today? He has the right if he decides to rename you. He owns you. You are his servant.

[13:59] You are his slave. He owns you. He decides what your name will be. And essentially, this is sort of an oversight, overview of this whole epistle, certainly the first chapter.

[14:15] 2 Peter is about this ownership issue if you will. You are not your own, said another apostle. You are not your own. You were bought with a price.

[14:27] The slaves were bought. You are not your own. You were bought with a price. Jesus Christ owns you. He may remain you. Peter is both a servant and apostle, he says right off the bat.

[14:40] Peter is both Peter, Simeon Peter, servant and apostle. Servant and apostle, those are interesting words. He is a humble one as a servant, and as apostle he is fully commissioned by Christ Jesus.

[14:53] Straightforward stuff. A humble servant, but he's fully commissioned to be an apostle by Christ Jesus. What Peter teaches, and the Anglican Church in some circles, this needs to be restated, what Peter teaches as what Paul teaches has Christ's authority.

[15:10] And on that issue turns much church dispute, as Anglicans know right now. Sure. More, I would want to say that we are related to the apostles.

[15:23] This is a letter from Peter. The word of God doesn't hide who wrote it. Peter, he says, almost we might be permission to say this is a kind of letter from Peter, which is from heaven.

[15:36] Second Peter also, I find this delightful, mentions Paul, our beloved brother, who is called in chapter 3 and verse 15, our beloved Paul. Each died for Christ, Peter and Paul.

[15:48] Each of these men died for Christ. John, we were reminded by Dr. Sleighmaker a few weeks ago, was exiled for Christ. This is not mere, it seems to me, Christian Bible knowledge.

[16:01] Our faith is always and forever deeply, it's after nine o'clock so I can say these words now, metaphysically, even ontologically personal.

[16:13] Our faith is personal. The mystery of persons in relationship, of famous language now let loose in Trinitarian discussions is very beautiful language it seems to me.

[16:25] The mystery of persons in relationship is forever and absolute in our faith. It just is. Persons are at the center of it, forever.

[16:37] We will never get beyond this. There is no beyond this. What we do with, how we relate to the other is forever important to our creator.

[16:48] This will be judged how we relate to others on the day of Christ. God is one God in relationship. God is a person in relationship.

[17:00] Trinity, the greatest mystery ever to enter the mind of man, as quote it, is all about that persons in relationship. We say, well, who would disagree with that?

[17:11] Buddhists would. They say, no, persons are not. That's something it has. Personality, whatever it is, whatever you define it, person is forever.

[17:23] We'll never get beyond it. God is a person. And I ask myself, do I believe, do I expect somehow to know, for instance, someone named Simon Peter in heaven?

[17:35] Are we clear today about our supernaturalism? Do we look forward to heaven? Peter urges, you'll recall, this desire for heaven as crucial to a pursuit of godliness in chapter 3, verses 10 and 11.

[17:52] Look forward to heaven. heaven. It's what we should desire. And then the greeting, the salutation continues, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

[18:14] Have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours in the righteousness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's what words those are. This greeting is a kind of reformed Christianity or an evangelical Catholic Christianity in one simple formulation.

[18:34] There is a faith held by the apostles, it's those of equal standing with ours, refers there to the apostolic group. Off the page, so to speak, there are others known to the recipients of this letter.

[18:50] Again, one other is mentioned, as noted earlier in this epistle, Paul by name, Paul is mentioned. We, according to this salutation, we hearing this message have a faith of equal standing, of equal standing with something.

[19:11] They, the apostles, have authority, and this authority reflects the authority of Jesus Christ. We have a faith of equal standing with theirs in Jesus Christ.

[19:23] I talked about this earlier with a brother. The one who washed his disciples' feet lays down the paradigm of what authority will look like amongst in the church.

[19:36] The one who washed his disciples' feet, the apostles wish to serve us in their teaching, not lauding in over our faith, but servants of our joy, voice, as Paul's accrued to it.

[19:50] The object of this faith is Jesus Christ. This is the point of the obvious that's in front of us here today to begin with. The object of this faith is Jesus Christ, the one who is our righteousness.

[20:03] All other forms of righteousness, the world is filled with such forms God rejects. that is why the gospel is often a offense to people.

[20:15] It inevitably, obviously, or sometimes not so obviously, just quietly puts aside all human attempts at being righteous, at getting it right in your life.

[20:30] Peter witnesses to this indirectly or quietly when he says that on the holy mountain, the divine voice said, this is my beloved son, at 117, we'll see this, this is my beloved son, whom I am well pleased.

[20:47] That's a very pungent word. It really, it means amongst other things that God looks at every human being and is not pleased with him.

[20:59] But he looks at his son Jesus and he is pleased. So Jesus is in and we're out. Put it bluntly. But in him, we're in. Then we hear about grace and peace.

[21:13] Our salvation begins in grace and its end, its issue, its outcome is peace. What a lovely thing for Peter to say to us right off the bat there.

[21:26] May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Grace and peace. peace. Again, salvation begins in grace and it ends in peace.

[21:39] I wonder if Peter's remembering moments in his life when he heard things like peace I leave with you, not as the world I leave with you. Peace I leave with you. The world has forms of righteousness and the world has forms of peace, personal and collective.

[21:56] People pursue them all the time and they're all futile inevitably. The assurance, this is just a theological fragment in the discussion time.

[22:08] People can tell me what this means. But I think the assurance, the theological assurance that God's grace and peace are not futile is that Jesus ascended to the Father.

[22:20] He was accepted by the Father. Our Lord's invisibility, his apparent absence, is meaningful. Somehow. That's again a theological fragment for your elucidation in the discussion time.

[22:35] We'll speak about that again today this morning. We said the Creed in the 730 service, he ascended into heaven. The Creed puts that in front of us. We're to remember that our Lord has gone into heaven.

[22:47] And this grace and peace is to be multiplied to us in the knowledge of God, at verse 2 again, and of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Peter, it's interesting that Peter in this little letter mentions knowledge about seven times.

[23:07] He's high on knowledge in this epistle. A rough and ready description of knowledge, again for discussion later too, might be that knowledge for a Christian is a hearing of the apostles' teaching which leads to a kind of existential apprehension of God revealed in Christ.

[23:29] In earlier times, that used to be called piety. A commentator on Calvin somewhere talks about an existential apprehension to get that phrase from. I think it's helpful. But piety means that I know what is God.

[23:43] I have an existential sense of his presence in my life. But we don't use the word piety anymore because I guess it simply doesn't work very well. It's a Victorian in a parlour somewhere.

[23:56] Nippy. I'm dying of work. I am pious. Look. But there it is. To have an existential apprehension of the living God revealed in Jesus Christ is anything but glory.

[24:12] Grace is to be known and peace realized is what Peter will urge upon us in this whole writing. Do you know grace and do you realize peace in your life?

[24:24] Not just a psychological piece. It's a deep unshakable sense that all is well. There is no accusation that will destroy me.

[24:37] I, in Christ, the accusations have been destroyed. I am justified as Hooker reminds us in Christ. No accusation can destroy me.

[24:51] so that salutation ends and the letter proper begins. Then Peter says, you read to Peter, Peter, Peter tends to go off my radar screen.

[25:05] When I come back to it, I always love it. Peter now says, his divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

[25:16] Through the knowledge of him, him was left off there, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. His divine power has granted us everything we need which pertains to life and godliness.

[25:33] Or, you do not have to look elsewhere for anything in your life. As you go through life in this world, you do not have to look elsewhere for anything.

[25:45] As we work out a life with God, our creator, God has provided it. Do not, put it more strongly I think, do not look elsewhere.

[25:57] Do not look elsewhere for what is going to sustain a life of godliness. As you go through life in this world, do not look elsewhere. There are many elsewheres.

[26:08] In the first century and in ours, there are many options present to us. In Vancouver, they're on every street corner. Peter commends attention in this letter, doesn't he, to the prophets at verse 19, and says, and which reminds us that Israel was always tempted by other sources for her godliness, by other gods.

[26:33] Attractive God, inviting God, always inviting us to other religious, we would call religious options, other powers to turn to.

[26:44] But our God has granted to us all things through his divine power that pertain to life and godliness. It's worth meditating.

[26:55] I don't do this enough. I think it's wonderful to meditate on God's power. What can you say to it other than about it, other than to say that our God's divine power is unfailing.

[27:08] Nothing impedes God's power. What a thought that is. Lots impedes all human power. Even the mighty, unthinkable powers that we experience and that we see or know about in nature through the sciences, something would bring that power to an end.

[27:27] It would exhaust itself. When the universe blows up someday, science happily tells us what very well happened, that power will dissipate and go away I suppose. But God's power is eternal.

[27:39] Nothing will take it away from him. Nothing can impede it. If I give an example of how this can sometimes work negatively in one's life, thinking wrongly about these things, excuse a personal anecdote, but for a long stretch of time, I found the Gospels attractive, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John specifically, the Gospels attractive here and there, but I found them, if you will, flawed by the miracles, the acts of power, which are there everywhere, be the multitudes, water being turned into wine, the dead rays.

[28:20] My response was, maybe I didn't want to put it to myself consciously, but it was something like, so much was my response. I think I saw them, and forgive me, but I think I sort of saw them as tricks.

[28:33] God can do tricks. But that was my youthful thoughtlessness. A lot of thoughtlessness has stayed with me as I've got in the church.

[28:44] But we need to not really know God, but we need to know this God as almighty, don't we? to meet us in the midst of this catastrophic world, this morally catastrophic world where we find ourselves.

[29:03] We need to know that God is powerful and that he can. He can meet whatever is oppressing you. It's nothing for God to get mad at and get rid of it for you.

[29:16] Put it in street language. God can do these things. When Jesus did the aforementioned great acts, didn't he water the wine, feeding people, raising the dead, he demonstrates not only God's power, but even our destined, our destined, our destined sovereignty over the world.

[29:38] But you know someday you're going to participate in that kind of power. We would like to have that kind of power. Apparently we're going to have some measure of it in our redeemed, forever changed lives in the world to come.

[29:53] And I take it that meditating on power is a good thing for the Christian. I think Peter brings it to our attention for a reason. Well, how does one come by his power, Peter says, through the knowledge of him who has called us by or through his own glory and excellence?

[30:13] And English there, which invites pondering because I think it's beautiful and also it's quite ambiguous. Knowledge, again, is mentioned here. Again, a word much used in 2 Peter.

[30:26] God wants us to be, God wants to be, God will be, God is capable of making himself known. There is something to know here.

[30:38] There's a knowledge of him that gets us to put it bluntly at this power. I think that's worth, again, an aside about this knowledge thing.

[30:50] God has created us, I take it, to be knowers. Is that true? God wants us to be knowers. All forms of, yes, an aside, this sort of thing doesn't interest you forgetting, what's called foundationalism.

[31:07] That is, all attempts to rationally ground the rational, they may have failed, but philosophers aren't sure, but it looks as if they've all failed. But humans just go on knowing anywhere, anyway, don't they?

[31:23] We're in the knowledge business. What Nicholas Walter Stork, a philosopher, calls man's natural piety, keeps us involved in knowing things.

[31:38] So Peter knows of something called glory and excellence that he mentions here in verse 3. And by this, or to this, we are called.

[31:49] Whatever else glory and excellence are, they are, aren't they, I think they're personal characteristics, they are attributes. Humans are meant to be, I think Peter implies here, humans are meant to be excellent.

[32:08] And as excellent, they are meant to be, going back to Mr. Hooker's famous words, they are meant to be without accusation. And as such a glory, someone who is excellent and cannot be accused of anything, God wishes to show you all.

[32:27] God wants you to be excellent. God wants you to be a glory. glory. How shall we, how shall all this come about?

[32:41] How this happens, what it looks like is what again Richard Hooker and the reformers addressed in their massive writings. And to this end, says the apostle, God has given us a kind of royal role to guide us in all of these things.

[32:57] Moving right along in this passage. Is it surprising, do we take it for granted, how God gets us in the moving in the direction of his glory and excellence? Peter says he has granted to us, verse 4, that God has granted to us precious and very great promises.

[33:21] That through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion and become partakers of the divine nature. Amazing words in 2 Peter.

[33:34] Promise. What is a promise? A promise is, I think, maybe I'm over reading this, a promise, oh I'm not over reading, a promise is or presupposes persons in relationship.

[33:48] You can't do promises without people and more than one. A promise happens between persons in relationship. And further, a promise is a guarantee now.

[34:01] I have no authority for this. I ran out of my own head in a coffee shop. I don't know you should value this. A promise is a guarantee now that something then in the future will be the case.

[34:14] I promise you that I will be at your front door tomorrow at nine o'clock. I'm promising that now and that in the future, tomorrow at nine, that will be the case. That's what a promise is.

[34:25] A promise also puts the promiser's character on the line, I think. Is that true? Someone makes you a promise when they don't live up to it, you feel just slightly less about them, unless they have a really good excuse.

[34:41] Promises put the promiser's character on the line. That is, again, to break a promise, we'll call it a question of promises' character.

[34:52] God makes promises, he puts his character on the line through these promises. Obviously, the enemies of our faith, I think the enemies of our faith, at this point, they would say this is a bit childish, isn't it?

[35:08] This is where you religious people sort of reveal yourselves as you're stunted in your growth somehow, element. How about God makes promises to you?

[35:21] But we will receive it, I think, and see it as what it really is. It really is a call for a kind of childlike faith. I think behind this little mention of promises, I've never thought about this before, we see here something about the deep, passionate fact of our faith.

[35:41] There is in our faith, as a philosopher once put it, a kind of non-Christian philosopher, a kind of extremity and absoluteness about Christianity. It's always there.

[35:53] And the form, I think, this extremity is really rooted, at least in part. I would think it's totally in this, it's in the mystery of Jesus calling God his father, his father.

[36:09] That claim by Jesus that God is his daddy, his father, Christianity takes a very extreme and absolute form in the world.

[36:19] what was the passion in the life of Jesus? Was there one passion, a one thing needful that he lived by? Soren Kierkegaard talks about purity of heart is to wield one thing.

[36:34] What is the one thing that drove the life of our Lord? There was one thing, I think there was. I would say that the passion of Jesus, this is not new with me, obviously, the passion of Jesus was the honor of his father's name.

[36:52] That was the one thing needful in the life of Jesus. He wanted his father's name to be absolutely, even extremely honorable.

[37:04] That was the one thing necessary. And therefore, trusting, Jesus did, trusting in all conditions, his father's love.

[37:16] better the promise of his father's love. It was the promise that Jesus lived by. The promise that his father's love was there no matter what was happening.

[37:30] Even when you're dying on a cross, the father's love was better. Just another aside, this theme is not just in 2 Peter, is it?

[37:42] Hebrews chapter 8 speaks of Jesus inaugurating through his ministry, what the writer calls better promises. All of the gospel may be seen in this under the theme of promises.

[37:56] What are the promises that Jesus has given us? The surface, it seems to me, of 2 Peter, we're just looking at the surface, is just beyond words, just completely beyond words.

[38:09] We have, at verse 3, divine power, power, again which we've noted, nothing impedes this divine power, and we trust that there is the promise that nothing will impede this divine power.

[38:23] This power stands behind, acts on behalf of promises made, says Peter. I just wonder, why doesn't he stop and list some of them?

[38:35] I think in his first epistle, which Peter thinks, assumes his readers know, these promises have been made. May I read you how Peter begins his first epistle, chapter 1, verse 3.

[38:48] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are guarded, that's by power obviously, guarded for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

[39:09] those are some of the promises of the gospel. Beyond words, Peter says that power and the promises have a goal, an outcome, and they will cause, as they will cause you to become a participant, did you notice verse 4?

[39:28] A participant in the divine nature. at the beginning of the Bible, you'll recall, and probably in a very real sense, at the beginning of our civilization, someone said to an eager listener, you shall be as gods.

[39:48] That's my promise to you, you shall be as gods. The evil one is saying to Eve, my promises, really, I think he's saying my promises are better than your greatest promises. And there are many people in our culture who still believe that.

[40:02] Gnostics everywhere believe that, sophisticated Gnostics and others. But according to our beloved brother Peter, God in Christ knows and has the power and has made the promises that will make us one.

[40:22] Participants in the divine nature. Some in the church read that very radically as meaning totally givenized. That's your future. Eastern churches read it that way.

[40:34] The other churches read it as meaning the promise for our eternity is that we will be made perfectly holy.

[40:46] Which do you prefer? Are you going to be a god in the next world? Are you going to be a creature made totally holy? Whatever it means, whatever it means, it is glorious.

[41:00] I would think as Christians that 1 Corinthians 15 is the best place for meditating or pondering on this future. Or, if you're tired of reading, hear it put to music by handle.

[41:16] But somehow, the great assertion is in the Apostles doctrine, we shall be changed. changed. You shall be as gods, said the evil one.

[41:28] Well, we are going to be changed. What God has planned for us is better than the lie told by the evil one, whatever his lie meant. Peter shows us how to take all of this seriously next.

[41:44] And that is, don't lose this promise in mere religious dreams. To a high end we are called, Peter has told us, God stands behind your hearing and your believing.

[41:58] Make, says Peter, make this calling by God, this election by God, make it sure. Don't just dream about these things. Don't get lost in what we would call today esoteric religious games.

[42:11] In chapter two, Peter shows the signs of not taking this seriously, we would call how false teachers teach earthly and sensuous doctrines.

[42:22] but that's for another day. Peter now famously does and he lists seven things to pursue. Did you see them as, have you seen it yet?

[42:34] For this, at verse five, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control is steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love.

[42:51] do that every day before breakfast, just get off. Here are seven things to pursue. Do they need unfolding? I wouldn't think so.

[43:02] On the whole, they are just straightforward things. Aren't they just straightforward? The main thing about such a task, it seems to me, is to ask yourself a simple question.

[43:15] Do I really intend these kinds of things to be in my life? That is to say, do I want them? Things like virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.

[43:35] Interestingly, this list of goodly things to pursue ends with love, as does 1 Corinthians 13, of course, famously. do you really intend these things to be in your life?

[43:50] C.S. Lewis was appalled at the truth, as he saw it as true, I think it probably is true, of a famous assertion made by a spiritual writer of the 18th century, William E.

[44:03] Law. Have you ever heard this assertion from William Law? It's quoted quite often. He said, the reason you are not holy is because you never intend it.

[44:18] Lewis thought that was true. Do you intend virtue, NIV kind of say it's that, goodness? Do you intend knowledge of the gospel?

[44:29] Do you intend self-control, steadfastness of these things? Do you intend to be a godly person? Do you intend brotherly, sisterly kindness in its beauty that you live?

[44:41] Do you intend love? what a question. At least we can begin by praying that we will intend these things.

[44:53] Or we will intend to intend them, if that's where you have to start. On the day of judgment, it may be said, you're not holy because you didn't intend it.

[45:09] It's occurred things like William Law's doctrine of justification by faith, but it never really took hold in your life. Because if it does, you'll want to be the righteous one that God has declared you to be.

[45:27] Peter is an apostle. The time grows late here. just to say, I'm just trying to make you love 2nd Peter. There's too much here to comment on.

[45:39] Peter is an apostle. This morning at the 730 service, I just want to enjoy my vanity that I was up at 730. It's up to be here at 730. Peter, you know, we speak the comfortable words that we hear.

[45:53] I wish there was more of them. We speak our Lord said to comfort us as an invitation to come to the holy table. Then we hear comfortable words from, forget the order of Paul, we hear from John.

[46:10] These persons who have authority over us, our Lord supremely, than the ones he gave authority to, like Peter, John, James, Matthew, Luke, Paul, these wonderful persons that we're going to know.

[46:27] One of the Roman churches ahead of us here on this, and their same thing, which is an heir, they hold on to a truth about persons. These are persons who teach us, and we're to know the teaching of these persons.

[46:43] Peter is an apostle, Christ-appointed witness, and Peter says that he has seen a man, doesn't he, in this passage, who was participant in the divine glory.

[46:57] He has seen verse 16, it's important in this, I'll put it up there, it's on your sheet. He says, we, we, plural, we were eyewitnesses.

[47:09] He remembers being on what he calls a holy mountain, and they saw our Lord transfigured. This is personal witness, testimony, and teaching when we read the Bible of these persons that were in relationship.

[47:25] Peter had known a man, and in this man, obviously, these seven powers, whatever you might want to call them, were on display.

[47:37] Have you ever had the privilege of knowing someone that you just quietly suspected is holy? I've had that time. Once in my life, I knew the daughter of a missionary.

[47:50] Every time Sue spoke, everyone listened with a hush. She sensed that she knew Jesus in such a way that she was holy. To be holy is the greatest thing.

[48:07] And as our Lord and Savior has received a rich welcome into heaven, again, he ascended to heaven, the crude says, so we will be found there with him.

[48:22] We will become accepted by the Father. The Father will say of us, well done. Jesus will say to us, well done. Jesus is accepted by the Father, and in him, the Father accepts us too.

[48:35] Any friend of Jesus as the Father is a friend of mine. That is salvation. just the last word, summarizing it, those called, those elect, those making it sure by following Christ in holy living, is a definition of who we are.

[49:03] We are elect, according to 1 Peter 2. we have been called, we are to follow Christ in holy living. A holy living, which is never, which is at the polar opposite of pride.

[49:18] It never makes one proud. No, it is a life in which we come, in the words of Richard Hooker, weren't those pungent words from this old language, a life in which we come to hate our sin.

[49:34] I wonder if that's what, if you're justified by faith, Hooker says, don't you want a sign that you really said yes to this doctrine, that you're in Christ, that you are accepted by the Father.

[49:47] You will at least begin to hate sin. That which alienates us from God, that which Jesus had to deal with on Calvary, we will hate that sin.

[50:00] And we will begin to live by the promises of a God, known as the God who confers before this process begins.

[50:12] This is the God and Father of Jesus, who we know as the God who confers righteousness upon us. All anxiety, the principle, all anxiety, all stress, all worry about accusation from God, from the evil one, from other people, even most horribly perhaps from yourself and your own conscience.

[50:37] All of that has been dealt with. I am righteous. Therefore, I will begin to hate my sin. I will begin to love things like virtue and knowledge and self-control and all these wonderful good things.

[50:54] Because God has made me righteous and calls me therefore to simply be righteous. Because he's already done it for us. When Neil was talking at the beginning of Learn is Exchange, I was wondering about those desert monks trying to figure out where they fit into my theological church map.

[51:15] That got me thinking about 2 Peter 1. I think this kind of passage gives you real clarity about it. You're called, you're left, be holy, Brian holy, says the Lord, and yearn for heaven.

[51:31] There is a rich welcome waiting for us in heaven. There's a sketchy, I know, somewhat disordered look at 2 Peter 1. Forgive me for the disorder of it.

[51:42] Put down the disorder to my excitement about the passage in your charity. I appreciate that. It's a great passage. 2 Peter 1. It's really worth your reading.

[51:52] The whole of the Christian thing is there. We're saved. The second is all the bad teaching that's out there that will destroy your faith. Stay away from it. Then he calls you to living again in the third chapter through it's heaven.

[52:05] It's a sure thing of going to heaven. Peter's wonderful. This person, Peter, like this person called John, these wonderful teachers, we need to honor them, to speak such comfortable words to us.

[52:21] That's what I wanted to say so inadequately and adequately today. So maybe we should bow our heads and we'll pray and then have a discussion. Lord, we thank you for your holy word.

[52:34] We feel so inadequate in its presence. Help us to, as little children, to just absorb more and more to struggle to get it right and to happily live by it.

[52:45] We thank you for the gift of certain salvation in Christ. Help us to live lives that show we are joyful in this search of you. We look forward, Lord, to a rich welcome to heaven.

[52:58] We meet you and the angels and the apostles. All of our friends. Love the gospel, Lord. Help us to love your word more and more. Pray in Christ's the council.

[53:40] Thank you.

[54:10] Your enthusiasm for the word is infectious. Thank you for that. Thank you for what I'm getting in contact. One thing that shocked me a little bit when I was going, was just on knowledge.

[54:28] And I'd like to say this. It seems to me that if I look at verses 5 to 7, knowledge is definitely cradled inside an infection which starts with faith and ends with love.

[54:46] And I wonder whether it's appropriate to talk about seeking knowledge in order to be known. I know a lot of know-alls. Yeah. And I don't think they correspond with what you were just by the sudden really is the definition of falsehood.

[55:08] Thank you for that. Yeah, that's a good corrective. It takes the aside of our, as creatures, before the fall, even, we were meant to be known, knowing after the fall, in a sinful world filled with sinful passions, as Peter puts it.

[55:29] Yeah, a corrupt world, as he puts it. Yes, knowing has been a corrupt activity. And so we have to become knowers in the gospel. Thank you.

[55:40] And Peter puts it in this list of virtue and self-control. So that's very good. C.S. Lewis, I love this. C.S. Lewis, I was talking to a colleague once, a Christian colleague, about some mutual friend they had who is apparently a sad and unhappy person.

[56:02] And another scholar, Lewis said, Lewis said, Lewis could say things so biting. He said, poor man, he always thought his mind was his own.

[56:14] That was the air of his, the draining air of his life. You think your mind's your own, you're a fool. Our minds will be crucified with the Christ.

[56:26] So thank you for that corrective. Yeah, Nietzsche said that we are noers. Horrible. Just chilling. That's the, that's the, Luciferic, human, we strive in the world with their, their knowledge.

[56:40] And really they're fools. They think their minds are their own. You are not your own. You're a popular place. Yes sir. Because the scholars are asking the question, and they're chosen.

[56:55] We could go back to verse two. Oh sure. My question is whether grace and peace, and I'm thinking about this prayer appears, almost, almost every one of me, are these primarily states of mind, or are they gifts of God?

[57:15] If I, if I were peace, I'd say, well in my turn, I need peace to be multiplied. If I regard grace as a state of mind, then I'd have to read it as, may your sense of gratitude, or may your, sense of gracious generosity, be multiplied.

[57:36] I say, yes I need that. On the other hand, if I see them, as gifts of God, I don't give it for you. May God's gift be multiplied to you.

[57:46] How could that be? He's already given us everything. How do I understand those two words? I would be on the trajectory to, unsubjectivize it, but, almost make them eschatological.

[58:05] These, this is the perfect future to which you are called, where God's grace will reign perfectly, and his holy peace will reign over the whole creation. Oh, by the way, you'll be part of that.

[58:16] So it isn't, it isn't. Don't take it first. No, no, no. I would take it off. I think the form, I think that's an important point though. I think troubled people, I'm one of them.

[58:28] I'm very helped, I'm very helped by, I think that, the form that, that God's peace takes for us in this world, usually is patience. It's sort of a proto-peace.

[58:42] In the midst of my turmoil, and my distress, as you shared with her, God calls me to be patient in the midst of it, waiting for the gift of his perfect peace.

[58:56] So we live into it through patience. Is that, there's the subjective form, be patient. But yeah, some Christians get caught up on the edge of that. I've got to find, I've got to be in a little bubble of serenity, or else I'm not a Christian.

[59:12] Peter, Peter and Paul had fight, after they did, they fight in the New Testament, they fought, and the Lord called the people, and we're always in a bubble of personal pieces.

[59:24] It's not given us in this world to be like that. Yes. Just to answer what you were saying, I drank the wine this past week, and I kept the hammer aware of what, if God's grace is here to snow.

[59:37] And I've got that control. First of all, yeah. Yes. There it is.

[59:53] First night always puzzled me, because it sort of says you're black, but you're also short-sighted. Yeah. And that metaphor is often referred to. Yeah. Did you come to any conclusion on that one?

[60:07] Just that it's a pungent rhetoric, I guess, we wanted to use. We can get around to that first, but I guess... Seems like he's stating the obvious, and then he had it short-sighted.

[60:25] Yeah. I don't know why he uses that... that dumblet of them, it's called. But it's pungent, I thought.

[60:37] You can't see. I think it's blurry. You can't see very well. Short-sighted. You can't see it far off. Would you say that the...

[61:03] I think there's eight items there... Sorry. Talking about virtue. These are other words for virtue, aren't they?

[61:19] Virtue can't exist on its own without knowledge and self-control, steadfastness, godliness. They're attributes of virtue, aren't they? Yeah, I think so.

[61:30] Yeah, that's a diamond with different facets of holiness, what it's like. Some of the background here may be true.

[61:41] You just never know from, you know, from your knowledge of the first century. Sometimes it's helpful, sometimes it's not helpful. But the main in the background here are the kind of teachers that Paul had met and said, yeah, we accept the idea that Jesus has overcome the world, that he reigns now for the Father.

[62:04] Therefore, when we talk about being in Christ, we now may realize, concretely, that he reigns over all things. Therefore, we're not subject to things like the moral law anymore.

[62:18] And therefore, you can almost proudly leave a dissolute moral item and say, this is part of my freedom in Christ, which is a disastrous kind of teaching.

[62:32] We could sign Anglican bishops if we're not closely. I wouldn't mention any names. But, so therefore, Peter very simply is calling you guys, no, the gospel calls you to a weighty growth in goodness.

[62:51] So he lists these, these simple, straightforward things of goodness that we actually know and pursue. that that other teaching is a monstrosity.

[63:03] Something like that may be in the background. But Hooker says that you, as I understand it, that you know yourself as impious and full of iniquity and full of sin.

[63:19] But Christ, in Christ God, has made you righteous. Such a shocking teaching. You could pursue these things out of the flesh.

[63:35] Very successfully, as some stoles would. There's a kind of moralism which is of the flesh. which is why the teaching of the reformers who brought this doctrine from the scripture so clearly to you, why it was received is so shocking.

[63:58] You can't do it. The mere pursuit of which you listen to that. And any one of those exists without the other. I would think not. You wouldn't want one without the other.

[64:09] You don't tick them off on a list. Well, I do, but I do. No, I do. I guess the signifying for me in that, I don't understand this list very profoundly if you tell me, but the fact that it ends with love I find very significant.

[64:23] As 1 Corinthians 13, the greatest of these is love. Have you ever had brotherly affection for someone but not necessarily love? I have. No, it hasn't quite gotten to that point.

[64:41] He is high on knowledge. I think my answer was talking about the Bible as I recall I think seven times in the short of this of knowledge is referred to.

[64:56] That makes you suspect that he is offstage here with our Gnostics with their exaltation of knowledge. Peter's saying, no, that's a word we have to use.

[65:07] We'll put it in the Gospel. We're not pursuers of knowledge of special passwords that go up through angelic orders so I can find my way into heaven.

[65:19] Some teaching that was around like that in these days still is. let's do something together.

[65:41] Thank you. Thank you.

[65:52] Thank you.