II Peter 1: 3-11
3. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.
4. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;
6. and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;
7. and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
8. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10. Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall,
11. And you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.¡¨
Christian bookstores today have whole sections of Christian biographies of modern day celebrities whose lives have been changed by the power of Jesus Christ.
One of the first and most popular is called "The Cross and the Switchblade", by David Wilkenson. It’s a story that told of the change in this man’s life by the power of God.
There’s a whole host of books that are available out there, Mike Singletary, A. C. Green and a lot of sports figures, Politicians such as the power God had and has in Chuck Colson’s life as described in his first book called "Born Again".
Evangelistic crusades often feature the testimonies of person’s whose lives have been changed. And many times they have testimonies like,
-From Prison to the Pulpit
-From drugs to Deliverance
-From Crime to Christ
I always enjoy those testimonies, but I must admit that in comparison to the dramatic changes God initiated in their lives, mine is dwarfed.
By the world¡¦s standards I¡¦m pretty plain¡Kkind of like oatmeal.
-I’ve never smuggled drugs from Bolivia -never once in my life.
-I was never a porno king in Los Angeles¡Khonest that was not me.
-Never committed mass murder
-Never embezzled millions of dollars
-Never had my picture on the front of TIME or NEWSWEEK (Positive or Negative)
Most of you are like me your testimony is not all that dramatic. So listen to me carefully.
The changes the Lord has made and the changes the Lord is making in my/your life are every bit as powerful and every bit as profound. Even if it’s not so dramatic to the world as the changes the Lord makes in the lives of even the most notorious of persons.
Did you know that? It’s true.
God specializes in changing people, taking us from where we’ve been, to where we are, to where we ought to be.
He is a great God. And He is able to change those things in our life that need changing.
In our text today, in II Peter 1, Peter shows us some of the ways in which He can do this.
Let me get right at it because there are so many truths here.
First of all, I want you to know that God changes us from the bad to the good.
I. God Changes Us from the Bad to the Good (II Peter 1:3-4)
Notice verses 3 & 4
"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires."
He changes us from the Bad to the Good.
Jeremiah asked this question in Jeremiah 13, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard change his spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil."
He’s talking about when they’re in the power of the flesh. We cannot change ourselves. But Praise God, He can change us.
Charles Colson tells of being frustrated by the words of a prison psychiatrist, who himself was frustrated, when he said, "I can cure a person’s madness, but I can’t cure their badness." And he was right.
Such a change, you see, involves getting to the heart of man’s dilemma.
It has to do with dealing with SIN and only God can truly deal with sin.
Now part of the problem is that there are a lot of people around that don’t even realize they have a problem.
And if you don’t realize you have a problem, you’re not going to do anything about it.
As a matter of fact, the word "SIN" has really fallen into disrepute in today’s world, did you notice that?
Not only disrepute but it has fallen into disuse, even in many churches.
It has been quite a while back, that Dr. Carl Menninger pointed this out, when he wrote the book, "Whatever Became of Sin?"
Because it seems like today, people call it everything else but what it really is SIN.
-It’s a mal-adjustment
-It’s a mistake
-It’s a mis-understanding
-It’s a disfunction
It’s something or another, but don’t call it SIN
-Today, Alcoholism is a disease
-Abortion is a woman’s choice
-Homosexuality is an Alternative lifestyle
Listen Folks, A rose by any other name is still a ________? A ROSE That’s right!
And by the same token, SIN, no matter what you call it is still SIN.
You may have heard of the Sunday school teacher who was just totally fed up with the misbehavior of one of her students. And finally she just lost it and she grabbed him and shook him as hard as she could and she said, Billy, I think the devil’s got ahold of you. And through chattering teeth Billy said, Yes, ma’am, I think he does too.
Well the fact of the matter is, that the devil does have a hold of many, many people.
At one time or another, he’s had all of us in his grip.
Peter says, that we have all been entrapped in the corruption that is in this world by lust or evil desires.
Now, I want you to know that we can’t save ourselves from that.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
Every person needs to be changed from the Bad to the Good.
God has given us his revelation, his great and precious promises to make us partakers of his divine nature. Verse 4
Now we have many examples of this taking place. One of my favorites is in John the 4th chapter. You know the story of the woman at the well?
-She was an immoral woman
-She was corrupt, sinful, rebellious (so her story could be ours)
Most of you know the story. Jesus was resting at Jacob’s well there in Sychar in Samaria.
His disciples went into town to buy food.
And a woman came to get water in the middle of the day because she wasn’t acceptable in polite company.
But in speaking with her, Jesus demonstrated to her, that he knew who she was, and he knew what she was.
And Jesus even put her to the test when he said, Now lady go and call your husband and have him come here so I can talk to him.
She said, I don’t have a husband.
Jesus said, You got that right. In fact, you’ve had 5 husbands and the man you’re living with now, isn’t your husband. John 4:16-17
Let me point out something to you. Couples lived without the benefit of marriage back in those days. People shacked up in the first century as well as in the 20th century.
-We don’t call it that anymore but that’s what it is!
-We try to make it nice - more pleasant to the ear, less sinful.
But the fact is, It was wrong then and it’s wrong now. It was SIN then..it is SIN now!
Some of you have been guilty of it in the past.
But let’s stop excusing it; Sin is Sin!
-Let’s stop backing off and sugar coating, everything because SIN is SIN!
She tried to change the subject though, when Jesus pointed it out.
She wanted to talk about which place was the right place to worship.
-Which denomination is right!
That misses the whole point.
You see, the point was, You need to get your heart right with God.
Anyway, Jesus went on to reveal to her that he was the Messiah.
He said, I who speak to you am he, the messiah, And that’s it.
From that point on, her life was changed.
You see, In Jesus’ salvation,
-In Him all the prophesies in the OT find fulfillment
-In Him, God’s love and mercy are shown
-In Him, all the universe is held together
-In Him, we can find the power to CHANGE!
GOD IS ABLE TO CHANGE US FROM THE BAD TO THE GOOD
Now the woman at the well, she was Bad, and she knew it but she wanted something better.
And I believe it’s true with most people who are BAD. Most people who are sinners, know they’re sinners but most people want something better.
And Jesus offered her something better that day.
And you know what’s most important about this story? She reached out and took what it was he offered her.
A song writer in the past put it this way;
"Like the woman at the well, I was seeking for things that could not satisfy.
But then I heard my savior speaking, Draw from my well that never will run dry."
Maybe you can identify with that woman who was seeking. And the things that she was seeking had not yet satisfied her.
Now the wonderful, good news is that you don’t have to stay in the seeking mode.
-You don’t have to stay in the "Bad" mode.
-You don’t have to stay alienated from God.
There is something better.
II Cor. 5:21 "God made him who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." WOW!!
That’s Good News!!
Even though we’ve sinned, we can be made righteous in the sight of God.
Some of you here are like the Prodigal son.
The more he did what he liked, the less he liked what he did.
And when he hit the bottom, when he hit rock bottom, there was no way to look but UP! And God was there!
And the same thing is true in your life and in mine. God is able to change us!
-In the book of Acts, when people realized that they had sinned, they wanted forgiveness.
-The Philippian jailer, when he realized that he was a sinner, when he realized that he was lost, he fell down, trembling before Paul and Silas and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" I want to be changed from the bad to the good.¨ And of course Paul pointed him to Jesus.
I realize that most of you here have already gone through that change that is called Salvation, Justification, Sanctification or conversion.
But it’s important that we review how it is that Jesus deals with those of us who have been lost in our sin.
-Jesus never condoned sin
-Jesus never compromised his convictions
-But Jesus always loved the sinner
That’s a tough act for you and me to pull off, isn’t it?
It’s real easy to hate the sin!
It’s easy, as a preacher, to get up and just plow into all this sin stuff.
Sometimes we don’t come across like we care much for the people who are guilty of those sins.
John 8 The woman taken in adultery was brought before Jesus. It was suggested that she be stoned to death.
Notice that Jesus never excused her sin. No way, shape or form.
Instead, Jesus recognized what she had done for what it was as SIN in need of forgiveness.
And he forgave her and then he said, "Go your way and ???? sin no more."
It wasn’t that he was giving her carte blanche to live however she wanted to live.
But in his grace, he was willing to forgive, correct her error and change her from the bad to the good.
Today, many would tell her, "Go thy way it’s not sin anymore." But that’s not what Jesus said.
No, Jesus condemned the sin, but forgave the sinner.
Can’t we do the same as Jesus?
By not doing what Jesus did, we compromise His teaching, His Word the very purpose for which he came into this world.
The Fact is WE ARE ALL SINNERS in different ways and to different degrees,
But all of us are sinners.
And God can still change us regardless of where we are and that’s what he came to do.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians Christians he listed a terrible list of sins and sinners. He says they won’t get to heaven. He mentions:
Fornicators
Swindlers
Thieves
Idolaters
Homosexuals
Immoral
Adulterers
Effeminate
Drunkards
And then he says what I believe one of the most liberating beautiful verses in the Bible: I Cor. 6:9-11
He says, "And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God."
GOD IS WILLING to CHANGE US FROM THE BAD TO THE GOOD
GOD IS ABLE TO CHANGE US FROM THE BAD TO THE GOOD
Conclusion:
You can structure either an evangelistic invitation or challenge you congregation to respond to God’s goodness...etc.
