Look at the first three words of 2 Peter 1:3 "His divine power …."
That’s an awesome set of words—His divine power. They’re awesome words and their intriguing words, because so much of the frustration of life comes from not having the power we need. Wherever there’s failure in your life, that’s a lack of power. We know God makes his power available to us, and yet we seem to have so little of it.
But how can that be, given what Peter says here?
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need ….
The word “everything” is emphatic in the Greek—absolutely everything we need. If I have the same, precious, grade-A, 24 karat faith that the Apostles had and I’ve been given absolutely everything I need, why do I seem to have so little power in my life? Why so much failure?
Faith Is the Starting Place
And for that matter, why does Peter even keep writing after v.3? If I have faith and everything I need, what else is there? The answer is this—you have everything you need to reach the goal, but that doesn’t mean you’ve reached it.
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything[1] we need[2] for (literally toward] …. then he tells you what the goal is.
The word “toward” makes it clear that having everything you need isn’t the end point. It just means you have the tools necessary to reach that end point.
The faith you’ve been given is the starting point. It’s the raw material. That’s the way the book of 2 Peter talks about faith. In v.1 he tells us we’ve been given this gift of faith, then in v.5 he says, “Therefore, make every effort to add to your faith …” and that’s the last time he mentions faith in the book. He doesn’t mention it again because 2 Peter is not a book about the starting point; it’s about the goal.
So let’s talk about that goal.
We’ll talk about three things tonight:
The Purpose of the Power
The Need for the Power
The Access to the Power—how do you get it?
The Purpose of the Power: Life & Godliness
First, the purpose of the power—what’s the goal? A fun question people like to ask is, “If you could have any superpower, which one would you pick?” But a lot more important question is, “What would you do with it?” We’ve been given superpower—more than that, divine power! The question is, what is it for? What was God’s purpose in giving us that power? What does he want us to accomplish with it?
And the answer is in the rest of the sentence.
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything[3] we need[4] toward (here comes the goal) life and godliness.
The Goal
That’s the big goal, that’s the reason God made all this divine power available—to give us everything we need to reach the goal of life and godliness.
At least, that’s one way of describing the goal. It’s so important that we understand what the goal is that Peter describes a different aspect of that goal in each one of these opening verses. He describes it one way in v.1, another way here in v.3, another way in v.4, and another in vv.5-7. And each description gives us a deeper, fuller insight. He wants to show it to us from every angle to give us a complete, full-orbed understanding of exactly what it is we’re trying to accomplish.
The way he describes it in v.2 is a whole lot of grace and peace. Grace and peace in abundance. We covered that last time.
The way he describes it in v.4 is escaping the corruption in the world and sharing in the divine nature.
In vv.5-8 the goal is to grow in that whole list of virtues that we add to our faith—goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, kindness, and love. All these various ways of describing the goal of living a life that is in line with the nature of God. And he says it differently in each verse—the way he says it here in v.3 is, “life and godliness.”
Godliness
Let’s start with godliness. The Greek word behind “godliness” is a hard word to translate because we don’t have an equivalent English word. In fact, not only do we not have an equivalent word, but we don’t even have an equivalent idea in our culture. The concept behind this word was very common back then—everyone in that culture understood it. But it’s so completely foreign to our culture that no one even thinks along these lines.
In fact, when I studied it and finally got a sense of what this word means, I realized I didn’t really have a category like this in my mind. It’s kind of a new way of thinking for me, but it’s such a beautiful concept. I’ve just found this so helpful. This is probably my #1 takeaway for what I’ve learned in this study.
The Greek word translated godliness is eusebia, and the short definition might be something like this: living in the presence of God. But it’s richer than just that. Godliness refers to the lifestyle that comes from a proper attitude toward God’s presence.
And that attitude part is key. It’s not just knowing the truth about God, but having the right attitude toward those truths. And it’s not just having those proper attitudes, but it’s the lifestyle that results from those attitudes.
It’s a way of living and behaving that happens when you feel the right way about God.
So to put all that together, godliness is when:
You’re aware of God’s presence.
You feel the right way about it in the moment.
You act accordingly.
This word is often translated “piety” because the most obvious attitude that’s proper to have toward God is reverence. Maybe a shortcut definition for this word would be this—it’s the way you act in church. That’s not a perfect definition, because people commit all kinds of sins and have all kinds of wrong attitudes about God in church, but you get the idea. You look at the kind of language people use in church, the way they usually treat each other, the attitude of worship, reverence. Maybe some of that is pride—trying to impress people, but if you think of the attitudes and actions people have at church at their best—that’s the idea behind godliness.
So the past couple weeks, every time I consider some attribute of God, I ask myself, “Okay, what’s the appropriate attitude to have toward God in light of that attribute?” Then I remind myself, “God is right here, right now. He has that attribute. How should I be feeling in the presence of someone like that?” And as I ask the question, I feel my attitude adjust in the right direction and it’s resulted in a much richer kind of fellowship with God than what I was having before.
Life
So that’s godliness, and Peter pairs that word with the word “life”—life and godliness. Peter likes to combine pairs of words to convey a single idea. So the idea here is a living, thriving, flourishing, growing godliness.[5]
Growth
And that living, growing part points us to the main theme of the entire book. The goal is not just godliness. It seems like it would be enough if you were a godly man or a godly woman, but that’s not enough. Peter assumes you’re already godly—his purpose in this book is all about growth in that godliness—more and more godliness.
And when I say that’s the theme of the whole book—let me just give you a quick, 4-minute overview of the book of 2 Peter. It’s an easy book to summarize because he just has one, straightforward message.
Overview
If I had to sum up the entire book of 2 Peter with one word, I think it might be the word, “more.” Whatever you have from God, Peter wants you to have more. No matter where you are in your faith, Peter wants you to grow beyond that. Look at v.5—this is the first command in the book. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith Then he gives a big long list. Start with faith, keep on adding and adding and adding.
That list in vv.5-7 is an amazing list. Think of how happy you’d be if people described you and used that list. But Peter says that’s not enough. Even if you had all of those virtues, you’ll still be ineffective and unproductive unless those virtues are increasing in your life.
2 Peter 1:8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive. So Peter’s objective is more, more, more—grow in grace.
Just look at his opening greeting. All the other Bible writers say, “Grace and peace to you.” Peter says, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you.” “I want you to have more and more.”
And you see it again here in v.3. Not just godliness—living, growing godliness. This is a book about increasing, making progress, getting more and more of all that God offers.
So that’s why I say my summary of the book is the word “more” or “grow.” But forget about how I would sum up the book—look at how Peter sums up his own book. Go to the very last verse.
2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It’s all about growing. Why? What’s so urgent in Peter’s mind that he feels such pressure to get the readers to grow so much?
For the Mature
Is it because his readers are weak, immature Christians like the readers of Hebrews or 1 Corinthians, where the readers are like babies who can’t handle solid food?[6] No. 2 Peter is a book that says explicitly that it is written specifically to solid, knowledgeable, established Christians.
2 Peter 1:12 So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.
These people are solid.
So You Don’t Fall
Why is Peter so concerned about making sure these rock-solid Christians keep growing beyond where they are now? To keep them from falling away.
2 Peter 1:10 …if you do these things, you will never fall.
2 Peter 3:17 … since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.
These people are strong and steadfast, but they could still fall from that steadfastness. And the whole middle part of the book is all about the spiritual dangers that are out there that can cause that fall.
And the thing that will keep you from falling when you face all those spiritual dangers is what? Being godly? No. What will keep you from falling is growing in godliness.
When the end times come and there’s a mass-apostasy and the love of most grows cold and Jesus says, “Will the Son of Man even find faith on the earth?”—who are all those people who fall? Are they all brand-new baby Christians? No. They are people at all levels of godliness who stopped growing. That’s why Peter is so exercised about telling these seasoned, strong, godly Christians that they must, must, must keep on growing in godliness. Don’t ever stall out.
So that’s my quick summary of the message of 2 Peter—keep growing in godliness so that you’ll never fall when the pressures hit. And I wanted to show you all that so you could see how our verse today—verse 3—lays the foundation for the whole book. What is the purpose of all this amazing, divine superpower God made available? What’s the goal that God has given us everything we need to attain? Living, growing, multiplying godliness. That’s the purpose of the power, now let’s move to the second point—the need for the power.
The Need for the Power
When you see that the goal is godliness and virtues like goodness and knowledge and self-control and love, the natural response is to say, “Oh wow. That’s a pretty tall order. I’m going to have to roll up my sleaves and really work hard at this.” That’s the natural response, and it’s a response that will doom you to failure.
Whenever you study the Bible, every phrase, you always ask, “Why is that there?” Let’s ask that about this phrase “his divine power.” Why include that? He could have just said, “God has given us everything we need”—why the emphasis on power? Tying it to divine power puts you in the right frame of mind to understand the sort of task that’s at hand.
So You Understand the Size of the Task
Imagine God came into your house and said, “Hey, I’ve got a job for you. And I’ve provided what you need to get it done—it’s right out front. Follow me.” So you go out there and your whole front yard is taken up by a giant jet engine—the size of a bus.
“That’s the tool I need to use for this job?”
“Yep.”
“Isn’t that a bit much?”
“No, in fact, you’re going to need 4 of those.”
So then he takes you to the job site and there’s this gigantic jumbo jet sitting there. And God says, “I want you to get this thing off the ground.”
“How high off the ground?”
“About 5 miles up.”
So you take a big breath, roll up your sleeves, squat down so you’re lifting with your legs, not your back, and try to get that thing off the ground. Of course, it doesn’t budge, so you say, “Man, this thing is so heavy—I’m going to have to hit the gym—hard.”
God knew you would have that “hit the gym” attitude, which is why he started the whole thing by taking you out in the front yard and saying, “Here’s the tool you’re going to need.”
And that’s why Peter starts with the words, “His divine power has given us everything we need [for this task]…” He’s saying, “Get this in your head right up front. When I tell you what the goal is, don’t think about your biceps or your willpower—think about jet engines.”
Not Obvious
But there’s a problem with that jetliner illustration. If God showed you a 747 and told you it needs to go 5 miles up in the sky, it would never even occur to you to try to lift it with your own muscles. You would automatically know that of course it requires a jet engine. It’s a dumb story.
And if God said, “The goal is, you need to raise the dead and walk on water and stop hurricanes with a word, you would automatically know “Of course this will require supernatural power.” It wouldn’t even occur to you to try to roll up your sleaves and figure it out on your own power.
But we don’t naturally realize that when it comes to this spiritual goal. Godliness and love and perseverance—those things look to us more like a heavy barbell than a 747. It seems like something we could maybe pull off. We think, “Wow, self-control? That’s a tough one. I’m really going to have to hit the gym. I’ll have to study some self-help books, set some reminders on my phone, maybe snap a rubber band on my wrist, get an accountability partner, put a sticky note on my mirror….”
We do all that and the 747 doesn’t budge. And we keep trying and keep failing and finally we throw up our hands and say, “This is impossible.”
Is it possible? Yeah, it’s possible, but if you want to get that thing off the ground, you’re going to have to use those jet engines. Nothing else is going to get that thing in the sky. All those techniques may have a place in steering that jet once you get it flying, but they won’t have the power to get it off the ground.
Peter isn’t the only one who makes this point.
Ephesians 3:17 … I pray that you … 18 may have power … to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.
Paul, if you want me to understand the dimensions of the love of Christ, why not just teach me? He says, “I’ll do that, but first we’ve got to get this jet off the ground, so I’m going to pray that God will provide the supernatural power you’re going to need.”
When you try to make changes in your character, and it’s a struggle, if you think, “Man, I need to try harder”—that won’t get you anywhere but frustrated. His power is plenty to get the job done, so if the job isn’t getting done, you’re not tapping into his power. Whenever something isn’t working in your spiritual life, it’s because you’re not using the jet engines. Never strain harder to do the job. Always strain harder to tap into divine power—that’s where we put forth effort.
So how is that done? What are the controls that will turn that jet engine on? We’ve seen the purpose of the power and the need for the power—one last point: how to access the power.
How to Access the Power
The question of how to turn on those big jet engines is crucial, because every Christian starts with that same, 24-karat faith, and every Christian has been given everything he needs to attain a living, growing godliness, but not every Christian does it. Down in vv.8-9 Peter makes it clear that some Christians are growing in godliness and others aren’t.
So what is it that we have to do to tap into divine superpower and make this all happen? Peter already told us how in the greeting in v.2, he’ll tell us again here in v.3, then he’ll bring it up again and again all through the book, and then he’ll remind us one last time in the very last verse of the book.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of him.
The jumbo jet of Christian growth only gets off the ground through the jet engines called “his divine power” and the switch that fires up those engines is knowledge of God. That’s the key to getting divine power in your life—knowing God more deeply.
And it’s a huge theme in Peter. We’re only in v.3 and this is already the second time he’s said it. In the Greek, there’s a connecting word between vv.2 and 3 that could be translated “just as.”[7]
2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through knowledge of our God … 3 just as his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through knowledge of him.
The way you get abundant grace and peace is through knowledge of God because the way you get everything you need for godliness is through knowledge of God. And when I say this is a theme—sixteen times in 3 little chapters we see the word “knowledge.” And then listen to the very last thing he says in the book:
2 Peter 3:18 Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
He starts with it, ends with it, and repeats it again and again throughout the book. Peter does not want you to miss the keys that will turn on that jet engine.
If something is going wrong in your spiritual life, the solution is in deepening your knowledge of God. If you have a spiritual goal, you’ll reach it through knowing God. If you want to escape some sin, develop some virtue, draw nearer to God’s presence, get more grace from God, protect yourself from being deceived—it all comes through knowledge of God. That’s how you activate your superpower.
Defining Knowledge of God
Now, as you might guess, there’s a whole lot more to knowing God than knowing about God. I know a lot of information about the President of the United States, but I don’t know him personally. Knowing God is such a rich and marvelous reality, we’ll have to handle it in depth in a separate session. But for now, let’s just keep our focus on the verse we’re studying tonight—2 Peter 1:3.
Him Who Called Us
There’s a lot more to knowing God than just knowing information about him, however, information about him is most definitely the starting point. You can’t know someone personally if you don’t know anything about them. And you can never have relational knowledge or experiential knowledge of God if you don’t know the truth about God. There can be no relationship with God without theology.
And so at the end of v.3, Peter gives us one critically important truth about God that will get us started in knowing him more deeply. If you’re looking for an attribute of God to learn and experience that will give you power to grow in godliness, this one is a great place to start.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through knowledge of him who [okay, here’s what you need to know about God] called us by his own glory and excellence.
Called
Knowing the God called you is essential for knowing him because it reminds you who initiated this relationship. He’s not like some celebrity that was gracious enough to give you an autograph when you managed to get close to him. He came after you. When you’re trying to draw near to God, it helps to remember that he wants you to succeed in that effort.
By His Own Glory and Excellence
The only reason you became a Christian on the day you became a Christian and not the day before or the day after was because it was on that day that God called you in a way he knew you would respond—like a dog owner who knows how to call in a way where the dog will come running.[8] Jesus called you in a special way that day you became a Christian—what was that special way? What was it about the way God called you that day that made you respond? For the man calling his dog, it might be a specific tone of voice. What was it for you?
3 [he] called us by his own glory and excellence.
Call by Attraction
That’s what God used to call you in a way that you would respond. The day before you became a Christian, you might have known a bunch of things about God, but on that day God opened your eyes to see his glory and excellence. And that attracted you to him.
When it says his “own,” it points to the fact that this is part of his very nature. Glory and excellence aren’t just some things he does; it’s part of who he is. So interacting with his glory and excellence is interacting with him.
And I think this is another example of Peter coupling two words to form one idea. It’s the radiance and splendor of God’s moral perfection.[9] God’s glory and excellence on display through his Word, the creation, and his other works. You got a good enough glimpse of his glory that you said, “I want to be near that more than I want my old life.”
So do you see Peter’s point? He’s saying the way for you to grow spiritually toward a godly life is through the knowledge of God. And one thing about God you especially need to remember to deepen your knowledge of him is that: 1) he initiated your relationship with him and 2) he did it by exposing his moral excellence to you in a way that you couldn’t resist it.
That’s important, because if your goal is to get to know God better, that will happen the same way it happened when you came to know God in the first place—by seeing his glory. If you want more spiritual growth, that won’t come until you get a clearer view of God’s moral magnificence. You need to see it clearly enough to be more attracted to it than you are now. That’s what will change your desires and attitudes and draw you into a more godly life. That’s what will increase your knowledge of God and give you moral superpower. That’s what will free you from enslaving sins, enable you to love God and love people more, enable you to draw near to God—all of it.
Our Strategy for Evangelism
And by the way—this is also the way to win others to the Lord. The most effective way to win the lost is not by shooting down all their dumb arguments. The best way to win them is by showing them the glory of Christ and what’s so amazing about his attributes.
“Oh, you reject Christianity because you think the Church is full of hypocrites or you were mistreated by some Christians? Okay, fine. Let’s set that aside for a second and talk about the Christ you’re rejecting.”
“Oh, you think I’m a moron? I won’t argue with you there, but how about Jesus? Do you think he’s a moron?” It can be an incredibly powerful thing to just ask people that. Do you think Jesus was a moron? Or do you admit no one in history ever spoke like that man and his words routinely change people’s lives 2000 years later? Are you going to argue with the brilliance of the Sermon on the Mount? Can you impugn anything Jesus ever said or did?”
What about God’s mind-boggling wisdom? Just look at the creation. How can you ignore the vast, superhuman intelligence behind the creation? Or the beauty and magnificence the author of all the world’s beauty must have.
What about his incredible patience? Or how forgiving he is? Or his compassion? Or the fact that his presence satisfies the deepest cravings of the human soul when nothing else will? How do you explain what experiences of the presence of God have done in my life—let me tell you about them.
When you try to bring a person to Christ, he won’t hear God’s call until he sees God’s glory and moral excellence. In my opinion, we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about what God is like. In sermons, in personal conversations, in Christian fiction, nonfiction, podcasts, song lyrics.
Whether you’re sharing the gospel with an unbeliever or trying to encourage and strengthen a mature Christian, the most effective way to do that is by showing the glory of Christ. Do that by going beyond the obvious when you talk about his attributes.
That’s one way people can see God’s glory and excellence. Another way is by watching the lives of his people. As we live holy, righteous lives, that’s attractive to the people God is calling to himself. The world in general hates it, but certain people—the one’s God is calling—they will be attracted to it. They’ll see us and say, “I want that.”
Conclusion: Remember This
Next time I want to go deeper into what the knowledge of God is and how to deepen it. But until then, remember the goal—godliness. Living in the presence of God and feeling the right way about his attributes. And when you have spiritual goals like that, stop looking at them as a barbell and see it as the jumbo jet that they are. If we do that, we’ll stop looking at our own strength and we’ll turn all our attention to how to get that divine power.
And that happens through knowing God. The answer to every spiritual problem is always, “I need a deeper knowledge of God.” Every time you fall into sin, remind yourself, “That wouldn’t have happened if I knew God better.” Every spiritual struggle: “The solution is deeper knowledge of God.” Someone you know has a problem? What they need is knowledge of God. And the starting place for that is to give some careful, deep, extended thought to the fact that God called you to himself, and the way he did it was by opening your eyes to the magnificence of his own glory and moral excellence.
Summary
The purpose of divine power is a life of living, growing, increasing godliness. The message of 2 Peter is that unless your godliness is growing, you’ll become ineffective and unproductive and at risk of falling away. Godliness is the lifestyle that comes from being aware of God’s presence and feeling the right way about it. We tend to think of godliness more like a barbell than a jumbo jet, so God starts by showing us a jet engine (“his divine power”) and telling us that’s what is needed for this task. And the way to fire up that jet engine and tap into divine power is through the knowledge of God. To get started, know that God called you, attracting you to himself by opening your eyes to his moral perfection.
[1] The word “everything” is given prominence in the word order. It’s the first word in the sentence after the connecting word. This is the Greek word order: “As everything to us from his divine power, that which is toward life and godliness has been given …”
[2] The words “we need” are not in the Greek. Literally it’s “everything toward life and godliness.”
[3] The word “everything” is given prominence in the word order. It’s the first word in the sentence after the connecting word. This is the Greek word order: “As everything to us from his divine power, that which is toward life and godliness has been given …”
[4] The words “we need” are not in the Greek. Literally it’s “everything toward life and godliness.”
[5] He never uses the term “life” again in the book, but godliness comes up again in 1:6,7, 3:11, so Peter’s emphasis seems to be on godliness more than life. Also, “life,” by itself, is a general, generic, broad concept, whereas godliness is more specific. And since Peter’s other descriptions of the goal in the paragraph are all various aspects of righteous living, the idea of life-filled godliness fits with those.
[6] Hebrews 5:12; 1 Corinthians 3:2.
[7] Most books don’t have a connecting word between the greeting and the body. They end the greeting then start fresh with a new sentence. By going outside the norm, Peter draws attention to the significance of the connection. Interpreters debate about the meaning of the connection. There are so many different theological concepts in both the greeting and vv.3ff, it’s hard to see what is being connected to what. In my view, the most obvious answer is the only concept that appears in both verses—the knowledge of God. Verse 3 is an explanation of the statement in v.2 about grace and peace being multiplied through knowledge of God.
Some suggest that the purpose is to connect vv.3-4 with v.5. Here’s the WBC comment on that:
“The particle ?? (“seeing that”), with which this section begins, has been left untranslated in the English translation given above. It is difficult to decide whether it indicates a connection with the preceding verse, so that vv 3–4 are an elaboration of the salutation, or whether it introduces a new paragraph. In the latter case it is necessary to take vv 3–4 as a protasis, to which the corresponding apodosis is found in vv 5–7 (so Knopf, Reicke). However, the phrase ?a? a?t? t??t? d? (“for this very reason,” v 5) is so awkward an introduction for an apodosis, that we should then have to suppose an anacolouthon, with the writer starting a fresh sentence in v 5. This grammatical awkwardness has led the majority of commentators to prefer a connection with v 2.”
[8] Everyone in the world is invited to salvation (Revelation 22:17), but being called is something else. We know that this is a kind of call to which the one called always responds the same day because Scripture speaks of the day of your salvation as the day you were called (1 Cor.1:26). The difference between God’s general invitation to all people and the special call is like the difference between a man who puts up a sign on his door that says, “All dogs welcome” and the guy who has his own dog, and he knows how to call it in a way that the dog always comes running. Theologians call this God’s “effectual” call. There is nothing in this doctrine that contradicts free will. The dog whose master calls him still has free will. His master simply knows how to activate that free will.
[9] That word “excellence” (your Bible might say “goodness”) is hard to pin down, but I think the best definition is probably “moral excellence.” God is beautiful and excellent and magnificent and flawless morally. When it comes to his attitudes and desires and what he loves and hates with regard to good and evil, it’s beautiful. Moral perfection. The word glory has the idea of radiance or splendor. God’s glory is that which is wonderful about God that we can perceive. So the two words together seem to describe God’s nature inside and out.
