2 Peter 1 – “The Great Escape”
Thesis: Jesus is the one who helps us to experience The Great Escape from the prisoner of war camp that we all found ourselves locked in. This prisoner of war camp is filled with evil desires and corruption and it has claimed many people’s lives.
Video Illustration: From The movie “The Great Escape” preview of the movie. The movie is about Allied soldiers who planned and executed “The Great Escape” from a German Prisoner of War camp in WWII. The movie focuses on how determined these soldiers were to escape from their present condition of bondage. These men planned their escape carefully. They worked hard and sacrificed to execute their escape plan. This plan was designed to set over 200 prisoners of war free. The escape was successful but many of the ones who got freed were recaptured by the Germans. The good news is though there were those who made it home to their land of freedom.
Spiritual Point: These men knew the risk for breaking out of their prisoner of war camp. They knew that to execute the escape would require sacrifice and hard work. They knew that if the Germans caught them as they dug tunnels or forged documents that the result would be severe punishment. But they did it any way so that they could be free. So they planned the route to freedom and executed it with their sacrificial lives. The big day came and many were freed temporally. The officers who escaped were executed and the others returned to face severe punishment but the truth was some of them made it.
There are many who are prisoners today in the current spiritual war fro the world. The warring powers are the powers of good and evil. One power wants us to yield to our sinful evil desires and the other wants us to resist the sinful way of this corrupt world. The one who resists and takes the route to freedom will be freed for all eternity. The other one who allows themselves to stay in captivity to this world will have no life and no future.
Let’s look at 2 Peter 1 and discover how to be apart of the “Great Escape!”
Scripture Text: 2 Peter 1:1-21:
1Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
2Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3His 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. 4Through 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.
5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For 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. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
12So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. 13I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, 14because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.
16We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” 18We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
19And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. 21For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Introduction:
Peter gives us the promise of how we can escape the corruption of this world. He tells us that there is a way to escape a heart and mind filled with evil desires. He says follow me as I follow Christ and I will show you the way to escape the sinfulness of this world. He tells us that if we have allowed the grace of God to flood our hearts and lives then we will have the divine power to be able to live lives that are godly. His precious promises have set in motion the path we need to take to escape from this evil world’s imprisonment.
Illustration: Stories for Preachers: Freedom
I will never forget the day I watched about 40 khaki-clad men get off an old rattletrap brown bus in Houston, Texas. Some had scars on their faces. I especially remember one man whose arm had been amputated. Some of them looked tough. I remember thinking I would not want to meet some of those guys in a dark alley. Others looked like clean-cut, all-American boys. They all had two things in common. Each man had served time in prison and each man had been freed. Freedom had been a long time in coming. They measured the time they had served by calendars.
As I talked with some of those men, it soon became apparent that adapting to freedom would require some adjustment. They were so used to forced regimentation that some of them really did not know they were free. They asked if I represented the Texas Department of Corrections.
As children of God, we sometimes do not quite comprehend the fact that we have been set free by our Savior. Some of us are imprisoned by the memories of a sinful past. Lloyd Ogilvie said, "The memory of past failure is like sand in the gears of our effectiveness." God did not put the handcuffs of past memories on you. They are self-imposed. He wiped out your sins in order that you might have seasons of refreshing (Acts 3:19).
Other Christians are incarcerated by legalism. They read the Bible to learn of its rules. The legalist with a sensitive conscience knows he cannot keep God’s laws perfectly. Maybe that is why the novelist John Updike said, "I agree with the Jews. One Testament is enough." If faith is solely a matter of law keeping, I would agree. The Psalmist was talking about the Old Testament when he said, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul" (Ps. 19:7). There was no need for a new law code, but there was a need for freedom from the consequences of disobedience. Small wonder that legalists either live in a state of perpetual discouragement or self-righteous hypocrisy. The legalist does not understand that "everyone who believes in Him is freed from all things" (Acts 13:39 NASB).
If you are living in a prison of your own making, you can walk through the doors of freedom today. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free" (Gal. 5:1).
Peter in his second letter to the church of Jesus Christ tells us how to escape from the captivity of this evil world. He lays out before us the plan for “The Great Escape.” We see that there is a path to freedom. We discover that there is a certain route which leads to a life filled with blessings and not cursing. But we also discover that only certain people can go.
I. Who is allowed to experience The Great Escape?”
a. The ones who have discovered righteousness.
i. Holman defines righteousness this way:
1. RIGHTEOUSNESS The actions and positive results of a sound relationship …between God and a person or His people…We understand righteousness to mean “uprightness” in the sense of “adherence or conformity to an established norm.” In biblical usage righteousness is rooted in covenants and relationships. For biblical authors, righteousness is the fulfillment of the terms of a covenant between God and humanity...
2. Righteousness is the act of having a right relationship with God Almighty. It means that I have the privilege to be able to stand in the presence of God. Because I have received the gift of righteousness I then have the right to have a personal intimate relationship with the Lord.
a. To be righteous means to stand in the right position in the presence of a right God.
b. Those who have faith in God and in Jesus Christ.
i. Faith is defined by Holman as follows:
1. Holman: The New Testament sometimes uses “faith” to designate Christianity itself or that which Christians believe (Acts 6:7; Eph. 4:5; Col. 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:19; Jude 3). In this usage it is clear that an element of what we call belief is essential to the personal relationship we are calling “faith.” Here it would be well to note Hebrews 11:6 also—“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is.... ” In this verse also the word translated “believe” is the Greek verb form of “faith.” Context here dictates that we understand it in the sense of intellectual acceptance of a proposition, “belief.” To have a right relation with God, it is necessary to “believe” that God is, that God has revealed Himself in Christ, and to accept God who accepts you.
a. Faith is all about believing that God is who He said He is.
2. Holman: Faith is also the living out of the religion; it is Christianity in action. This is the meaning of “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). “Walking” represents the totality of one’s way of life.
a. Faith is not just a one time belief but a continual believing in our faith and the willingness to live it out daily because we know that is what God wants us to do.
3. Holman: If Christianity itself may be called “the faith,” then it is a small step to the New Testament usage of the participle of the verb form of faith to designate Christians. This form is often translated “believers” (it occurs most often in the plural) or “those who believe” (Acts 4:32; Rom. 1:16). If we continue our distinction between faith and belief, we would prefer the translation “those who have faith” or the ungrammatical “those who faith.”
a. I like this phrase “those who faith” it means our belief in God drives us to faith to walk and talk the way we believe.
4. Holman: Hebrews 11:1. Here faith is called “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (RSV). Thus, Hebrews closely ties faith very closely to Christian hope. The personal conviction of faith encourages the Christian to continue hoping for the fulfillment of the promises of God, but it is not the substance (as in the KJV) … Faith is then meant as a sort of foretaste of the hoped for things.
5. Holman : Faith as the Way to Salvation The concept of faith is primarily that of a personal relationship with God that determines the priorities of one’s life. This relationship is one of love that is built on trust and dependence. We receive it by trusting the saving work of Jesus. Faith is the basic Christian experience, the decision for Christ Jesus. It is the acceptance of Christ’s lordship (i.e., His God-given, absolute authority). In this sense faith is doubly a break from the past: it is one’s removal from sin, and it is one’s removal from all other religious allegiances (1 Thess. 1:9). As a break from the past, faith is the beginning of relation to God and not an end. It is, especially in Paul’s letters, the inauguration of incorporation “in Christ,” in which one continues to grow and develop. If faith is primarily a relationship into which one enters through acceptance of Jesus’ authority, it also includes a certain amount of “belief.” As a derived use, then, “faith” may also denote the content of what is believed. In this sense faith is the conviction that God acted in the history of Israel and “that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).
6. Faith is the belief that Jesus Christ died for you and has set you free from sin so you believe this fact. Your belief then becomes your way of life. You decide to live in accordance with what you believe about the Lord. Remember you believe in Jesus and you believe you must live for Jesus and therefore you do so.
a. Faith is the initial belief on Jesus as our personal Savior.
b. Then faith once accepted and embraced becomes our way of life.
c. This faith will lead us each day to Jesus and it will direct us in what to do and what not to do.
c. Those who have experienced grace can also partake of The Great Escape:
i. Grace is defined by Holman
1. Holman: Paul’s sense of God’s grace owed much to his experience of being turned from the persecutor of the church to Christ’s missionary to the Gentiles (1 Cor. 15:9-10; 1 Tim. 1:12-14). So convinced was he that this was all God’s doing and not of his own merit that he could describe his apostolic calling as coming even before his birth (Gal. 1:15). He was an apostle solely because of God’s grace (Rom. 1:5), and his entire ministry and teaching were due to that divine grace (Rom. 12:3; 15:15; 1 Cor. 3:10; 2 Cor. 1:12; Gal. 2:9; Eph. 3:2, 7, 8).
a. Paul preached and taught about grace the most out of all the disciples of Jesus Christ because he had personally experienced grace in his own life and it changed his life.
2. Holman: Paul had too profound a sense of human sin to believe that a person could ever earn God’s acceptance (Rom. 3:23). …So, he came to see a sharp antithesis between law and grace. Law is the way of self-help, of earning one’s own salvation. Grace is God’s way of salvation, totally unearned (Rom. 3:24; 4:4; 11:6; Eph. 2:8). Grace is appropriated by faith in what God has done in Christ (Rom. 4:16). God’s grace comes to sinners, not to those who merit God’s acceptance (Rom. 5:20-21). It is through Christ’s atoning work on the cross that God’s grace comes to us, setting us free from the bondage of sin (Rom. 3:24-31).
a. Grace is God’s get out of jail free ticket.
3. Holman: For Paul, grace is practically synonymous with the gospel. Grace brings salvation (Eph. 2:5, 8). Grace brings eternal life (Rom. 5:21; Titus 3:7). To share in the gospel is to be a partaker of grace (Phil. 1:7; Col. 1:6). In Christ Jesus, God’s grace is open to all people (Titus 2:11; compare 2 Cor. 4:15); but the experience of God’s grace is conditional upon human response. It can be rejected or accepted (2 Cor. 6:1; Gal. 1:6; 5:4).
a. Grace is the get out of jail free ticket but the sad fact is many people chose to not take the ticket. Instead they say I don’t want to get out of jail I like it here. So they reject the freedom offered to them by Jesus.
4. Holman: From the human perspective, the divine grace is a power which undergirds the present life. God’s grace abides in us (2 Cor. 9:14); we stand in it (Rom. 5:2). Our calling, our witness, our works are all based on the power of God’s grace in our lives (2 Thess. 1:11-12). Paul sharply rejected any antinomian perversion of the gospel which failed to recognize that the true experience of God’s grace changes one’s life in the direction of righteousness (Rom. 6:1, 14-15). Grace never gives freedom to sin. His own experience had shown him a new power of the divine grace active in his ministry in spite of his human weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). In fact, all who experience God’s grace have gifts of that grace for ministry and service (Rom. 12:6; Eph. 4:7).
a. The truth is when you are given a get out of jail free ticket (grace) you leave the prison and from then forward you live in grace.
b. You see once we accept grace to get free then we live and stand wrapped in grace.
c. This experience of getting out of jail free should so impact us that from that day forward we change the way we live. Grace will always push us away from sin and it’s bondage and grace will always lead us to the Spirit of freedom.
5. So pervasive was Paul’s sense of God’s grace that he always referred to it in the opening or closing of his letters.
a. In his writings Paul always opened up talking about God’s wonderful grace and closed referring once again to his get out of jail free ticket.
6. Grace is the unmerited favor of God which is given to us even though we do not deserve it.
7. Charles Swindoll has this to say about this gift called grace that came from Jesus:
a. To show grace is to extend favor or kindness to one who doesn’t deserve it and can never earn it. Receiving God’s acceptance by grace always stands in sharp contrast to earning it on the basis of works. Every time the thought of grace appears, there is the idea of its being undeserved. In no way is the recipient getting what he or she deserves. Favor is being extended simply out of the goodness of the heart of the giver (9).
d. A person who has experienced peace can also take the route to The Great Escape.
i. Peace is defined by Holman:
1. Holman: PEACE, SPIRITUAL Sense of well-being and fulfillment that comes from God and is dependent on His presence.
a. Peace is always the effect of God’s presence in our lives.
2. Holman :New Testament The Greek word eirene corresponds to the Hebrew shalom expressing the idea of peace, well-being, restoration, reconciliation with God, and salvation in the fullest sense. God is “the God of peace” (Rom. 15:33; Phil. 4:9; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 13:20). The Gospel is “the good news of peace” (Eph. 6:15; Acts 10:36) because it announces the reconciliation of believers to God and to one another (Eph. 2:12-18). God has made this peace a reality in Jesus Christ, who is “our peace.” We are justified through Him (Rom. 5:1), reconciled through the blood of His cross (Col. 1:20), and made one in Him (Eph. 2:14). In Him we discover that ultimate peace which only God can give (John 14:27). This peace is experienced as an inner spiritual peace by the individual believer (Phil. 4:7; Col. 3:15; Rom. 15:13).
a. Since God is one who gives peace it makes sense that when we experience Him by faith we then also get this gift of peace.
b. This peace is so vivid and real we can have peace even in the midst of a waging war all around us. It’s that real that powerful.
e. A person can also experience the Great Escape because they participate in His Divine nature.
i. When we make the right choices and do the right actions then we actually participate with God Almighty.
1. When we say yes to the plan and the way of God He then works through our lives.
a. When we surrender to God we then allow the Divine Nature of God to work through our lives.
f. Summary: The person who is allowed to experience The Great Escape must have experienced the divine nature of God in their lives. We can only experience this faith through Jesus Christ. Once we have believed we then have encountered in our lives the gifts of righteousness, grace and peace. If you recall when we accepted Jesus and put our faith in trust in Him we then received flood of these gifts into our lives.
T.S. – Once we have encountered the divine nature of God we then are qualified to participate in the plan of the Great Escape.
II. The plan which leads us to The Great Escape.
a. This plan was revealed to us as captives by God Himself.
i. It was revealed by His Word.
ii. God is the one who set the plan in motion with the sending of His Son Jesus.
b. Jesus is the role model who demonstrates how the plan works.
i. He did this with his sacrificial life.
ii. He did this with His willingness to die for God.
iii. He showed that the plan worked by His resurrection from the dead.
c. The Holy Spirit has revealed the plan to us through the prophets and through the spoken Word of God.
i. God has in the past used prophets to speak His words of truth to the people locked away in the prison of the world.
1. All these individuals spoke by the power of God which empowered them say what needed to be said at the time they spoke.
2. They were instruments of God who gave the message of freedom and salvation to those jailed by the corruption of the world.
3. These people were empowered by God for the purpose to set the captives free.
4. God sent His prophets and He still sends his prophets to us today because He loves us.
a. He loves us so much that He sent His only Son to die on the cross for us so that we could be freed from this world of sin and evil.
ii. The Holy Spirit still uses people like me to reveal the truth of Scripture to you.
1. Why? So that you and I could be freed from the prisoner of war camp called the corrupt world.
2. We must understand that the proclamation of God’s word is orchestrated and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
a. This is not my awesome thoughts but God’s thoughts given to me so that I can deliver His message to you.
b. This is why we are to pay attention during the preaching and the teaching of the word of God.
i. It is God’s chosen way to set us free in this life and to help us on the journey to The Great Escape.
ii. I become concerned when I see a lack of respect for the preaching and teaching of God’s Word today.
iii. People skip church and think, “What’s the big deal?”
iv. People talk through the teaching time and ignore what the message is for the day from the Holy Spirit.
1. In a sense we say, “God I am not interested in what your Word has to say to me!”
v. It is through this type of venue that God has set up to speak to His people so He can guide them and direct them.
1. Yes, it’s the venue of the local church and it’s God’s design- not man’s. Don’t be fooled by the lies of the enemy that tell you the church is set up by God.
3. Peter tells us that this preaching and teaching of God’s word is light in the midst of darkness.
a. This is why we should invite people to church so that they can see the light and experience the light!
i. So that they can discover the right path to get out of their personal prisons.
4. You must understand that I cannot preach or teach the Word without the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
a. He is the one revealing the truths to me.
i. I cannot do this on my own ability!
b. The action of preaching and teaching is divinely inspired and anointed by God Himself.
i. When He reveals things to me then I must reveal them to you.
ii. I can only speak as the Holy Spirit carries me along in this task for God. If it was up to me there would be no escape for you. Your Great escape comes from God and His Word!
iii. The truth is God uses imperfect people like me to do His perfect will. And that will for my life is to preach and teach His word to His people,
iv. Therefore you must pay attention to it and hear it and then do it! It will make the difference in your life.
T.S. – We have learned who is qualified to experience The Great Escape and we have discovered the plan but now we must make the journey and go through the stations to get to The Great Escape.
III. The route which leads to The Great Escape.
a. There are eight stations along the track to The Great Escape
i. Faith
1. We have talked about the importance of believing and it is always the first station on the way to The Great Escape.
ii. Goodness
1. The second station to The Great Escape is the act of goodness
2. Holman defines goodness this way:
a. Holman: GOOD In contrast to the Greek view of “the good” as an ideal, the biblical concept focuses on concrete experiences of what God has done and is doing in the lives of God’s people. Scripture affirms that God is and does good (1 Chron. 16:34; Ps. 119:68). The goodness of God is experienced in the goodness of God’s creative work (Gen. 1:31) and in God’s saving acts (liberation of Israel from Egypt, Ex. 18:9; return of a remnant from captivity, Ezra 7:9; personal deliverance, Ps. 34:8; salvation, Phil. 1:6). God’s goodness is extended to God’s name (Ps. 52:9), God’s promises (Jos. 21:45), God’s commands (Ps. 119:39; Rom. 7:12), God’s gifts (Jas. 1:17), and God’s providential shaping of events (Gen. 50:20; Rom. 8:28). Though God alone is truly good (Ps. 14:1, 3; Mark 10:18), Scripture repeatedly speaks of good persons who seek to live their lives in accordance with God’s will. Christians have been saved in order to do good (Eph. 2:10; Col. 1:10) with the Holy Spirit’s help.
b. One of the station points along the path of The Great Escape is that we are to being doing good things with our lives.
c. We are to be doers of the good! Each and every day of our lives.
iii. Knowledge
1. The third station we need to visit on the route to The Great Escape is that of knowledge.
2. Holman defines knowledge this way:
a. Holman: KNOWLEDGE - Knowledge is attributed both to God and to human beings. God’s knowledge is said to be omniscient . He knows all things (Job 21:22; Ps. 139:1-18…The knowledge which God has of nations and human beings indicates that He has a personal interest—not merely an awareness—of people (Ps. 144:3). To be known by God may mean that a nation or individual is chosen by God to play a part in God’s purposes in the world (Jer. 1:5; Amos 3:2; Gal. 4:9).
i. We see that God knows all things and when we allow Him to take control of our lives He promises to impart His knowledge into our lives.
b. Holman: The Bible speaks often about human knowledge. Knowledge of God is the greatest knowledge (Prov. 9:10) and is the chief duty of humankind (Hos. 6:6).
i. The station of knowledge is not about academics but about getting to know God and His way.
c. Holman: In the New Testament one knows God through a knowledge of Jesus Christ (John 8:19; Col. 2:2-3). The apostle Paul closely connected knowledge to faith. Knowledge gives direction, conviction, and assurance to faith (2 Cor. 4:14). Knowledge is a spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:8) which can grow, increase, be filled, and abound (Phil. 1:9; Col. 1:9-10; 2 Cor. 8:7). It consists in having a better understanding of God’s will in the ethical sense (Col. 1:9-10; Phil. 1:9), of knowing that God desires to save people (Eph. 1:8-9), and of having a deeper insight into God’s will given in Christ (Eph. 1:17; 3:18-19)… Love is more important than knowledge (1 Cor. 13), yet knowledge is still a gift, necessary for Christian teaching (1 Cor. 14:6) and for Christian growth toward a mature faith (1 Cor. 8:7; 2 Pet. 1:5-6; 3:18)… Jesus’ knowledge of the Father consists of His hearing God’s word and obediently expressing it to the world.
i. Knowledge comes from listening to God’s Word.
d. Knowledge of God is closely related to faith, expressing the perception and understanding of faith.
iv. Self-control
1. Peter often talks about the station of self-control and it is on the journey to The Great Escape.
2. Holman defines it this way:
a. Holman: SELF-CONTROL Modern translations’ term for several Greek words indicating a sober, temperate, calm, and dispassionate approach to life, having mastered personal desires and passions. Biblical admonitions expect God’s people to exercise self-control (Prov. 25:28; 1 Cor. 7:5; 1 Thess. 5:6; 1 Tim. 3:2; 2 Tim. 3:3; Gal. 5:23; 2 Tim. 1:7; Titus 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:6).
b. Holman: Freedom in Christ does not give believers liberty to cast off all moral restraint as some members in Galatia and other churches apparently believed. Nor does it call for a withdrawal from life and its temptations. It calls for a self-disciplined life following Christ’s example of being in the world but not of the world.
i. Self-control is about surrendering ones life to Jesus and denying the self-centered desires of ones self for the sake of the Gospel.
v. Perseverance
1. The next station on the track to The Great Escape is perseverance.
2. This is the ability to stay the course -- stay the path in spite of the obstacles or hardships in life.
3. Webster defines it this way:
a. To continue in some effort, some course of action.
b. To continue in spite of opposition and or difficulty.
c. It’s the ability to be steadfast in purpose.
d. To persist to the end.
i. Perseverance is the key on this journey. People who decide to give up and get off the track because of obstacle will never make it to The Great Escape.
vi. Godliness
1. The next station on the route to The Great Escape is godliness.
a. It’s interesting that godliness is attained after we have gone through the station of perseverance.
2. Holman defines godliness this way:
a. Holman: GODLINESS An attitude and style of life that acknowledges God’s claims on human life and seeks to live in accordance with God’s will.
b. Holman: Only 1, 2 Timothy, Titus, and 2 Peter use words with the euseb- root for Christian piety. Individuals can be trained in godliness (1 Tim. 4:7). Godly teaching (1 Tim. 6:3) is that which results in godly lives (Tit. 1:1).
c. Holman: When “godliness” appears in lists with other virtues, it perhaps retains its earlier sense of respect for God and divinely ordained institutions (1 Tim. 6:11; Titus 2:12; 2 Peter 1:3-7).
vii. Brotherly kindness
1. The 7th station on the route to The Great Escape is that of brotherly kindness.
2. Webster defines kindness this way:
a. Kindness is being kind to others; You are kind by doing the following:
i. Being Agreeable
ii. Being pleasant
iii. Being gracious
iv. Being forgiving
3. This type of kindness is the same kind shared by close relatives.
a. Think of your last Holiday get together with your family. Did you not do certain things so that the family could get along?
viii. Love
1. Love is the last station on the journey to The Great Escape.
a. Love is considered the greatest way in the Bible
i. 1 Corinthians 13 says:
1. 1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
2. 13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
2. Is it not interesting that the route to be taken ends with Love? Love is the last station that we go through to experience The Great Escape.
a. We know from Scripture that love is what Heaven is founded on and controlled by.
i. And to get through to The Great Escape we must go through this train station of life.
b. The reality is for us to experience The Great Escape we must get to the point of having a life that is filled with love.
i. Our lives need to be love driven!
ii. Our lives need to be love mastered!
3. Holman defines love this way:
a. Holman: LOVE Unselfish, loyal, and benevolent concern for the well-being of another. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul described “love” as a “more excellent way” better than tongues or even preaching. The New Testament maintains this estimation of love throughout.
b. Love is God’s perfect way and it’s the station which launches us free to enter The Great Escape.
Conclusion: The results of the Great Escape!
When these stations are experienced by your life they will make you worthy and productive in with your life. Those who chose not to escape by using this track in life will end up being worthless and unproductive with their lives. A person like this is a prisoner of the world and they are said by Peter to be:
Blind – Nearsighted - And they cannot see the future.
Why are there people like this? Truth is because they are imprisoned by the deception and evil forces of this world. The corruption of the world has them blinded to the right path in life. They are prisoners in this world and they do not even know it.
But for those who follow the plan and track laid out above they are promised from Scripture that they will not fail or fall. Peter reminds us again that this plan for freedom is not a myth it’s a reality. It’s a truthful plan which actually leads to freedom. It’s a plan and a route that will lead you to hear God’s voice. Peter tells us that this route is the same one that he has been on and it has lead him to audibly hear God’s voice and meet the Savior personally.
This Great Escape plan and journey all started with faith – A belief in God and His great plan Jesus Christ. Once we have chosen to follow His plan we enter on the journey to The Great Escape. This journey takes us on a path were we encounter different stations along way but each one gets us closer to The Great Escape. Therefore we must decide to progress through each station because they will lead us to eternal freedom.
2 Peter 1: 5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
This journey started with faith and ends in love which is the language and the governmental system of Heaven. Those who make it to this point in their lives will have had lives that are fruitful and productive for the Kingdom of God. Their lives will be deemed worthy by God. So worthy in fact God will speak to them face to face and say: “This is my Son or Daughter in whom I am well pleased. Well done my good and faithful one come and enter into you life filled with rest and freedom for all eternity.” You have achieved “The Great Escape!”
Altar Call: So let me ask you?
Have you accepted the plan which leads to The Great Escape from this corrupt world?
If not then accept it today from the Lord!
Now for those of you who have accepted the plan let me ask, “Are you still on the right track to The Great Escape?”
Have you been side tracked?
Have you refused to enter a certain station on the journey?
If you have wandered or got stuck then get back on the train bound for glory. Get back on the journey to freedom!
Remember those who stay on the route to the end get to participate and celebrate their Great Escape. They get to celebrate a life filled with great fulfillment, great purpose, and eternal accomplishment. It’s a life that God is very pleased with!
