What God Gives To Us Series

“What God Gives to Us”

2 Peter 1:1-4

Pastor John Bright

2 Peter 1 “1 Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

I’m actually going to be preaching through two books in the next few months. 2 Peter and Jude are together in the New Testament because they both focus on how the Church, then and now, should deal with false teaching. I always start a new book with some basic information: who, what, where, when, and why?

WHO? v. 1

“1 Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:”

This is Simon who was given the name Peter in Matthew 16:17-18 “17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” This is also “open mouth – insert foot” Simon Peter. In Matthew 16, just a few verses after getting his new name, he rebukes Jesus, and we all know what Jesus said then: “23 But He turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

We also see in v. 1 to whom it is being sent. This is a letter to Gentile believers. The inclusion of Gentiles into the Early Church was a HUGE controversy, and Peter was at the forefront of it. In Acts 10, Peter receives a vision from God and then is told by the Holy Spirit to go to the home of a Gentile. He obeys and here is what happened: Acts 10:44-46 “44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. 45 And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. 46 For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then Peter answered, 47 “Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then they asked him to stay a few days.”

Now, decades later, Peter is referring to those Gentile Followers of Jesus as having the same faith that the Jewish Jesus Followers had, and even as the faith of the Apostles. He can make this claim because their faith and our faith are gifts from God. “Faith is the avenue or the instrument God uses to bring salvation to His people. God gives faith because of His grace and mercy, because He loves us (Ephesians 4—5). Faith comes from God in the form of a gift (Ephesians 2:8).” https://www.gotquestions.org/where-does-faith-come-from.html Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,”

The Greeting v. 2

“2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,”

Letters from that day usually included a greeting, as we see in v. 2. You can find grace and peace mentioned in many of the New Testament letters, but this is the only one that connects them to “the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” We also see this mentioned at the end of the letter: 3:17-18a “17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Today, we tend to think of knowledge as something learned and stored in the brain. It’s all about the head. In the Bible, knowledge refers to a relationship. If we know God, then we have a relationship with Him through the Blood of Jesus Christ. It was God who sought you and me for that relationship. It’s all about the heart. Peter is addressing the real danger of losing the relationship with God if they exchange the TRUTH of God revealed through the Apostles for the lies we call heresies. In the coming weeks, we are going to look at ancient heresies that keep coming back to infect the Body of Christ. Each new generation must reject the lie and hold fast to the TRUTH!