June 29, 2008
Sun Oak Baptist Church
Introduction
The consummate burden on Peter’s heart; where he’s been aiming the whole letter: to present the centrality of the glory of God and its importance in the Christian life. It is Peter was aiming at in both letters; what Paul aimed at in his letters; what John in his letters was aiming at – what the whole Bible aims at: bringing praise, adoration, exaltation, thanksgiving, honor, distinction, splendor, and magnificence to almighty God.
Everything Peter says this last will and testament culminates in verse 18. And in verses 15-18 Peter gives us 4 ways to do just that: 4 ways to bring glory to God as we walk this pilgrim’s path.
I. By understanding that we live in the age of salvation.
Web visitors: please see last week's message for notes on this point.
II. By accepting and trusting without reservation that the Bible is the Word of God. See 3:15b-16.
Remember what’s going on here: false teachers, scoffers, were mocking what the Bible teaches about the Second Coming of Christ. If the people Peter was writing to really believed that, at the atomic level, if they really believed what the OT said about the second coming of Messiah and what the apostles wrote and taught about the Second Coming; in other words if they really believed that God’s Word as they had it at that time was absolutely authoritative and without error then why would these early Christians even be questioning the doctrine of the Second Coming?
A. Reason #1: Peter’s statements regarding why the return of Jesus is being delayed – once in verse 9 and again in verse 15.
This is the same doctrinal truth that Paul taught and that Jesus Himself taught. So Peter is setting in concrete the truth that there is complete unity and agreement among the apostles as to why Jesus is delaying His return.
B. Reason #2: the phrase “these things.” See 3:16.
This phrase takes us back, refers back to things Paul wrote about – the same things Peter’s been writing about in his letters.
1. Remember where the people receiving Peter’s letters lived? See 1st Peter 1:1. Following the custom of the day in the early church, apostolic letters were copied and distributed because there was no NT yet. So we can be certain that copies of Paul’s letters, at least some of them, were in the hands of the very people reading Peter’s letters because Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon all pre-date Peter’s letters – they were written and sent before Peter’s letters.
2. The phrase: “the rest of the Scriptures.” This refers to the OT because that was all of God’s revelation people had at that time. Jesus viewed the OT as fully authoritative, inerrant, and infallible when properly interpreted and applied – and so did the rest of the apostles.
3. Application: God intends His Word to stand dead center of the Christian life – just like it should have for Adam and just like it should have for Israel.
C. Peter lays a parallel thought right next to these and we find it in the phrase here in verse 16 “in which are some things hard to understand.”
1. Even though Scripture is inspired there are times and there are certain parts or sections that may not be easy to understand.
2. This challenge doesn’t mean that preachers and teachers of God’s Word can abandon their calling to preach the whole counsel of God – which is exactly what is happening in churches today.
III. By guarding ourselves against error. See 3:16-17.
3 specific warnings:
A. Warning #1: misinterpreting God’s holy, infallible, inerrant Word leads to destruction. See 3:16b.
1. This is warning for scoffers – for false teachers.
2. The words “own destruction” clearly implies interpreting the Scripture is a matter of life and death.
3. Here’s a contemporary perspective – where we live right now: in our day there is an unending proliferation of stuff written about prophecy; various aspects of victorious Christian living; how to do something in order to manipulate or cajole God’s blessings and so on.
B. Warning #2: See 17b. It is possible for a Christian to fall from their “steadfastness” – from their stability.
1. This phrase literally means “fall out of one’s stability” – meaning Christians can be seduced and fall out of the stability or the firmness that they have in Christ. Read 2:2. Now, we’re not talking about losing our salvation – Peter’s referring to falling from that place of victorious and fruitful living that brings glory to God.
2. See Gal. 2:11-14. What Peter says is precisely what Paul says in Gal. 2:13 when he tells us about Barnabas, Barnabas, being carried away with hypocrisy.
C. See 2nd Tim. 2:14. Warning #3: when Christians regularly listen to false teachers who distort the Scripture, they run the risk of being led astray.
1. How can a “Christian” believe in evolution? How can a Christian think if they just send another $100 to that televangelist then their ship will come in? Why do so many professing Christians seem so uncommitted to Christ? One reason is that we cannot sit in a church where someone is twisting and distorting the Scripture without running the risk of being led astray – a little leaven.
2. And the OT and NT both drive this truth home in with the power of a sledge hammer: only truth sanctifies; only truth sanctifies – only truth brings righteousness. See John 8:32; 15:3; 17:17 & 19; etc.
IV. By making it our life’s ambition to grow in the grace and knowledge of Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. See 3:18.
A. In verse 17, there’s a tree that does not grow and so loses its stability in the earth and is blown over by the wind of false teaching. And on the other hand, in verse 18, there is a tree which keeps its roots planted in God’s grace and so grows and stays healthy and stable and does not get blown over by false teaching. See Psalm 1.
B. See 1:2 and 3:18. Grow in our knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ and the only way to do that is through His Word and in church and in Bible studies. Peter begins this letter: “Grace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God,” and closes with the command to grow “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord.”
Conclusion
And so this marvelous letter comes to an ends – and with these words we take our leave: “To him be glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”