2 Peter #4 2 Peter 1: 12-21 Practicing the Basics Secures the Victory
2 Peter #4 2 Peter 1: 12-21
Peter
is warning us about false teachers.
False teaching and inadequate understanding of God and the life
believers are empowered to live, lead to unrighteous behavior. Peter believes
he is coming to the end of his earthly journey, he is pretty sure he is soon to
die. Even though he knows the folks he
is writing to have a true knowledge of God, he will remind them again knowing that
this repetition serves as a safeguard for their souls.
In this presentation, I wish to do something
similar. I want to remind you of the key understandings that I have been
teaching over these many years. I hope
that you too will remember them, and let them become an understanding through
which you can experience real and whole life, living it to the full.
2 Peter
#4 2 Peter 1:12-15 (MSG)
12
Because the stakes are so high, even though you're up-to-date on all this truth
and practice it inside and out, I'm not going to let up for a minute in calling
you to attention before it. 13 This is the post to which I've been assigned—keeping
you alert with frequent reminders—and I'm sticking to it as long as I live. 14
I know that I'm to die soon; the Master has made that quite clear to me. 15 And
so I am especially eager that you have all this down in black and white so that
after I die, you'll have it for ready reference.
The
stakes are high, and why? Because the butcher placed them on the top
shelf. No. Bad dad joke.
The
stakes are high because the message of Jesus is one of life lived eternally in
the presence of God or life lived eternally in the absence of God. Considering a metaphysical observation living
in the absence of God we see how bad a life can be lived. Life can turn into a living hell all due to
choices made when a person is clueless concerning righteousness, of being in
sync with God. Out of sync living
becomes a wildfire consuming everything the scriptures promote as good. Living in the absence of God is to forget how
to be human. In its grossest forms, a
life devoid of the presence of God a person has no concern for anything but
self. What is best for me is what takes
prominence in all things. What often
occurs is repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and
emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show
religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition;
all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love
or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided
pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival;
uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community
(Galatians 5:19-21 (MSG).
Love,
compassion, and kindness, they flee from a life that rejects God. Into the vacuum created by virtues leaving
comes dishonesty, manipulation of truth to get what you want; greed, the ends
justify the means to getting what you want; lust, that burning quest to
acquire, to get what you want regardless of the cost; envy, resenting others because you perceive
them as having better than you; anger, being hostile towards anything that
isn’t the way you want it; excessive
pride is an inflated sense of your importance; gluttony and not just for food,
but that desire for more of everything; sloth especially in thinking, you don’t
do your work; violence shows up in abusive behavior whether it is physical or
emotional; and blasphemy, oh especially
blasphemy because blasphemy is rejecting God, disregarding His will and His
way, rejecting the way He made you, the very moral laws written into the
Universe, blasphemy is choosing to be out of sync. The life of a person who
rejects God fills up with these types of soul cancers.
Romans
1:18 (MSG)
God's
angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying
accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth.
God’s
angry displeasure is allowing you to do what you want to do. God’s displeasure is setting you free to
pursue what you determine to be best for yourself. It must cause God distress
to know that in doing so people are going to bring a world of heartache upon
themselves. Manifesting in the life of a person who is determined to go their way
is a life that falls short, one that fills with silliness and confusion so that
there is no sense of direction left in their lives (Romans 1:21 (MSG).
The
stakes are high for this life and even higher for the next. In this life we have access to God’s grace,
as long as we have His breath in our lungs we can change our choice from living
in rebellion to bending our knee to the Lordship of Christ. We have these word
pictures of Hell even if you have never read Dante’s Inferno the images fill
our minds with flames and torment, demons and darkness. In the book of Revelation the damned, those
who have rejected God are thrown alive in the Lake of Fire, “where their worm
does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 4:48). With these word pictures to fire your
imagination this is what an eternity living without the presence of God feels
like. Since you wanted a universe in which all was as you would have it, you
may end up in an eternity in which you are the only one in it, eternal solitary
confinement. Take a look around and see the misery people have subjected
themselves to because they rejected God, multiply it a million times over and
that is the misery that awaits in an eternity devoid of the presence of God.
The
stakes are high. As a pastor who is charged with the care of your soul, I can
identify with Peter wanting to remind you of the things he has taught even though
you are up-to-date on them in both knowledge and practice.
Everything
rises and falls on relationships. When
the relationships in your life are good, life is good. When those key relationships are bad, life is
miserable.
God
created humanity with four righteous relationships. Righteous means in sync, as intended, and
fully functioning as designed. Those
relationships are with God, others, self, and earth. God walked with the Adam and the Eve a symbol
of fellowship, unity, of familiarity.
The Adam and the Eve were naked a symbol of transparency, of openness,
and honesty with one another. For a
time, the Adam and the Eve obeyed God’s only rule and in doing so were
comfortable in their skin, they related rightly to themselves. The earth is a symbol of God’s provision and
the Adam was tasked with caring and nurturing the resources of nature, being a
good steward of all creation.
The
temptation to be like God; the thought that God was holding back on even
greater blessings, lead to the human predicament. The Adam and the Eve represent the entire
human race. When they disobeyed God it
made all four relationships go out of sync. The Adam and the Eve covered
themselves, they hid from God, the Adam refused to take responsibility for his actions,
and the earth would no longer be willing to yield to the Adam’s care. The human
predicament is one of estrangement from righteousness. The once-good relationships have now gone bad
and each child of the Adam is under this curse. Now every person does what they
think is best for them based on their own experience, they become the chief
arbitrator of morality. The result is all those inhumane behaviors previously
mentioned cascading throughout all of humanity.
The
reason for the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus is that Jesus is born of a
woman, a human, but not born under Adam’s curse because God held the Adam responsible.
Jesus enters the world with a right relationship with God.
This
first act of disobedience is called original sin. Original sin is the human predicament of
estrangement from righteousness. As a
result, people commit personal sins.
Sins are anything that deters, damages or destroys righteousness. Even
without knowing it when we behave in a manner contrary to the will of God we
deter, damage, or destroy what God desires to bless us with. These are actual
sins. Actual sins can be understood in three categories, willful sin is when
the will of God is known and the choice is made to disregard it, sin without
intent is when a person was unaware that they inadvertently didn’t align
themselves with God and relationships become strained or damaged, besetting
sins are the unrighteous habits, attachments, and addictions that are like
baggage from living a life apart from God. What differentiates willful sin from
besetting sins is the intent to be rid of besetting sins.
The
scripture reveals that the wages of sin are death, spiritual death that
manifests itself in this life as the misery we inflict upon ourselves and
others and separation from the presence of God in eternity. The solution to the human predicament is
forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God.
The
good news of the gospel is that Jesus is the solution to the human predicament.
John
3:16 (MSG)
This is
how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this
is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have
a whole and lasting life.
When we
acknowledge that we are living apart from God, a sinner, headed for misery but
know believing that Jesus can forgive our sins and reconcile our relationship
with God we make a commitment to be Jesus’ disciple and ask God to accept our
faith in Jesus’ ability to make us righteous. This revelation and action are
all God’s gift of prevenient grace, the grace that awakens and convinces us of
our need for a savior.
God’s
replies to our sincere asking to be accepted with forgiveness of our
transgressions, reconciling our relationship to Him and sealing us with the
Holy Spirit. This is God’s gift of
justifying grace, the grace that declares us to be right with God. Justifying
grace is what God does for us.
Being
sealed with the Holy Spirit, God begins His work that transforms us into the
righteous person He declared us to be.
This is sanctifying grace, the grace that daily perfects us, making us like
Jesus in thought and deed. Sanctifying grace is what God does in us.
As we
enjoy God’s grace we are empowered to live our lives to the full. A life lived to the full is characterized by
being loved and loving others, the joy of being accepted and belonging. Your life is abundant because it has meaning
and purpose which make you significant.
The
normative Christian life has four maturing seasons. The first is experiencing a child-like faith
characterized by wonder at this new life and a hunger for all things God. The second is an adolescent-life faith in
which one is troubled by their spiritual ups and downs, they recognize an
inward saboteur. At times they are
obeying God, walking in His will His way, but then other times they are doing
the very things they vowed not to do, or can’t seem to get done the things they
know God wants them to do. It’s like a
roller coaster ride of highs and lows. The third season of maturing is
adult-like faith. This season starts
when you recognize the inward saboteur and ask the Holy Spirit to break the
power of egoism to hijack your best intentions.
You acknowledge, and repent of this on-again-off-again experience, you
consecrate you all to Jesus and ask for this second blessing. When God bestows it you now have power over
temptation. You are now fully
responsible for the choices you make with love compelling you to make righteous
choices. Finally, there is the eternal season of glorifying grace that allows
us to enter life eternal.
That
catalyst for growth in child, adolescent, and adult seasons of life is
practicing the 7 Spiritual Habits of a Disciple. It is through bible study,
prayer, fellowship, service, worship, obedience, and contemplation that you
encounter God. It is because of these encounters we grow spiritually as we
learn to live our lives to the full, becoming more like Jesus. It is through the 7 habits that true
knowledge of Jesus is gained.
I will
do my best not to be boring, but these are the teachings I am constantly
repeating for I know they will help you to live your life to the full.
There
is an old football story about Vince Lombardi the great coach of the Green Bay
Packers. The team’s practices were scouted
by an opponent; the report back was we don’t know what plays they are going to
run, all they do is block and tackle.
Repetition of the basics was the secret to being the best they could
be. The same with our spiritual lives,
putting into practice what we know is the secret to living an exemplary
life.
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