Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem.
Today, we're continuing our series in 2 Peter titled Live as People Who Remember. When asking Pastor Rich questions about this theme, one child in the church commented, If you forget your house has plumbing, you'll end up going to the woods. On a weightier note, if the people of God forget who He is, what He has done, and what He promises us, the repercussions will be great. As we preach truth to ourselves, reminding ourselves of who God is, He transforms our affections and attitudes, stirring us up to good works. The inner transformation flows out into our actions. Let's listen to this message titled Remembering Your Awesome Grant by Faith Stirs Up Virtue and Knowledge. This is part 4 of a message first preached on May 14, 2023 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Now adults, listen, don't sit there and balk at a 16-year-old teenager.
We do the same thing. What is it that you need in your day-to-day life to feel loved? Have you forgotten the promises of God? Have you lost sight of the cross? As Keller continues, she said she knew all these things about being a Christian, but they were no comfort to her. The attention of a cute boy at school was far more consoling, energizing, and foundational for her joy and self-worth than the love of Christ. Do you see the deceptiveness of the human heart?
This is what happens when we forget. Here's the point he makes, and he's quoting, he's referring to Jonathan Edwards now. Jonathan Edwards would say that she had the opinion that Jesus loved her, but she didn't really know it. There it is, knowledge. And this knowledge isn't just a mental understanding. This knowledge of which Peter speaks is being gripped by a reality, that knowledge. By a reality, that knowledge.
To the degree that it radically impacts your whole life. It would seem like when you look at this in verse 5 in our logical way of thinking, it would seem like virtue would follow knowledge, right? Supplement your faith with knowledge and knowledge with virtue, but that's not what he says, is it? I think that's key, it's important.
And here's a big key point I want to make this morning, and I hope you find it very encouraging. The point that Peter is making is this, the outflow and disciplines of the faithful life lead to further understanding of God. That's why virtue precedes knowledge in this list. Now listen, faith requires knowledge. It actually requires reason, the exercise of your reasoning capacity.
There's information, there's truth involved. And using your God-given reasoning capacity, you surrender yourself to this truth. Reason not alone, just straight human reasoning will not lead you to God.
It requires his initiative, his self-disclosure, his spirit. So knowledge is required, but the knowledge of which Peter speaks here, if you're growing in that moral excellence, if you're nurturing your faith with the outflow so that you are incarnating the inward reality, then the outflow and disciplines of a faithful life lead to further understanding of God. In other words, you're going beyond with your, when it comes to your knowledge of God, you are moving beyond the classroom.
You don't just have a classroom knowledge of God. Some of you are or have been through medical school. And when you're in medical school, you graduate from, you've got an undergraduate degree, and then you go to medical school. And when you graduate from medical school, you are what? An MD. You still can't practice.
Why? What do you have to do next? You have to do a residency. And how long does that take?
Yeah, three to seven years. And you look at Luke, are you crazy? No, just... Listen, folks, that's how Christianity works. Just because you have knowledge doesn't mean you're walking it. This is why he's talking about nurturing the faith.
You have to have that residency, if you will. There has to be the practice. And listen, the more you practice, the more you practice, and listen, the more you practice, the more you will know God. And it'll be a knowledge of God that is beyond the classroom. Bible studies are great. They're necessary.
They're good. But you really want to know God more fully and intimately, and ultimately, you have to get out of the classroom. You have to incarnate the truth. Oswald Chambers says, never try to explain God until you have obeyed him. The only bit of God we understand is the bit we have obeyed. I have to chew on that a little bit, but I just thought I'd share that with you.
So go home and chew on it for lunch. But here's a good... CS Lewis helped provide a really good illustration of this in the Chronicles of Narnia. Remember when young Lucy returns to Narnia a year later, she finds that everything has changed.
And finally, Lucy spots Aslan in a forest clearing, and she rushes to him and throws her arms around his neck and buries her face in his mane, and she gazes up into his large, wise face. Welcome, child, he said. Aslan, Lucy said, you're bigger. That's because you're older, little one, answered he.
Not because you are, I'm not, but each year you grow. Loved ones, I desire that, for me and for you, that God would be so big in our estimation that nothing else rattles us. Nothing else rattles us.
Nothing else could even possibly distract us. This is what Peter is challenging his people to do, to remember, to live as people who remember, because the more we grow, the bigger God gets, the more fuller the... Sorry, English teachers, the fuller...
The more colorful. All right. Now I forgot where I was going with that. Curse grammar.
Our faithful walk with God, our obedience to him, even when it's costly, even when we don't understand, the more we know him, the more we walk with him, the more we love him, the more we delight in him. That's how it works. That's how grace works, because we're not dealing with a concept here. We're not dealing with a power here. We're dealing with a person. Listen, walk with him.
Walk in his steps. God gave you his son so you could do that very thing, and his son is the one that leads you to the Father. This knowledge, as you increase in the knowledge of God, it increases our understanding, our understanding of reality. It is my conviction that the committed Christian who is well informed in the scriptures has the best grasp of reality.
Think about that. Because we have the perspective from the one who knows all, sees all, created all, designed a purpose for all. And he has given us a glimpse of the end so that we can live with the end in view. So the committed follower of Jesus Christ, who has saturated his attitudes and his affections with scripture, has the best grasp of reality, that knowledge that flows from the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. But it also includes discernment. This knowledge of which he speaks, as we grow in our knowledge of God, it also includes discernment. And that means to be able to make a distinction between this and that.
They are not equal. And the very concept of truth teaches us there are going to be deceptions, there are going to be lies, and you and I need to be rescued from the lies. If you remember, if you remember, as we get into chapter two, this is why Peter writes this letter. Because Peter's going to be leaving the scene soon. He knows that. And he knows that when he's off the scene, here he is an apostle, personally, specifically commissioned by Jesus Christ with his authority to establish truth for the church.
And he says, I'm leaving the scene. That's why I want to stir you up by way of reminder. Remember this, remember these truths, remember the wealth that is yours in Christ, so that you're not distracted by lesser and bane things that will come to you as lies dressed up like truth. And Paul said very much the same thing in Acts chapter 20, when he was talking lastly to the Ephesian elders, and there was weeping because they knew, and Paul knew this would be the last time that they would see him. And he said, Paul said, I know that after my departure, wolves will come in in sheep's clothing. This world is full of lies that masquerade as truth.
You and I must be able to discern the difference. And we cannot if we forget the wealth that is ours in Christ. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.
