If God sent you, A letter. in the mail. Would you read it? Who wouldn't read it? And that's what we have here.
in sacred scripture. God has spoken to us. He has revealed himself clearly in his word. As R. C.
Sproll just said, it's like God has sent a letter to us in the mail. Do you see scripture that way? Most of us, if we're honest, don't treat the Bible that way at all, especially in the West, where Bibles are so widely available and in many translations, we just don't prize scripture and study it as much as we should. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and I'm glad you're joining us today for this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
Last week we began a short series in 2 Peter and this week we're continuing that study in chapter 1 as Dr. Sprohl considers the importance of true knowledge, that knowledge that comes to us from God. As I said last week, we'll only be studying a portion of this epistle, but you can study the entirety of both 1 and 2 Peter. When you request Dr. Sproll's hardcover commentary, when you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org.
But be quick, as this offer ends at midnight.
Now grab your Bibles and open it to 2 Peter chapter 1. Here's Duck to Sprawl. We'll continue now with our study of the second epistle of Saint Peter. Act chapter 1, verse 2. Grace and Peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God.
And of Jesus our Lord. As 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. 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. In the greeting, Peter uses a phrase that is commonplace.
in the salutations of the epistles of the New Testament. He says grace. And peace be unto you. The idea of grace and peace. Is deeply rooted in Old Testament history.
You recall that in the Hebrew benediction, Both of these are enjoined, in which God is asked to grant them to his people. as integral to his benediction. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. And then may the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you.
and give you Peace, this concept of peace. was so important to Jewish people that it became the basic way of greeting one another. And to this day, The Jew will greet his friend by saying, Shalom alaykum. To which the response is Aliakum Shalom. Peace be unto you.
And I Unto you peace. But Peter does something a little bit different here. when he gives the salutation Instead of simply saying Grace and peace to you. He says, grace and peace. Be multiplied to you.
in the knowledge of God. And of Jesus our Lord, Here he speaks. of a multiplication of grace And peace.
Now notice that what Peter links the multiplication of grace and peace to Is part of that which is the central thesis of this whole epistle. And it has to do. with the knowledge of God. If you recall when we first started this study, that one of the obvious threats to the Early Christian church in her purity. Was the threat brought to bear by the Gnostic heretics?
who claim to have. A superior knowledge. Remember, the word Gnostic comes from the Greek word gnosis. which means knowledge. And so these heretics believed that they had a knowledge that was higher than that which was given to us by the apostles, kind of a mysterious, esoteric, mystical insight that ordinary mortals.
do not have at their disposal. And so over against that heretical view of knowledge. Peter now talks about true knowledge. That knowledge that comes from God. which is perhaps one of the most important, if not the most important grace.
that he disposes upon his people. that God gives us knowledge. That comes to us from himself. He gives us his very word. Our God is not silent.
Our God is not mute. Though we may not see him, We hear from him. in his word. And this is the thing that's always amazed me. As why It seems so few.
professing Christians. Have a passion. To know him. in his word. Well, let me ask you this.
If God sent you. A letter. in the mail. And you went to the Mailbox, and you saw your name on the front of the envelope, and then the return of address was. Heaven?
And the sender was God himself and you knew that you had in your hand A letter addressed to you From God The simple question is this. Would you read it? Who wouldn't read it? Who would read it? and throw it away.
Who would read it and put it on the shelf to collect dust? If you got a letter written to you personally from God, you would read it. Over and over and over again, until you began to pay attention to every tiny word, every subtle nuance. in the text because you were being informed. By a knowledge.
that comes from God himself. And that's what we have. I'm firmly convinced that that's what we have here. in sacred scripture. And that's why we never graduate.
from the school of Christ. And so we are ever learning. more deeply, more carefully, and hopefully more accurately. The things that are contained. In this word.
We remember that Jesus, in his high priestly prayer, When he prayed for the sanctification. Of his disciples and of all who would believe through their testimony, which includes you. Our Lord prayed. Father, sanctify them. Bye.
Your Truth. Your word. Is truth. This book is given to us not to press flowers. Or to make us feel good.
But to reveal the truth of God to us. Matt. As an abstract exercise in intellectual pursuit. But it is given to us that we might know him. And that we might know.
the Saviour. In the fulness Of His glory. I've spent my life studying theology. And I wish I had ten lifetimes in this world to study theology. Because in the study of theology, we're studying the knowledge of God.
And the more we learn of God, it's the old saying: the more we know Him. The greater capacity for us to love him. Oh, I know that there are people who have the creeds in their head, but no love in their heart. I don't understand how that can be. For them theology is established as a defence.
Against The piercing of the soul. By God. But that's not what the word is given for. But it is given to define for us who Jesus is. And if you say all you're concerned about is relationships.
How do you determine? What a good relationship looks like. How do you determine what a healthy relationship is? except by the truth. that God gives us that teaches us.
What true relationship should mean And so the multiplication of grace. the mullification of peace. that Peter enjoins is to be found in the knowledge of God. And of Jesus our Lord. Karma.
As his divine power has given to us all things that pertain. to life and godliness Up and the first verse, Part B. We read that the greeting was to those who have obtained like precious faith with us. And I stressed that the faith that you have is not something that you generated from your flesh. But rather, it is a gift of God, as the Apostle teaches us in Ephesians 2 so clearly.
That the very faith that you have, by which you are linked to Jesus, is not something. That arises spontaneously by your own decision. Nobody can decide. To believe in Christ. You can decide to follow Christ.
You can decide to obey Christ. But you can't decide to believe something that in fact you don't believe. That faith is a gift. that we receive From the mercy of God.
Somebody told me, I was your student 40 years ago. And he said, What changed my whole thinking was when you wrote on the board the words. Regeneration precedes Faith. He said, it opened up a whole new understanding of biblical Christianity to me because I was always taught that in order to be born again, You must first believe. And that rebirths is the result of faith.
No, it's just the other way around. People who are dead in sin. We'll never have faith until first the Spirit of God. changes the disposition of their heart, And renews them from the inside so that the work of the Spirit in regeneration. Is the first step.
It's the divine initiative. It's the work of God that produces faith in your heart. Peter. Hinted at that in the second part of verse one, and now. Whatever was left.
In ambiguity. is made abundantly clear When he says, As his divine Tower. has given us all things that pertain To life. and godliness. The word power.
In the New Testament there are different Greek words. That are used, that can be translated by the English word power. One of the most frequent, in fact, the most frequent word that is used is the Greek word. Dunamous. And I think you can guess what English word.
derives from that Greek word. You guessed it. Mm-hmm. Dynamite. That the power That God Works.
in your soul to bring you to faith. is dynamite. It's an overwhelming power. It's not a human potentiality that is realized by the flesh, but rather it is, as Peter tells us, a divine and supernatural work that God works in your soul. Regeneration.
is a result of the immediate. Supernatural work of God. In your soul. A work that only God Can bring to pass. Here's what it means: that if you are a believer in Christ, If in your soul you have an inclination towards the things of God, Which inclination or disposition is utterly foreign?
To the natural Inclinations of your flesh. If you have a desire for God. That means that in your life, at some point, You encountered the touch of the divine. In your soul. That inclination did not arise from your own bosom.
That came when the Spirit of God, as the Apostle Paul said, quickened you. made you alive. And changed you. From the path of following the course of this world, That marked your humanity Prior. To your conversion.
As his divine power. Has given to us all things that pertain to life. And to godliness Through the knowledge of Him. Who called us by His glory. And virtue.
Wow. Divine power. Through the knowledge. Of the one who called us. And he called us by his glory.
By his majestic power. By his righteous activity. He has made us alive. and by which have been given to us exceedingly great And precious Promises. I mentioned that word precious earlier.
Yes. Peter used it earlier. I look it up again this morning. In the dictionary. I know what the word precious means.
But what is it that makes something precious? We make distinctions in the common areas of life. Between rocks. And gems. And between gems.
and precious gems. And that distinction has to do with a degree of value. And of beauty. That is found. in various natural substances.
I just want to relate a little Personal anecdote here. When Vesta and I reached the milestone of our twenty fifth wedding anniversary. I wanted to buy her something special. I'm a romantic at heart. And I talked to a friend of mine who Had a good friend in New York City who has been a jeweler for 50 years.
He's in his late 70s. I asked this friend of mine if he could get his. private jeweler to Find a diamond suitable. For me to give my bride on our twenty fifth anniversary. And so the man came to Orlando from New York.
And he opened up this package and display this diamond to me. And he said to me, he said, I've Been a jeweler for 50 years. He said, and I've been called upon to rate thousands and thousands and thousands of diamonds, he said. And I have never ever rated a diamond. as being flawless.
And I haven't rated this diamond. as being Wallace, Because he said, I am convinced that within the contours of every precious gem. There must be a flaw. He said, However, this is the first time in my. experience That I have not been able.
to detect a flaw. In the diamond, and so I have rated it. Museum quality. That's perfect. Just what I want.
for my wife. And She doesn't have to look very hard to find flaws in me. But she has to look real hard to find one. in her ring. Because it's precious.
There are no flaws. in the righteousness of Jesus. There are no blemishes in the Lamb. Who was slain? That's why.
In the first five minutes in heaven, I think we'll hear the elders singing. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. to receive honor and glory, dominion and power. Because He is precious. And so this is a part.
of the vocabulary of Saint Peter. And he tells us that through the knowledge that God has given us. We have been given Great Promises And precious promises. What do you live by? What did Jesus mean when he said to the Tempter, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from The mouth of God.
What Jesus was saying is That the promises that God gives to his people. You will be my people. I will be your God. I will be with you. Even to the end.
of the age. There are times in the routine of daily life that we scarcely even think. About the promises of God. But when crunch time comes. When our lives are on the line.
And whatever problem we have, we can't buy our way up. There comes that moment when all that we have left to hold on to. Are the promises of God? Yeah. He would have been just in striking me dead for what I just said to you.
For intimating that all we have left would be the promises of God. Because what greater possession could we have in those times? than those promises that Peter speaks about here that are great. And precious. Consider the context in which Peter writes this.
Epistle. This is his swanson. 2 Peter is to the Petrine literature like 2 Timothy was to the corpus of the Apostle Paul. At the end of 2 Timothy, Paul. tells his beloved disciple, I'm about ready to be poured out.
And he knows that his life is soon to be taken from him. It wouldn't surprise me that the same day Paul was writing. 2 Timothy, Peter was writing 2 Peter. Because in the body of this epistle, He announces. his imminent departure.
From this world. And it's at a time like that. That people begin to think. of the promises of God. Yay.
You walk through the valley In the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For Thou art with me. How can you be afraid of anything? If you know that God is with you, That is a precious promise. That...
Yeah. A great promise. Uh worthy to be clutched to our bosoms, worthy to die for. How can you be afraid of anything if you know that God is with you? That was our C-Sprawl, and this is the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
Dr. Sprohl's passion for God's word was evident in his preaching. And you'll find that same passion and precision when you request Dr. Sproul's hardcover commentary on 1st and 2 Peter with your donation in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org. And for our global listening audience, the e-book edition is also available for you at renewingyourmind.org slash global.
Use this commentary in your Bible study. or as part of your personal devotional reading to help you grow in your knowledge of God. but don't delay, as only hours remain for this offer. Another opportunity to grow in your knowledge of God's Word is through Table Talk magazine. 250,000 people around the world read this devotional and Bible study magazine every month.
It contains weekday and weekend devotionals and thoughtful articles on that month's theme. If you don't read it and you'd like to try it free for three months, simply visit trytabletalk.com.
Well, if you had the chance to ask the Apostle Peter, what should my priority be in the Christian life? What do you think his response would be? Join us next Sunday to find out here on Renewing Your Mind.
