Scott Wiley here, the Executive Director of Wisdom International. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. What began as a radio programme in a single city has grown into a global ministry now in sixteen languages. We're hosting a banquet to celebrate all that the Lord has done and you're invited. Please visit wisdomonline.org slash twenty-five.
That's wisdomonline.org slash twenty-five. There's a link in the show notes. And now here's Stephen with today's message from Wisdom for the Heart. We're surrounded by the multiplication of noise. What that means is that we can be caught up in the current.
of our culture. And our minds and our hearts. Can be flooded by this never-ending stream of the sensational, the criminal, the superficial, the trivial, the temporal. Peter's saying, I want you to be surrounded by, I want you to be swept through life. by the current of grace.
Wouldn't it be great if? We got paid. To be quiet. Like Paul who said, work with your hands and live a Quiet. Life?
Doesn't that sound amazing? A quiet life. Wouldn't it be wonderful if news sources got awarded at the end of the year? for notifying people the least. Amount The least amount of noise.
generated You get an award. Reminding me of Paul Hampton, who wrote that he and his wife and their little boy were out running errands. fighting the crowds, fighting the traffic. people stressful And her four-year-old son, Christopher, just never stopped talking. He would ask questions about everything.
Paul writes, he talked nonstop. He was telling me how to drive more carefully, watch out for this or that. He sang every song he knew at the top of his lungs. And finally, Paul writes, I made him an offer. Christopher, if you'll be quiet For just two minutes.
I'll give you a quarter. And it worked. And since he couldn't tell time, it worked longer. Ben for two minutes. But then We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant, we got a booth.
Then I had to constantly remind him to sit up straight. Stop kicking the seat. lean over his plate. Be careful, don't spill your drink, don't talk with food in your mouth. Finally, he said to me with all seriousness, Dad, If you'll be quiet for just two minutes.
I'll give you a quarter. We live As I consider the text. Before us, what what I would like to call today Crowded Lions. surrounded By noise. The question is.
What are we allowing the crowd in on us? Who are we allowing to Influence. Yeah. Who's making? The most noise.
Throughout your week. Your day.
Well, the Apostle Peter is about to pray a request. He's going to write it out. It doesn't start with dear Lord and end with amen, but in the original language, it is a wish. He's going to wish.
something. for his readers a prayer request. He's going to pray on their behalf.
So let's find out what he prays. Go to 2 Peter. Chapter 1. We're now at verse 2. We're going to cover the whole verse.
Today. Because I want to cover the entire request. at once. Here's his prayer. May.
You could translate that, I wish for you. I want this for you. What is it, Peter? I wish grace And peace. would be multiplied to you In the knowledge of God, End of Jesus.
Our Lord.
Now Remember Peter's writing to believers. We learned in verse 1 that that they have already received a faith equal to that of the apostles. They already knew and believed that Jesus was God. Deity. And Deliverer.
as their Saviour.
So Peter is praying this for Christians. They need this in their world just like we need it today. And I want you to notice here that Peter isn't wishing that they had grace and peace. Believers already have them. Peter isn't praying that they'll get them.
He's praying here that they will grow them. May greet grace and Peace. Multiply. What does that mean? to multiply.
Well the verb to multiply were helped when Jesus used it in a negative. Manner over in Luke chapter 24, as he talked about the Great Tribulation period, and he said, during that period of time, lawlessness is going to multiply. In other words, it's going to grow. It's going to engulf. The world.
I mentioned earlier that we're surrounded by the multiplication of new. Stuff, noise. What that means is that we can be caught up in the current. of our culture. And our minds and our hearts.
Can be flooded by this never-ending stream of the sensational. The irrational, the criminal, the superficial, the trivial, the temporal. Stuff. The gravity of our world. Pulls us.
Peter's saying, I want you to be surrounded by, I want you to be swept through life. By the current. of grace. And Peace. These two distinctives will keep you focused.
So let's take a closer look at them. The first here is Grace. He wants that to multiply. He wants that to spill over and out of. Our lives.
What is grace?
Well, as a theological concept, grace refers to the favor of God toward the undeserving. That's the simplest way you could define it. I grew up learning the acrostic. of grace God's riches at Christ's Expense. It's a good little across stick.
Now, if you took a tour of Scripture, you'd discover several kinds or categories of grace. You would discover what theologians call common grace. Common grace is the kindness of God upon all of fallen creation, all of fallen humanity. It's common to everyone, so that an unbeliever can enjoy that music. Fall in love.
Be amazed at The sun set. Write a poem. Enjoy conversation. Or, it rained last night. Wasn't that wonderful?
The rain did. I noticed as I was riding through my neighborhood, it rained on people's lawns just like it did mine. People that don't know God. People that won't be in church. God sent rain to them.
as well as To you and me. Common grace restrains evil. Common grace is a reference to.
Somebody who understands with the law of God written on their heart that they've sinned and they feel guilty, and that restrains them, even as unbelievers, from doing more of it. When you witness to somebody, you really don't need to get them to agree that they're a sinner. You just need to get them to admit it. They already know it. They just don't admit it.
But we know they know because common grace has been shed abroad, and the law of God has been written on their heart. They know stealing a chicken is wrong. Anywhere you go in the world. It's common grace. Secondly, we have what we could call saving.
Now this is for believers only. Paul wrote about that in Ephesians 2. You're familiar with verse 8. For by grace you have been saved. There is saving.
Great. There's another grace that has been coined. called cheap. Great. coined by a Lutheran pastor by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the 1940s.
Forties. He coined it because he was challenging the church of his era. To stop watering down the gospel. That's not anything new. It's been taking place since it was delivered.
But he wrote this in his book called The Cost of Discipleship. Cheap grace. Is the preaching of forgiveness? without repentance. Baptism without church discipline.
Communion without confession. Cheap grace allows the Christian to live like the rest of the world. To model himself on the world standards in every sphere of life and not aspire to live a different life under grace. From his old life Under sin.
So you have common grace, saving grace. And cheap grace.
Now if you track This word through the New Testament. You can also observe what grace is going to look like when it multiplies. And it overflows. Your life.
So it might be good not just to define it, but to see it demonstrated. Let me give you just two demonstrations of grace. First, Grace empowers you to handle hardship. with happiness.
Now, you might have expected me to put a period after hardship. It'd be great if we could. But grace empowers you to handle hardship. with gladness. That's going to take Grace times grace times grace, isn't it?
But here's what Paul wrote about his own personal testimony. He writes this. A thorn? Was given me in the flesh. We don't know what it is, by the way.
A messenger of Satan to harass me. to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. In other words, he prayed, Lord, take this away. But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Therefore, now notice this. I will boast all the more gladly. You could render that happily. Joyfully. of my weaknesses so that The power of Christ may rest upon me, that is, I'll live.
cognizant of his power. For the sake of Christ, then I am content. I'm gladly content. With weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. 2 Corinthians 12, verses 7 through 10.
It's going to take grace in your life and mind to handle hardship. Period. It's going to take grace. Multiplied. Overflowing.
to handle it. with glad contentment.
So that Christ will be glorified. Grace times grace. Times grades. Grace not only allows us to handle hardship, With happiness. Secondly, let me give you one more.
Grace enables you to respond to critics. with kindness. Paul writes to the Colossians in chapter 4: Walk in wisdom toward outsiders. That's a reference to unbelievers. Making the best use of the time.
That is the time you have with them. You live next to them, you work with them, you go to school with them. Be wise in your use of time. Here's how you can do it. Let your speech always be gracious.
Grace-oriented. Season with salt.
So that you may know how you ought to answer each question. person.
So what is it in life that allows you and me to To respond kindly and wisely to noisy people in a noisy world. Grace. You know, we say pass the salt. We say that a lot in the South if you've just moved down here. We ask for it before we even taste it.
We're going to assume it's going to need more of it, just like sugar in your tea. You need to learn how to drink it that way, by the way. Don't drink it unsweetened. Go back to New York or wherever you came from. It's to be sweetened, okay?
There's a verse in the Bible about that, I'm sure. But we would say, pass the salt. We say it all the time. How about this? Pass the grace.
Let me spray cool it. Before I even say a word. Salt my speech. With grace.
Now it's interesting that our world uses the expression. You notice? Salty speech. Hey, he was speaking. He was salty.
What are they using it for?
Somebody is profane. Using profanity. The Bible uses it in exactly the opposite manner. Salty speech According to God, is speaking with graciousness. with tactfulness.
Tact. It's a great word. For grades. I love the way somebody's said that tact is making people feel at home. when you wish they were.
The world of Peter's original readers was growing more and more dangerous. External peace.
Social peace. Relational peace. Civil peace. That was all becoming a thing. Of the past.
Peter's not praying here for the believer to have a peaceful world. That's not going to happen. Until the Prince of Peace comes. I like the way one author To find this, he said that the grace of God meets every outward need, the peace of God meets every inward. Need.
This is peace. Within The prophet Isaiah. Told us how to get it. God keeps us in perfect peace when our minds are. Stayed.
stabilized. Fixed. On Him. Isaiah 26, 3.
So in other words, peace isn't related to the outward pressure. It's related to an upward Focus.
Now, in line what's going to happen to Peter's readers, by the time they get this letter, Nero has only recently burned Palatine Hill. He's making room for a new palace. His poll numbers go way down, so he blames the Christians for starting the fire. hoping to increase his popularity back. The storm clouds are gathering.
Christians are going to be persecuted openly. They didn't too many years before the lions. arrive. Peter knows what it means to cave under pressure. Added a little charcoal fire.
When a little servant girl asked him, If he knew the Lord. Imagine the pressure when all of society. Rises up and with fury and hatred asks. The Christian Are you following That Galilean You following him. We're gonna cave?
Well, you might think that Peter is going to pray here. That grace and courage. courage would be multiplied to them. That would fit. That grace had peace.
But he's getting to a deeper issue. You see, Peter's praying for peace. Because this old apostle, who's probably about 80 or 81 years of age, when he writes this letter. Oh, he's learned. That the peace of God within the heart of the believer is not found in the absence of trouble.
It's found in the abiding presence of Christ. Peter learned by experience not to focus on the storm. We're not going to rage at the wind. We're not going to rage at the waves. We're not really raging against the noise.
We just know it exists. Focus is on The Saviour who's in the boat. in the middle. of the storm.
Now, here's the question. We want these to multiply in our lives. These distinctives of grace and peace. It's Peter's wish. It's his prayer.
Well, how do you get them? developing. You have them. How do you grow them?
Well, he answers that now in verse 2. Look again. May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Now notice. In. That is by means of The knowledge of God And that Jesus Our Lord, this is the first time of ten. that Peter's going to refer to knowledge. In fact, Peter opens the letter with it.
The very last verse of this letter ends with it: to grow in the knowledge. of our Lord.
Now knowledge is a key word through this Letter. You could call it the key principle of growing in these distinctives of grace and peace.
Now, I don't want to bore you with grammar, but the normal word for knowledge is gnosis. You might have heard the word Gnostic. secret knowledge, which was error. But gnosis is personal, intimate, Knowledge. Here, Peter, though, adds a prefix to it, epitnosis.
You could woodenly translate it to grow in knowledge towards something. To deepen your knowledge about something. This is the direction your toes are pointed. You haven't fully matured, but you're maturing as you grow in knowledge toward an object.
Now, what's the object? He gives it to us here. Two of them. God? That's a reference to God the Father.
And God the Son. Jesus Christ. You're growing in knowledge toward them. More knowledge about them. We know our divine teacher.
Is the Holy Spirit who opens the word for us so that we can understand and apply it? He's using this inspired textbook. Of scripture to reveal the truth. What we know about God, what we know about Jesus Christ, is found here. This is the self.
disclosure. of himself. To us.
So we're not just talking about facts. You know, Stephen says we got to get smarter. That's not the point. It's not. It's not facts.
Written About the author. It will include that, but that's not where you stop. Knowledge relates to fellowship. With The author. See, the more you learn about The written word.
The more you come to know, The living word. Jesus Christ. The knowledge of Christ is the highest knowledge. The greatest knowledge. We've never been told to get in a room and You know, just meditate with an empty mind.
Hum something. No, we're to meditate on the truth that introduces us to thee. Truth. Who is Christ? One author said that The knowledge of Christ is the master science.
of all sciences. Other sciences, he wrote, can bring new skills, new knowledge, new abilities, new discoveries, but the master science, the knowledge of Christ, brings you what no other science can give you. Grace? And peace.
Some of the greatest scientists of our world. have discovered this. Like Blaise Pascal. brilliant scientists of the 17th century. Came to faith later in life, considered the knowledge of Christ greater than any other human reasoning.
He's the one who famously said, what you've probably heard, that there's a hole in the heart of every human. could all be filled. By God, the Creator. or more recently, Francis Collins. The leader of the genome.
project. It produced the first Complete Map of the human DNA sequence. Finished ahead of schedule, 2003. Became famous because of it. Imagine mapping more than three billion or around three billion pairs and then giving us that picture that we've all seen of that.
Amazing spiral. Just a little section of it. Collins wrote this. The God of the Bible is the god of the genome. His creation is majestic.
Awesome. Intricate. And beautiful. Collins would write that knowing Christ was greater than any of his scientific achievements.
Now, let's be clear, though. The only book, again, on planet Earth that reveals him to us is this book. This is, in a sense, then. The science. Book.
of the highest, greatest master. Science.
So there can't be any substitute then. If we want to grow. In grace and peace, if we want to see it rise as water in our lives, as it were, and overflow into the lives of everyone else. Nothing can replace the study. of this Boom.
The Apostle Paul wrote to Peter and said, This is breathed out by God. All scripture inspired God's breath. God breathed. It's profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction. for training.
So that the man of God, in general terms, the believer, can be equipped for every good work, for life. I love the way Warren Weersby Outlined it. I give it off into my greenhouse class. He said it this way: All scripture is profitable for teaching, that tells you what's right. For reproof, that tells you what's not right.
For correction? That tells you how to get right. For training in righteousness, that tells you how to stay right. Isn't that good?
So that You will be equipped. Peter is reminding them and us that growth in grace and peace is going to result directly from dedicated time and study. It is simply impossible to know God. Intimately If we treat this book casually. It's impossible to live biblically unless we think biblically and we can't think biblically unless our minds are transformed by biblical truth.
This is going to demand for us. Especially in light of the context of The illustration. It's going to demand that we develop the discipline of denial. We say no. To the noise.
Put up guardrails. Put up The muffler at the right time. If you're being crowded. By everything else in your life.
So that God's word is being crowded out of your life. Get rid of that other crowd. Go to war. with that crowd. In practical terms, Turn off the noise.
Turn off cable news. Limit Social media, get rid of half your apps that you don't need. Turn off notifications. Clean house. Every distraction, whatever it might be, and you alone know what it is, I've given you just a few illustrations because that's common to all of us.
Whatever is keeping you from growing. Robbing you of the time to be studying the master science. Deny it. Remove it. And pray this.
Prayer. with Peter. But you will Make his wish come true. That grace and peace We'll begin to multiply In demonstrations in your heart and life, and through. What do you say and do?
Yeah. as you come into a more intimate knowledge of this book and buy it a deeper and more intimate walk with its author. Jesus Christ. May this wish for all of us. Come true.
That was Stephen Davey, and this is Wisdom for the Heart, a production of Wisdom International. Learn more at wisdomonline.org. Mm-hmm.
