Good evening, dear brothers and sisters. I want to take this opportunity to say to you how grateful I am to be here among you, dear brothers and sisters.
I was privileged to be here, I think, for the first thirteen or fourteen of these times together, and I have wonderful memories of those times. So I am grateful to be back here again during this time together.
And I know that I join with you in expressing our gratitude to the Lord for how merciful, how gracious, and how loving He has been to us.
I want to thank some of you. I know you have faithfully prayed, not just for myself, but for Brother Stephen and for Brother Ed, and I just want to say thank you very much for your prayers to the Lord. And we want to continue to stand in the good of those prayers.
Tonight, I would like for us to turn again to 2 Peter. There are two verses there that we want to read, and then we also want to read some verses out of Chapter 1.
2 Peter 3, the last two verses. This is Peter’s final comment of his two letters that he has written to his beloved.
2 Peter 3:17-18:
You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men, and fall away from your steadfastness;
but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
Chapter 1, reading the first eleven verses.
2 Peter 1:1-11:
Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and excellence.
For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge;
and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in perseverance, godliness;
and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;
for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
Let us pray.
Lord, our hearts are overflowing this evening with thanksgiving and praise and worship to You. You truly are the One Who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, beyond all that we could even think or ask.
You have met us in a wonderful way. You have faithfully and clearly spoken to our hearts the words that we needed to hear. Lord, we know that You want us to be ready for this great event of the coming of the Son of God.
And Lord, in the depths of our heart there is something there that also says, “We want to be ready.” We believe it is the working of Your Spirit, Who is wanting to encourage us and for us to agree in the depths of our being that it is the right thing for us to be ready for this great event.
Lord, You do not want us to get caught off guard. You do not want us to be involved in things that are not of You. And so You have done all that is necessary to make it possible for us to be ready, to be that welcoming party of our Lord Jesus Christ back here.
So, Lord, we ask You again tonight, thanking You first of all that You have placed in our hands a copy of Your written Word. And then You knew that it was not good for us to just have a copy of Your Word.
You sent the blessed Holy Spirit to take that Word, to breathe upon it, to make it live, to speak it into our hearts; and as it is received and does its work, there is an eternal work that will be accomplished. Lord, our cry to You tonight is, please do that once again.
We know that there is an anointing and an ability given by the Spirit of God for all of this to take place: for the speaking, for the hearing, and yes, Lord, even for the obeying.
So give us hearts that say to You tonight, “We do not want to be hearers only. We want to be those who put into practice, in very detailed ways, that which You would speak to us.”
Our hearts need to be touched by You, and we ask tonight that You would do that. So, Lord, this time is Yours. Please use it for Your glory, for the purpose that You intended it, and we ask it in Your name. Amen.
I remind us tonight that the God Who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth is doing a great work of restoration. As we mentioned last evening, He cannot rest until everything in His universe is perfect; that is, it measures up to His standard. And that is perfection.
Now, brothers and sisters, this includes everything. It seems from our study of the Scriptures that this planet and the heavens surrounding it are a place where God has focused His attention, because there are major problems here.
God’s arch-enemy has been permitted by God to set up his kingdom and to rule. And you and I find ourselves living here on this planet.
We are descendants of the first-created man, Adam, who utterly failed. Not to throw rocks at him and be accusing of him, because I say again and again, if it had been me there, I would not have needed Eve’s help. I would have beat her to the tree.
So, not to do that, but to simply recognize that every one of us here is a descendant of that first man who rebelled and disobeyed his God. We have been born into a disqualified race.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in us naturally that God can accept, because it has been poisoned with the same poison that caused Lucifer to become Satan, the devil, God’s arch-enemy.
And here we are, born into this world, born with a fallen nature, born as rebels, born as sinners, and living in a world that is under the government of the arch-enemy of God.
Now, I hope you heard this afternoon what our brother Ed said, and that is that Satan can only do the things that God permits him to do. Another way of saying that is: he is God’s Satan.
He is not free to do anything he wants to do. There is only one sovereign Being in this universe, and it is not Satan.
But we are living here. We have been born here. And God, in His great mercy, has revealed Himself to us. He has caused us to be born again—a miracle of miracles, something that we could never have accomplished on our own.
It is something that only God Himself can do, and we must have this experience. It is not optional. And my understanding is that when we put our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we receive eternal life.
Now, brothers and sisters, you need to stop and think about that. There is only one place you can find eternal life. Where is it? Where is it, brothers and sisters? In God Himself.
He is the only One Who has eternal life. You will not find it anyplace else. And you cannot get it by having parents who had it. It is not transmitted that way.
You have to have your own personal experience of God touching you and imparting to you His own eternal, uncreated life. It is a gift He gives to you.
And this is the beginning of God’s work, so that you and I become a part—a very significant part—of this great work of restoration.
Now, please keep in mind, we are talking about everything that does not measure up to what God originally wanted. He is going to restore it all.
Heaven has received our Lord Jesus Christ. He came here and accomplished the great work of a so-great salvation—not just a great salvation, but a so-great salvation.
How great is it? It is so great that it includes everything necessary for God to totally restore everything that is not according to what He desires. And that includes you and me.
He does not want there just to be a new heaven and a new earth. He wants there to be everything new. In Revelation 21, He says, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
And that includes us becoming new creatures, a part of a new creation. Our Lord Jesus is the living Head of a new humanity.
Please do not forget—do not let yourself, in the busyness of your life, forget—that there is a human being, a unique One, yes, but still very much human, seated at the right hand of Majesty on high.
Brothers and sisters, for the last two thousand years there has been a Man, a unique Man Who is God and man, one hundred percent both man and divine—God and man. And He is seated there in the highest position that anyone can have in this universe.
And He is a Man. And He has accomplished so-great a salvation that it means that everything is going to be restored to what God originally designed.
Now, brothers and sisters, when we hear this, there should be a “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” come out of our hearts. That means that you do not have to stay the way you are.
Now, please do not get offended at me. But I can say to you tonight: you ain’t everything God wants you to be. You do not measure up.
How do I know that? Because if I stand you alongside the Lord Jesus Christ, how do you measure up, brothers and sisters? This is God’s standard for man.
There is no question that, morally speaking, some people are better than other people. And so we may try to measure ourselves according to this person or that person and say, “I ain’t as bad as that one.”
But brothers and sisters, when we have to stand before our Lord Jesus Christ, alongside Him, nobody measures up.
You know what that means? Please be patient. God is not finished yet. There is still much work to be done.
Because He is not going to rest until every one of His people, and everything in this universe, is fully restored to what God desires us to be.
And so, in Romans 8, Paul says:
Those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Brothers and sisters, you need to take some time to meditate on that. You need to really think about that and ask the Holy Spirit to open your understanding to the reality of what Paul has said.
Now listen to the language: “Those whom He foreknew.” He took the initiative.
You know, sometimes we talk about when I found the Lord. Hmm. You need to rethink that. God has never been lost, brother and sister.
You were the one. You were the sheep, and He came after you. He foreknew you. He knew everything about you.
This is an amazing thing to me, brothers and sisters: that God, knowing everything about us, still saved us. He was willing to take the risk, realizing all of the problems that we were going to give Him.
And not only that, He predestined us. Listen to that language. He predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son.
Not just to make some minor adjustments in your life, but to totally transform you—to conform us to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, this is our hope. This is why there is no condemnation. Because even after you have been forgiven of your sins, and God has taken them and removed them from you as far as the east is from the west, never to be remembered again, what are you going to do about your sinful nature?
Well, God has included it in the great salvation. And so He has predestined you.
Oh, dear brother and sister, if it were possible for there to be a way for this to be said to our hearts where we could never forget it—especially when we are going through difficult times. And the Holy Spirit will see to it that you have difficult times.
Why do we need to remember? Because we need to remember that when we are going through these processes, God is doing something. He is causing all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
What is His purpose? Well, to restore all things, including you and including me. And He is not going to stop short. He is going to conform us to the image of His own Son.
Oh, dear, dear brothers and sisters, we need to give some thought to this. Do you know, when God is finished, He is going to be able to look at us—not by closing His eyes or wearing the wrong kind of glasses—but He is going to be able to look at us very clearly and be just as pleased with us as He is with His own Son.
Can you believe that, brothers and sisters? Now, remember where you came from. Remember what you have been through. Remember the problems that we even give Him now.
You know, we are talking about being ready for the Lord’s coming. I am so glad He did not happen yesterday. I am not going to tell you what happened, but it was not good, brothers and sisters.
So God is still in process.
And what our brother shared with us this afternoon—of how desperately we need our Lord Jesus Christ—there is no way we are processed, sister, until first of all we receive His indwelling life.
And then the Holy Spirit begins to take us through experiences for this life to be formed into character.
And brothers and sisters, this is where we need to learn to kiss the hand that brings the discipline. Sometimes we do not like the discipline. We have to admit it is not joyful. It is not a good experience.
I tell you what, I have problems with these Christians who are always walking around smiling. They never seem to have a tough day. That is not the way it is with me. I do not know about you.
But brothers and sisters, there is only one way that this life gets formed into character, and that is for you and me to be under the hand of the discipline of God.
It is life plus discipline that produces character.
We will talk about that a little bit more later. But here, in this whole matter of the Lord restoring things, I want to take just a moment or two to mention to us that our Lord Jesus has been doing an absolutely necessary work after He ascended to the right hand of the Father.
Now, you know there would have been no hope for the human race. This world in which we live, this planet in which we live, there was no hope for it. There is no way it could improve itself.
It is on a downhill slide into corruption. It cannot set itself free. No matter how advanced we get in our understanding and natural knowledge, how scientifically advanced we might become, it still does not prevent us from going down that slide.
Slavery to corruption, Paul calls it.
And so our Lord Jesus, having ascended to the right hand of the Father, has begun a very, very, very important work.
He said in Matthew 16, speaking to His disciples, especially to Peter:
You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, we need to understand this is a vital part before our Lord can return.
We do not have time to develop that very much, but simply to say to you that for the last two thousand years, our Lord has been diligently at work in building His church.
Now, this church, as Paul shows us in Ephesians 5, becomes the bride. And when you get to the Book of Revelation, one of the angels says to John, “Come up here, and I will show you the wife—the bride of the Lamb.”
And so John goes with him. Well, he is up there on the mountain. What does he see? What would you expect to see?
You would expect to see this beautiful woman dressed in this beautiful wedding gown. But what did he see? He saw the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven.
A new Jerusalem, a new heaven, a new earth, a new creation. And now there is a new Jerusalem, a new headquarters for the government of God.
And so, brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus is doing this work, and you and I play a vital part in it.
First of all, He did not begin this work of building until He ascended. He had a few stones laying around here.
Peter mentions in 1 Peter 2:
Coming unto Him as to a living stone, we as living stones are being built up to a spiritual house.
That is Peter’s way of presenting this matter of the church. Paul saw the church as the body of Christ primarily. He also saw it as the bride.
But brothers and sisters, when our Lord Jesus sat down at the Father’s right hand and sent forth the Holy Spirit, this work of building the church began. And for two thousand years, He has been doing this work.
Now, when we think of the church as the bride of Christ, she has to be spotless, without wrinkle or blemish or any such thing.
Now what do you think Paul is saying? Remember, this wedding is going to be for eternity. And guess what? It has to be perfect. Both of them have to be perfect.
There is no question about the perfection of the Bridegroom. The problem is with the bride.
But you know, the problem—rather, the reason why it is taking so long—is the bride needs to be made ready. And this is a monumental task, because it includes you and me.
And we do not always cooperate very well in this process. And I think it is one of the reasons why our Lord’s coming has been delayed, if we can put it that way.
So, brothers and sisters, this matter of our Lord Jesus building the church is very vital to His coming back.
It is one thing for us to be ready individually, and that is very, very important. We will talk some more about that. But we cannot lose sight of this work of our Lord Jesus building His church.
He did not say, “Upon this rock, I am going to make some good Christians.” He said, “Upon this rock, I am going to build My church”—something corporate.
Remember the situation in the Book of Genesis. God had created Adam, and God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
And that word suitable means that when Adam looked at her, he saw himself.
What did the Lord do? A very interesting thing. We have heard our brother Lance mention this before. But what the Lord did immediately after saying this, He sent out Adam to name all the animals.
Why? Why did He not do that before? Why afterwards? Because I think He wanted Adam to discover on his own that there was nothing in the animal kingdom that answered back to his face.
Like our brother Lance says, when he got to the orangutan, he said, “Close, but not close enough.”
And so then God put him to sleep, and out of him He took something, and He built this something into a woman.
Now, I want you to imagine with me. Adam is the first one to experience anesthesia. He is asleep. The Lord put him to sleep, and He took this thing out and built it into a woman.
Now Adam is asleep. He is under anesthesia, and he begins to open his eyes. Now imagine with me: here he is, opening his eyes, and he just opens them a little bit and he thinks he sees something.
And then he opens them a little bit more. They close. He says, “I must still be dreaming.”
Because what did he see? When he saw this woman, he said, “Now this—this is what I have been looking for. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.”
Now, brothers and sisters, this is what our Lord Jesus has to do with this church. He has to see the bride. He has to see Himself in her.
Now, you and I are satisfied much lower, but He cannot be satisfied until the bride has been fully made ready. He can look at her and find Himself, His own character, formed in her.
This is the work of restoration, and it is a work that our Lord Jesus is doing.
In terms of His coming back to this planet, God has chosen to use human beings, both for the material. Can you believe it, brothers and sisters?
Think about it. This monumental task, and He includes people like you and me. Some of us do not even know how to tie our shoes, and yet He has called us to His own excellence and to His own glory.
He has made us to be a part of this, to be coworkers with Him in all of this.
And so, as part of the work that is being done, the blessed Holy Spirit has been sent.
He is God the Spirit. He is one hundred percent God, the same way the Father and the Son are. We need to have the same respect, the same worship, and the same obedience to Him as we would give to God the Father or God the Son.
Why? Because He is God.
And He has been sent here to take the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ and make it practically available, and to have it practically worked out in the lives of human beings and here on the earth.
And in Romans 8, Paul says that the whole created order is anxiously awaiting what? The manifestation of the sons of God.
So our salvation, our entering into what is ours in Christ, affects the created order. It is part of the work of restoration.
Well, all of that by way of introduction. Brothers and sisters, in 2 Peter 3:18, as we mentioned last night, Peter’s word is like a word of exhortation.
He gives warning, but then he gives encouragement. And so in verse 17 he warns us not to be led away, carried away by the teachings of unprincipled men, losing our steadfastness.
This is a thing that seems to be deep in Peter’s heart. He wants to communicate something to these readers so that the result will be that they will be so established that they are steadfast, that they can stand in the face of all the things that will be happening.
And so this is his burden. He has to give some exhortation, and that means he has to warn them of the dangers; but he also wants to very strongly encourage them.
The same way the writer of the Hebrew letter does. He says, on one hand, “Lest,” and on the other hand, “Let us.” Lest this happen, but let us go on.
And so here Peter says in 2 Peter 3:
Be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Now, brothers and sisters, there is nothing simplistic that Peter is trying to say, but he is trying to make it simple. He is not trying to make it complicated and difficult for us to understand.
I think every one of us here tonight knows what the word grow means. And so he says, “You need to grow.” This is the encouragement. You need to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Now, is that difficult to understand? Well, it should not be. I think we all have some idea what it means to grow: there is an increase, there is a development, there is something taking place that is ultimately going to produce something good.
There is a growing that is taking place. It is the same thing that Paul says in Ephesians 4: we are to grow up into Him Who is the Head, even Christ, from Whom the whole body is being filled and supplied.
So, brothers and sisters, the issue for us, if we are to be ready for our Lord to come back, is that we have to grow.
Now, that means there had to be a beginning. There is a process. And yes, brothers and sisters, there is a final product that is produced.
So, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, probably with the time we have, we will only be able to focus on this matter of grace.
But grow in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, have you ever stopped to try to get some understanding of what the word grace means? Have you ever tried to give a definition to it?
Not an easy thing to do, brothers and sisters. But basically, it means that God has a supply—an unlimited supply—and He delights in giving from that supply.
Now, it is interesting where the supply is located and who this supply is available to. Because again, if we keep our focus—“grow in the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”—then this brings to our mind those verses in John 1.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
And then verse 16: “Of His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”
So here is what our God has done. He knows the only way the work of restoration is going to be accomplished, the only way that you and I can be ready for the return of our Lord, is for Him to do something in us that we cannot do for ourselves.
It is something that we do not deserve. It is something that you cannot accomplish by your own efforts. It is something that only God Himself can do, and it is done by grace.
You know, the traditional definition is that grace is the unmerited favor of God. This is a theological definition.
But I want to try, if I can tonight, to share something with you that has helped me. Let us think, first of all, of the love of God.
This is God Himself. It is not something God gives, but it is God imparting Himself. 1 John 4 tells us two times: God is love.
So God is not giving something; He is giving us Himself. And this love now is poured out within our hearts.
But what you see in terms of experiencing it, it seems to me that the love comes down like a river and then divides into two parts. This is my understanding. Maybe you have a different one. That is okay.
But it seems to me that when the love of God flows down, it divides into two rivers. One river is called mercy, and the other river is called grace.
Now, what is the difference between grace and mercy? My understanding is: mercy is when God does not give us what we do deserve. Grace is when God gives us what we do not deserve.
We need both of them, brothers and sisters. We need for God to love us in both ways.
What if He did not withhold His judgment? What if He did not withhold His wrath? Why, what if you had to stand before Him with your sin, with your rebellion, without there being any sense that something had been done whereby you were not going to experience His judgment and wrath?
But God has been merciful. He has provided a way that you and I can stand before Him as a holy, righteous God without any fear.
That is called mercy: when He does not give us what we do deserve.
But grace is when He supplies abundantly, out of His unlimited resource, that which we do not deserve. This is our God.
Peter talks about Him in 1 Peter 5 as the God of all grace, Who has called us to His eternal glory.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus Christ is full of grace, and we have received of His fullness.
And this is what we need to discover: it is necessary for us to grow in this matter of learning how to receive the grace of God.
Can I say to us tonight—and maybe it is something you will have to give some thought to—but I can tell us, if we have major problems in our life where we are failing again and again, where we are not entering into the Christian life and living as God has ordained it, it is because we are not receiving the grace of God.
You are not allowing God to love you the way He loves you. He loves you perfectly. He is not going to love you any more perfectly later on than He does right now.
And He does not love you any more now than He did in the beginning. His love is unchanging, and nothing can separate you from His love.
And that means that God is going to continue to supply grace upon grace upon grace in every situation in your life.
You, as one of His dear children, will never have to go through something just on your own strength. There has been a provision, an abundant supply.
Let us look in Ephesians 1. This is an amazing statement by Paul.
Ephesians 1:5-8:
He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace
which He lavished on us.
Now, brothers and sisters, listen: the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed upon us; the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us.
Some of you have heard this illustration from me before, but it seems to help me. I do not know if it does you.
Some of us have concepts about God and the way God does things that need to change. We need to have our minds renewed regarding the things of God, especially about this matter of grace.
Now, first of all, let us get it clear: what can you do to earn the grace of God? What can you do? Pray more? Read your Bible more? Go to more meetings? Give more money?
And somehow God sees that, and He is so pleased that He gives you more grace? No, brothers and sisters. That is not grace.
So some of us have this idea that when God dispenses His grace, He does it with an eyedropper.
You know an eyedropper? This little thing—you know, sometimes we have problems with our eyes and we have to put drops in our eyes. They have made these little bottles with a thing on top, a little thing to squeeze.
You put it down in it and get just a little bit. You take it out and then very carefully squeeze it, so you only get one or two drops.
You know, this is the way some of us think of the Lord’s grace. He is so careful—so, I mean, He is so stingy, according to some of us.
He very carefully squeezes on that eyedropper, and then He tells one of the angels, “Now, you make sure you watch this as it goes. Make sure it gets on him or her.”
But is that what Paul says here about the glory of His grace and the riches of His grace? The absolute best He has?
He did not give us the crumbs, the leftovers. He gave us the absolute best. And what has He done with it? He has lavished it upon us. He took the whole bottle and poured it out.
Where is it located, my brothers and sisters? It is in our Lord Jesus Christ.
All the fullness of deity, all the fullness of the Godhead, is located in Him. And Paul says, “You are complete in Him.”
All your completeness, all that you need to be ready for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, is located very simply in a Person.
You do not have to go anywhere else. I hope you heard that this afternoon, and I just want to underline it again tonight. There is only one.
You see how wonderful our Father has been to us. You do not have to go running here and there. You do not have to guess, “Where am I going to find it?”
It is all located in one place: in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is yours, my brothers and sisters.
I want to say to some of you who have difficulty with this: there is an unlimited supply. Do not have this crazy idea, “Well, I need to leave some left over for somebody else. Maybe there is somebody else who needs it more than I do.”
You do not think believers think this way? They think this way. You need to stop thinking that way. It is what I call stinking thinking.
It is a sinking kind of thinking that gets you into problems. Because if you have these ideas, these concepts, you are not going to be willing to receive grace upon grace upon grace.
You have this idea that at some point you should have received enough grace that you do not have to keep going back to the fountain again. But that is not the way it is.
Oh, my dear brothers and sisters, when God designed us as human beings, He designed us in such a way that the only way we could experience life as He wanted it is for us to live a one-hundred-percent dependent life.
This is so foreign to our thinking. He redeemed us, and He began this work of redemption by starting in the depths of our being, in our spirit, and caused our spirit to come back alive again.
And now He has put us in a place where we are totally, one-hundred-percent dependent on Him. This is His glory.
But what do we say? “God helps those who help themselves.” Is that not what we usually say? This is the idea we have.
God wants you to do your best, and then when you get to the end of yourself, God will help you.
Some of us had to learn this lesson in a very difficult way.
But what we need to discover is the grace of God. He gives and gives and gives again out of the unlimited storehouse that is grace.
It is a manifestation of His love. He is a giver. It is Who He is in His being.
And brothers and sisters, it is His glory. It brings tremendous satisfaction to the heart of our God to give, because that is Who He is. He is a lover, because He is love.
And love that does not have a way to be given away—this kind of love has to be given away.
You know what God wants from us? Something that is not easy for some of us. He wants us to learn how to be good receivers.
Brothers and sisters, I want to encourage us tonight: if you have not learned how to receive with a grateful heart, yes, but to be a good receiver of grace, do not let another day go by.
Spend the night without sleeping, if necessary, wrestling with God like Jacob did, until you are in a place where you realize it is God’s grace, and He wants to give and give and give and give and give again.
We are the ones who make it difficult because we have these crazy ideas about this matter of grace.
I have another picture I want to give you about this matter of grace. I gave you one about God giving; I want to give you one now about receiving.
Have you ever seen a nest of baby birds? They are only a few days old. Mom and dad have gone out to get something to eat, and here mom and dad come back. What do you see?
All mouth, right?
This, to me, is a great example of what we need to be as receivers. What can these little birds do to deserve this food that mom and dad are giving them? Absolutely nothing.
The only thing they do is create problems and a mess in the nest.
But can you see yourself that way, brother or sister? Just learning how to be a good receiver, being in that needy place for the Lord to do something, to give you, to impart something to you that you need.
Now, this to me is what it means to grow in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: that we learn how to receive more and more and more and more grace upon grace.
Now let us go to the first chapter of 2 Peter. Let us begin at verse 2:
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Listen to verse 3 now:
Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.
Everything, brothers and sisters.
Now, you know what has to happen. Here the Holy Spirit needs to take the truth of God’s Word and bombard our thinking with it.
We need to realize—it needs to be clear to us—that our God, by His divine power, has provided everything. There is nothing left out.
God does not expect us to do anything independently of that which He has provided. And He has provided everything.
This is the truth. If it can get into us and we live in the reality of it, we can be ready—as our brother was saying this morning—ever ready, but never ready unless we are depending totally on Him.
And taking full advantage of everything that God has abundantly supplied.
Please, dear brothers and sisters, there is an unlimited resource. There are no emergencies with our God. He never runs out of grace.
He Himself is the supply, and He has put it in His Son and given us the Spirit of grace to make that reality for us day in and day out.
I do not care what it is that we are going through. It makes no difference what your circumstances are. God knows it before you ever enter into it.
Before you ever went into that difficult time, the Lord knew about it. And you know what He did, out of His great love for you? He supplied abundant grace before you ever entered into it, so that you will have it as you go through.
But some of us think we just need to screw up our courage, try harder, do something that we can do in ourselves, rather than being on that receiving end and just having a heart that says to Him, “Father, thank You. You have supplied grace, and by faith I want to receive it.”
And watch Him. Watch Him. Experience it yourself.
There is no limit. He is for everything, brothers and sisters. Our God never exaggerates. He does not need to. He is God.
He never exaggerates. When He says everything, what does He mean, brothers and sisters? He means everything.
And please remember: it brings tremendous joy to His heart for us, as His dear children, to be taking full advantage—to be exploiting, if we can put it that way—of all the things that He has provided, of the everything that has been provided by Him.
Now, in that last verse, 2 Peter 3:18, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Now here, in verse 4, he says:
For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.
Does that sound a little bit like being conformed to the image of Christ? Being partakers of the divine nature.
The writer of Hebrews, in Chapter 12, talks about being partakers of His holiness—having God’s character, His very character, formed in us.
Brothers and sisters, the only way that you and I will be ready for the coming of our Lord is if the character of our Lord Jesus Christ is formed in us.
And the only way that can be accomplished is by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit taking the grace of God and working in us, enabling us to go through, enabling us to be obedient, to submit to the discipline that He puts in our lives.
Now listen, brothers and sisters. Whether we are talking about the time when our Lord Jesus returns and He sets up His kingdom here on this earth—the thousand-year reign—or whether we are talking about the final time in Revelation 22, where it says, “They shall reign with Him forever and ever,” the issue is reigning.
How? As kings. We are to have a place in His kingdom.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, what kind of people are necessary in order to have that kind of responsibility in the kingdom of God?
Is there anyone worthy other than our Lord Jesus? Why is He there at the Father’s right hand? Because He is the Father’s Son? No.
Because He is the only One worthy. He is the One Who lived an absolutely perfect life and proved that He can live totally dependent on His Father. And therefore, He is qualified.
He learned obedience by the things that He suffered. And He is there because He is the only One Who deserves to be there.
How are we going to share that throne with Him? How, brothers and sisters? Only if we have the same character.
Do not somehow sentimentalize this thing. Some of our hymns get us into trouble: “When we all get to heaven.” Well, there are some things that have to happen before you get there. Otherwise, you will not enjoy it.
You think that you tonight, in the condition that you presently are in, are fully qualified to enter in and enjoy what the age to come has to offer? Hey, you would be like a fish out of water. You would not know what to do.
Because it means that our character has to match the reality of life there. And brothers and sisters, outside of our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not have that character.
And so it is the Holy Spirit taking the grace of God, the very life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do not depersonalize it.
Sometimes we talk about grace as something you can go down to the supermarket and buy. Oh, brothers and sisters, it is Christ. It is an impartation of Him—His life, His wisdom, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
When you are facing a situation, is there something in your spirit that says—something that tries to get in touch with the indwelling Christ so that you know what to do?
Oh, brother, it is a difficult lesson for some of us, because we know it works, but then we somehow think, “Next time I can make it on my own.”
So we go on and make a decision without consulting Him, without being sensitive to His indwelling life, and inevitably, what happens? We make a big mess.
Dear brother and sister, from the youngest of us to the oldest, we need to learn to receive the grace of God and be good stewards of it.
This is another statement made by Peter in 1 Peter 4:
As each one has received a special gift, employ it, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
So it is not just a matter that we need to learn to receive. We need grace to teach us how to be good stewards of the grace.
It is not just for us. It will do the work in us, but it is not just for us. It is for those people who come into our lives, so that we may be good stewards of it.
So, dear brothers and sisters, God has called us to this, and He has made ample supply.
Let us look in verses 5 through 7 for just a moment or two. We do not have time to develop each one of these, but what Peter does here, I believe, is kind of expand on this matter of growing in grace and knowledge.
Our brother Ed mentioned to us yesterday that we need to know the terminal. Well, the terminal is verse 18 of Chapter 3, and the beginning is here.
And here I think Peter is showing us how this matter of grace is experienced and what kind of results it produces in our lives.
We have a responsibility, because when God, in His mercy and grace, brought us into a knowing of our Lord Jesus Christ, this wonderful miracle of restoration and transformation began.
But it is just that: it is just a beginning. As marvelous, as glorious, as life-changing as it is, it is just that. It is the beginning. It is not the end.
And God is not going to finish the work until you and I are conformed to the image of His Son, until we have been glorified.
That is, we have arrived at a place, by the grace of God, where God can look at us and be satisfied. That is what it means to be glorified.
It means that He can look at us and see the character of His Son. And because we have the character of His Son, we are now qualified to sit with the Son, be glorified with Him, and be seated with Him at the right hand of Majesty on high.
Now think about it, dear brothers and sisters. If you do not somehow magnify the grace of God, you need to think about where we were and what we would have become had God not interfered in our life.
If He had not revealed Himself, we were enemies of God. Think about it. He apprehended His enemies, and now they are going to reign with Him forever and ever.
But in order to get from here to there, it requires the grace of God.
So let us look at these verses, starting in verse 5:
Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge;
and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness;
and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.
Seven things he mentions to add to our faith. Now, what he means by faith is a coming into this knowing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It was something that we did by faith. We have not seen Him. You read back in the first letter of Peter, talking about Him Whom we have never seen, but we love Him.
We have not seen Him with these eyes, but He is real to us because the Holy Spirit has made Him real to us. He has opened our eyes, at least to one degree or another, and we have seen Him for Who He is.
We need to grow in that understanding. And that is why Peter talks about growing both in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But growing in this matter means letting the grace of God continue to do His work.
Now look with me quickly to Romans 5. This is the way Paul puts it.
Romans 5:1-2:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through Whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.
So how did we get into the grace? By faith.
Now, brothers and sisters, where did you get the faith? Well, you need to look in Ephesians 2, and there you will find it is the gift of God.
No man can boast about anything. You cannot even claim that your faith was yours. It was created by the Holy Spirit.
Somehow the Word of God, the truth of God, got into your heart and produced faith. And this introduced you into this grace of God, this unlimited supply of God giving and giving and giving.
We have been introduced into it. And so now here in 2 Peter, he is saying, “Add to your faith. Supply your faith. Supplement your faith.”
That initial experience—do not stop there, but go on. Let the character of the living Christ be formed in you, be produced in you.
And so, a couple of things. First of all, he talks about supplementing our faith.
Now, you can see I have some unusual illustrations: birds and eyedroppers.
But brothers and sisters, how many of you eat cereal? Do not put your hand up, but many of you eat cereal. Some of you do not.
Sometimes, when you are eating cereal, you leave a box sitting on the table, and you read on the box—for instance, there is a cereal called Total.
Why is it called Total? Because they claim that in that cereal are all the vitamins and minerals that you need for that day. These are called supplements.
Well, we are to supplement the initial experience by growing. And this is what Peter is seeking to encourage us to do.
So what does he say to do to supplement your faith? First with moral excellence—or excellence, moral excellence.
Now, those who are Greek experts do not all agree on how to translate this word. Probably if we had various people read their translations, we would see some people translate it goodness, virtue, as the King James does. Here it is moral excellence.
But it was interesting that when I was reading something about what Brother J. N. Darby said, I think maybe he grasped the significance of what Peter is saying here.
He called it spiritual courage.
That is, supplement your faith with spiritual courage. You need not just stay where you are, but begin to take steps to activate your faith. And it requires courage.
What was brought back to my mind was a situation in Joshua 1. When Moses had died, Joshua was being raised up to lead the children of Israel over into the Promised Land.
And what does He tell them to do? He says, “You need to go in there, and every place you put down your foot”—now, it already belonged to them.
Why did they have to go in and put down their feet? It was activating their faith.
Now, please, dear brothers and sisters, our brother has tried to appeal to us: see that in our Lord Jesus Christ is everything—everything necessary for life and godliness.
But it can be just there, and you are sitting there admiring it rather than going in and possessing it.
And you know what He said to Joshua three times in that first chapter?
Be strong and courageous.
Be strong and courageous.
This is where we need to know the working of the Holy Spirit. When He opens our understanding to the truth about what is ours in Christ, then we need to possess it by faith, putting our foot down. And this requires courage.
It requires that we have something operating in us that enables us to take that step.
Now, there are two examples that I find helpful to me. The one is: you remember the woman who had the hemorrhaging of blood?
Now, the situation is, the Lord is here and He is surrounded, crowded by all these people. And she is on the outside, and she has a very, very serious problem.
But something happened in her heart. She said, “If I can only touch the hem of His garment, I will be healed.” She had the faith.
Now, what if she stood out there and said, “You know, it would be wonderful if I could get in there and touch His garment and be healed”? Or she could complain that the crowd was too big.
But what did she do? This was a lady with sharp elbows. She had lost a lot of weight.
Can you see her, brothers and sisters? Here is this crowd of people, and she is using her sharp elbows to her advantage. The people are moving out of the way until finally she comes and touches the hem of His garment.
And what happens? She is healed immediately. Now, that required courage.
Now let us take our dear brother Peter, who wrote this letter. Remember the time when the Lord Jesus sent them across the Sea of Galilee in a boat, and He did not go with them? And there was a storm.
And the Lord Jesus came walking to them on the water. And Peter said, “Lord, if that is You, let me come to You.”
Now, brothers and sisters, do not make this some kind of Bible story. This is reality. This is what happened. This man got out of the boat and walked on the water.
Now, he had spent his whole life on the water. He knew you could not walk on water.
But did he get out of the boat? Well, I will tell you what: you wait for your opportunity to sit down and talk with him.
I will tell you, one of the first things he will begin to talk to you about is, “I want to tell you about the day I walked on water.”
Now, let us not be critical of Peter. Have you walked on water?
Have you put your faith to work in a courageous way, where you have sought to do that which is impossible, where you are totally at the mercy of God? Everything around you says it does not work.
Well, sometimes in this matter of having the character of Christ formed into us, we have to learn how to take these kinds of steps—not foolishly; I am not suggesting that for a moment.
But sometimes, as our brother said today, we let the circumstances determine us. If Peter had looked at the circumstances—the wind was blowing, the waves were high, and he knew you could not walk on water—he would not have gone.
But he did. And it required courage, spiritual courage, to put his foot outside the boat, put it on the water, and start walking.
So, brothers and sisters, he says we need to supplement our faith with this moral courage, or this spiritual courage.
And to your moral courage, knowledge. Brothers and sisters, we need to know our Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember Paul’s declaration in Philippians 3. He is at the end of his life. And what is his cry?
That I may know Him.
The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for Whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
What do you mean, gain Christ? You gain a living knowing of Him, a living knowledge of Him. It is not just something that you are able to work out theologically.
But it is in some way that you know He is a living Lord. And so we need to supplement. We need to continue to look for the Holy Spirit to provide us with these opportunities to grow in the knowledge of our Lord.
Well, you can go on to read some of the things that Peter says that we need to supplement our faith with. But I want to conclude, because my time is gone.
I want you to notice, beginning in verse 8:
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So it means that your life can produce fruit, and there will be something of value that will be produced there, if these qualities are yours and are increasing.
For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten the purification from his former sins.
But look at verses 10 and 11:
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.
Now, brothers and sisters, how can we encourage one another in this matter of being diligent? We by nature are procrastinators.
You know what that word means? We put off until tomorrow what could be done today.
When I was a student in high school, I went to work for a supermarket. And the manager there—I still remember his name. I do not think I will ever forget his name. His name was Mr. Wardian.
He had about fifteen or twenty of us high school kids working in his store. And he used to walk up and down the aisles saying to us, “Do not dilly-dally or procrastinate.”
Now, I do not know how you are going to translate that, dear brothers, but it means: get about the work you should be doing.
Do not let this just be something that we read about and fellowship about and think about. We need to diligently begin to put it into practice.
Now notice what happens if we will receive this encouragement:
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.
Now, where else can you find such a promise? That there is something you can do by the grace of God, by the working of the Holy Spirit, that will cause you to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
How? By taking these supplements provided by the grace of God and cooperating with the working of the Holy Spirit.
Be diligent to supplement this and this and this. And please, brothers, this is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit.
He has been sent here on a mission, and part of His mission is to take you and me, in whatever condition we are, and eventually have us conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And we have a responsibility—a responsibility to be diligent, to put our faith into practice, and learn how to be led by the Holy Spirit.
Now, this is not the end. I mean, this is glorious in itself. Our brother read from Jude in conclusion this morning:
Now unto Him Who is able to keep us from stumbling,
and to present us faultless.
Then we look at verse 11:
For in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
Now, brothers and sisters, some of you have had to put up with me for too many years, but I want to tell you the picture I have in my mind about this matter of the eternal kingdom of God being abundantly supplied to you.
It is what I call the red-carpet treatment.
You know, when a dignitary comes, one of the things they do to somehow honor them is by rolling out the red carpet and receiving them, sometimes with applause and all the other things.
Now notice what he says. If these qualities are being produced in your life:
For in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
You get the picture? There is something that can happen in our lives that means that when it is our turn, there will be a red carpet.
Not because of what we have done, except that we have taken the grace of God, learned how to be led by the Holy Spirit, and allowed these qualities—these things that Peter mentions—to be incorporated into our life.
You remember what Paul said in Galatians 4:
My little children, I am again in travail concerning you until Christ be formed in you.
Not Christ just living in you, not just Christ dwelling in you, but Christ being formed in you.
This is the work.
And if we can find a heart attitude to be fully surrendered, learning the lessons we need to learn, and discovering that discipline from the Lord is a tremendous thing—a tremendous manifestation of His love to us—and we can learn to appreciate it and respond to it properly, it will accomplish a work in us that will prevent us from stumbling.
Because what it will be, it will be Christ. It will not be us. It will be Him incorporated into us.
And then the entrance into the eternal kingdom.
Is it clear to you tonight what your destiny is? What God has destined you for? To sit with Him on the throne.
Remember Revelation 3:20:
To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, even as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
Is this part of your hope? Now, not for yourself, but because this is what God has designed. This is what He created us for. This is why He has redeemed us.
We are to be a part of this restoration: a new heaven, a new earth, a new Jerusalem. And there is going to be righteousness reigning everywhere, and you and I are to be a part of that.
And it is linked to this matter of our Lord Jesus’ return. Are we ready? We can be. Provision has been made.
And may we be humble enough and dependent enough to let this work be done in us.
Let us pray.
Lord, we thank You that You have made Yourself known to us as a God of all grace, that You have sent Your Son here and He was full of grace and truth.
And in Him we can know grace upon grace.
And Lord, our fellowship for these couple of days has been on spiritual readiness—ready for what is planned in the days and weeks and whatever time in the future.
Lord, You have been so faithful to speak to us and encourage us. And so tonight, we just want to come back and say to You, “Lord, please take Your Word and continue to speak to us in the situations that we find ourselves in day after day.”
Lord, I know that many of my dear brothers and sisters here now face such busy schedules. There is such pressure on them. The world can have such an influence on their thinking and their decision-making.
And Lord, we all—not just them, but all of us—need to learn how to be good receivers of Your grace.
Lord, as we mentioned in the beginning, I think in the depths of every one of us there is this cry: that we want to be ready.
And I do not think it is just something religious or superficial, but a deep cry in our heart, that we want to be ready. Because if we are ready, then our Lord Jesus is free to come.
And so, Lord, if there is a way that we can hasten this day, if this is really what Your Word says to us, then teach us in very practical ways what we can do day after day, situation after situation, so that You can finish Your work in us.
And we can learn how to be good receivers of Your grace.
So, Lord Jesus, the cry of our heart is, “Come, Lord Jesus.” And we want to be ready for that event.
So we ask for You to do this work in our lives, and we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.