Good morning, brothers and sisters.
Let me just turn to one scripture this morning in 2 Peter—the last verse, 2 Peter 3:18:
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
Let us pray.
Father, we want to thank You that this morning we have tasted some of that grace that brings us before You even now. We want to bow down and thank You. We thank You for this Son of Yours, who came and has brought us to You this morning.
Lord, we want to stay in this place where we are dwelling in Your presence. We want to be before You today and ask that You will speak to us from Your Word. Set us on good foundation. Encourage us to walk with You, encourage us to know You, and encourage us to find that You are all that we need.
Open Your Word to us, we pray, by Your Spirit, in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
Is this thing too loud? Oh, okay. It’s freaking me out. I know I have a soft voice and I trail off, so this really has shocked me.
What has been on my heart has been the last letters of certain apostles—what they have to say to the people to whom they have ministered. The last time I spoke, I talked about 2 Timothy and Paul’s last letter. This morning, I would like to look at the last thing that Peter wrote before he went to be with the Lord.
If these are the last days, what would be the last things people would say? These things are important, especially if this is Peter’s last will and testament, as some people say. If these are the last things he is going to say to anybody, you would think they would be important. There is no mincing words here, because he knows he is going to be gone.
What does he feel is important for the believers he is writing to know? This is the last time he is going to speak to them. It was the same with Paul speaking to Timothy; that was the last letter he wrote.
I do not want to spend too much time talking about Peter, but I will say this: the last verse in the last letter he wrote was:
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
That was the last thing he said. How important that must have been to him—that we grow in grace.
As we look at this letter today, this is not an expositional teaching of 2 Peter. There are just some things that, as I read, stuck out to me as important to Peter—things that spoke to me. That is what I want to deal with today.
I want to read the first four verses of the chapter, because that is what I would like