God's Promises Through the K..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. If you have your Bibles there, I'm going to be reading with much reverence and paying attention to each one of the words all together, united in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. By the power of his spirit, brothers and sisters, let's read together these 11 verses of the second letter of the Apostle Peter.

This is the Word of God. and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. This is the word of the Lord.

Now, brothers and sisters, as I said, we're going to be focusing on the second half of verse 3 and verse 4, and those two verses read, His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." Those are the two verses that I want us to study together in the Spirit by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ among us. Now, brothers and sisters, As I always do, I try to remind you of the big picture and the things that I have said so far, because the purpose of our studies in every portion of the Scripture is for us not only to understand what that particular verse teaches us, but also to understand the burden of the apostles and the prophets when they were writing a whole letter. When these letters were given to the Christians, they read this in entirety, and that represented the burden of the apostle or the burden of the prophet, which is translated or is equivalent to the burden of God, the desire that God had for the audience or the desire of God in communicating with the church. The whole message, as we have said many times now, of the second letter of Peter, it is not a message that comes from Peter himself, but rather it's a message that is rooted in the heart of God for the church.

And this message, as I said last week and the weeks before, brothers and sisters, is that the apostle Peter is trying to provide this exhortation, this warning against the destructive power of false teachers and their false teachings, their false doctrines, their doctrines of demons. And as I have said before, yes, the apostle is very concerned with this reality that there's going to be false teachers. And he is going to take the whole chapter two to explain to us the nature of these false teachers. But the burden of the apostle is that the church can be carried away by these false teachings. brothers and sisters, that we may not see this as a foreign, as a faraway possibility, but rather that we may hear and listen to the warning of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Peter, that he's writing with a genuine desire, with a genuine concern to These people of these churches, of these Gentile churches, and of course also to us, trying to warn us that the teachings of these false teachers can carry us and take us to their destruction, their same destruction.

This is the whole heart of the letter. And as I said, the apostle is going to exhort us with three main things. The first thing is that he wants to show us the effective, the divine, the miraculous power of God working in us. And then He moves, not only speaking of the power of God in us, but then He moves to speak of the power of His precious Word that guides us so that we will not fall into the deceitfulness of those doctrines of demons. And then in the end of the book, He's going to bring to our attention the glory and the excellency of that glorious day as we sang.

the day of the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, which also has power to prevent us from falling away, from being apostates. This is the concern of the apostles, brothers and sisters, that we may not be apostates, that we may not depart from the faith. And as I said now many times, I think being an apostate is not becoming an atheist, but it is actually following doctrines of demons, as Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 4. This is the concern of the Apostle. And the first warning of this first exhortation, as I just said, it is that he wants to point us to the workings of God, the divine workings of God in us.

What God is doing and He will continue to do in us. If you, within the sound of my voice, if you are in Christ, if you're genuinely by grace through faith, united to Christ, then that means that this divine power that comes from on high is working in you. And this is what the Apostle Peter is trying to point us to, to this divine power, not human power. not the power of men and the intellect of men or the abilities of men, but divine power that works within genuine Christians to prevent them from falling away, from following and being carried away by the false teachings and by the false doctrines of false teachers. Just as there were false prophets under the old covenant, there will be, not maybe, but there will be false teachers among the new covenant.

Church. This is not a question of if it will happen, but actually this is a scriptural reality, that there will be many people coming with the label of teachers and Christians and Christianity, and they will be taken with them, people, professing Christians unto condemnation and unto destruction, the destruction for which they have been appointed in the eternal decree. of God. So the apostle in his love towards the church and this Spirit-given love towards the audience and towards the saints, knowing that he's about to die and that he's not going to be with them much longer, and with this love as if he was the father in the flesh, He writes to them to speak about this divine power of God working within them. And the first thing that he points them to, as we said last week, is faith.

Faith. Faith. Saving, genuine faith. A faith that the Apostle describes as a faith that is given from on high. A faith that is not produced within us.

but a faith that is obtained, a faith that is given, a faith that it is coming from heaven that we cannot produce in ourselves. And because that faith comes from above, brothers and sisters, this is a faith that for every single Christian, from the smallest to the highest or from independently what they come from, for every genuine Christian, that faith is a faith of equal value or equal standing or as precious as the faith of those who were with the Lord Jesus Christ, namely the apostles. This is a glorious truth, brothers and sisters, that independently Who we are, if by grace, the grace that comes from on high, we have been united to Jesus Christ, then the faith that we have, which could be different in amount, but the quality and the value of that faith that we have, it is as precious as the faith of those who saw the Lord Jesus Christ with their eyes, who touched Him and saw Him ministering and dying upon that cross. Same faith is the one that receives and abides in our soul if that faith is genuine and it comes from on high. That teaches us so many things, brothers and sisters.

First of all, the sufficiency of Scripture, that the apostolic authority that is in Scripture is sufficient to provide genuine saving faith throughout the ages until the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. that the faith that once for all was delivered to the saints has the power to, in the teaching of the Spirit, provide to all of those who by grace through faith are united to Christ a faith, a genuine faith that is of equal standing throughout the ages. The faith of Abraham, the faith of Paul, the faith of Peter, and the faith of the saints throughout the ages is of equal standing. It's that faith that gives to the Christian the righteousness of God. And because it's a righteousness of God that is given to a person, then that faith, brothers and sisters, as I said last week, It's a fruitful faith.

It's a living faith. It's not a faith that abides in the mind, in the intellect, and is not only an intellectual assessment or confirmation of truth, but rather is a visitation, a divine visitation that transforms a person and gives them life. That faith gives a person the right to be called the son or the daughter of God. And because that person is made the son or the daughter of God, then that person is clothed with power, divine power that also comes from on high. And that divine power gives that Christian all things that are necessary for life and for godliness.

Everything that is necessary for the Christian life, everything that is necessary to live a reverential life of worship and obedience. Everything that is necessary to glorify God with everything that we do, think and say, and even with the things that we don't do, we don't say, the places that we don't go, everything of our lives unto the glory of God is possible through the divine power that has been granted to us from on high because we have been united to Christ through genuine faith. all things for our practical life, for our Christian life of walking towards Jesus Christ and being conformed to his image and to his likeness. The divine power of God has granted us not most of the things, but all things, everything that is needed to achieve the goal of godliness, of God-likeness, of Christ-likeness, have been given to the Christian. That is the source of the Christian life.

I said last week, that is the source of the Christian life, that it comes from the divine power of God, from on high, from the holy habitation of the triune God that has given through His power to Christians, young Christians, with saving genuine faith, everything that is needed. for a godly, Christ-like, God-like life. But today, brothers and sisters, I want us to focus not so much in the source of the power or the source of all of those things that pertain to life and godliness and are needed for a life of Christ-likeness, but rather, I want us to focus on the means by which all of these things are given. The divine power is the source. All things that are necessary for our life of Christ-likeness come from and rooted in the divine power of God.

It is the divine power of God that has granted all of these things, but these things come through the knowledge of Him, the apostle says. It is the means for which or through which we can actually have all of these things for this holy life, this godly life. It is through the knowledge of Him. Now, brothers and sisters, this concept of the knowledge of Him who is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ, or God, the God that saved us, this knowledge of Him, of the Lord Jesus Christ, is a very important topic for the apostle Peter. Actually, He is going to be the one that uses this concept and these words, the knowledge of Him or the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ or the knowledge of the Savior.

He's the one that uses it the most in the New Testament. So this is going to be a very important topic and a very important thought in the mind of the Apostle. If you pay attention there in your Bibles to verse 2, he has already introduced to us this concept of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse 2, May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has already mentioned there this knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And, of course, here we have also in verse 3. But if you go also there to verse 8, the passage that we also read in verse 8, the apostle is going to mention this knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 8, he says, For if these qualities, the qualities that he has mentioned before this, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being effective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. If all of these qualities that he has mentioned are within you and you continue them, you are not going to be unfruitful. in the knowledge there of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a very important topic for him, to the point that, as I also have mentioned a couple of times, the whole purpose of the letter that is summarizing the end of chapter 3, it is attached to this concept of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you go to the end of the letter in chapter 3, verse 18, he says, there, 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. This is a very important topic, the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it's so important, brothers and sisters, because it's connected to the source of our life. That means that both the divine power of God that comes from on high and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ are essential characteristics of saving genuine faith. You cannot have saving, genuine faith without divine power granting to a Christian all things that pertain to life and godliness, and that through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the knowledge of God. Those two things are essential. They are essential to saving, genuine faith.

This is of vital importance. And I'm going to argue here that there's even going to be a third element, brothers and sisters, of genuine saving faith in the mind of the apostle. And that third element is going to be found in verse 5. In verse 5, he says, for this very reason, make every effort. Make every effort to supplement your faith, and then he continues to give a list of different things.

I'm going to submit to you and present to you, I hope, with the help of the Spirit, that according to this passage that we have in front of us and with this whole section here, genuine saving faith has three characteristics, according to Peter. saving genuine faith, the faith that comes from above, the faith that cannot be produced by men, the faith that really saves and gives eternal life, is a faith that participates of the divine power, and that divine power grants him or her, the Christian, all things that pertain to godliness, and through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. divine power, it is a characteristic of divine or saving genuine faith better, and also the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. But also, that has a result, and the result is that the Christian is empowered to make every effort or to be diligent in adding to that faith, the faith that is genuine, the faith that it is coming from above the faith that has saved that person, then he's he has the ability of the power to add all of those things. And even even beyond, I will argue that all of the things that Peter has in mind in verse three are the things that he's listing from verse five through verse 10.

That is perhaps not very important now. We will see it later. But brothers and sisters, please have that in your mind. And by the help of the Spirit and by the grace of the Spirit, have that in your heart. The saving genuine faith will have these characteristics, the divine power of God, granting, operating, providing for the Christian, the genuine Christian, all things that are needed for a godly life.

And He does that through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we will be able to live and to add to that saving faith all of these qualities. Now, brothers and sisters, this is going to be very important because this knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is simply a personal discernment of who God really is. You see, knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is not so much having an intellectual understanding of who Jesus Christ is and the things that the Lord Jesus Christ has done, but rather when Peter speaks of the knowledge of him, he's speaking about a personal, intimate relationship or discernment of who God is. And in a sense, brothers and sisters, in a sense, in a sense, we could simply, or Peter could have from the end of verse three, jump into verse five and had just simply said that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him, the Lord Jesus Christ. And for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith and continue with verse five.

But this knowledge of Jesus Christ, this knowledge of Him, God, is so important for the Apostle that He is going to give us some qualifiers that will help us to understand this concept of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved of Christ, brothers and sisters, As I said to you, this concept of knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is particularly important for the Apostle Peter. He is the one that uses it the most. He's the one that invests most ink and letters speaking about this knowledge of the Savior. And according to the Apostle, and of course, the Holy Spirit, this knowledge of Him, it is a characteristic of genuine saving faith.

And this is not only according to Peter, brothers and sisters, because if we just simply go to the New Testament and we go to John 17, you might remember that the Lord Jesus Christ defines eternal life, not as simply knowing something, but rather knowing God. This is eternal life, he says in John 17, verse 3, that we know God and the one who God sent, the Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal life, which is the manifestation or the outcome of genuine saving faith, This eternal life, it is summarized in knowing God and whom He has sent, the Lord Jesus Christ. And this knowledge of God, it is extended and more qualified, or it is opened in the New Testament, because in Galatians chapter 4, then the apostle is going to speak that it is not that we know God, but rather that God knows us. Why?

Because the knowledge of God and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ goes beyond an intellectual understanding that abides in the mind, but rather falls into the category of a deep, personal, Intimate relationship, a discernment, an understanding on who God is. And it is a confirmation in the mind and in the heart. This is the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ that Peter is speaking about. The knowledge that is summarized in eternal life, knowing God and the one whom he sent. This knowledge, not with the mind, but rather that God knew us first.

Not that we loved him, but he loved us first, that it was God entering into a relationship with us. And therefore, we are able to say that we have the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Paul in Philippians 3 says that this is the supremacy of the excellency of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. that he's doing everything that he can to increase this excellency of the knowledge of him, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he might be found to be a partaker of the power of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, because knowing the Savior, Knowing the Lord Jesus Christ goes beyond understanding a set of doctrines, understanding historically who He is, understanding from an intellectual point of view the things that He did, and the places that we went, and the miracles that He performed, and the abilities that He had, and all the things that He gave us, and all the teachings goes beyond that. It is rooted in the innest more part, in the core of the being of the heart of the person.

And this is going to be important. Now, brothers and sisters, the apostle is going to actually give some qualifiers to that knowledge. Again, as I said, he could have simply, according to the structure of this passage, he could have just simply jumped and said that the divine power of God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So for that reason, verse 5, you can add to your faith all of these qualities. But the apostle takes the time to actually take us and give us some qualifiers and some characteristics of this knowledge of him.

And the passage is going to be structured in a very interesting way. So there is a little bit of a hermeneutical exercise that we have to do here. And I hope that the Lord may give us and give me grace to explain and give you grace to understand my limited words so that you will see here the structure of this passage. So please pay attention to these things that I'm just going to say here. I want you to pay attention to these key words that are going to help us to understand the qualifiers one after the other.

The only word that I found in the morning to describe this is a cascade of arguments. It is kind of like a letter that has different layers and different arguments. So the apostle is simply going to say this, and just pay attention as I read from the ESV. He says, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, and this is through the knowledge of him. But he is going to give us now the first qualifier of this knowledge of this person, this him.

And he says that the knowledge of him could called us. So it is not the knowledge of anyone, but it is the knowledge of the person that called us. That is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he called us to by or through, that is the word that is there, to by or through his own glory and excellence. So, all things that are needed for your life, beloved of Christ, everything that we need to be like Jesus Christ, has been given to us through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, who called us.

And He called us to, or by, or through His own glory and excellence. And then He's going to give us the other key word here that is going to add another characteristic for this knowledge. He says, by or through which glory and excellence, he has granted to us his precious and very great promises. You see, that is kind of like a cascade of argument that it is all connected to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the knowledge of the one who called us to his own glory and excellence. And it is through his glory and excellence that he has granted to us his precious and very great promises.

And it's through these very great promises, he says, through them, through the promises, so that through the promises you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption of the world because of sinful desire. Beloved of Christ, I want you to see the three connections that Apostle is giving us here. I don't know if you see the words there, through, to, by, through. All of these words he's given us here, mainly these three qualifiers of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now bear with my explanation and have faith in the things that I'm just going to say here, beloved of Christ.

The apostle is connected this knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ with three things. He's connecting this knowledge with the calling of Christ to us, the one who called us, the knowledge of him who call us. Not only with our calling, the calling of the Christian, but also the Apostle is connecting this with the very great and precious promises that we have in our Christian life. The very great and gracious or very great and precious better promises that we have in Christ. And not only he's connecting this knowledge of Christ with our calling and with God's promises, but also The apostle is connecting that to our union with God.

In other words, what he says, so that through them, through the promises, you may become partakers of the divine nature. He's speaking of our union with God. the Lord Jesus Christ, our union, our divine union, that we may be partakers, that through the promises we may become partakers of the divine nature, and how? Having escaped from the corruption of this world. These are the three connections.

Beloved of Christ, it is necessary that I do this hermeneutical exercise here with this text because I want to point you to a deeper reality in this letter that is not even found in this text. So you need to pay attention and bear with me and see these three connections so that we will understand a later burden of the Apostle that is developed for the whole context of the letter. These three connections, the knowledge of Him who called us, connected with the calling. And this is also connected with the promises of God that He calls it precious and very great. And also this is connected with our union or our partaking of the divine nature through escaping corruption.

Now, brothers and sisters, true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is knowledge of the one who actually called us. It is not a knowledge of a concept of Jesus Christ. It is not understanding of a person who calls himself Jesus Christ. It is not a religious Christ.

It is not simply the concept, the abstract person of Christ, but rather It is the real living person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that called us. Pay attention here that from these three connecting things that I'm just telling you that are connected to knowledge, our calling, God's promises, and our union with the Lord, two of them are already done, and one is happening. We have been already called, and therefore you have a very daring pass. the one who called us. And also we have received already the promises from the Lord.

He has granted in the past already these precious and very great promises. And now we have one is active and it's happening that you may become partakers of the divine nature. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one that called in the past genuine Christians. You see, if a person has been saved, genuinely, in reality, not in religion, not in a system that is called Christianity, not in label Christianity, but if a person has had genuine saving faith, That person has been called by the Lord Jesus Christ. That person did not call the Lord Jesus Christ, but that person was called by the Lord Jesus Christ.

It was the Lord, the one that operated, the one that intervened to drag or to take that person and to bring it unto himself, to effectively call that person unto salvation by the precious and the glorious thing here. It's not so much in the calling, brothers and sisters, but it's rather the means of the calling. Because the apostle says that we have been called to his own glory and excellence. Or in another translation, by his own glory. and excellence.

That means, beloved of Christ, that when a person that is dead in their sins, when a person is called by the Lord Jesus Christ, then that person is called unto the glory and the excellence of the Lord Jesus Christ. This glory and excellence is his divine, his unique state of God, his uniqueness as the most exalted state and the most exalted perfection, that which makes God, God, and that which makes creatures, creatures. But I want you to see the salvation, beloved of Christ, the genuine salvation. It is the opening of the eyes of the one who was blind and being made able to see the glory and the excellence of the one that is calling, And then that person, because of the majesty of the glory and the excellence of the one that is calling, then that person moves by faith onto the presence of the one that is calling. You see, salvation, it is not so much that eyes are open or the hearts of stone are converted in flesh, but rather that the natural result of the blindness that we have in our flesh and the heart of stone that we have in our flesh takes us naturally.

to walk to the Savior in repentance and in faith. Why? Not because we have been given the option or not because we have been given the ability to see, but rather because that which we are beholding before us is the glory and the excellence of the Savior. That is salvation. That is genuine knowledge of him.

You see how distant and how apart it is from a cold, indifferent, knowledge of the mind? You see how distant and how far away knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ it is to know what the capital of Germany is, or know how much is the price of this or that, or just simply having a piece of information in our head? You see how distant it is to know the Lord Jesus Christ and to know anything else? genuine knowledge of the one who called us it is actually be able to say that when he called us we could see his glory and his excellence by who he is The divine and the unique, the most exalted being, God, different to creature, different to sinners. The eyes of the sinner have been open, open, not only to be open in and of themselves, but rather to behold the beauty and the glory and the excellence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is the power of the Holy Spirit, not only in making the one that was blind now to be able to see, not only giving the ability to the one that was dead, the ability to live, or the one that could not walk, be able to walk, but rather, not only giving that, but going beyond that. given a glimpse of the glory and the excellence of Christ. So that person will naturally, by the power of the Spirit, come in faith and repentance before the presence of the Lord. Now, this is very important, brothers and sisters, because there are many people out there that teach That once a person is being regenerated, that once a person has been transformed and given eyes to see, and once a person has been given a heart, not of stone, but a heart of flesh, there's some people there that teach that if a person goes through regeneration, that he's been given a new heart or eyes to see, that that person can remain in a state of no faith, and that that person can remain in a state of regeneration for a while and then believe down the track, believe in the future, that that person can remain with the work of the Spirit in the heart as a regenerated person and then believe down the track later a few months or years after that. And there are people actually that teach that.

brothers and sisters, once the eyes of a person, once the heart of a person has converted from stone into flesh, once the Lord Jesus Christ has effectively called a sinner, then that sinner does not have any other natural option that before the glory and the excellence of God coming in faith and repentance. So regeneration is merit to faith and merit to repentance. Why? Because this is the glorious thing that before we could not see. But now, because of the Spirit, we are not only able to see, but we are able to run to.

And this is how it explains, brothers and sisters, that our faith is both God given, but it's also the response of a person. That is what we are commanded to believe. That is what we're commanded to respond in faith, not only when we believe in the first time, but also through our life, because The eyes of the person have been opened, and the glory and the excellence of God has been clearly manifested to the one that was blind and the one that was dead. And now that person has been given the divine power from on high to walk towards the person of Jesus Christ, towards his own glory. And I love that word, too.

And the ESV has translated it perfectly, saying, to. He has called us to, unto his own glory. and excellence. It is the glory of God, the one that attracts us unto salvation. But brothers and sisters, the apostle is going to continue because this glory and this excellence, which is this majestic spiritual light to which we are drawn by the regenerating power of the Spirit, is the means by which the Lord is going to give us His precious and very great promises.

You see, once transformation has taken place, once a person has been called effectively by Jesus Christ, once that person has seen the glory and the excellence of God, it is the same glory, it is the same excellence of God, it is the same being of God that is now going to grant us. all His precious and very, very great promises. Now, brothers and sisters, I want you to pay attention to the emphasis that the Apostle Peter in this section of Scripture is putting on the value of these promises. promises of God or from God to us Christians. And the apostle is putting emphasis on the value of them.

He calls him precious, just as he had called our faith of equal standing. It is the same word, these precious promises. These are precious and very great promises. Now, brothers and sisters, please listen to this. We, as humans, we assess the value of promises because or through or based on that which has been promised unto us.

So the value of I promise that someone makes to us or something that someone's promises to us, it is based on the value of that which that person is promising to us. So if that person does not keep the promise, then it depends on whatever they promised. So if the person promised to us that they were going to give us one cent, is not the same to the person that promised that was going to purchase our car. The person that promised that he was going to give us a cent and he does not keep his promise, it is not so valuable in our eyes compared with the person that promised that is going to buy our car and do not buy our car. Because the value that we derive from a promise is sometimes overemphasized on the thing that is promised.

But the apostle is showing us in these couple of verses that the value of the promises of God, it is not only established upon the promise itself, which is precious and very great. Every promise of God, it is precious and great, but rather beloved of Christ. the value of biblical promises. It is established in the means by which these promises have been granted or given to us, and that is the divine character of God, His glory and His excellence. every single promise that we have as Christians.

It is not valuable in and of itself or whatever it is, but it is more valuable because of the person that is promising that unto us. It is because of the glory and the excellence of the triune God of the universe that has in His grace and mercy decided to grant us His precious and very great promises. These promises are not gracious, are not precious and very great because what they do to us, but they are precious because they are His precious and very great promises. It is the glory, the excellence of the Savior, the excellence of God, the one that gives the value to these promises. And promises are the ones that are to be believed.

You see, so the Christian is not to believe in the promises because of how great the promise is only, but rather we are to believe by faith and apprehend by faith the promises of God. Yes, we know that they are precious and very great, but also we know that they have been given, that He has granted to us through His glory and through His excellence. He has done this in the manifestation of His divine character, in the excellence of who He is, the one who called us, the one who displayed to these people that were dead, the one who opened the eyes to these people that were dead in their sins. These unclean people that were condemned to be outside of the camp for the rest of eternity. This God has not only displayed the glory and the excellence of who he is to call these people unto himself, leprous, unclean.

Hell bound, but also he has, once he has received these sinners, these unclean people, he has granted to them precious and very great promises that derive their value, not from the great thing that we will receive, but from God himself. Promises of forgiveness, come unto me, come unto me, take. without a price. Drink without a price. Promise of forgiveness that anyone, it doesn't matter what they have done, that there is not sin that cannot be covered by the grace that comes from on high.

I promise of forgiveness that those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. That those who come to the Lord Jesus Christ with genuineness of heart and with repentant heart, they have actually been called initially by God and He's not going to reject them. I promise of forgiveness. I promise of consolation. I promise of love.

I promise of confirmation to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. I promise of conformity to holiness. I promise of knowing the depths of the mysteries of the wisdom of God. I promise of being united to Him. Promises that are not only special and valuable because of what they represent for us, but because of the One that is granting these promises to us.

Because forgiveness would have no meaning if that forgiveness was not to spend eternity with the God of this universe. Holiness would have no meaning in and of itself if it was not because we're being conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace would have no meaning if that peace is not peace with God and the peace of God in us. Love will have no meaning if the love is love to self or love of this world but rather the love of God who is love in and of himself. All of these promises are to be precious and very great to the heart of the one who has knowledge of God and because of genuine saving faith is united to the God of salvation.

Glorious promises. Glorious promises, brothers and sisters, that do not only have an abstract value, but actually have a power in and of themselves. Because in the second half of verse 4, the Apostle says that through these promises, so that through them, through the promises, you may become partakers of the divine nature. So the Apostle brothers and sisters, he's not connecting only this knowledge of him to our calling. And he's not only connecting this knowledge of Christ to these precious and very great promises that are so good for us, not because of what they are, but because they come from the glory and excellence of God.

But also he's connecting this knowledge to our union with God because all of these things are connected. The knowledge, glory, excellence, promises. These promises are going to be the foundation. It is through these promises that we become partakers of the divine nature. That is, that we become partakers of this union with God.

Not that we become gods, not that we become Him, but that we are made like Him. I told you, the first two things are already done. He called you if you are in Christ, and He has granted to you His very precious and very great promises, but that you may become, that it is something that is active and will happen, that you may become partaker of the divine nature, not that you will become him, but rather that you will become more like him. That is that the nature of corruption that was within you might die and the divine nature, the divine seed of God might dwell in you, making you more like the person of Jesus Christ. I want you to see this glorious thing that the apostle is doing here in a very Pauline way.

He's speaking about our calling when we were first saved. And then he's speaking about the promises that we receive as Christian. And then he's speaking about the experience of the Christian that is becoming a partaker of the divine nature, not only something that happens in this life, but that will be consummated, coming to an end in glory once we are fully united to Christ where sin there will be no more. So the apostle says, that becoming partakers of this divine nature is having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. This becoming like the Lord Jesus Christ, this becoming like God, this being partaker of the divine nature, this letting Christ live in us and that we may die to our own self that we might die to our flesh, this being coming like the firstborn among many brothers and sisters, this consummation of this promise that those whom he foreknew he has also predestined to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Among many brothers, this glorious promise of being partakers of the divine nature, it is not only the positive or active union to Christ, but it's also the removing, the escaping, the leaving behind, the moving away from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire, are becoming partakers of the divine nature.

It is a process of continually escaping to the corruption that is in the world until the point in which we are fully united to the divine nature through the person of Jesus Christ, something the mind of human beings cannot even understand. and also having escaped from the corruption that is in the world. It is only in this way, beloved of Christ, that we will understand a deeper and greater burden of the Apostle. If your mind is not with me, so now please make the effort now to pay attention to what I'm going to say now. Beloved of Christ, I said to you that the apostle, even in the order and in the structure of the text, his reasoning could have moved from his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him, and then verse 5, for this very reason, make every effort.

Why? Because now we have the divine power of God, that give us all things that are necessary for godliness, and this is through the knowledge of Him. So if we have everything through the knowledge of Him, He has already made His point, so He can move on to say in verse 5, for this very reason, make every effort. But the Apostle decided to give qualifiers to this knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Speaking about our calling, speaking about His promises, and speaking about our partaking of His divine nature.

Now, with my limited ability, I try to present that to you, brothers and sisters, because I said to you that Peter has in his mind three elements of genuine saving faith. It is that the one who has been partaker of the divine power that comes from on high has all things that are necessary for godliness, and also it is participant of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, And through that knowledge, the knowledge of knowing Him when He called us, knowing Him through His promises, and knowing Him experientially in being partakers of the divine nature, is that we are able to Make every effort, in verse 5. Make every effort to supplement your faith. Now, why is this important? Because, beloved of Christ, if you read now carefully, with much diligence, the apostle is now, from verse 5, going to speak to us about the things that the real, genuine Christian, who has participated of the divine power and the knowledge of God, will naturally do.

And he says in verse five, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith. You can read with me, please, beloved of Christ. In verse five, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. He gives qualities here that we will study Lord willing in few weeks. He gives qualities here, but pay attention not to verse eight.

And now to after he has spoken about everything that God does in us. Now, please pay attention to the exhortation for if These qualities are yours and are increasing. Now, all of this based on the power of God and based on the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse nine, for whoever lacks these qualities, so that is whoever does not have all of these things, whoever does not have all of these things from verse five through verse seven, whoever lacks these things, Isonier cited that he's blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Therefore, brothers, be all more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, You will never fall, for in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He says, you are to continue in the practice of all of these things. You are to continue in adding to your faith, all of these things, self-control and knowledge and godliness. You are to continue in them because if you continue in them, they will prevent you from falling away. So brothers and sisters, here's the important thing.

According to the apostle Peter, genuine saving faith, that is, the faith that will not fall away, the faith that will not be taken away by the corruption of false teachers and the doctrines of demons, the genuine faith that will have as the ultimate or final result our entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the faith that will endure until the end, saving genuine faith, It's a faith that has been participant of the divine power of God, number one. It is a faith that has been participant of the true knowledge of Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, with all the explanations that I have given you. And third, it is a diligent faith that, as he says in verse five, makes every effort, or it is diligent in. It is supplementing faith with all of these characteristics. Now, this is crucial, and this is vital, because this is what the Apostle calls fruitfulness.

That if you continue doing these things, that if you remain on these things, you will not be unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I don't know if you remember, but in John chapter 15, when the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking about how can we glorify God, in John chapter 15, in verse 8, he says, by this my Father is glorified, that you, speaking to Christians, by this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so to prove yourselves to be my disciples. The fruitfulness of genuine saving faith, which is, according to Peter, love and godliness, and according to John also, love and godliness and holiness and walking in the commandments of the Lord, it is a natural manifestation of genuine saving faith. That is the natural manifestation of genuine saving faith. Now brothers and sisters, I'm putting all of that because you cannot have saving genuine faith if that faith is going to be death and is not going to be fruitful, if it's not going to grow in conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Think about it. If a person has been given by the divine power of God all things that pertain to life and godliness, if that person has known the Lord Jesus Christ, who called him through his glory and excellence, and who through his glory and excellence granted this person precious and great promises, and also gave him the promise of becoming partakers of the divine nature, escaping the corruption of this world, if that person is not becoming like Jesus Christ, then there is something wrong with the power of the Spirit in that person, which is contrary to Scripture, or that person is not in Christ. And this is very important, because there's a frightening verse there, speaking of the false teachers. Now go with your Bibles, and this is, I want you just to point to this, go now with your Bibles to chapter number two. Now I'm going to speak here, or we're going to read here, because there is a fourth time in which the Apostle speaks of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this fourth time, he does not speak about the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to believers, but he speaks about the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to apostates, about those who fall from the faith. Go to verse 19. Speaking here the apostle of these false teachers, he says, they promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. Speaking of these false teachers, apostates, for whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved. Now pay attention to verse 20.

For if they, for if after they have escaped. Now brothers, this is speaking of false teachers. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I don't think that I have to explain here the similarities of the promise given to the person in the passage that we have just studied. the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then making us partakers of the divine nature, escaping from the corruption of the world. But here the apostle says in verse 24, if after they have escaped the defilements or the corruption of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them, and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them. The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire. These are false teachers. False teachers that not only here, but also according to Paul, are partakers of the knowledge of the Savior.

false teachers who also, according to biblical evidence, not according to my opinion, brothers and sisters, have escaped, in a sense, the corruption of this world. And they are returning again in their falling away from the faith or in their apostasy. Why? How are we going to reconcile this? How are we going to reconcile this?

Well, I don't have to give the explanation so much to this. There's an author in the Bible that gives an explanation to this. Come with me please to Hebrews chapter 6. Hebrews chapter 6. And I hope that I can finish there.

Hebrews chapter 6. This is the reality of apostates. This is the reality of those who fall from the faith. This is the reality of those who are not genuinely in Christ. Hebrews chapter 6, from verse 4.

Now read carefully. Now, remember what I said. Just remember my exposition of that passage, brothers and sisters. The three characteristics of saving genuine faith. The three characteristics of saving genuine faith.

It is that the divine power of God works in us, granting us all things that are needed for our life. And this is through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the genuine knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the third element is that the power of God has granted us all things through the knowledge of Jesus Christ empower us to be diligent in adding to our faith all the qualities that are needed for us to continue and to confirm our calling. It is the power of God, it is the knowledge of Christ, and it is the diligence of the Christian, operated and given, empowered by the Spirit, that makes us continue without falling away in the qualities that are Christ-like. These three things.

Hebrews chapter 6 verse 4. For it is impossible, it is impossible in the case of those who once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, that is, that they have tasted the power of God, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up to contempt. Four, now remember the third element. Here the author of Hebrews has spoken about these people for whom it is impossible to restore them unto genuine repentance. For these people, they have been partakers of enlightenment.

They have tasted the heavenly gift. They have shared in the Holy Spirit. They have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come. They have genuinely partaken of these divine powers. And according to Peter, in the passage that we read, they had escaped the corruption of the world through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They have element one and two. But, verse 7, remember the third element is fruitfulness. Fruitfulness, a faith that is fruitful. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. That is, the land, the explanation that I'm giving here in my words, the land that has received the rain and produces fruit, produces that which was cultivated, receives a blessing from God.

But if it bears thorns and fizzles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. Now, he says, though we speak in this way, yet not in your case, beloved, not in the case of you who have genuine saving faith. We feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. Verse 10, for God is not unjust, so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnest earnestness, to have the full assurance of hope, until when?

Until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit what? The promises. genuine saving faith. It is a fruitful faith in our life and it is a faith that helps us to endure through the power of the Spirit until the end with patience to inherit the very great, the precious promises of God, genuine promises of God that have value in who He is, so that through these promises we might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. These apostates, brothers and sisters, the one that falls away from what is called Christian faith, They are not falling away from genuine saving faith, because praise to God, that genuine saving faith, it is God given, it is precious, and will take us until the end.

Not because of who we are, but because of the preservation of God. But these false teachers, these apostates, They fall away from the faith because they had experienced God to a point, a horrifying point, that they had everything except genuine. faith. They had been partakers of the divine power. They had had an extent in the flesh knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Knowledge, abstract knowledge in their minds. Remember what I said in the beginning. This is not about having things in your head. It's not about having this intellectual assessment in your mind. This is about a reality, a spiritual reality.

That is salvation. Praise God that by genuine faith we have been forgiven of our sins and we have been restored legally unto God. But praise God even more, brothers and sisters, that salvation is much more than a legal standing before Him. We have been inserted into a genuine relationship with Christ. a relationship in the Spirit.

We have been made one through the promises of God with partakers of His divine nature. And I promise is given unto us that we are escaping and that we have escaped and that we will escape totally and completely the corruption that is in the world. And once the sinner makes it through heaven, when the Lord comes and when we're taken up to glory, then the reason why this sinner has made it until the end is not because their strength, their ability, or their mounted faith, but rather is because of the power of God that has preserved us and guarded us and kept us through our faith, as Peter said it in his first letter, chapter 1, verse 5. Praise be to God, that He is the one that keeps us and sustains us. But also, praise be to God for His Word, because His Word is the one that teaches us and instructs us, and also warns us of those paths that we are not to take, that the desire of our hearts, beloved of Christ, may be to align our understanding, our hearts, our desires, our passions, to the ways of God.

and that by a greater understanding of the Word and illumination of the Spirit, we might be able to behold the glory and the excellence of the Savior Jesus Christ, that He has granted through these glory and excellence, these glorious and precious promises, that we will be partakers of the divine nature. And once we have been walking by faith, but there is going to come a point in which we're going to see Him face to face, and our union and our communion, it is going to be not in the presence of sin, but in the presence of the glory and the majesty of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, and also the Lamb of God, who is the Lion of Judah, the One that reigns, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, who was pleased to call us unto Himself, to give us what we do not deserve, eternal life. Amen.