Reverential Living - 2 Peter..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. So this is the Word of God, the second letter of Peter, chapter 1, from verse 1 through verse 11. Simeon, or Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ, 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 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 effective and 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, brothers and sisters. This is the word of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, brothers and sisters, we are going to continue, as I said, with this series of teachings in the second letter of Peter. And this is going to be, as you know, of course, our third sermon through this book.

This time, as I said before, we are going to be addressing verse three. And I think we're going to be doing perhaps two, at least two sermons on this very short verse. In this verse, verse three, the apostle speaks of this divine power that gives Christians all things that are necessary for life and godliness. And this is through the knowledge of the one who called us to or by his own glory and excellence. So in this very short verse, beloved of Christ, we have so many powerful and profound doctrines.

The apostle speaks of the divine power of God, that enables Christians for all things pertaining to life and godliness. The Apostle speaks here of the knowledge of the one who called us Christians. And also we are told here that this calling of the Christians is by or through the glory and excellence of God. So there are many, many profound doctrines here. And understanding these doctrines and these concepts that the Apostle is using in this very short verse, will of course give us a better understanding of the development of the thinking process, of the reasoning process of the apostle.

Now, brothers and sisters, the verse that we have just read, what is the teaching, the main teaching of this verse that we have just read? Well, brothers and sisters, the apostle here is going to teach us about the Christian life. That is, the daily life of the Christian, from the moment that salvation is given to the moment that the Christian dies and is taken to glory. So Peter is not so much speaking about the spiritual life that we have, but rather he's speaking of the practical manifestation of that spiritual life in our day to day, our daily life, our second to second. And we know that because he uses two very important words.

If you pay attention to the text, you will see that he uses these two words there. He speaks of life and godliness. He says that the divine power of God has granted us all things or everything that is related to or that is necessary or that pertains to life and godliness. He is speaking about the practical life of the Christian. Now, this life and godliness could also be translated sometimes as godly life.

And literally, brothers and sisters, literally what these two words mean is a life of reverential worship and obedience. Imagine, brothers and sisters, our life, our every second, literally means a life of reverential worship and obedience. As Christians, if we have been saved by grace through faith, the life that we live is meant to be a life of reverential worship and obedience to the Lord every moment of our lives. Not most of our lives, not our good days, but all of our lives. Every single moment of our lives is meant to be a life of reverential worship and obedience.

As the Apostle Paul will say, we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship, the worship that we offer to the Lord. That is what the Apostle is speaking about here in this verse. Our life is meant to be a life of reverential worship and obedience. Now, brothers and sisters, as you know, your behavior, my behavior, your life, my life, is not always a life of reverential worship and obedience. As Christians we do not live lives in always reverentially worshiping the Lord and reverentially obeying the Lord.

So what do we do? What are we practically going to get from these instructions that we have here in verse 3 of the second letter of the Apostle Peter where brothers and sisters praise God because We know that all Scripture has been given to us by inspiration of God, and we know through the Apostle Paul that every single portion of Scripture is profitable for doctrine, and for reproof, and for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the believer, the man of God, the one who has been genuinely saved, might be complete, fully equipped for every good work. We need to ask God through Scripture, how can we have a life that is a life of reverential worship and obedience? You see, we are not to diminish the power and the practical authority of Scripture by thinking that the Bible sometimes speaks about things that are ideal, but they are not meant to be real for us. If the Bible says something about the life of the Christian, then that is the Word of God for us, and it is real.

It is not an abstract reality. And the Apostle, by the inspiration of the Spirit in this short verse, is going to help us answering the question, how can we live? a life like this he's going to help us to answer this specific question of how can we live a life of a reverential worship and obedience which is what it literally means this life and godliness reverential worship and constant obedience to the lord Now, he's going to give us, of course, an answer to that question, and he's going to give us an insight in how we as Christians are to receive this word and not only to be hearers of the word, but also be doers of the word. And he's basically going to answer this question in this verse by giving us two very important realities about this life of reverential worship and obedience, which again, in the words of the Apostle is life and godliness or a godly life. And he says, Two things.

Two things that we need to have in our mind. The first one is that he teaches us about the source of this life of reverential worship and obedience. The source of it. The apostle calls that source the divine power. In the words is, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, or His divine power has given us everything that we need for a godly life.

The source of this type of life, it is the divine power. But second, he's not only going to speak to us about the source of it, but he's also going to teach us about the means through which we can live this life of reverential worship and obedience. And he says that that is through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. This godly life, it is meant to be lived through the knowledge of the person who called us by his own glory and goodness. So, beloved of Christ, today we are going to be focusing on the first of those realities, that is, the source of our life of reverential worship and obedience.

We have been called to live lives of reverential, constant worship and obedience with everything that we do, and we're going to be focusing on the source. But again, brothers and sisters, as Paul says to the Philippians in chapter 3, to write or to say the same things to you, it is not trouble for me, but it is safe for you. The repetition of truths and important concepts, it is not a trouble for the teacher, but rather is safe for the one that is receiving the word of the Lord. So I need to bring your mind to the big picture. picture so you understand what I decided to share with you today.

Otherwise, sermons become separated pieces of information that are not related to each other. And sadly, sometimes they are just easily forgotten. So, brothers and sisters, please remember what I have just said to you in the last couple of times. I have tried with my limited ability to present to you the general message and the structure of the second letter of Peter. that we may be able to understand each one of the portions that we work through in light of the general context.

And as I have said in the first two times that I had the opportunity to address you in a sermon, I said to you, beloved of Christ, that the message of 2 Peter is just simply an apostolic warning, an apostolic exhortation against the destructive power of false doctrine and false teachers. In other words, the apostle in this letter, brothers and sisters, is concerned with apostasy in the church. Please never lose that from perspective. The apostle Peter is concerned with apostasy in the church. Yes, he knows that there will be false teachers in the church who will apostate from the faith, and he's burdened with that fact that there will be false teachers as there will be false prophets in the Old Covenant people.

But more than that, The apostle is concerned with the souls of professing Christians who can be taken away, carried away by these things. Now, brothers and sisters, we must understand, please, that to be completely, and please pay attention to this, that to be completely taken away or carried away by the teachings of false prophets is the same or is equivalent to fall away from the faith, to apostate from the faith, to follow the condemnation of the false teacher who was preaching the false doctrine. So in this second letter, the apostle is going to present this apostolic warning, this apostolic exhortation for the church not to be carried away with the errors of these false teachers. This is how the letter is summarized in the end of the book. I pointed to you this twice.

In 2 Peter 3, verse 17 and 18, this is the summary of the letter in which the apostle is going to call these churches in saying, you, Therefore, beloved, knowing these beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability, but grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Peter wants and decides in the Spirit of God that it is inspiring him to say these words, to exhort these people, and of course also us as the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, not to be carried by these deceitful teachers, not to be taken by these destructive ways. And the way that he does it, as I have just said it in the past, he's given three important realities, given three important exhortations. This is the structure of the book. That is the theme of the book.

And the burden of the apostle is to teach these congregations and the Christians, of course, three important realities. The first one, as I have said in a couple of times now, it is the divine power of God in us that will prevent us from falling away. The divine power of God in us that will prevent us from following the errors of the false teachers and following their condemnation. That is the first burden of the apostle. The second one, it is the divine power of the Word of God.

Not so much the power of God in us, but the divine power of the Word of God that leads us, that guides us in righteousness, and that prevents us from falling away from following the doctrines, the doctrines of demons, the doctrines of these false teachers. He's concerned about the spiritual power of God in us, preventing us from falling away, and also the power of the Word of God that leads us in truth. And thirdly, he's also going to exhort the church and encourage the church, I think, in the divine power of the day of the Lord, of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ that has power in the present to keep us from falling away and from apostating from the faith. So, brothers and sisters, we are dealing now with the first one of these exhortations, that is the divine power of God in Christians that will prevent us from falling. And that thought of the apostle goes from verse one through verse 11, which is what we have read.

And then the second exhortation will start in verse 16, and there's kind of like an overlapping of the thought of the apostle from verses 12 to verse 15. But we're dealing now with the first one of the exhortations, the exhortation of the divine power of God in Christians to prevent them from falling away, to prevent them from departing from the faith, from following deceitful teachings, from following deceitful doctrines of demons, as Paul calls them. So in this initial exhortation, even before Peter starts to address the nature of false teaching and false teachers, The apostle will direct our attention to what God has done and continues to do in us by and through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to secure our salvation, to secure our preservation until the end. This is, brothers and sisters, what God does in us to prevent us from apostasy. This is what our Savior, our Father, our God does in us, within us.

His children to prevent us from apostasy. What He does, the works that He does in us to prevent us from destruction. The destruction that apart from the work of God we would naturally pursue. So Peter shows us that God works divinely in us to prevent us, to keep us from that natural path of ours. that is the first exhortation of the apostle in this letter and as i try to present it to you the last couple of times that i address you beloved brothers and sisters the first one of those divine workings of god in us is faith faith.

Genuine, saving faith. Now, stop for a moment and think about the whole thing that I've just said now, and think about the way that he starts. Think about it. He starts with faith. What better place to start these apostolic exhortations, not to follow these destructive teachings of false teachers, than faith, than by pointing genuine believers to the reality of saving faith.

Now, please, brothers and sisters, pay attention to this. The truth, the truth, the biblical truth is that false teachers And everyone who is completely and utterly taken away, carried away by their false teaching, they do not have genuine faith. They are not Christians. This is very important. False teachers, those false prophets, false teachers, and everyone who is completely and utterly taken, completely until the end, taken by these teachings of demons, by these teachings of false prophets, all of them that are carried away by these doctrines, they do not have genuine faith.

They are not Christians. And this is very important, brothers and sisters. In times in which the church seems to be okay compromising the truth of the scripture and saying that Catholics and Orthodox and Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and whatever type of heretic groups come to your mind, that they preach the gospel and that they have the ability in their churches to disciple genuine Christians, this is a lie. These are heretic groups, false teachers. This is a lie from hell.

They do not preach the gospel, and they do not have the power of the Spirit to disciple genuine Christians. Yes, by God's mercy and His providence, a person can be saved in the context of these groups, but as the Spirit of As the Spirit of God works in them because of the genuine faith, if they're genuine Christians, as the Spirit of God starts to work in them, it's just a matter of time for that person to leave those groups and come to genuine Christianity. A genuine believer who has genuine faith and the Spirit of God working in them, dwelling in them, cannot completely be taken away and carried away by teaching and doctrines of demons. Simply not. This is so in opposition with what Scripture says.

Brothers and sisters, a genuine believer has the Spirit of God dwelling in them, and the Spirit of God leads them to the truth. The Spirit of God is dwelling in them and leads them to Jesus Christ, illuminates them in Scripture. It is because the Church, the contemporary Church, and especially the Western Church, has reduced Christianity just to be a good person and then just to follow Christian vocabulary, that we seem to be okay compromising the truth, the difficult truth of Scripture. But brothers and sisters, we live in times, and even more now, in which the last thing that we want to have in our church is cowards, self-loving, self-protecting, un-reputation-loving preachers that will not tell us the truth in order just to be accepted and not to cause any controversy from the pulpit. Brothers and sisters, the truth is that false teachers and everyone who is completely utterly taken by them until the end, completely taken by them all the time until the end, they are carried away by their false teachings and by their false doctrines, they do not have genuine faith.

and whoever says the opposite is wrong in the best case scenario, but in the worst case scenario is also a false teacher or a false prophet. So there is no better place for the apostle to start dealing with false teachers and of course with all of these doctrines than speaking about saving genuine biblical Faith. This is how this letter starts addressing the genuine faith of believers. Faith as a divine working of God in the genuine Christian. The gift of faith that according to Peter is given, obtained, that is received from God, is God-given.

A faith given to all genuine Christians and a faith that is precious, he says, of equal standing, of the same value as the faith of those who witnessed the Lord Jesus Christ. The faith of the normal Christian is of equal standing than the faith of those who were present with the Lord. The faith of the normal Christian is of equal standing as the faith of those who were with Him and ministered with Him, namely the Apostle. A faith that is given by and through the righteousness of God. A faith through which we do not only receive the righteousness of God in Christ, brothers and sisters, but a faith that also, because we are having faith in Christ, makes God completely just by justifying the wicked.

Why? Because Christ lived a perfect life of obedience to the law and takes our sins completely and nails them to the cross. So our righteousness is not of the law, but it's the righteousness of God. And therefore it's an eternal righteousness. Therefore, none, no one, nobody, absolutely not a creature can say to God that he's unjust by saving sinners.

Why? Because actually in the propitiation, in the expiation, in the atonement upon the cross, what he did was exactly satisfying divine justice. Christ receives the wrath of God and the divine punishment for sin, and by genuine faith, We receive His righteousness and we are not guilty. This genuine faith, genuine spirit given faith is the one that makes grace and peace, the grace and the peace of God to be meaningful to our sinful ears. A faith that gives us the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ.

Faith, brothers and sisters, faith, genuine faith. But why am I saying all of these things around verse three, brothers and sisters? Why am I spending all of this time and speaking about all of these things here of faith as the background of or as the topic that is leading us into verse three? Well, brothers and sisters, because verse three deals with the life as I said before, of reverential worship and obedience. And as I said, this life is the practical life of the Christian the day today.

And brothers and sisters, let me submit to you that if we do not meditate enough in the nature of genuine saving faith, then that practical life of reverential worship and obedience can be dangerously disconnected from faith. There is a risk for those who are saved, a biblical risk, and that is disconnect their doing from faith. Disconnect their lives, their lives of worship and obedience, their godly lives. Disconnect them from genuine faith. Brothers and sisters, genuine faith does not only gives us eternal life and justifies, but also genuine faith changes us practically.

You see, so many times we think that faith is something that happened when we were just first saved by the Lord. We think that faith is only that moment in the past when we believed, and we do not realize that the life of a Christian should be a life of faith. Faith is not just that which is necessary for us to be saved at a particular point in time in the past, but faith is what is necessary to sustain the Christian life. This is the great concern of the Bible and the New Testament more specifically, of course. that Christians, that professing Christians, may think that because they believed in the past, because they prayed a prayer, because they did something in the past, because they had faith at some point, now they can just simply live their lives in the label of Christianity.

They just become carriers of the title of Christians. They just become doers of certain traditions and things. How many professing Christians sadly conclude in their hearts, they might not say with their mouths, but they just simply conclude in their hearts, in the secret place of their souls, oh yes, yes, you know, I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and now I am a Christian. And look, I do all the good things that Christians do, you know, I'm faithful to the church, I read the Bible every day, I pray, I do this, I give to the church, I do that, I even share the gospel. Brothers and sisters, what a great danger there is in much doing when the doing does not come from faith, What a great danger there is in much things, external things, when the external things are not connected or rooted in faith.

Very clearly, the Apostle Paul in Romans 15 says that whatever does not proceed, whatever does not come from, whatever is not rooted in, faith is seen. It does not matter what it is. It does not matter how many good works we do. It does not matter how many sermons we listen to. It does not matter how many theology books we have in our library.

It does not matter how many prayers or good deeds we do. It does not matter what it is, brothers and sisters. If the doing does not proceed, is rooted in or comes from faith, genuine faith, then is sin. This is a very important category of obedience that will help us understand the New Covenant. Brothers and sisters, obedience under the new covenant is not rooted in the law anymore.

Obedience is rooted in genuine God-given spirit and power saving faith. So the apostle concludes, whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. And the same apostle will say in Galatians chapter 5, in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. But what it counts for everything is faith working through love. A faith that obeys through Christ-centered love.

Everything that does not proceed from faith is sin. Brothers and sisters, faith is more than the belief in Christ that justifies and gave us His righteousness in the past. Faith is necessary to sustain our Christian life day to day, moment to moment. There is no such a thing as a Christian that says that he believed in the past and now he lives his life by putting his trust in himself, in the government, or in the family, or in the circumstances. and that he lives completely given to the world, and in the heart it is completely disconnected from Christ.

Have you not read Beloved of Christ in Galatians chapter 2? I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And then he says, And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. That's the Apostle Paul.

The Apostle John says that everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world. This world, our faith. The same Apostle will say in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, that we know that while we are at home, that is in this present body at this time, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Brothers and sisters, we walk by faith. We live by faith. We overcome the world by faith. Why? Because it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Because he's no longer the earthly that rules in me, but the spiritual. Because it is no longer the power of the flesh that rules in me, but the divine power of God by faith. So the Apostle Peter, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, will start verse 3, after he has spoken about faith, he will start saying, His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. This is the glorious blessing of saving faith. This is the glorious blessing of genuine faith.

This is the reality of saving faith. This is the fruit, if you want, of saving faith. You cannot have saving faith without the reality of verse three. Verse three is the result of the reality of saving faith that was described in the two verses before that. genuine saving faith and the divine power given to us for a life of reverential worship and obedience are completely connected.

Saving faith is the foundation of a life of reverential worship and obedience. Constant. Not most of the time, not when I'm okay, not when the circumstances are okay, not when I'm having a good day, not when I'm emotionally okay, not when people are treating me okay, not when my job is going well, or not when my businesses are going well, not when my studies are going well, but a reverential life. of worship and obedience. It is rooted in genuine saving faith that connects us to the power, the divine power of God that gives us everything that we need for life and godliness.

They are connected. And this is why some other translations of the Bible will start that verse 3 even adding or putting there a connecting word. A translation of the Bible would say, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Another translation will say, seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. Or another translation will say, according as His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.

Why? Well, first of all, because there is indeed a word there in the Greek that was not translated by the ESV that connects the two verses. But second, and most importantly, it is because that is the biblical truth. The truth of verse 3, that the divine power of God has given us everything that we need to live a life of reverential worship and obedience, so a godly life, everything that is required for life and godliness, is a reality for those who have genuine saving faith, as the Apostle stated it in verses 1 and 2. That is that God's divine power works in us as a result of God-given, genuine, saving faith.

Saving faith gives us the blessing of obedience and conformity to Christ to the Christian. Saving faith is the one that bears fruit. Saving faith is not an static, unchangeable faith, but rather bears fruit 30-fold and 60-fold and 100-fold. The fruit of saving faith is that genuine Christians have everything that they need for life and godliness. And brothers and sisters, what a glorious reality that the Lord Jesus Christ did not only save us to make us innocent before the divine court, but also that when he saved us, he saved us into newness of life.

Brothers and sisters, think about this. This means that Christians, genuine Christians, because of their genuine saving faith, are indeed able to live a life of reverential worship and obedience. That which is impossible for the one that is not in Christ. Brothers and sisters, some people said that sometimes it takes us to see to darkness, to see the light of the marvelous light of something that we may have. Brothers and sisters, remember the unrighteousness of our flesh and the fallingness of this world.

And now we can say that one of the fruits of saving genuine faith is that we have the ability in ourselves to live lives of reverential worship. obedience that we give our lives constantly to the Lord as living sacrifices that are acceptable before the Lord all of those sacrifices of the Old Testament were offered through animals and blood and all of these things and the Lord said that this was this was a pleasing aroma that was coming unto him if it was by faith now brothers and sisters the life of the Christian it is not only given righteousness legally speaking but also we have have the ability to live lives that please the Lord. Lives that are of reverential worship and obedience. And why can we do that? Well, the apostle is giving us the answer there in verse 3.

Because the source the origin, the root, the place where it comes from, this ability, it is the divine power of God, the divine power of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, the divine power of God is the one that has granted us all things, that pertain to life and godliness. Everything that is required for us to live lives of reverential worship and obedience has been given to us not by a moral man who knows how to do things, has not been given to us by a psychologist that knows of things that they know how to read the mind or the heart of people, but rather The ability has been given to us from His divine power, has granted to us everything that pertains to life and godliness. The power of this mighty God of the universe, the power of the Creator, of the universe. Imagine, it was by the power of God that the world was created, because He is the God who commanded light to shine out of the darkness, and He said, let there be light, and there was light.

And He's the same God who has shone in our hearts and given us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And He has placed His treasure in our earthen vessels, in our bodies, in our flesh. This God of the universe. Why? That the excellence of the power might be of God and not of us.

2nd Corinthians chapter 4. Brothers and sisters, if you are genuinely in Christ, if by grace through faith you have been united to the person of Jesus Christ, that means that we and you have the ability to live a life of reverential worship and obedience. Why? Again, because the source, the place where it comes from, this ability, the place where this ability is rooted in, is the divine power of the Lord. It is the divine power of the Lord that has granted us all things necessary for this type of life.

And not only the power of God in creation when he created us and gave us new life, but brothers and sisters, this is the power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what encouraged Paul in Romans to say, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes the message of the gospel. The cross is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in the righteousness, for in the gospel better, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. the power of the gospel for everyone who believes, for the Jew and for the Greek in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. Not only the legal righteousness of God and the divine justice, but also the righteousness that God practically, ongoingly, and constantly gives to his people so that the righteous shall live by faith, from faith to faith.

For the word of this gospel, brothers and sisters, the word of this cross, this is why it is fully for those who are perishing. But the message of the gospel then becomes the power of God for those who are saved. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. This is the divine power that is granting us all these things that are necessary for a reverential life of worship and obedience. Brothers and sisters, if we are genuinely in the person of Jesus Christ, if our hearts are united to Him by genuine saving faith, indeed, we have the ability to live these type of lives.

lives of reverential worship and obedience. Why? Again, because the source, the root of this ability is not in and of ourselves. It is not in our intellect. It is not in how much we have read and how much we understand or how good we are or how good our parents are or how good is the country where we live.

but the ability to live this type of life, it is rooted in the divine power of the Lord. Not only the power of God as creator who created us and gave us life and saved us, and not only the power of the gospel of the Lord who is the power unto salvation for us, but also the power that God has sent from on high, the Holy Spirit. Brothers and sisters, genuine saving faith, it is not an intellectual agreement to a truth, but it is the holy visitation of the Holy Spirit to the soul of a sinner and the indwelling of that sinner by the Holy Spirit, giving that person a new heart and transforming and giving them life. God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but the spirit of power and love and self-control. And in one spirit, we all have been baptized into the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all are given the opportunity to drink, to constantly be filled by that spirit of God.

and brothers and sisters, as Paul says in Romans 8, and if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, if the Spirit of God that is the same Spirit that raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead is in us, of course by genuine saving faith, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give us life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in us. So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if we live according to the flesh, we will die. But if by the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body, we will live. For all who are led by the Spirit, or all who walk in the Spirit of God, are sons of God.

We did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back in fear, but we have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father, genuine saving faith, not only makes us legally accepted before God, but in salvation we are also inserted into a new relationship with God in which we are now called sons. And if we are sons and daughters of God, then God is going to be the one that is in charge of making us like Him. That's why so many churches in Western Christianity are trying to fill the gaps of not preaching a gospel that is centered in the scripture, that does not produce genuine saving faith. So what they will do is that they will create programs, and they will create options, and they will create loud music, and they will have different things that appeal to the fleshly desires of people to keep them seated in the chairs, giving offerings and giving the money. because they are and many of those people remain to be children not of God but of the devil so then we have to appeal to the flesh but brothers and sisters when a person has been genuinely saved and when the person has received the visitation of the Holy Spirit.

That person is now the children, not of men, or a system, or a church, but that person is a child of God, and that person cries, Abba Father. So then you don't need to teach that person to remain in church and to love the church, because it's God, through His Spirit, that according to the Apostle John in first John, that every genuine believer will love the brothers and sisters. So then you don't have to teach that person to read a scripture or to remain in the church with music and programs and options and all of this because they know that those who have been saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ have been inserted into a body and that body is the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, this is the source of our reverential life of worship and obedience, the divine power of God. And praise God, brothers and sisters, the divine power of God as creator in his gospel through his spirit and in Christ has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

This means that we can indeed live lives of victory over sin. This means that we can indeed live lives of walking in the Spirit and not in the flesh. This literally means, brothers and sisters, that we can overcome the passions of the flesh that are making war within us. That means that we do have the power not to be carried or taken away by the things of this world that are just simply passing away. That means that we have, in and of ourselves, by the divine power of the Spirit and Christ within us, that we have the power not to put our trust in temporal things, in our money, in our reputation, in our work, in the government, but in Jesus Christ alone.

Not to be driven and tossed by the wind of every deceitful doctrine. You see why it is very important that the Apostle Peter starts speaking about faith and the natural organic spirit given fruit of faith which is the empowering or the granting of all things that pertain to life and godliness by the divine power. The divine power of God has granted us all things to live these lives, brothers and sisters, of reverential worship and obedience to the Lord. And pay attention that he says he has granted us something that he did in the past and that continues to have an impact in the present. And he has provided for us not most of the things, not the majority of the things, but he has granted us all things.

The divine power has provided to us all things that are necessary to live this type of life of reverential worship, of obedience for the glory of the Lord, for the glory of God. But brothers and sisters, please pay attention that the apostle does not say that the divine power has done all things for us. The Apostle says that the divine power has granted, has given to us all things that are necessary for life and Godliness. Not that he has done all things for us, because these things that have been given to us are the foundation for us to live our lives. The life that now I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Paul says in Galatians chapter 2. We are the ones that we ought to live our lives in the power of God. You see, salvation is completely of the Lord, but the Lord works through means. Have you not read in Philippians, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling? For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do according to his good pleasure.

We have in us the divine power that is source that comes from above, brothers and sisters, that comes from the divine courts. And this has been given to us everything that is necessary for us to live lives of reverential worship, reverential obedience to the Lord. lives that can be completely given to the Lord Jesus Christ walking in the Spirit. Every second of our lives, every moment of our lives, every day of our lives, that there is a fountain of living waters, that it is moving a stream of water that is coming out of us in the Spirit every day. It is the divine power of God.

This is not romantic talk. I said to you, we are not to treat scripture as truths that are abstract, that are just simply their ideals, spiritual ideals, but we do not by faith apprehend those things. Brothers and sisters, His divine power has granted to us all things that are required that pertain to life and godliness. And why would be a need for the Christian? Well, brothers and sisters, because by nature, we humans are completely unable to submit to the law of God.

If God was going to save us and then just leave us completely on our own in the remaining of sin and the remaining of sinful nature that is within ourselves, we will be unable to submit to the law of God. Yes, we are called to do all of these things. We are called to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, but it is the power meant of the Spirit of God, the divine power in us that works in us both to will and to do according to the divine good pleasure. Brothers and sisters, sin is still present in the Christian and it still has power. Now, it does not have a submitting power or an overarching power on our lives, but seeing is still present in us.

So we ought to walk in the Spirit, in communion with Christ, abiding in His Word, abiding in the person of Jesus Christ, so that we will make use of all of these things that have been granted to us by the divine power of God and live lives of reverential worship and obedience to the Lord. And brothers and sisters, this is also because regeneration, that is the new birth, It is not equal to sanctification. Regeneration takes place at a particular point, but sanctification is the progressive, continuous conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ. That we might not believe that because a person believed and said and professed faith in the past and prayed a prayer and repeated something that in the past and then in the future that this is not going to be translated into conformity to Jesus Christ. It is the Spirit of God, the one that dwells in those who profess to be Christians.

It is the Spirit of God, the one that dwells in the one who have had saving faith. How are we going to conclude that the seed of God, as John will say in 1 John chapter 3, I think, that the seed of God in the Christian will over time do not produce, will not produce conformity to Christ. Brothers and sisters, we should not let the practice, the experience, the traditions of what we see in the church and in history or whatever we see in society to define what Scripture says. Scripture is to define everything that we live and everything that we experience and live in our faith. The Bible says that salvation is glorious, that salvation is of the Lord, and that saving faith, it is impossible for a sinner to have.

So the Spirit grants through regeneration, grants saving faith and repentance, and that person becomes a child of God. And then God, in His love, makes that child conformed to the image of the Savior and progressively advances holy advancements of godliness and holiness and Christ-likeness, so that when the time for that person comes to be taken to glory, either because he dies or because the Lord Jesus Christ comes, then the removal of the sin will be completely done by the glorification of that body. Then that person is received into the presence of the Lord. Salvation is not by works. Now the salvation as it starts, not as it continues, is not by works, it is of the Lord.

But the Lord works in us through His divine power. And He opens the eyes of sinners in the moment of salvation to see Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But brothers and sisters, every day the Spirit of God needs to open our eyes to Christ and His Word, that we may see Him and love Him and grow in love every day. every day, and we are to acknowledge how weak we are. And how weak we think that we are, you can see that in how much you pray this morning, how much you gave yourself to the Lord this morning or this week.

This is how strong or how weak we think that we are. Because when we don't spend time with the Lord in communion, abiding with the Lord Jesus Christ, we say that we are strong and that we can live lives of reverential worship and obedience in our own strength. And then, as I said in the beginning, we are disconnecting the doing from faith. and everything that does not proceed from faith is sin. May the Lord Jesus Christ portrays himself every day, every second of our lives into our spiritual hearts as him crucified, resurrected, seated at the right hand of the Father, triumphing in heaven, so that we may live our lives by the divine power of Jesus Christ, who has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

Amen.