Sermon: Know What You Believe, Know Why You Believe

Good evening friends.

As Nate mentioned, my name is Ben Prizer. I serve here as a pastoral fellow on staff. And it is a privilege, a joy to be with you all tonight, to learn from God's word. So let's pray together as we come.

Heavenly Father, your, your people under the old covenant

when they approached Mount Sinai were afraid and even Moses trembled with fear and they said, please speak to us no more Lord, we are afraid. But we have not come to that mountain. We have come to Mount Zion and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks of better word than the blood of Abel. And so we beg that you would speak tonight. Would you give us open ears?

Would you cause us to learn and to obey and to trust in your name alone? We ask this with all our hearts in the name of Christ. Amen.

We're beginning a new evening service sermon series tonight on the book of second Peter. So I'd encourage you to grab a Bible. There are some available in front of you in the Pew Acts if you didn't bring one of your own. We are going to be starting this series tonight and our normal practice is to examine a passage each week, walk through it and the preacher will explain what it means, apply it to our lives and we call that expositional preaching.

However, I'd like to use this sermon for an additional purpose. We are gonna get to the exposition, never fear. We're gonna look at the first two verses of second Peter, second Peter one, one and two. But first, because we're here at the beginning of this sermon series, I want to provide sort of a top level overview of the entire letter, the whole book. And you could see that as sort of an exposition of the book as a whole.

What is the message of two Peter chapters one through three? And I'm not gonna do that in great detail 'cause I just want to provide sort of a scaffolding or a framework that as we continue to study through this book together, uh uh, other preachers will be able to fill in some of the concepts that we'll talk about. So we're gonna start with that and then we're gonna get to the exposition partway through and that'll feel a bit strange

'cause I'm not gonna read the sermon text until we're partway through. But don't worry that's coming. Uh, but you can also rest assured that you will need your bibles for the whole sermon because we're going to be looking at various verses throughout the book of two Peter. So without further ado, let's begin with second Peter and the overview of the letter, let me begin with an illustration.

Some of you, well all of you now know because uh, Nate mentioned it in his prayer that I'm hoping and planning to be ordained soon in our presbytery pending their approval at this upcoming meeting. And it won't surprise some of you that I've asked our own dear beloved pastor Jason Opolis, if he would serve at the ordination service that we would hold here, if that would come forward and we that we would actually get to the point of that process.

It might not surprise you that I would say Jason, I would want Jason to play that role. Uh, what might surprise you though is if I said I'm not actually sure if I want Jason to give what's called the charge to the minister. That's the part of the ordination service where someone stands up and gives an excitation or advice to the new minister on the outset of his ministry. And I'm not sure I want Jason to do that in my ordination service.

And the reason is because I already know what he would say with almost absolute certainty. I can say he would, he would take his well-worn personal size, Quintal, Skyler ESV Bible. He would turn open to one Timothy four verse 16 and he would charge me to keep a close watch on my life in my doctrine. Some of you may have heard him say that before. I've heard Jason give that very same charge to many men on many occasions.

But he doesn't just go back to it 'cause he's trying to double dip or he's lazy or he is uncreative. Jason goes back to this charge because of how crucial it is, how perennially necessary it is to remind us and ministers perhaps more than any, but all of us, to keep that close watch on our life and our doctrine, all the different sorts of trouble that a Christian can get into eventually boil down to one or the other of these two areas, life or doctrine.

And even though that command does come explicitly in one Timothy four, I would contend that that is pretty much the main message of the entire book of two Peter to keep watch on your life in doctrine. Let's look at the very last verses of this book at the beginning. Look at the last two verses of two Peter with me. This is what it says in one Peter three 17 through 18. You therefore in view of everything that I've just talked about for three chapters.

You therefore beloved knowing this 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 knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. Can you hear in those verses, those that twin focus on life and doctrine, believers are to grow in their knowledge of Jesus and not be carried away by false teaching,

but they're also to grow in grace and not lose their stability and not listen to lawless people, people who are depraved in their morality. And if you look up just a couple more verses at verse 14, it says, be diligent to be found by Jesus without spot or blemish and at peace living holy lives. So doctrine and life we see there in that last verse. So as we study through second Peter over the next few weeks you're gonna see this, these two themes coming out

and popping up over and over again. So let's just go through the book really fast. We're not gonna do anything like a whole exposition, but I just wanna point out as we go through, so chapter flip back to chapter one, back in chapter one, verses five through eight. Peter says, 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, steadfastness,

with godliness, godliness, brother with brotherly affection, 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. So we see there that Peter is exhorting his readers to grow in grace, to grow in certain qualities, to keep a close watch on their life, to be diligent, to make their calling and election.

Sure as it says later in this section. And he says that in verses 12 and 13, I intend always to remind you of these qualities. And he says, I want to stir you up in verse 13 by way of reminder. So one of these things that how Peter sort of starting off this book is saying, I want you to, to keep a watch on your life, to grow in holiness, to grow in sanctification, and to pursue these things. Then at the end of chapter one, he starts to talk about

doctrine and the authority that establishes doctrine. He starts in verse 16, we did not follow cleverly devised myths. And then he goes on to lay out the prophetic word in verse 19, 20 and 21. The false teachers that Peter is writing against would perhaps have leveled certain accusations against Peter and some of the other apostles saying, you guys follow these myths. And Peter says, that's not us. That's the false teachers.

They have myths. What we cling to is the prophetic word, the word about Christ, which is produced through the Holy Spirit speaking through men. That's in verse 21. So you can see we have already seen this just simply in chapter one, you have life and then at the end you have doctrine. Chapter two, Peter's gonna take careful aim at the false teachers themselves. And this is some of the strongest language that you find in in the New Testament in terms of, uh,

a good word is vituperation sort of castigating or chastising or talking about the ways that these people are wrong and they're bad and they're immoral. And chapter two is mostly just him listing out all the ways that these false teachers do not have praiseworthy or exemplary lives. These are not the type of people you should be following. Peter wants them to know. Believers need to be on guard against people who live like this

and people who teach falsehoods, as it says at the beginning of chapter two, they're false prophets. There are false teachers. They bring in destructive heresies. So they're teaching and their lives are suspect. And then we come at last two, chapter three will learn actually specifically what is this false teaching? Peter hasn't actually mentioned it yet. What? What is it they're teaching that's so wrong? Well, chapter three, we learn that these are scoffers.

This is in verse three of chapter three. And these scoffers come with scoffing and they say in verse four, where is the promise of his coming, the coming of Jesus forever, since the fathers fell asleep? All things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. So you can see specifically what is the problem with these false future. They're denying the return of Christ. They're denying the second coming of Christ.

And that's specifically the false teaching that Peter is, is highlighting and drawing out and saying, this is wrong. This is not what you have been taught. This is not what you've learned my dear readers. And so reject that falsehood. And then he assures us with the true doctrine in verses eight through 10 that there will in fact be a return that God is not slow to fulfill his promises, that he has good reason for the timing that he is ordained

and that the return of Christ and the final judgment are indeed realities that believers should expect. And that he concludes the book with the ex expectations that we've just outlined at the beginning. Exhorting his readers, encouraging them, reject this falsehood, reject the errors of lawless people, grow in grace and grow in knowledge, life and doctrine. What you believe matters and so does how you live.

And these two things are not unrelated. You would probably think strangely or think suspiciously of someone who said boldly I have perfect confidence that later it will rain and walks out the door right past his umbrella, right past his raincoat, leaves them in the closet and just goes on his day. Now perhaps this individual likes to get wet in the rain, but you would most likely question, I don't really think he thinks it's gonna rain

because what he said does not match what he does. He says he thinks it'll reign and he doesn't take action in accordance with what he says, belief in life. They both matter. They both go together. So let's turn now to our passage and second Peter at the beginning of the book and hopefully I have convinced you that this is the theme of our book. And so all we have to do is slot these verses into place. They fit the message of second Peter.

But how exactly do they do that? Let me read them for us. Second Peter one, one through two, Simeon Peter, a servant, an 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 our Lord. There's two verses and so there's two points for this actual expositional part of the sermon.

First is a faith in common, and that's from verse one. And second is a knowledge that changes our lives from verse two. Look at verse one. Peter introduces himself as a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ and then he introduces or addresses his audience to those. Now this is different from the way that he begins First Peter. First Peter, he begins by talking about elect uh, elect exiles in a certain region of the world.

But he's not specifying geography here. He's describing the people he's writing to without delineating a particular group. And he says, I'm writing to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours. Peter is highlighting the unity of their confession, an equal standing, a faith of equal standing. He wants to show that he Peter the apostle of the church, one of Jesus' 12 disciples along with the people who agree

with Peter, that their faith is the same faith as the people to whom he's writing equal standing a faith of equal standing with ours. Ours is either the apostles themselves or perhaps all the people who are outside of this group that Peter is writing to. But either way, what he's trying to draw out is there is one singular salvation that we've received grounded on one singular confession of faith, one singular doctrine,

a truth that you have come to accept that Peter had come to accept. There's unity between these groups because of that doctrine, because of the truth that they clung to regardless of their position in the church or where they were living at the time. The faith that Peter had is the same type of faith that his readers had. And it's the same faith shared by all those who confess their trust in Jesus as God and Savior. As it says, just as an aside, one

of the clearest verses you'll find in the New Testament just specifying Jesus is God. If you get someone who's poking at that idea and says, does that say that in the Bible? Take him to this verse by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. But this is the faith Peter's talking about. Everyone who confesses Jesus is my God, he's my savior, are unified with one another. It's a unity based on truth, true correct

doctrine about Jesus. And as we've seen there are false teachings swirling around at this time. There's confusion, people wondering who to believe what's true. So Peter wants to at the very outset remind his readers that you are believers. And I'm a believer I Peter because of the truth that we hold onto truth matters. What you believe in matters where you place your faith matters. But where does this faith come from It It's not a faith

that has arisen within their own hearts, by their own effort they have obtained it. Now we could stop there and say clearly a faith that has been obtained seems that it's been bestowed in some sense, been given as a gift. But what's fascinating is that this Greek word in this verse could also be translated allotted as in those who have been allotted a faith of equal standing with ours. It's used only three other times in the New Testament.

One time in Luke one, nine where Zacharia, the priest is chosen to offer incest in the temple by lot it's used in John 19, the soldiers of the foot of the cross are squabbling over the tunic of Jesus. But it's woven of one piece and they say, let's not tear it. Let's cast lots for it. Same word, a faith that has been allotted.

But if Peter is, he's not saying that we've mustered up faith by our own efforts. He's also not saying that we've achieved or received faith by a lucky toss of the dice. It's all just chance. And we happen to have lucked out. He's using this word to emphasize that faith is our allotment from God. He has distributed it to us. He has bestowed it upon us. It is the gift that God has apportioned to believers. Proverbs 1633 says, the lot is cast into the lap,

but it's every decision is from the Lord by the Lord's decision. We have received faith in Acts 1348. The people who believed, who exercised faith on that day at the preaching of the apostles were those it says, whom God appointed to eternal life. God's decision. Paul says in Philippians 1 29, it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should believe in him. It's been given to you as a gift. And of course Ephesians two, eight through nine, for

by grace you have been saved through faith. And this, this grace in this faith is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works. So that no one may boast this faith that Peter is drawing his reader's attention to. He's wanting to tell them you've received this from God. This is how Charles Spurgeon tells the story of how he came to understand that faith was a gift from God. He says it this way, one weeknight,

when I was sitting in the house of the Lord, the thought struck me, how did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord, but how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment I should not have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him. I prayed, I thought. But then I asked myself, how did I come to pray? Well, I was induced to pray by reading the scriptures.

How did I come to read the scriptures? I did read them. But what led me to do so then in a moment I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, that he was the author of my faith. And so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me. And from that doctrine, I have not departed to this day and I desire to make this my constant confession. I ascribe my change. Holy to God,

the faith that every believer has is of equal standing because it comes from the same God in equal freedom as an equal gift undeserved due to his sovereign mercy.

And this, this truth about our faith is not just a little Calvinistic aside that I wanted to stick into this sermon. Hopefully you can see it's in the text, but do you see how it fits into the theme of the book as a whole life and doctrine? If we can't even take credit for the faith that made us Christians in the first place, why would we ever think that our lives as Christians belong to us? If our sovereign Lord is the one who gave us the faith

that has saved us, then surely he has sovereign rights over how we live every day from now on by faith. In other words, if you have the doctrine, you also have the life they go together. If you believe in the truth about the Lord, you must also live for the Lord as well. Our common faith is grounded on a common doctrine or truth that leads to the common phenomenon of a changed life. Not common in the sense of cheap or easily found,

but common in the sense that we share it. The common faith that all believers have common doctrine and a common life. Our second point from verse two is about knowledge. Peter starts this verse with a very familiar apostolic blessing, grace and peace. If you've ever read a letter by Paul, you say, I know that. I know how that goes. Grace in peace. That's how we start things. But, but Peter takes a little bit of a detour

or you might say he embellishes that common normal blessing in a certain way. He says, may grace in peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. What does he mean by this? Why is he bringing in knowledge? Well, the whole book of two, Peter actually has a strong emphasis on this idea of knowledge. So let's jump around again for a little minute. Go to go to chapter two, verse 20

there. Peter says, and I'm just gonna read the first half of the sentence. So it's gonna be a sentence fragment for if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

they have escaped the defilements of the world through this knowledge. So it's a knowledge that's redemptive. It's a knowledge that is salvific. It saves a knowledge that Christ is our savior, as it says in verse two, the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord whom he just called savior in verse one. So we know that Christ is our savior, that he saved, that he redeems us. But there's more. Go back to chapter one, chapter one, verse three.

God's divine power is 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. So through this knowledge, believers receive not just one benefit, not simply salvation or redemption or justification, but all things that pertain to life and godliness, which is everything, not just adoption or justification, sort of a bre, a blessing that gets you in the door, but a sanctification as well.

An ongoing growth, an ongoing persevering in the Christian life, A A, a increase in holiness all things through the knowledge of him who called us. And now look down at verse eight of chapter one. Remember I read earlier, he listed a bunch of qualities and if you have this, then get this. And if you have that, then get those. And then he says in verse eight, if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective

or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the knowledge that believers have is meant to be effective and fruitful. It's meant to bear fruit. In other words, a doctrine that affects your life doctrine in life. We have it there again, as John Calvin says about this verse, the knowledge of Christ is an efficacious thing and a living root, which brings forth fruit. And Peter's very concerned that his audience would understand this key truth.

The Christian life is built on and filled with a certain kind of knowledge. We already talked about that earlier in the idea of doctrine, how it produces a common confession.

But what kind of knowledge is that? It's an interpersonal knowledge. Maybe you didn't notice this as I was reading. Every time that Peter says the knowledge, when he says the knowledge of blank, the blank is always a person. He doesn't say the knowledge of faith or the knowledge of theology or the knowledge of how to get saved or pray a sinner's prayer. He says the knowledge of God, the knowledge of him who called us the knowledge of our Lord Jesus.

So it's a personal knowledge. One John five 20 puts it this way, why did Jesus come? The Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. John equates the whole of salvation to knowledge as Jesus prays in John 17. And this is eternal life that they know you and Jesus Christ whom you've sent. So this knowledge, this crucial knowledge, this very Christian knowledge is a knowledge of a person.

It's interpersonal. It's a type of knowing that we talk about when we say, well I've, I've met her, but I don't really know her. Have you ever heard someone say that before or said that yourself? What are you saying there? What you're saying is, I don't know her as a friend, as a person. I don't know her really. I might know about her. I might know her name, but I don't really know her. And the Spanish language captures this beautifully

because there are two major verbs in Spanish for to know. There's ber, which is used of fact type knowledge. And then there's K, which means more to be acquainted with or to recognize in this second concept, the Kono type knowledge. There's an attachment. There's a a relationship, a personal involvement between the subject and the object. The the one who does the knowing and the thing that is known. There's a relationship between the two.

It's not dry and sterile. It's living and fertile, relational. It involves the whole person. What we think, what we say, what we do, what we feel. A knowledge that resides in relationship and results in real outcomes. GI Packer clarifies it well, he wrote a book called Knowing God. So you knew that was gonna come up at some point during this point talking about knowledge. Here's how he differentiates. He doesn't use the words saber and

but he differentiates between the two things. He calls them knowing about God and knowing God. And his book isn't called knowing about God. He says, one can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of him. Interest in theology and knowledge about God and the capacity to think clearly and talk well on Christian themes is not at all the same thing as knowing him. We may know as much about God as Calvin knew, and yet all the time we may hardly know God at all.

Maybe you felt that tension before and you've thought, I'm going to my doctrine study. I'm reading my Bible. I've been here at URC for a couple years and these people like talking about doctrine. I'm learning a lot, but I don't feel closer to the Lord. I don't feel like I know him better. I might just know more about him. And that problem, that tension is attention is of great concern to Peter in this epistle. He wants us to have the real knowledge, the true knowledge.

It is a knowledge that's full of truth, full of content, full of facts. You can't know someone relationally without knowing things about them. But these facts don't stop simply at the accumulation of information. It's a knowledge that makes a real difference in how we live, a knowledge in which the rubber meets the road, a knowledge that spills over into every area of life. It's a doctrine that affects our lives. Knowing this knowledge will not leave you unchanged,

doesn't stay sealed up or compartmentalized this knowledge that just, it doesn't have anything to do with how I conduct business, how I speak to my family, how I spend my free time or my money. How I understand the purpose of my own existence. No, there there's overflow. There's connection between those two. The knowledge of Jesus, our Lord, our God, our Savior. It informs and it affects Life, Our lives, how we live. And if I can get autobiographical for a moment,

this was the main tension that I felt as a young man at the end of high school and at the outset of going into college. I could feel in my bones the problem that I had knowledge about God, but not knowledge of him. I had the doctrine, but I didn't have the life. And it's not that I was running around doing illicit things all the time, but I knew because I'd been raised in the church probably and probably because of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart.

I knew that there had to make a difference at some point. That if I really meant it, if I really believed such crazy things as the claims of a first century man from Nazareth who said that he would die and rise again if I thought that that was true, that had to make a difference. I had to have the life to match that doctrine. And so if we have truly come to know this God and his son Jesus, we have to reckon with this.

Our lives will never be the same. They can't be.

So the application for this is, is just very simple. I've already mentioned it. It's at the end of the book to the last verse. Peter doesn't just encourage us, keep a watch on your life in doctrine, but he says, make progress in these things. He closes his letter with these words, which I hope we understand more clearly now, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Peter's saying, hold on to

what you know to be true about Jesus. Work to deepen your knowledge in him. Continue to work out how that truth, how that doctrine impacts your life.

If you're wondering how this happens, look how beautifully that command at the end of the book meshes with the very first verse where we started, Peter prays to God almighty, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Sorry, that's the the second verse. That's the beginning of the book. Yes, we, we must grow in grace and knowledge. But how does that happen? How do we do that through God's blessing.

Peter doesn't start with, I hear there's problems and you guys better get that stuff figured out 'cause it's all on you. He begins with a prayer. He prays God, would you give your grace and the peace of knowing, reconciliation with God? Would you give those things to these people in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord? They have the doctrine. Would you, by your wonderful almighty ever present spirit, would you give them the grace they need

to grow in these ways?

By his grace, by the gospel that has saved us, we are brought all the way home through many dangers, toils and snares, brothers and sisters, we have God's blessing on our life and our doctrine. And by his aid alone, can we make progress? And that leads Peter to close his letter with a prayer of worship to him be the glory both now into the day of eternity. Let's pray.

Oh God, we are every service here at URC we. We reflect a little bit on the ways that we haven't lived up to your law. So we know, Lord, that we sin. We know that our lives don't match the doctrine that we claim, but we thank you that you love us. We thank you that you have saved us, that we believe that our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus', blood and righteousness. And if we believe that, we pray, would you work

that into our lives so that we become a grace-filled people, a people who live without spot or blemish, waiting for the return of our Lord and trusting in him all the while we pray this in his precious name. Amen.