Healthy Christian Living

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Well, it is good to be with you. Thank you so much for your welcome. And we’re going to try to do a bit of an overview of 2 Peter in one day, which is quite a tall order, but I’m sure that we can get the gist of the letter. Though I don’t want you to think that we can do everything in detail. But we will, in our 3rd session later on this afternoon, have time for questions.

So if you’d like to jot down questions as we go, there won’t be time in this session and probably not in the second one because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, but there will certainly be lots of time in the third session. It’s the longest of the 3 sessions. The talk won’t be any longer, but the rest of the time will be for questions. So do jot them down and that will be a good way of preparing for later on.

Now, there is a curious paradox, as I’ve said in the notes, at the heart of New Testament teaching. There are many, of course, but here’s one of them. On the one hand, the work of the gospel is a sure and certain work. It is completed by the Lord Jesus in his death and his resurrection. We talk about it being a finished work.

Nothing needs to be added to it. The gospel is totally effective and sufficient. Sufficient to rescue us in time and sufficient to prepare us for eternity. That is a fixed and finished work of God. So Jesus says, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Or again he says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. But on the other hand, there is no automatic guarantee of the Church continuing in any historical or geographical context. There is no guarantee of the future health of any local expression of the Church anywhere in the world. If St Helen’s Church at the moment rejoices in the Gospel and the truth of the Gospel, as indeed we do, there is no guarantee that we will be there in 20 years’ time or 50 years’ time. That is why Jesus also said, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?

And if you’ve travelled in places like Turkey or North Africa, you can’t have failed to see the ruins of the church that was once there. The church that was so strong in the 1st, 2nd century world but which has been really liquidated over the centuries. And now, thank God, there are tiny groups of believers in those countries and the church is beginning to be renewed, but it’s a very, very small work in a very huge and opposed climate. So this is the paradox at the heart of it all. See, we inherit church buildings and structures and presume that they’ll always be here and that things will always continue.

But God has no grandchildren. And it is true that there has to be fresh gospel work in every generation or there will be no continuance of the church. And it has to be faithful gospel work or else authentic biblical Christianity will be eclipsed by all the distortions and the dilutions of the world around us that is trying all the time to squeeze us into its mould. Now that curious paradox leads to the reason why Peter wrote this letter. If you think about these little epistles that come at the end of the New Testament, the pastoral epistles as we call them, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, the 3 letters of John, the 2nd letter of Peter, and the 1-chapter letter of Jude, All of these letters are written towards the end of the apostolic period, when the apostles are beginning either to be martyred for their faith or are just beginning to die out because they are old people now.

And as they stand on the brink between what was the apostolic church, with all of those who are eyewitnesses of Jesus still around, still teaching, still effective, And they stand on the brink as the Church now is moving into the post-apostolic situation. These letters are designed to do 2 particular things to deal with the paradox. The later New Testament letters, firstly, have a concern that the believers will remain true to the faith, the faith that was once delivered to the saints, in the face of all the false teaching and the destructive heresies that were all around them then and that are still all around us now. So the first thing they’re concerned about is keeping the believers on track, keeping us true to the gospel. And the second thing they’re concerned about is that believers will keep on giving out the gospel and not go low profile and hide it into a sort of ghettoised community, but that as we hold on to the gospel so we will also hold out the gospel.

With effective fresh gospel work being done in every generation.

And that, I think, is why Peter writes this letter. As you read it last night, you may have been struck by some of the issues that he raises, which are these issues of distortion and dilution, and how you can be really sure that what you believe is true, and how you can both hold on to that belief and also hold out that belief. Into the community. And above all, how as believing people we can grow in our knowledge and love of God. That’s one of the big themes of the letter and it’s a continuing challenge for us today.

If you look at chapter 1, verse 2, you find it right at the start of the letter: May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. So that’s what the knowledge of God will bring us through the Lord Jesus— multiplied grace and peace in our lives. Who doesn’t want that? And then when you come to the end of the letter, chapter 3, verse 18, you find the same emphasis: But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom be glory both now and to the day of eternity. Well, when you get something like that at the beginning of a letter and at the end of the letter, you know you’re pretty well onto the main theme of the letter.

Here are the bookends, here are the marker posts that tell us what the big theme of the letter is: growing in the knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course the way to keep holding out the word of life and holding on to the word of life is just that, to be growing as Christians in our knowledge and love of him. So healthy Christian living is the subject of the opening verses of this wonderful letter. Now I want to divide verses 3 through 11 into 3 sections, as you’ll see from the notes, and it may help you just to follow along. They give us a bit of a map as to where we’re going.

Verses 3 and 4 are wonderful verses. They’re verses, if you’re into Scripture memorization, which are worth putting in your bank of Scripture verses that you can recall. They’re foundational verses for a right understanding of where Peter is going in the whole letter. But they are tightly packed verses and they do reward careful exploration. Just have a look with me at verses 3 and 4 for a moment.

You’ll see in verse 3 that the subject is his divine power. And you’ll see in verse 4 that he’s talking about precious and very great promises. So the resources that are firstly presented to us in this opening paragraph are the power of God and the promises of God. Remember, we’re thinking about how do we grow as Christians so that we hold on to the faith and go on evangelising, holding out the faith. And the power and the promises are key to that, and they lead to the big command that comes in verse 5, which is really the centre of this first part of the letter: For this very reason make every effort to add, or to supplement, your faith.

So at verse 5, verses 3 and 4 click in. Because of verse 3, divine power, because of verse 4, precious promises, make every effort, verse 5. That’s the way the paragraph works. So let’s just unpack these divine resources for a moment or two. There are, you see, in verses 3 and 4, these 2 qualities that are given to us by God.

His divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness. And part of that is that he has granted to us— same verb, verse 4— his very great promises. If you wanted to put that another way, the power word is the word dunamis, which is used often in the New Testament for the work of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Spirit. And if you want to put— think about the promises, they are of course the Word of God.

So you could paraphrase verse 3 as saying, he has granted us his Spirit, and verse 4, he has granted us his Word. And the Spirit of God and the Word of God are the great grants of God, the great divine resources for us to live for God in his world. We need both. We need the power of the Holy Spirit and we need the clarity and teaching of God’s Word. Now I know that when you talk about dunamis it’s customary for people to say it gives us our English word dynamite, which is true.

But it doesn’t mean that the power has to be a sort of explosive power. Dunamis really means the ability to get the job done. I suppose that’s what dynamite is, but there are other ways of doing jobs as well. And the ability to get the job done is what God has granted us. Power from God And what is the job?

Well, to live a godly life. He’s granted us all the things that pertain to life and godliness. And in the next verse we’re told what that means. So that you may become partakers of the divine nature, verse 4, having escaped from the corruption that’s in the world because of sinful desires. So we’re beginning to see what this growth looks like.

What is it we ought to be majoring on in our Christian lives? I mean, there’s so many things you could do, aren’t there? I have a photo, a cartoon in my office which somebody gave me years ago, of a very harried-looking pastor sitting at his desk and on either side of him there are piles of paper in trays marked in. And through the door comes his wife or his secretary, somebody else with another tray marked in full of piles of paper. And she says to him, smile, God loves you and everyone else has a wonderful plan for your life.

And actually, you know, you don’t have to be in ministry to know that. Everybody else will tell you what to do with your time, won’t they? And once you become a member of a Christian church, there are so many things that you could be doing, ought to be doing, should be doing, who knows? Pressures. Should I be doing this?

Should I be doing that? What are my priorities? Here are your priorities. It’s not what you do, it’s who you are. That’s the priority.

Because whatever you do won’t count unless you are a godly person. We get very activity-focused. We need to be character-focused. We need to be growing like Jesus. And whatever the activities are, that’s the place where we demonstrate the reality of the Gospel, because it is in life and godliness, godly living, that the divine power is seen.

Now what will that look like? Well, it will mean that we will escape the corruption of the world, so there will be a distinctiveness about Christian living. And it will mean that we become partakers of the divine nature. A little bit about that in a moment. At the heart, though, of this whole thing, there lies the idea of God’s grace.

What he has granted us. What he has given us. And as that grace works out in our lives, all our contemporary quests for whatever it is we want to be or to develop as Christians, they find their fulfilment in the gift of his grace, which is the Spirit living within us, the divine power that enables us to live godly lives. Now let’s just follow the logic so that we get what Peter is saying. This is his most theological foundation for the whole letter.

That comes through the knowledge of him. So the more we know him, the Spirit’s work, of course, is to teach us who Jesus is And through Jesus we come to the Father so that we are involved in the life of God. The Holy Spirit planted within us changes us from the inside out. As we get to know God better, so God shapes us into his likeness more and more. And that knowledge of him is not just knowledge about him that we might write in our notebooks.

It’s an intimate, personal, relational knowledge of God. That’s what he’s called us to, a fellowship with him. He is our heavenly Father. Jesus is our Rescuer and Lord. The Holy Spirit is his Comforter within us, the enabling grace and strength of God to help us to live godly lives.

And that is because he’s called us to be like him. He’s called us to his own glory and excellence. Now the tool by which he does that is the Word. Verse 4: He has granted to us his precious and very great promises. And as you study the Scriptures, that’s what you find, that the whole of the priorities laid out before us are the promises of God to make us more and more into the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus.

See, if you say, what is God doing in the world, in the Church? He’s rescuing people for eternity. He’s saving people for heaven. Yes. And what does he do with them on earth while they’re waiting to go to heaven?

What is his purpose in the world and in the church today? Well, what he is doing is restoring the image of God in us. Remember, when we were created, Adam and Eve, and then all of us as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, created as human beings, we are created in God’s image. Which means that we can know him. We can love Him.

We can serve Him. We can worship Him. And we find our fulfilment rightly connected to God. Now in the Fall, in Genesis 3, the image was marred and distorted but not destroyed. Every human being is still created in the image of God.

We still have that potential. What happens in the Gospel is not just that God forgives us our sins— wonderful— Not just that he’s got heaven at the end of the road, great, but that he is restoring the image of God in us more and more and more as we go on growing in our knowledge and love of him. And that is the great work that God— you can call it sanctification if you want the sort of official term for it, but that’s what sanctification is, becoming more and more like Jesus in our character, in our behaviour, in our relationships. He is restoring the image in us. And the more he does that, the more the gospel is authenticated in our culture.

Because the more we live like Jesus, the more hungry people around us will be to know about the gospel. So someone said the other day, we don’t need more salesmen of the gospel, we need more free samples. That is what we’re called to be, okay? You may feel, I’m not a great salesman of the gospel. Don’t worry about that.

Be a free sample.

God will give you the opportunity. He’ll help you to explain it when you need to. When people say to you in terms of 1 Peter, what’s the reason for this hope that you’ve got? Why are you so positive about everything? Then you’ve got a reason.

But they’ll only ask you that if you’re a free sample. And you see, the evangelistic strategy of the New Testament is not event-centered, it’s individual Christian-centered. Christians living godly lives in the world that opens up the opportunity for events and for proclamation.

And for all those things. But it’s our godly living that opens the door. That’s why, if we’re going to hold out the gospel, godliness is the way that opens up the opportunities for the gospel. And that’s why these 2 verses are so foundational to everything. His divine power has granted us everything we need to live a godly life.

So the biggest contribution that we make to the evangelisation of our generation is our godliness. Our holiness, our likeness to Jesus. That’s what gets people thinking, is there something in this? They may well switch off from our, what they see as our salesmanship. But when they see the quality of life that is different, then the gospel is held on to and held out authentically in our culture.

So this is what Peter wants them to know. Now the great context here, you see, is that he’s not saying this is something to aspire to. He’s saying God’s given it you already. This is what you’ve got. All you’ve got to do is to plug into it.

All you’ve got to do is to make it yours by faith in Christ. Because what he is granting us is, in verse 4— and I won’t take this long over every verse of the letter, you’ll be pleased to know— but what he is granting us in verse 4 is fellowship in the divine nature. What does that mean? Well, it certainly doesn’t mean that we become little gods, that we become divine, but it does mean that the image of God is being restored in us. We are not one with God in essence.

There is only one Son of the Father in that sense, the only begotten Son, the unique Lord Jesus Christ. But we are sons and daughters by adoption. We are in the family of God. We have been, as it were, naturalised into the citizenship of heaven. And we are being refashioned into his likeness.

And that is the really exciting thing that is happening to us as Christians. That we could be, as it were, more like Jesus today than we were yesterday. And all of that great agenda that God wants to work in his people is what he means by being partakers of the divine nature. I can remember a time when, as a teenage Christian— I was talking about that earlier— I thought that being a Christian was God is in heaven. Jesus has died on the cross and ascended back to heaven.

He’s coming again one day. He’s left me on earth to try as hard as I can to be a good Christian. Now there’s something— I mean, there’s truth in all of that, but there’s something missing there. And it is this idea of fellowship in the divine nature. It’s this idea of the fact that I am united to Christ by faith and Christ is united to me by faith.

And as I put my faith in Jesus day by day, in every situation, the divine nature, the Holy Spirit within, enables me to live differently. So that the dynamic is not me trying harder, the dynamic is God working in and through me. And that is what will enable me, lastly in verse 4, as we come to the end of the sequence, to escape from the corruption that is in the world, because of sinful desires. As I participate in the divine nature, so I escape the corruption of the world. The two are intimately connected together.

No compromise is possible here because the point that is being made in the verse is that the only way we will be able to overcome the magnetic pull of the world and the flesh and the devil which by nature we are, because we’re fallen people, we are inevitably attracted to. There has to be a bigger force than that force that enables us to escape, as like something being pulled away from a magnet. Escape. Because the evil desires are not just in the world, they’re in my heart. And those evil desires will thrive unless there is an expulsive power, an escape power.

And that is in the power of God’s Spirit and in the promises of His Word. Sin shall not have dominion over you. You are not under law, you are under grace. Think of all those great promises about victory over evil and sin. Those promises about growing into the likeness of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 3, at the end of the chapter, we are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another. It doesn’t say we will one day be changed. That will be completed in the one day of heaven. But we are being changed now. Great promises.

So we need to hold on to those promises and claim them and draw upon the divine nature of the Spirit within us to pull us away from the corruption of this world, which we all feel very strongly because of our sinful nature. And therefore, as we escape from the corruption in the world, we grow in our knowledge and love of God. So there are the divine resources: power, promises, fellowship with God that is of the deepest level, His life being poured into us, and escape. Escape from the things that pull us down. We often fall into them again and again, but there is no reason why we should be bound by them because the power of Jesus, the risen Lord, is greater than the power of sin and the power of the devil.

And as we plug into his power day by day, he enables us to overcome this downdrag of our sinful nature. So, you know, just a silly illustration, but I flew the Atlantic this week. Well, no, I didn’t. The plane flew the Atlantic this week that I was coming back from Chicago in. And yet you can say, oh yes, I flew so-and-so.

Well, we know that we didn’t fly. The plane did the flying. And the dynamic of those jet engines that lift this capsule of metal up into 35,000 feet and bring you from A to Z is incredible really. A to B I should say, is incredible really. All you do is trust it, get into it, and let the dynamic force lift you up.

And it doesn’t mean to say that there’s nothing for us to do in our Christian lives, but the basic principle is that the dynamic force is his power, not mine. It’s not me pushing my Christian life along, hoping that God may help me out. It’s Christ living in me, transforming me from the inside out. Now that leads us to the second point, which is decisive action. So here’s the balance, you see.

I’m not advocating what Jim Packer calls Jacuzzi Christianity. Now, Jacuzzi Christianity is where you just sort of lean back in the warm water and enjoy the bubbles and let God do all the work. Somebody once sent me a little illuminated card I was supposed to put on my desk that said, don’t wrestle, just nestle. You know, all you need to do is just relax into Jesus and don’t wrestle, just nestle. No, that’s not what verse 5 is saying.

It’s saying, on the basis of God’s provision in verses 3 and 4, for this very reason, Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue. Or, make every effort to add to your faith. Or J.B. Phillips: Do your utmost from your side to add. Now the power to do it will come from God, but we have to access the power. And you see, fashions on this come and go in Christian circles.

I’ve been around in them for a long time now. Sometimes there’s an emphasis on letting go and letting God, you know, which is Jacuzzi Christianity. Sometimes there’s an emphasis on, it’s a grim business being a Christian. It’s all about wrestling and fighting and hopefully persevering, and you probably won’t. And these fashions come and go in Christian circles.

And you’ve got to go for the biblical perpendicular all the time. I was taught that as a very young Christian, that the pendulum will swing one way and another, And you don’t correct the imbalance of the pendulum by swinging it in the opposite direction. You correct it by stopping it on the biblical perpendicular. So what is the biblical perpendicular? It is both of these things, isn’t it?

It is, God has granted us, therefore make every effort to add. So we’re not to be quietist and passive. We’re not to be so afraid of the energy of the flesh that we have no energy at all. We’re to be people who recognise that we have a responsibility with the great gift of salvation that God has given us. So let me ask you the question: is adding central to your Christian discipleship?

Is addition what drives you? Are you saying to yourself, and to God day by day, I do want to be more like Jesus? Have you got a focus on growing in your knowledge and love of God. Because God wants us to be like that. Verse 5: Make every effort to supplement, to add to your faith.

Now the verb there means really going to town on something. In classical Greek, this verb for effort and supplement means— well, it’s used in various ways. The dictionaries will tell you this. I learnt this from the dictionaries. That it’s used about, for example, sponsoring a theatrical performance.

Or it’s used for paying to fit out a warship. Now they were expensive things to do in the first century and they’re still expensive in the 21st century. And it’s that sort of expense that he’s talking about. Make every effort. Go to it wholesale.

Only the best will do. Put all your resources into it. That’s the idea of the verb here. So it’s not just, well, I might have an occasional go at adding a little thing here and there, maybe a little touch of steadfastness at this point. No, he’s saying this is your dominating, controlling force in your life.

You’ve got to be going for this because what is this list? Well, it’s just a picture of Christ, isn’t it? What do you want to add to your faith? It starts with faith, of course, faith in Jesus, saving faith. What must you add to that?

Well, virtue is the ESV translation. NIV says goodness. It’s a word that means moral strength. It’s used about God actually in verse 3. The word translated excellence at the end of verse 3 is the same word as virtue.

In verse 5. Now, what we’ve got here is not a series of steps that we’re trying to climb. Okay? So we’re not saying faith leads to virtue and you can’t get to knowledge until you’ve got virtue. It’s obviously not a progression.

It’s more like looking at a string of pearls and saying, is the string complete? Have you got all the pearls on your string?

So, what is God looking for in us? What is his great power that he’s granted us designed to do? To produce godliness of character, which is summarised here as starting with faith, including goodness— that is, the things that are true and noble and right and pure and lovely— knowledge— well, we’re not surprised to find that. That’s a big theme in the letter. Knowledge of God through his word.

Self-control, that is, a mind that is controlled by the Word of God and by the will of God, so that all our appetites are under God’s control. Those appetites are God-given. They are not to be denied, but they are not to be indulged. And to get the right balance of all those appetites is to be self-controlled. In Galatians, that’s a fruit of the Spirit.

And of course, all of these things are only produced by the life of God within us. So how are we doing on this? Am I growing in faith and goodness? Is my knowledge of God increasing in relational terms? Am I more self-controlled than I used to be?

Am I experiencing God’s Spirit controlling my life? And then it talks next about steadfastness, which means endurance, perseverance, bearing up under problems. Not buckling under the pressure of false teaching, able to cope when the circumstances are difficult. Steadfastness is followed by godliness, which is again a general term but means devotion to God, doing what pleases God. And then 2 more: brotherly affection in verse 7 and love at the end of the verse.

So godly people belong to one family. And as we are growing in our knowledge and love of God, we grow in our love for one another. Brotherly affection means that we don’t judge or criticise one another. We are on the same ground of redemption. We want to encourage one another.

We want to help one another. We want to carry one another’s burdens. We want to do good to one another. We are not pigeonholing one another and giving one another grades and marks for our Christian devotion, because we don’t know the heart of anybody else. We only know our own heart.

But real knowledge of God will make us love one another. And of course agape at the end of the verse sums it all up. So it moves from faith to love. But these are all pearls on the strand. These are all the qualities that God is looking for.

Why do we need to add them? Because His great project is to make us like Jesus. What do we need to add? The Christlike qualities of character. That’s what God is concerned about.

Now lastly, as we come up to coffee, demanding incentives in 8 through 11. I hope verse 8 shakes you. I think it’s designed to. For if these qualities are yours, now notice this, and are increasing. Not if I reached a certain level of this in the year 2006 and I’ve managed to maintain it.

But if they are increasing— if my image of the pearls is one that remains in your mind— are the pearls growing in size? That’s what he’s saying. Are they increasing?

If that’s happening, then they will keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I find that a real challenge. That disturbs my comfort. It shows me that growth is the norm as far as the Bible is concerned. So am I really growing day by day, increasing measure?

But it shows me that there is an alternative which is likely I will fall into unless I am growing. And the alternative is that I will be ineffective and unproductive. Ineffective is a word that means, well, if you make an investment and there’s no return on your investment, it’s a waste of your resources. It’s that sort of word. Is God going to look at my life and say, what a waste of my resources, nothing really achieved for him?

And unproductive is a metaphor from agriculture of a fallow field that has no crop, no harvest. No one being helped or blessed or encouraged through my life? Well, it is possible, Peter says. You could be ineffective and unproductive. Why would that be?

Because you are not growing in your knowledge and love of God. Because the qualities of Christlikeness are not developing in us. Now if that is so, if looking at my life God would have to judge it as ineffective or unproductive, that’s not God’s fault. He doesn’t have any favourites. The resources are available to everyone.

It must be my fault. It must be that I’ve stopped making every effort to add. Or there’s another challenge in verse 11: For whoever lacks— sorry, verse 9: Whoever lacks these qualities is so short-sighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. I find that disturbs my comfort. I’ve been a Christian a long time now.

I could easily settle down and lose my desire to grow. I could say, oh, I’ve reached a reasonably acceptable level in my peer group of spirituality. And Peter says, once you start to do that, you’ll soon have no vision and no memory. You’ll be short-sighted, even blind, because you’ve forgotten. What God did when he cleansed you from your sin.

You can’t see far enough back to remember the wonders of God’s saving grace, and so you stumble on through life with no real vision of where you’re going, no real incentive to grow and develop, missing out on what might have been for God. I think we ought to be disturbed by that. But as John Stott has often said, if the function of Scripture is to disturb the comfortable, it is also to comfort the disturbed.

And once the Bible has done its work in us, stirring us up, then of course it teaches us the remedy. Verses 10 and 11: Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you practise these qualities— now these qualities are the qualities of verses 5 to 7— 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 Saviour Jesus Christ. Isn’t that encouraging?

Doesn’t that strengthen you? Brothers, be all the more diligent. So be eager. Same root as make every effort in verse 5. Exactly the same root of the verb.

Prove that you really are a Christian. That you are daily pressing on in the Lord. In obedience and in loving sacrificial service. That’s what confirms that you’ve been called to God’s eternal kingdom. It’s not a name on a decision card, or a church membership list, or a certificate of baptism.

It’s a daily desire to add to your faith. That’s the proof. I do want to be like Jesus. Now if that is so, then be all the more diligent. Because what you’ve got to do is practise these qualities, you see.

They don’t just sort of appear like a mystical passage, one package, one night dropping into your soul and you wake up the next morning, now I am steadfast. No, you have to practise it day by day in the strength of Christ. Practise these things. And as you practise these qualities, you will never fall. Isn’t that an encouragement?

You will never fall. There’s absolutely every reason why you should go storming home to heaven, however long you live, without falling on the way, if you practise these qualities. If you draw upon Christ’s resources. Wonderful, isn’t it? We’re not to be thinking, oh, I do hope I make it.

I do hope I can hang on. No, God’s hanging on to us, but you’ve got to practise the qualities. You’ve got to be trusting Him. For in this way, as we practise these things, there will be richly provided for you. There’s the lavish provision word again, echoing verse 5.

You make every effort, God will give a lavish provision in the eternal kingdom. An entrance into that eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. What a fantastic promise to know that nothing we do in this world in seeking to grow like Jesus is lost. That no day in which we are seeking to add to our faith and to develop in godliness through the Word and the Spirit is wasted. That it all is going to count.

That he’s making you more like him now. That he’s going to transform you totally to be like him and yet unique in your own individual personality in heaven. Each one of us a unique reflection of the same gracious, loving, compassionate Lord. And as he prepares us for the entrance into the eternal kingdom, our part day by day is to go on adding those qualities of life which confirm that the gospel is true. Because nothing but the gospel of Christ can transform people like us and make us into people like Jesus.

Let’s ask him to do that. Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you so much for this great letter that Peter wrote. Thank you for its appropriateness to us across the centuries. And as we face the same sorts of challenges of holding on to the truth and holding out the word of life, we thank you that the emphasis here is so much upon your provision for us. We praise you for your divine power. In the indwelling Spirit.

We thank you for these great and precious promises on every page of the New Testament. We thank you for the promise of the eternal inheritance and the open entrance into that kingdom of life and light forever. And we pray that these days we may live in the light of that great day and that we may show the reality of our faith by adding to it these qualities of godliness which you have given for us, listed for us here. So please keep us from being ineffective and unproductive. Where we are getting short-sighted or blind, restore our sight.

Where we have forgotten how great your salvation is, rekindle our love. And Lord, may we be people who are diligent to make our calling and election sure as we practise these qualities. We pray that even today as we relate to one another, you’ll help us to practise them in the strength that you provide, and that our lives may be characterised by likeness to Christ day by day as we grow in our knowledge and love of you. Thank you for such a gospel and for such a rescuer. We praise you in his name.

Amen.