Second Peter - Part 1

The Faith Steps

Hello, welcome to the first episode in our series on II Peter. My prayer is that these 8 talks will help you find joy and assurance in your relationship with Christ.

Let me start with just a little bit of background. II Peter was written as an encouragement to the church by one of Jesus' first disciples, Simon Peter or Peter.

Peter went from a lowly fisherman to an Apostle of the first Century church. Early on, he made plenty of mistakes and often must have wondered whether he would ever really fully follow Christ.

That question plagues many believers even today. Some of the most common questions people ask pastors relates to whether or not they are truly saved and whether or not they will "make it into heaven."

Peter opens his letter to the church this way:

¹ Simeon 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: ² May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Hidden in that simple greeting is a wonderful truth. Peter says that the readers can enjoy an equal standing with him in the eyes of God. Think about that for a moment. Sometimes, people can make it appear that God has some sort of system in place where some people rank higher than others. A pastor or priest must be somehow more important than the person who just attends church right? Not so!

As believers in Christ, we all have equal standing with God because of the righteousness of Jesus. Our standing rests on His accomplishments. Peter goes on to bless the readers with grace and peace that only comes from knowing God and Jesus.

As Peter moves from the greeting to his message, he immediately makes it clear that he is writing his letter to the church to reassure them through his own life lessons that we can live in a way that guarantees our salvation, not because of our efforts but because of God's faithfulness through Jesus Christ. Let's read verse 3 and 4 together:

³ 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, ⁴ by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Peter tells us that as believers, Christ offers each of us everything that we need to live holy and godly lives. These things are a gift from God to every believer, not because we are worthy, but because he is God.

Peter wants us to understand that these gifts are not to be taken lightly. Instead, they are precious promises from God that enable us to fellowship with Him even though we all fail, even though we live in a sin-ridden world and have sinful desires.

Peter goes on by outlining for us the things that God uses to make us more like Himself. Let's read this passage together:

⁵ For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, ⁶ and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, ⁷ and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

As you can see, Peter offers us a list of things that we can do to make our faith in Christ stronger. Think of this like walking up a staircase. Each step brings us a bit closer to our goal of being like Jesus. He tell us to begin with faith.

Faith gives us hope that we can grow in Christ. When we act in faith, we will begin to add virtue to our lives. Virtue means that we live according to a set of values. We want to do right and honor Christ who saved us.

So using my illustration of a staircase, we start with faith, add virtue and now the third step is knowledge. The knowledge Peter is talking about doesn't come from a popular television host or a textbook, but from God's Word, the Bible.

Peter urges us to take that next step up with self-control. What does that mean? It means that we begin to understand that our action can drive us toward God or away from Him. If we choose an action or attitude brings us closer to God we are using self-control. If we choose an action or attitude that drives us further from God, we are acting according to our old ways.

Peter wants us to build on our self-control by adding steadfastness. That is a big word, but simply means that we act the right way out of habit. People can count on us doing the right thing again and again.

Once we do the right thing consistently, Peter tells us that the next step up is godliness. What does that mean? It means that not only are we doing right, we do things God's way, day in and day out.

When we live godly lives, we add brotherly affection. That simply means that we learn to value other people for who they are and what they bring to the church. Many churches battle with division because people in the church have yet to take this important step of maturity.

Finally, Peter tells us to take one more step up and add love. When a church is filled with people who have truly learned to love, they can impact the entire world. Those who have not met Jesus as Savior and Lord are looking for genuine love. Peter wants his readers to experience growth so that the world around us can know Jesus.

When Peter wrote to his audience, the church was facing extreme persecution. The things Peter was asking of them were designed to help them stand in difficult times. Perhaps you are facing difficulties in your own life today.

You might feel like you are not able to stand against all of the things that are happening around you. Often things happen that are outside our control. That is why Peter asks his readers to do something that they could control. He asked them to begin to grow in their faith. The steps we just talked about still work today. We can begin with faith and take one step up after another until we are mature believers in Christ.

The pay off for us is God's pleasure! He wants us to be like Him. He blesses those who carefully examine their own lives and surrender to Him.

Next time, we will return to II Peter chapter1 and see that maturity Peter describes brings real blessings.