"Called"
[II Peter 1:3-4]
June 8, 2008 Second Reformed Church
Your faith is not enough.
Last week we looked at the salutation -- the opening -- of the Peter's second letter to those Jewish Christians who were scattered throughout the known world due to the Roman Emperor, Nero, hunting them down with his armies to kill them. And we noted that Peter had been caught by this time and knew that he would soon be crucified, so this was his final word -- his last will and testament -- to his fellow Christians.
We saw that the introduction to this letter is packed: Peter reminded them that they were once slaves to sin, but they are now servants of Jesus Christ. He reminded them that Christians received their precious faith as a gift from the Righteous Jesus Who, Himself, makes them righteous and holy and calls them to a growing, passionate and intimate knowledge of Jesus, which brings about greater faith and greater peace.
But your faith is not enough. James wrote, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him?" (James 2:14, ESV).
Understand, the Bible teaches that we are saved by faith alone -- our works have absolutely no bearing on our salvation. Our works cannot and do not contribute to or cause our salvation. Our salvation is completely, 100%, an act of God's Sovereign Good Pleasure. However, as James tells us, if we claim to be a Christian, and we claim to have faith in Jesus Alone for our salvation, and that's where our Christianity ends -- then our faith is dead, it's hypocritical, it's not real, and it's certainly not saving faith (James 2:17).
One of the reformed slogans is, "We are justified by faith alone, but not by the faith that is alone." In other words, the proof that God has saved us by Himself with no help -- not by any works of our own -- is that after we have been saved, we respond to that salvation by doing good works.
Paul wrote, "[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began" (II Timothy 1:9, ESV).
D. M. Lloyd-Jones wrote that we can summarize this morning's Scripture by saying that first, we are to know God, and second, we are to become like Him (D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Expository Sermons on 2 Peter, 13-14). Peter told those Christians on the run -- and the message is the same for us this morning -- that God calls us to have faith and knowledge of Him and Salvation in His Son, but God also calls us to become like God. If you are a Christian this morning, God calls you, God commands you, to become like Him. That's the goal of the Christian life. Our liturgies speak of growing into the image of Christ Jesus. Jesus is our God and Savior. We are called to become like God.
What does our text tells us?
"His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his glory and goodness" (NRSV).
First, God has called us to become like God, and God has given us everything we need to live lives of godliness and holiness.
Peter told those Christians running for their lives, and he tells us as we sit in front of our TVs, that God, by His Divine Power, through the knowledge of Himself that He has given to us, has given us everything we need to live godly, holy, morally upright, God-glorifying lives. Peter said that Christians are able, by the Power of God, which He has given us, to live lives that imitate God in His Holiness. Peter said, we have been obliged and enabled by God to live lives for God that show what God is like. And God has taken away every excuse we can come up with for not living God-like lives.
"Well, you don't know how I was brought up. I'm too old to change. I'm too young to be like that. I can't understand God's Word. I can't stop doing x, y, and z. I can't focus on that right now, I'm being pursued by the Roman army." And so on.
God says, "I have chosen and changed you. I have empowered you to be able to live like I live. I have called you -- commanded you -- to live holy lives. I cause you to be able to live holy lives." Paul wrote, "And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19, ESV).
God has done away with all of our excuses; God has and will fill every need we have so we are able to live holy lives and accomplish what He has for us to do.
"Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises," (NRSV).
Second, God has given us promises to prove to us and assure us that He will meet every need we have and cause us to be able to live God-like lives of holiness. What kind of promises? Precious and very great promises. The Greek is in the superlative tense, so these are the most precious and the greatest promises.
Listen to a very few of these promises:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16-17, ESV).
"Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I say to you that have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day'" (John 6:35-39, ESV).
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more. But you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him" (John 13:15-21, ESV).
We could go on like this for days.
God has given us the greatest, most precious promises, and we know them and even begin to see them come to pass now.
Peter went on to explain that two things follow from the gift of these promises:
"so that through them you may become participants of the divine nature," (NRSV).
First, Peter said that God giving us these precious and great promises cause us to become "participants in the divine nature" or "partakers of the divine nature." What does that mean?
We must be very careful: a quick read could have us conclude that we become divine or gain a divine nature or become God or gods. That cannot be. Paul said this of one who will claim to be God, "Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God" (II Thessalonians 2:3-4, ESV).
The Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, teach that every human being becomes a god after death. But God said there is One and Only One God, and anyone else who declares himself God is an anti-Christ.
Then what does it mean to "participate in the divine nature"?
The author of Hebrews wrote, "For [our fathers] disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but [God] disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness" (Hebrews 12:10, ESV). And John wrote, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him; because we shall see him as he is" (I John 3:20, ESV).
Through God's Promises and His meeting our needs, God is growing us in His Glory and according to His Holiness. In Second Peter, when he says that we "participate in the divine nature," what he means is that we become like Jesus, like God, as we grow in the faith and in holiness.
"and escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust" (NRSV).
Second, Peter said that God giving us these precious and great promises causes us to become free from the corruption of the world due to lust or moral depravity. And this brings us full circle: we have been given the ability to escape corruption and lust -- in fact, all things that go against God's Nature and His Holiness. In other words, these promises that God made help keep us from giving in to temptation and sin. So, we never have to sin.
With these things being true, how then shall we live?
D. M. Lloyd-Jones wrote, "I, personally, am much more concerned about the state of the church than I am about the state of the world. We are all clear about the world. The world is in its muddle, its wretchedness, and unhappiness, because it is heedless of the Christian message. It does not pay any attention to the Gospel of Christ and I suggest that one chief cause of this is the fact that it does not see the quality of life in us. When it does see it, then it will begin to pay attention. I would urge once more therefore that it is the business of the church to concentrate on herself and not on the world that is outside. Revival starts in the church, and revival comes when Christian people begin to realize how far short they fall of the standard that is depicted in the New Testament" (Expository Sermons on 2 Peter, 13).
Let us understand and recognize what God has done and live accordingly:
Let us put away every excuse that we use against godliness -- against living holy lives. When we find ourselves faced with the temptation to do those things that are not godly, and to sin, let us stand firm, and call on God in prayer, believing His Promise that He has and will always give us what we need to keep from sin and to live a godly life.
Let us surely believe that God is making us like Him and Jesus. Let us be more conscious of the way that we are living, and each time we find ourselves about to do something that we cannot imagine Jesus doing, or something that He has said not to do, let us call on God in prayer, believing His Promise that He is and will make us into the image of His Son.
Let us pray that our goal would be to be like God -- living a life that glorifies our God and Savior. Let us make it our goal, each day, to know God better, through His Word, prayer, and the sacraments, and then let us take that knowledge of God and live like Him.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You that You do not merely call us to salvation and then leave us to our own devices, but You also call us and work through us for all of our lives to make us into Your Image. Let our excuses fade away. Let our belief be strong in Your Sure Promises. And let us desire with everything we are to be like You in Your Holiness. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
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