Good morning, everyone. My name is Andrew. If I haven't met you, it's a great privilege to be here today with you all. I don't know many of you, most of you actually, but if you want to know me, I'm very much like you. We're in the same boat together because we all love Jesus, and I'm one of them, so I'm one of you in that way. It has been a real blessing to meet with you all so far today. It's been good to sing together. It's been my privilege to sing with you and confess our sins with you. and to pray and to read and all that. And it's my big privilege and my honor to read from the scripture with you and to expound on it a little bit or attempt to do so. So if you would like to open your Bibles to 2 Peter, Or if you want we're gonna have it up there. That's right You might see me over the next few weeks a little bit more because we're going to be going through the book of 2nd Peter And so I encourage you in your spare time at home to read it in your own time and not just listen to what I Not just think about it when we're here, but read it at home. Think about it at home and to really juice it in your own minds and All right, 2 Peter chapter 1. Let's read together from verse 1. Simon Peter a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith, supply moral excellence. And in your moral excellence, knowledge. And in your knowledge, self-control. And in your self-control, perseverance. And in your perseverance, godliness. And in your godliness, brotherly kindness. And in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things, these qualities, is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be abundantly supplied to you. Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things. even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you. I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind." This is the Word of God. At my home church in Warrnambool, I help out at the youth group, and we've just been going through First Thessalonians. And one of the things that Paul says in First Thessalonians is that when he and his team came to Thessalonica, and they told them the Word of God, he says, he wrote that we thank God all the time because we remember that when you received it, You welcomed it, not as the word of a man, but for what it truly is, the word of God. So this is the word of God. We've received it. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Just a few moments to remember this is the word of God. Let's welcome it as such. Our God and our Father, we thank you again that we can be here and we thank you that we've been able to read this passage. You've given us your word and we've received it just now. Our God and Father, we welcome it for what it truly is, not the word of a man or an opinion of someone or someone who doesn't know, but we welcome it because it is your word. And we know that you effectively work in those who believe and receive it as your word. Oh God, we long for more of your working in us, in our own hearts and minds and lives. And we pray that you will work effectively in us this very hour as we consider this passage of scripture. You are our Father, and we have the great delight of being your children in truth. Our God and Father, please direct us, please order us, command us. Our Father, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, if you knew that your time on earth was about to come to an end, and you thought, OK, I want to write my last letter, what would it be, I wonder? What would you write? Who would you write to? Would you write to your, maybe, your loved ones or your church family? What would you write? It's an interesting question. The famous French queen, Marie Antoinette, she knew she was about to die. She was about to be guillotined by the French Revolution. And that morning she wrote a letter. She wrote it to her sister. And I read it the other day and it's full of affection for her sister. She writes to her sister asking her to take care of the kids, make sure they stay together and forgive each other and get along and all that. And then she went to the guillotine. Another girl, Eloise Parry, she wrote her last text message, so this is recent because it's a text message, and she wrote to her lecturer. This is what she wrote. It's not a very impressive message, but she simply said, texted, I think I'm going to die. I'm so scared and I'm so sorry for being so stupid. She wrote that to a lecturer. That was her. It's interesting. The great scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, he wrote one of his final memoirs to his friend. It's a great line. He wrote this. He said, I don't know what I may seem to be to the world, But as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting my attention every now and then with a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, all the whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Sir Isaac Newton. What a line, right? He's one of the great scientists and that's what he wrote. Peter, the apostle Peter, knows that his time on earth is about to finish. We read it in verse 13. He says, I consider it right, in verse 13, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling to stir you up, by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent. He knows his time on earth is about to come to an end. Jesus has made that clear to him. And so he writes this letter. He writes this letter. It's his final letter. And I would summarize. My summary of it is three simple words. Know Jesus more. Know Jesus more. If you wanted a brief overview of the whole letter, and if you wanted it in a longer sentence or in Peter's own words, you can actually stitch the second verse and the very last verse together. So I'll read them out like that. Chapter 1, verse 2. He says, So grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Know Jesus more. Now Peter's not writing to his sister or his friend or his lecturer, or he's not writing just to an individual or a single church. He says in verse 1 who he's writing to, by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ." That's a rich statement. There's a lot in this because it's meaning he's already teaching us in a sense here. If any of us here are here today, and I hope that we all are, if we're here today professing faith in Jesus, remember that, you can remember clearly just from this verse, it's not through any righteousness of our own that we've obtained this faith. We didn't get here because we're smarter than others, because we're greater than others, because we're more worthy or more lovable or more superior than others. We're here today professing faith in Christ because of someone else's goodness and righteousness. That of our God, our Savior, Jesus. The faith that we're standing here or sitting here today professing, we profess because it was authored by someone else. It only works because it's guaranteed by someone else, by God, our Savior Jesus. And we only have it because we received it from him. So who among us can boast? Just reassert that. None of us can boast except in the righteousness of Jesus. And when he says we've received it, that verb received, at the end of verse one, received a faith, It's actually the same verb that's used in Acts 117 when you might remember they're selecting a twelfth apostle and they have Matthias and I've forgotten the other guy's name but there are two and they select they cast lots to find out which is the twelfth apostle and it says Matthias was selected and it says Matthias obtained or received and ministry among the apostles." In other words, it was appointed to, he received it by appointment. And that's the same verb that Peter is using here to say that we have obtained, received this faith by the righteous initiative or appointment of God, our Savior, Jesus Christ. And it means so much more for us Gentiles, right? Because by God's righteous initiative, we've all been grafted into the covenants of the Jews. We've all received a faith as precious as or faith that's like the Jews and the apostles. That's what he's saying. He's writing to those who received a faith that's like ours, like the apostles, like the Jews. Who among us can boast except in the righteousness of our God? And he's going to go on, we're not going to get there today, but he's going to go on to say that we need to spend our lives in service to this appointment, to this calling, this election. So those are the ones that Peter is writing to, people such as us, who received a faith just like the Jews and just like the apostles. His last letters to us, Know Jesus more. Know Jesus more because, verse 2, grace and peace is multiplied to us in the knowing, in the knowledge of God and of Jesus. He expounds that more in verse 3, saying that His divine power has granted to us everything that has to do with life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him. It's a simple question here. Do you want to know where to find grace? Where to find peace? Where to find out how to receive it? Or do you want to know where your neighbor can find it? Where the person sitting next to you can find it? Or where your children or your work colleagues or your parents can find this abundance of grace and peace? It's received through the knowledge of God and of Jesus. That's where you go. That's where they go to receive it. Now, wait, oh, that's the other thing I needed to say. We're gonna apply this a little bit, right? Let's apply this. If lately you found yourself struggling to live the full life, live a life of responsiveness to God. If you've struggled lately to live godly, Peter is saying you'll find everything that you need through the knowledge of God and of Jesus. Let me illustrate further, or let me explain further. If you're struggling at this moment to forgive someone, If you're running low on the ammo in the war against sinful attitudes or behaviors. If you found that you've been snapping at your spouse a lot lately or your children or your parents. If you are struggling with pride and you just can't shake the sin of pride and thinking highly of yourself at the moment. If your tongue lately has been a bit of a loose cannon If you're stuck in an addiction of any kind, shape or form. If you found lately that your spiritual health is in a bit of a drought. Or if you're overwhelmed with grief of a past sin that you've repented of and have been forgiven, but the grief is still overwhelming. Peter is saying that we will find the solution for all these problems and more through knowing God and knowing Jesus. So know Jesus more. I don't live with my parents anymore but I often go visit them and whenever I go home to my parents, some of you might do this as well, it's not uncommon, but one of the first things I do is I go to the fridge, open it up and see what's in there, right? Has anyone else ever done that? Yeah, surely. And I go to the fridge and once the fridge is has been fully rated. Mum's got a big pantry, so I go into the pantry and I see what's in there. And she almost always has a jar of marshmallows up on the top shelf. And so I go there. I know that when I go to the pantry, I will find what I need for my sugar addiction. And for the void in my stomach that needs filling. It's amazing. It's just default. It's just habit. I know that that's where to go. There's a pantry filled with all that we need for life and godliness, right? Peter's saying it's given to us as we learn and receive the knowledge of God and of Jesus. It's the pantry for true life and godliness. But Peter is not talking about an intellectual, just talking about an intellectual knowledge. Let's be clear on this. There are many people in the world. Let's go with lecturers of theology at universities all around the world. They have an impressive amount of knowledge about God. They know plenty about God. It's in their minds. And there are plenty of people even in churches, maybe some people even here today. who have plenty of intellectual knowledge about God. But Peter is not just meaning that. That's not the extent. He's listed the two essential ingredients here. He listed it firstly when he said he was writing to those who have received faith, first ingredient. And secondly, the knowledge of God, a growing knowledge of Christ. And with these two essential ingredients, it's like this. The knowledge starts in the intellect, but it has to land in the heart. It has to arrive in the heart. We didn't read verse 19, but that's what he's getting at in verse 19. We'll get there eventually, but not today. He's saying that you need to pay attention to it. You need to think about it. until it dawns in your hearts, until the morning star rises in your hearts. To illustrate this, I remembered, or at least I think I remember, the days when I was in school and doing science. Now, you might correct me afterward if I got this wrong, but when I was learning about energy, I think there were two categories of energy, right? There was potential energy, And kinetic energy, yes, right. Now potential energy is if you hold this up like this, I think it's potential to drop. So the gravity has the potential to animate the drink bottle, right? But when I drop it, oh well, that's, the illustration is that's like intellectual knowledge, right? There's a potential there. But when I drop it it animates it moves that becomes kinetic energy active energy and I I Was going to use a pen so when I say when the penny drops I? The knowledge of God becomes active in our hearts. It lands in our hearts. We receive the knowledge of God and of Jesus by faith. God, through his spirit, makes it kinetic. He animates our hearts so that our hearts are warmed, energized, brought to life and to godliness through our knowledge of him. A kinetic knowledge. So, for those who believe, knowing Jesus more is our pantry for life and godliness. The question then that he goes on to answer, he doesn't ask it, but I'm asking it. How does this work? What are the things that God has given us that we need for life and godliness? What are the things that we receive? Because he's saying, you find what you need, but what are they? He goes on. There are three things. I'm trying to boil it down into three things. Firstly, through our knowledge of God, we receive the map for life and godliness. A map, or an understanding of life and godliness. Look in verses 1 to 4, the whole section, it's hinged, or the last half of it is hinged on the end of verse 3. He says, about the true knowledge of Him who called us, by his own glory and excellence. When it says excellence, that can be translated as virtue, or moral excellence, or goodness, through God's glory and his goodness, his sheer goodness. So how can we know what life and godliness really is? How can we know how to be godly? How can we know what it means to truly live as God intended for us to live? By knowing God's glory and his goodness, his excellence. We don't need to look very far. We could be blind and still see through self-reflection and be aware that mankind has a problem, that we have problems, right? Without Christ, and even with Christ now, we still struggle with filth and corruption. Mankind is stuck in filth and corruption. In chapter 2, he refers to mankind and corruption as being like pigs wallowing in a mud pit. They're like dogs eating vomit, their own vomit. And mankind is incapable of breaking free from this, right? Even the desire to break free of it. But through knowing Jesus, or through Jesus, God breaks into our corruption, reveals himself, reveals his glory and his goodness, reveals life and godliness, thereby giving us a map of life and godliness. Grow in the knowledge of God. Know Jesus more. Look at the map. But having a map, that's not just enough. We just don't need a map. We also receive, second thing, is an invitation. Invitation is a soft word. Peter uses a stronger word. We receive a call. A call from God. That's at the end of verse 3. The knowledge of Him who called us. Now the word that's here, he says by his excellence, by his own glory and excellence. That word by can actually also be translated as to or into his glory and his excellence. So God has called us by his glory and excellence to his glory and his excellence. He calls us out of our slavery to corruption. He calls us instead to be joined to him and to become partakers of or participants in His divine nature. So we receive a map and we receive a call to become, instead of corruption, to partake of His nature. I think there's an important point to be made here is that our alertness to the call of God, our alertness to that is very much connected directly to our knowledge of God, of God's glory and goodness. So, in other words, as we know Jesus more, our perception of Him calling us, and what He's calling us to, grows more as well. That's one of the reasons why it's so important that we know Jesus more. To illustrate this, I used to work at a cheese factory for about seven years, I think. And over that time, there's a lot of early morning starts. It's usually about 5 a.m. in the morning. Every now and then I would enjoy a sleep-in, I'd get a sleep-in. And some of those sleep-ins, it was rare, but some days something would go wrong at the factory. And what happens? You get a call, a phone call. Has anyone else had their phone ring while they're enjoying some nice sleep? Yes, Taylor has. Yes, a few of us have. If you're like me, you enjoy sleep and you hear this faint noise, maybe the phone ringing, And sometimes you subconsciously incorporate it into your dreams. I do that sometimes. And then you realize, you sort of gain consciousness and you realize, in your dreamy haze, you realize, wait, the phone's calling. The phone's ringing. And then you wake up and you answer it, right? It's a gradual sort of thing. The more you wake up, the more you're aware of the call. As we know Jesus more, we're confronted with His glory and His goodness, right? And that knowledge, as that knowledge lands in our hearts, we wake up from our spiritual slumber to the noise of Him calling each of us, calling us to His glory and His goodness, to partake of His divine nature. to leave our moral bankruptcy, to leave our self-induced blindness, and instead enjoy his divine nature. I think Charles Wesley captured it wonderfully in his song, And Can It Be. I'll read the fourth verse out. He writes this, Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon. flamed with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed Thee. So know Jesus more and don't let your knowledge of Him become stagnant. Or don't let your knowledge, don't rest easy thinking you know enough of Him. Or don't rest easy thinking, just living off fumes of the past that you might have learned about Jesus in the past. Know Jesus more. Alright, last one is verse 4. It's a great one. We receive the map, we receive the call, we also receive the fuel for life and godliness. We receive everything that we need, including the fuel. And we might have the map, the understanding of it, we might have the call, the knowing that we need to get there, but we can't of ourselves. God gives us, Peter writes, out of his glory and his excellence, he has granted us or given to us his precious and magnificent promises. in order that by them we might become partakers of his divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's in the world by lust. Through God's promises, we are able to escape our corruption and share in his divine nature. Now, it matters what you know about the one who is giving you a promise. It really does. If a drug dealer comes to you and promises happiness, right? You know they're a drug dealer. You just put two and two together, you understand the content of their promise, what they're meaning by happiness, right? It's not good, not a healthy option. And if, let's go to another extreme, if Hitler, out of his Nazi ideology, for instance, if he promises a good society, no, no, we know that it's not a good society. We interpret what he promises by understanding who he is and what he thinks. If when our hearts know the power and the determination of God who makes the promises, and let me say this again, you need to know the power and the determination of God who has given you promises. You need to know the goodness, the moral excellence, and the glory of God who fills his promises, who makes the promises. so that you'll be assured of the certainty of his promises and the value of his promises. So that you can, with Peter, say, he has given, the one who is all glory and excellent has given me precious and magnificent promises. And through them, I have escaped the corruption, my corruption, and am now enjoying his divine nature. The promises that God makes to us are not contractual obligations. Don't see them, look at them like that, as though God makes them so that whether he likes them or not he has to keep them. They are more like wedding vows, promises that He makes that flow from His heart for us. They flow out of His glory and His goodness. I'm going to read a few, just in closing, nearing the close anyway, I'm going to read a few. And when you listen to these, and don't think about contracts or anything like that, think about wedding vows, right? This is something in 2 Corinthians Paul quotes God as saying, Therefore he calls us, the world and be separate. Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters. Here's another promise in Ezekiel 36. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart. and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, one that's responsive. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and to be careful to keep my laws." It's a promise like that. A promise that God is making to us out of his glory and goodness. Another one of Hosea 2, I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and in justice, in love and in compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will know the Lord. These promises of God are our lifeline out of our corruption, out of all of our struggles, and into life and godliness, into being a partaker of his nature. We need to diligently know Jesus more. Because as we grow in our knowledge of him, and as that dawns in our hearts, we receive the map for life and godliness. We receive the call to life and godliness. And we receive the fuel for life and godliness. God's magnificent promises. so that we can continue to be free of corruption and to participate in his divine nature. Let's pray together. Lord, like the psalmist writes, we want to know your power and your glory. We want to see your beauty Lord, we reach for this desire by saying, open our eyes that we may see wondrous things about you, the truth of your glory and your excellence. Lord, we commit to putting in the time in this coming week, even today, we commit to putting in the time and to focusing our minds and hearts toward knowing you more. And we pray that the day will dawn in our hearts continually every morning when we wake up, and that the light of Christ will radiate in every crevice of our being. And we pray this for his name and with great joy. Amen.