God's All-Sufficient Scripture

[0:00] it's hard for me to know how to convey to you the enthusiasm, the eagerness, and the joy that I feel being in the pulpit.

[0:14] When I'm in the pulpit, I feel home. And I don't say that because I think I'm all of that. I say that because God's word is all that. And it is such a joy to bring the truth to people who are eager to hear it.

[0:30] I have preached to people before where the thickness of tension, disdain, and perhaps even hatred was so thick in the room that it made my knees literally shake.

[0:48] And I was worried that people would be able to see my pants moving, knowing that what I was going to bring to them was only going to enrage them.

[1:03] And they called themselves God's people. I've had to do that on a number of occasions. And I want you to know what a delight it is to my heart to look into your faces and see the eagerness to receive the truth.

[1:17] You are a blessing to me beyond the words that I can find to tell you. And so all I can do is thank you for being people who love the truth and who come here to allow me to bring it to you in the love of Jesus Christ.

[1:34] You are a blessing to your pastors. The title for my message this morning is God's All-Sufficient Scripture. And my friends, we are in a portion of Scripture that is so relevant, so timely relevant to our church life.

[1:57] I marvel and have been marveling all week as I have studied and prepared and thought through this entire chapter and how I would divide it up and how the text was coming into my life, my heart, engaging me.

[2:15] And the things that I get to talk about today and God willing over the next couple of Lord's days are just so, so important to me. All of Scripture is important.

[2:27] And yet there are times and moments and even in my life when I think I'm in a place in Scripture where it is especially ministering to my soul. And this is one of them because this speaks to the very heart of why I'm in the ministry.

[2:41] This speaks to the very reasons that I was able to say yes to Jesus' call on my life to be a preacher of the gospel. So we're in 2 Peter working our way through this letter verse by verse and we're going to talk about the theme of God's All-Sufficient Scripture.

[2:59] Let's read our passage for this morning and it's my intention to get down through verse 4. Simon Peter. He is the author of our letter. He is a bondservant or slave and apostle of Jesus Christ.

[3:16] He writes to those who have received a faith, a saving faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[3:28] 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.

[3:55] 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 or evil desires.

[4:21] Now, I want to make a declaration to you right at the outset that will serve to drive through this entire message and I want it to be crystal clear. I want to herald it from the mountaintops.

[4:34] I told my wife this week as I prepared all of this and read this first line, I said this, this is what I want to take to the world.

[4:46] This is what I want to take to Williamsburg. This is what I want God to use and pray that God will use us to bring to the nations. Just as we have all sufficient life in our Savior, Jesus Christ, we have all sufficient knowledge for that life in His Scripture.

[5:10] Amen. There are many who do not believe that. Many who love the Lord. Many who believe the Bible is the Word of God.

[5:25] And yet they fall short or stop short of believing that we have all sufficient knowledge for living a life pleasing to God in the Bible.

[5:42] The question is, do we really, truly believe what I just said? Do we truly believe believe that like we have an all sufficient Savior, we have an all sufficient Scripture that is His Word?

[6:02] And do we live like that, beloved? One of the defining doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, as we look back and stand on the shoulders of those men who gave us what we call that Reformation.

[6:19] That reforming doctrine that forms the critical understanding that we have of the knowledge of God and a way to live for Him.

[6:33] One of the cardinal doctrines of that Reformation was this. Solo Christos. Christ alone.

[6:45] Christ alone. Not Christ plus. Not Christ and. For those of you who come on Wednesday night, we just covered that, didn't we?

[6:56] Yes. And C.S. Lewis did a great job challenging us there. Others of these cardinal doctrines that formed the basis for the Protestant Reformation were also sola gratia, grace alone.

[7:14] Also, sola fide, faith alone. Not faith plus. Not grace and. And then finally, this one that you're familiar with, sola dea gloria, to God alone be the glory.

[7:33] That's how we live. At least that's the way that we want to live. When you bring all of these together, this is what we get. By God's grace alone.

[7:45] Through faith alone. Christians believe that Jesus and Him alone is our all-sufficient Savior. So that we find life only in Him and we live that life to the greater glory of God.

[8:01] That is the reason that we live and breathe and have our being. It is to bring glory to God. What does that mean, Jeff? It means for you to live a life that makes the life of Jesus beautiful in you.

[8:15] It means that you showcase the character of God at work in you so that people see Christ living in you. They see His gentleness and His kindness.

[8:26] They see His peace. They see His wisdom. They see His long-suffering, etc. In that way, you and I are bringing glory to God.

[8:37] We are displaying God in the goodness of His character and in His love for us. Now, in the Christian life, what gets in the way of all of that is sin.

[8:52] You and I struggle with sin. Folks, we talk about sin because sin is the enemy. We need to know what it is that ruins us.

[9:04] We need to understand how God defines the rebellion that lives in us and makes us deserving of a devil's hell. Then we need to turn to what God has done in the way of a remedy for the thing that kills us and casts us into hell.

[9:24] We struggle in this life against sin. Sin makes it a challenge to live out the truths of these doctrines that I've been mentioning.

[9:35] For instance, we can live like, we might not say it, but we can live like we must have more than Jesus. We must have Jesus plus if we're to have a fulfilling life.

[9:54] But by having Christ, we have received all we need of the treasures of His wisdom and knowledge for living. Colossians 2, 3. We'll look at more of that in a little while.

[10:06] But what happens is that we are tempted away from a simple and pure devotion to Jesus alone. Sin is the issue and Jesus Himself is the remedy.

[10:19] That is what we live and die on, is it not? Amen. That is why we come to this time together and gather and we preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified and raised again sufficient for life and godliness.

[10:35] It's why we turn to what He has written about Himself to instruct us in that life. These are critical foundations for Christian living and we cannot afford to compromise on them and yet we are in a battle in this world of compromise and corruption.

[10:57] Here's some of the stuff that we face. We are told that Jesus and His truths in Scripture are sufficient to help us with many, many of life's issues and difficulties but they are not sufficient to get us through all of them.

[11:17] Jesus and biblical truth are just not quite sophisticated enough to tackle the complexities of our modern problems.

[11:28] So the idea is let's keep Jesus and His truth relegated to their domain, religion. If you want to know how to be a better religious person, then you turn to Jesus and you turn to the Bible.

[11:45] So we want to keep Jesus and the Bible in their proper box. And then what we need to do is we need to let the big boys of science do the heavy lifting of life for us.

[11:58] We need to turn to the real muscle that will help us understand our souls, that will help us understand how to navigate the issues of life.

[12:11] We need the pseudosciences of psychology, psychiatry, and Darwinian evolutionism to help us help others with the deeper problems of life.

[12:22] After all, Jeff, we're going to face things that the Bible just isn't sophisticated enough to handle and to answer. And so we need to turn outside of Scripture and outside of Jesus for the wisdom and the care and the help and the tenderness that we need to face these complex modern issues.

[12:42] The Bible, after all, is antiquated. It's beyond its time. We are a sophisticated race of people in our day and time.

[12:53] It's time for us to move on. Let's face it, friends. The maker and sustainer of the entire universe just isn't up to the job.

[13:07] He's just not sophisticated enough to offer us any real answers about the things which trouble us most and most deeply.

[13:18] The same is true in our relationship with Scripture. Many of you who know and understand and have read about the solas, we call them the five solas of the Protestant Reformation, you understand there's one missing.

[13:35] So another of the solas is this one. Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone. It means that we have all sufficient knowledge in the Bible for living to God's glory, which is why we were made and why we were redeemed, to live to the glory of God, to showcase the glory of God as God lives inside of this body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

[14:09] an amazing reality for us. The issue then, friends, the issue is that we don't live like the Bible gives us all we need to face life in God-glorifying ways.

[14:26] We live like we need Scripture plus. Now, to the degree that any of us live like that, we need to confess it and repent. Do we not?

[14:37] We do. And so this is a... I want to go on record. I want this sermon to be a hallmark, landmark declaration of what we stand for here at Grace Church Williamsburg.

[14:52] We stand on the sufficiency of the Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. We stand firmly on the sufficiency of His Scripture for all of life and godliness.

[15:03] And we will not waver. Let me ask you something. As you think about soul care, as you think about the way we've been called in the Bible to minister to each other, to serve one another, to do the one another's of the Bible, as you think about God's calling on each of your lives as He's saved you, as He's commanded you to move out into the world, to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them, baptizing them, as we turn to Scripture and see that we are to raise up people who know the Lord and love the Lord.

[15:43] As you think about all that we are as Christians and all that we've been given by the blessings of God in Christ to minister to each other, does it make any sense to you as you think biblically that the world in you, that is, the sin nature in you, would devise systems of soul care to help you fight against itself.

[16:13] Secular, worldly modalities of soul care are not designed to help you succeed over sin. A mind set on the flesh is hostile to the things of God.

[16:30] Now, I want to stop and make sure we're all together and you understood what I just said because I said it quickly. Let me say it again. We are in a battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Yes.

[16:42] And yet, we find ourselves as Christians turning to that very system for help. Does that make any sense to you?

[16:54] why would the world create a system to help you fight against itself? That's what I just said.

[17:06] That's psychology and psychiatry and any other itry of human wisdom. That is why I say we may not walk into someone's office to sit down to get them to help us navigate the problems of life who are basically secular in nature or call themselves a Christian counselor for example and yet, they want to blend the different modalities, the different methodologies, the different doctrines of men to label you, diagnose you, and then help you move through the issues of life.

[17:42] And I ask you again, why would the very system, the very system that produces all of that, the system that is controlled by the prince of the power of the air, why would it create methodologies, helps, and modalities that would aid you in fighting against what it is?

[18:04] It won't. And they don't. And it's a lie. And I'm on record. And have been for some time. I hope that there is a righteous indignation in me because I have watched for 30 years of my adult life as these kinds of lies have destroyed families and ripped churches to pieces.

[18:30] And this is why I want to live the rest of my life telling the world whether they listen or not. Jesus Christ is our all-sufficient Savior and we serve Him as we serve an all-sufficient scripture.

[18:51] We don't need the wisdom of men to help us navigate the issues of life. You say, well, Jeff, what are you talking about? Well, here's what I'm not talking about. I am not saying that the Bible tells you everything you want to know.

[19:04] It doesn't. The Bible's not exhaustive. But it is complete and it is sufficient for life and godliness. The Bible may not tell you how to do heart surgery.

[19:20] The Bible may not tell you how to get underneath your sink and change the plumbing. Well, that's okay because it wasn't written for those reasons. But it was written to help a soul glorify God in every matter of life.

[19:40] And upon death, bring that soul to new life forever. That's what the Bible was designed to do and you can trust that Bible.

[19:54] You can trust God and you can trust his truth. Another thing that I am not saying is that the Bible helps us with every medical problem or medical issue that we have in our lives.

[20:07] I am not saying that the Bible tells us that, hey, don't take your kids to the doctor, just trust God. Hey, don't take your medication, just trust God. That is not, not, not what I'm saying.

[20:20] I thank God for medical science. I thank God that I can take some medicine that helps with the inflammation wracking my body from a tick disease. Who would think that tick spit would wreak such havoc on the human body?

[20:34] That's what they tell me it came from. He spit in my blood and now he's made me allergic, deathly allergic, so that if I have an episode, it could take my life.

[20:46] Wow. Well, let me go to 1 John and read about tick spit and how to overcome it. No, it's not going to happen. So I don't ask the Bible to give me information that it never claims it has.

[21:00] But here's what the Bible does tell me. It tells me how to glorify God with a tick disease in my body. It tells me how to glorify God as I change the plumbing in the sink and things aren't going quite my way.

[21:20] Yes. Have you ever had to go hunt for the tool that went through the air? I have. Have you ever had to take a lap around the block before you came back and just grabbed the thing and went and threw it out the window?

[21:37] I have. I grew up with a dad like that. I learned it well and I repeated it. All I'm trying to say, folks, is the Bible tells us what we need to know about our Savior, about our God, about the power of the Spirit working in us.

[21:55] And the Bible leads us in a sufficient way to bring glory to the Trinity, to bring glory to God, to bring glory to Christ, to not grieve and quench the Spirit, but to honor the Spirit's work in our life.

[22:09] Tragically, many churches and consequently many Christians are being led away from the sufficiency of Christ and His Word through persuasive worldly arguments for the Bible plus, the Bible and.

[22:25] end. Now, Peter, Peter comes to this place and tells us that in Scripture, God has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

[22:37] True knowledge, saving faith, truth. Those are synonyms describing God's wisdom in Jesus, which brings us life.

[22:52] This wisdom brings us life and teaches us to live that life in God-honoring ways. So, in his opening greeting in 1, 1 through 4, Peter is joyously recounting blessings which God grants us through a true knowledge of Him.

[23:14] And here's the first of these blessings God grants to us. It's from last Sunday, so I'm not going to re-preach that whole thing to you. I refer you to that message, but I do want to say a few more things about it.

[23:27] Look at this one. True knowledge grants us gifts of faith and righteousness. Simon Peter, a bondservant or slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, writing to those who have received a saving faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[23:49] Friends, we need, this is the point I made last time, we need to know to always tie this true saving, sanctifying knowledge to the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[24:03] Always. Paul shares Peter's desire to encourage Christians in a true knowledge of God.

[24:14] That is our concern as Christians. That's Peter's concern that I'm conveying to you now through this book. this letter that he wrote. It's Paul's concern. It's James concern.

[24:26] It's John's concern. As these men wrote about the truth of Jesus Christ, their concern was to convey to us that we know life by knowing the author of life, who is life himself.

[24:42] And we can only get that from Scripture. Here's what Paul wrote on that matter. He said that their hearts may be encouraged, or yes, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

[25:18] Colossians 2, 2 through 3. What kinds of things do we say or do we think when we're in some trial or challenge or difficulty or problem in life?

[25:33] What kinds of things can come out of our mouth or at least roll around in the attitude of our minds as we face those things? Things like this. You know, I don't understand.

[25:43] I'm just not sure. I'm confused. I don't know what to do anymore. Right?

[25:56] And many others like that. See, that's what we sound like. Well, what do we need in times like that? Well, we need wisdom. We need strength. We need help.

[26:08] Where will we turn? Well, this is what we need. We need all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery.

[26:24] That is Christ himself in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That's what you need in those times especially, is it not?

[26:35] Too often what we get caught up in as Christians is seeking a solution when we should be seeking a savior. That's what happens to us. We get all wrapped up in trying to make it better for ourselves and get answers to our problems as we move right by the answer to the problem.

[26:58] Him. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All that we need to move us through those difficulties in a God-glorifying, God-pleasing, God-honoring way stands before us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[27:14] And we know him and we serve him and we find strength to serve him as we understand and know the Bible, as we have a true knowledge of him through scripture.

[27:27] They tie together. It's his wisdom. We need what Peter says here. Notice the text again. We need a full assurance of understanding in terms of what Peter says, what Paul says.

[27:45] They all come together and they're saying basically the same thing to us in different ways. Paul says we need the full assurance of understanding to address the trials that challenge us.

[27:58] And so, friends, the Greek word for understanding that Paul uses there refers to a believer's ability to apply biblical truths to everyday life.

[28:09] It's the understanding that Proverbs speaks about as well. It's being able to take the wise, wonderful reality of God giving us his mind, helping us understand his ways, and making all of that practical for your moment-by-moment living.

[28:30] understanding. That's what a full assurance of understanding means in this context. Do you know how to take the wisdom of God and make it live in your life?

[28:43] Well, you say, sometimes. Right, sometimes. That's why we come together, isn't it? We come together to share that wisdom. We come together to tell each other, hey, I'm struggling here.

[28:55] I'm not exactly sure what to do here. And so what do we do? We minister the truth to each other. Speaking the truth in love, we minister God's grace to each other. It's how we grow together.

[29:07] So we don't want Lone Rangers. We don't want people out on the periphery out there. We want to bring them into the mainstream. And that's how we grow together. We don't need to be embarrassed about not knowing, folks.

[29:22] We need to turn to the source of knowing and minister that knowing to each other. in a spirit of love and grace, being patient with one another.

[29:33] Friends, in Jesus Christ, you have all the riches of truth resulting in a true knowledge. What does that mean? A trustworthy, workable, sufficient, practical knowledge for dealing with life.

[29:47] Jeff, do the things that you mentioned have anything to offer us out? The psychology and psychiatry and all?

[29:58] Listen, these are people, whether they're Christians or not, these are people that are making observations about the way life works and the way people behave.

[30:10] And then they take those observations and they bring them together and they try to make some semblance of sense out of what they're seeing. Okay, so those observations can be true.

[30:24] When you're stressed in this way or you're facing this or when most people face this, they act like this. And those collective behaviors that we see in common, we're going to call this.

[30:36] The problem is they call it that, they call it science, they put a label on it and then they stick it on your forehead. And then they tell you, you're going to probably face this the rest of your life.

[30:47] You're going to be, I don't know, whatever. And then you've got to live with that and you've got to live it down.

[30:59] Once an addict, always an addict. Well, is that what the Bible says? Do you know what the Bible says about that? Do you know what the Bible says about what they label in children as oppositional defiant disorder?

[31:19] Oh man, I had that one bad when I was growing up. I did. And I got my share of being taken care of. I was oppositionally defiant.

[31:31] Listen, we're born with oppositional defiant disorder against almighty God. God has a remedy for that. He's called Jesus. And he gives us hope.

[31:44] Do you know how they came to that determination to label your children with oppositional defiant disorder? They watched a bunch of kids and pulled together a bunch of behaviors that they saw in them, called it science, put a label on it.

[31:59] And now, if you have so many of these behaviors going on for such and such length of time, you're going to be labeled by these people with oppositional defiant disorder.

[32:11] So now you have a disorder. And based on that diagnosis, they're going to look to help you in your soul to deal with it. Or are they? No.

[32:23] That's the problem. They're not going to deal with the soul. We just read a scripture that told us that only God's word helps us to restore our souls.

[32:36] Only God's word rejoices the heart. And that's what you need in those times, friends. You need your heart to rejoice in your savior. Regardless of your circumstances, you can be sad and grieve and cry tears and rejoice in your savior at the same time.

[32:55] God designed you that way. Well, I digress. Jesus Christ is that knowledge.

[33:09] He is the treasure you own. And he is the treasury you draw from. Because he is your wisdom and knowledge for facing and for living your life.

[33:28] He's the gift. He's the glory. He's the good. This is why Paul will go on to say this.

[33:40] See to it. You see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception. That is according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

[34:00] For in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in him, you have been made complete. And he is the head over all rule and authority.

[34:13] So why not go to the source? Why not go to the chief? Why not go to the one who made you, created you, and knows the number of the hairs on your head and ask him for help?

[34:23] Ask him for diagnosis. Ask him to help you navigate the issue in your life. My friends, Jesus is the source, means, and end of this true knowledge of God.

[34:37] So through true knowledge, God also grants us this. True knowledge grants us gifts of grace and peace. That's verse two.

[34:49] Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our Lord. If you turn over as well, right on the heels of that and look at chapter three, verse 18.

[35:02] Look at the way that Peter ends his letter. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[35:13] To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. Peter bookends his letter with these twin emphases of God's grace and a true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[35:29] He starts that way and he ends there. You think he's trying to make a point or something. Grace. What is grace? In the context we're speaking of here that Peter speaks of in verse two, grace is the goodly favor of God.

[35:47] If I can say it that way. Grace is the goodly favor of God. In other words, his blessings and honor kindly and freely poured out on you as a believer.

[35:58] So by God's grace, God turns us to Jesus, keeps us in Jesus and grows us in likeness to Jesus. No grace, no walk with God because you can't do it by yourself.

[36:15] This isn't something you can work up. This isn't gutting it out. This is a gift that God gives to us. And it is by his grace that we turn to the Lord, that we are sustained in the Lord and that we grow in the Lord.

[36:35] Now, what what is the effect of God's grace on us? Look at the text again. Grace and peace. Peace. The effect of God's grace working in our lives is peace.

[36:50] Peace comes from being in and blessed by God's good grace. Grace brings peace with God in your life.

[37:02] So this is peace that passes human understanding as it steadies our hearts and trials. This is what people need, folks. This is what Christians need in times of challenge and trial.

[37:18] Right now, you may be thinking, Jeff, things are going pretty smoothly right now. All right. Well, what about three months ago? Oh, yeah. Well, not so much then. All right. We'll just wait.

[37:29] Give it another few weeks. Maybe even a few hours. Right. That's the world we live in. God brings us peace.

[37:41] In the world, you have trouble. But don't let your heart be troubled. Jesus said, I've overcome the world. I bring you peace.

[37:55] He's the peace. We don't need to give people bags of tricks and techniques and tell them false things. We need to give them Christ and him crucified and raised again.

[38:08] an all sufficient savior who's written an all sufficient scripture to help us navigate the issues of life. We believe that here at grace. And so peace.

[38:21] These these notice. These are multiplied. These are multiplied to us through our knowledge of God and Christ.

[38:32] You see that in the text? Grace and peace be multiplied to you. How? Verse two. In the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our Lord.

[38:43] Knowledge is the word that I mentioned to you last Sunday. Epignosis. It means to have a full, rich, thorough knowledge involving a degree of intimate understanding of a specific subject.

[38:58] So God's favor and peace come by knowing him and Jesus. This is why we minister Jesus to people here at grace in our counseling, in our preaching, in our teaching.

[39:12] We're constantly ministering the saving grace of God to each other. We are to progress. Hear this now, folks.

[39:23] We are to progress in this grace and knowledge in the Christian life. That's why Peter ended his letter with this. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[39:37] Grow in it. Are you growing? Are you growing in the grace and peace of God? Are you growing in knowledge of him? What kind of effort do you make to grow in the knowledge of your Savior?

[39:52] What priority do you put on that in your life? How much time does growing in the knowledge of your Savior take? From each of your days.

[40:06] And we're told that we can't do that apart from Scripture. So grow in the grace and knowledge through the Christian life. The question is this. How?

[40:18] How do we do that? And that brings us to this one. True knowledge grants us gifts of life and godliness. And now we come to verse three, which is the heart of this teaching.

[40:31] This what this is where my my heart quickens in pace as I as I read this and as I deal with it in my own life. True knowledge grants us gifts of life and godliness.

[40:42] Here's how he says it. Grace and peace be multiplied to you and the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Seeing 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.

[41:12] I'm just going to start right off here with this. What is the main point Peter is making in the first half of verse three? Here it is. That Jesus Christ has provided everything believers need for life and godliness.

[41:25] The question then is this. What has God left out? The answer is nothing. Nothing. Now some people have debated whether life here refers to eternal life or to the sanctifying life that we're supposed to live on this earth.

[41:45] But these ideas flow from one to the other. Eternal life in Jesus also sustains us in life here and now. Amen. And so they go together.

[41:57] He is speaking about an eternal life purchased for us in heaven as believers and how we are then to live on this earth by that fact that heaven is your home.

[42:11] That you have been purchased away and given a new nature. And so now given your home being in heaven given the place that you're going to be taken to to live forever because you've been made a new creature in Christ now let me show you how to live that reality now.

[42:31] You don't have to wait till heaven. You can begin to live it now. And then heaven will be the proof that all of that was real in your life.

[42:42] All right now I want to take you through this and help you to see it so I'm going to put this up here on the screen as well to help us move through this. Look back at the text seeing that his divine power his points back to Jesus.

[42:56] We're talking about the divine power of Jesus. Divine means of God. So this is the divine power of Jesus. The power of God.

[43:09] Jesus as God working in your life. The word for power in Greek is dunameos. Dunameos. It's from dunamis.

[43:22] It means strength or inherent power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature. Now don't do this. Don't be tempted to think that's where we get our word dynamite.

[43:32] Don't do that. Don't think this is some kind of because that's what you hear when you when you do dynamite you think of explosive power. No that's not what this is. We're talking about a power that that works in you and it works in different ways and in different stages.

[43:49] But this is the power of God granted to you gifted to you to work in you to help you live the life that we're seeing here in this text.

[44:00] Christ's divine power has been granted to us for God pleasing living. Now just stop right there and think.

[44:14] Where else will you go to have people tell you how to go about navigating the issues of your life in a God pleasing way where they will put the emphasis on are you glorifying God?

[44:32] Are you trusting God? Are you believing God at his word? Where else will you go? Or will you sit down in front of someone that will say to you yes yes yes that's all fine and good for what it is.

[44:51] But your particular issue goes outside the purview of scripture and the Bible. You have a deeper problem. You have a problem that that goes beyond the understanding of the Bible.

[45:02] You just need to understand the Bible wasn't written to help you deal with sexual abuse. The Bible wasn't wasn't written to help you deal with bipolar disorder.

[45:15] An invention of man by the way. When we get to these big issues these deep issues when we get to schizophrenia the Bible wasn't designed to help you answer those issues.

[45:29] Now based on what I've said to you so far do you understand what we're saying when we say that? We do not have an all-sufficient Savior who has written an all-sufficient scripture to help us navigate the issues of life in a God-honoring God-pleasing way.

[45:47] You see what I'm saying? We would never come out and probably say that out loud but we can live like it. All I'm trying to tell you is we don't have to turn away from Jesus and away from truth truth to get help for what ails us.

[46:03] We don't have to do that. We do do it. We can do it. God help us. But we don't have to. Say Jeff, this just sounds so simplistic.

[46:15] I mean, life gets complicated. This is exactly why you need to turn to the author of life. Please believe me when I tell you, friends, life isn't complicated to God.

[46:33] Schizophrenia isn't too big for God. Whatever has happened to you in your past isn't beyond the purview of scripture's ability to help you navigate it to God's glory.

[46:46] Or Jesus is a liar because he told us that we would have trouble in this world. But he told us don't fret, don't worry, I've overcome the world.

[46:58] Now, do you believe that or not? Do you believe he can minister his peace and his joy to you or not? It really comes down to that, doesn't it? And so here at Grace, we unashamedly take the stand that Jesus is sufficient and so is his scripture.

[47:15] But we need to learn how to use the scripture to the benefit of other people who are struggling with these very real things. You won't hear me say these things aren't real.

[47:26] I believe that people suffer from mood swings that have been technically diagnosed, quote unquote, as bipolar disorder. Do you not believe that people go through times in their life when they're extremely down and then they can be extremely high and happy?

[47:42] And sometimes it's hard for them to get off the roller coaster of that? Do you believe that? Yeah. Do you also believe scripture addresses it? All right.

[47:53] It does. I'll show you if I need to. I will. It does address that. Read the Psalms. One day David is saying, just kill me, God.

[48:05] The next day he's saying, you're magnificent. I'm so glad I have life. He's bipolar. David's bipolar. Now, what do we do with that? We turn to Jesus is what we do.

[48:20] We turn to each other and say, help minister the grace of God to me. I need some help right now. Walk. Will you walk with me in this? We don't make fun of people. We don't ridicule the pain that they have.

[48:33] We come alongside of each other and minister God's grace and God's peace in Jesus Christ together. We bear each other's burdens and bring each other the truth of the Lord.

[48:46] You say, Jeff, if I'm on medication because I'm suffering from one of these things and this has been part, should I stop? No, don't stop. Don't stop taking your medication and tell yourself, if I don't stop taking my meds, I'm not trusting Jesus.

[48:59] That's not true. It doesn't have to be true. We work together with doctors, physicians, people who are trained in ways that help us understand how our bodies and our souls work together.

[49:18] You are embodied souls and so what's going on in your body can affect your soul, your spirit, yes? And what's going on in your soul can affect your body, yes?

[49:29] If your soul is deeply depressed and sick, doesn't Proverbs tell us that that sadness of soul produces issues in the body? Why are you so downcast, my soul?

[49:43] Look to God. You will once again rejoice. They speak to the very issues that we face as human beings. So please don't hear me saying, get off your meds, don't take your kids to the doctor.

[49:57] If you do that kind of thing, you're not trusting the Lord. Folks, that's not what we're preaching and saying because that's not what the Bible says. Go to the doctor. You come to see me for counseling and you have certain symptoms, I may say to you the first thing we need to do is get you to the doctor and get you checked up and I want you to ask him about these specific things to check you for these because these organic issues going on in your body could produce symptoms like what you've described to me.

[50:26] You see what I'm saying? That's responsible. We need to understand those things and be tenderhearted and patient with people about that and not throw people under the bus and tell them that if they're doing these other things, they're not trusting God and that's not true.

[50:46] Christ's divine power has been granted to us for God-pleasing living. So I said, man's wisdom cannot give us God's grace in life. Let me say it again. Man's wisdom cannot give us God's grace in life and that's what we need.

[51:03] I don't need people telling me the obvious. I need people helping me understand how to follow the Lord better, more faithfully, how to trust Him, how to rely on Him, what it looks like for me to literally put my faith in the Lord through a hard time.

[51:20] So by the power, listen, by the power of His own nature at work in us, Jesus has given us every resource we need to obey what Peter told us God has commanded of us.

[51:34] We have every resource we need to obey what God has commanded of us. That's what Peter says. And what is it that God has commanded of us? If you go back to 1 Peter, just let your minds go back and remember this.

[51:49] Look at 1 Peter 1 and look at verse 16. It is written, You shall be holy for I am holy.

[52:01] That's the issue. That's what we've been commanded to be, folks. We are to be holy as God is holy. Man's wisdom can't help you with that.

[52:13] That is not the basis of this world system to be concerned with that. But that's your issue. At the root of all of your issues and my issues is my relationship with a holy God.

[52:30] That's why we say all the issues of life are spiritual in nature because they all have to do with how we relate to God. Do I have this physical disease in my physical body?

[52:46] Yes. Well, how am I relating to God based on what is going on in my body? That's what the Bible helps me with.

[52:57] That's what grace and peace and forgiveness. That's what redemption helped me with. How do I respond to God by what's going on in my life? How do I respond to loss, to the unknown, to the uncertain, to the scary?

[53:14] Be holy as I am holy. Then Peter says this. Look at this. Godliness. Godliness.

[53:26] Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. Godliness is worship rightly directed. Godliness is our heart attitude of worth shipping God.

[53:41] In other words, our reverence paid to worth. It's how we pay what is worthy. We pay God with our reverence.

[53:54] We display to Him the worth of His being as we bow and submit and surrender to Him and thank Him. So as you encounter the issues and matters and challenges, trials of life, where do you turn for help, hope, and happiness?

[54:15] To whom do you turn? Many Christians turn to the wisdom of the world. It's as if God left His children deficient of what they need to be holy.

[54:29] In every circumstance of life and by Christ's power at work in you, Jesus gives you everything to live a holy, God-pleasing, Christ-exalting life of worship offered in reverence to Him.

[54:42] Everything. Not a few things, not some of the things, not only the things that are for the small issues of life and then you've got to run somewhere else for the big things. No. The question now, through what does Jesus give to us all of this?

[54:59] What does the text say? Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him. That's how.

[55:12] Through the true knowledge of Him. So this is the deep personal knowing that brings us salvation and grows us in likeness to Jesus.

[55:24] We need to know the Lord personally, intimately. Now all of this in the way of these blessings come to us by the wonderful and effectual call which is what Peter goes to next.

[55:43] The call of Christ extended to believers by Jesus' glory and excellence. This call opens our eyes, our spiritual eyes to Jesus' glory.

[55:58] We see Jesus in the glory that He is as God's Son. That's what the devil keeps us blinded to. And by the power of God's call to draw us and by His grace He opens our spiritual eyes to see Jesus for who He is.

[56:14] God's Son. The glory of the Son of Almighty God. I see it. I see it. And then in all of the glory that we see in Him we see His divine nature as God and Lord of all and it opens our hearts to see His excellence.

[56:38] His sinless perfection as our Savior. Friends, this is true knowledge. This is the knowledge you need for salvation and this is the knowledge you need to continue to grow in grace.

[56:51] This true saving Christ forming knowledge is fashioned and functions in our hearts by the power of Christ living in us.

[57:04] And what is the means God uses to form us into Christ likeness? First Peter talked a lot about that in the weeks and weeks that we spent there. But look, this is the final point.

[57:16] true knowledge grants us gifts of promises and partnership. 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.

[57:34] 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.

[57:47] Having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust or by evil desires. True knowledge grants us gifts of promises and partnership.

[57:59] The Greek word we translate as has granted is the same verb or from the same verb as in verse 3.

[58:10] seeing that His divine power has granted. Same form of the verb in verse 4. For by these He has granted.

[58:23] Now this is important so I'm going to put it up here for you to track with me. It is in the present verb is in the present tense in Greek. It refers to then a past action but the emphasis is on the present situation resulting from the past action.

[58:44] And Peter tells us what action that action was and what it's doing to us and through us now. So we have this past event that has taken place in our lives and the emphasis of that past event is the effect that it's having on us now.

[59:02] That's the present tense meaning of this verb. has granted. And here's what he tells us about how it's affecting us now.

[59:13] Look at it with me. God brought us to himself through the glory and excellence of Jesus Christ. Past action moment in time fixed for eternity and through our true knowledge in Jesus our saving faith in Jesus he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises present reality resulting from a past action truth is at work in your life that's what's happening I hope you're starting to get the feel for why you don't need to turn to man's wisdom to help you through the issues and matters and circumstances and trials of life you have everything that you need to navigate all of that in the people of God who serve the Lord of creation and who bow to his truth in life his promises are scripture to us they're holy they are truth to us they are life to us so that by them you may become notice the text so that by them you may become partakers that word partakers can be translated partners of the divine nature you have become a partner in the divine nature think about this

[60:45] Jesus prayed for you and me he prayed for us and he asked that God would sanctify us make us holy in the truth your word is truth how are you sanctified how are you helped how do you grow in grace how do you draw nearer to God how do you move through the circumstances of your life in a way that pleases the Lord and grows you grows your faith helps you endure makes you stronger in him by the truth your word is truth make me holy Lord help me be more like you Jesus your word is truth and that's how I'm made holy that's how I'm sanctified Jesus went on to pray I do not ask on behalf of these alone that that would be the disciples around him but for those also who believe in me through their word you see how it's all tied to the word of

[61:47] God here is the means to both salvation and sanctification sanctification means the way that God works in our lives in a progressive way throughout our life to transform us to change us more and more into the image of his son it's beautiful friends God has given us his precious son and his precious scripture to make us partners sinners in his own holy nature you don't need more of the world you need more of him by these magnificent gifts of his favor and by these gifts alone you can escape the corruption that is in the world by evil desires there's no other way you

[62:52] I'm included our greatest issue are these evil desires these lustful greedy selfish desires that draw us into ourselves and away from Christ who is sufficient and they create all kinds of dependencies and issues people talk about addiction the Bible talks about enslavement we are enslaved to what we give our hearts to so Jeff are you sure we'll get there God willing and I stay alive look at chapter 2 and look at verse 19 excuse me promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption for by what a man is overcome by this he is enslaved I don't know how to put it any clearer than that that's what the world calls addiction for if they verse 20 have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the

[64:02] Lord and Savior Jesus Christ they are again entangled in them and overcome the last state has become worse for them than the first can't wait to get there and talk about that his nature formed and functioning in you effectively saves you from your former nature corrupted by evil desires as you face off with your sins with the sins of others and with the corruption in this world the question is has God left you deficient and devoid by giving you his son and his scriptures track with me are Jesus Christ God the creator and the Holy Spirit living in you and the wisdom of God in scripture not sophisticated enough to transform your heart renew your mind and fill you with hope hope would God do that to you would the

[65:19] God who made you and sacrificed his son for you leave you hanging like that will we live live live in such a way that we that we betray in ourselves a lack of faith and confidence in the sufficiency of who and what God has granted to us for living like children of the king of kings will we say by the way we live that Jesus and his promises need to be propped up by the more sufficient wisdom of man because the cross of Christ fell short of a saving and sufficient redemption may it never be may it never be beloved has God our Savior left us as orphans to grovel in the streets and gutters of man's wisdom for scraps to eke us through life or has God adopted us as his sons and daughters by the kindness of his will to love us in his son and just as he loves his son to make us more than conquerors in Christ and to give us the very riches of his grace and of the treasures of his heaven which of those will you choose to believe and more importantly to live will you live like an orphan in the street or will you live like an adopted son or daughter in the arms of your

[67:08] Savior let me say this and I'm closing people who integrate the Bible with man's wisdom misapply the full realities of our redemption in Christ our salvation revealed in scripture and applied to the issues of life is sufficient for holiness period let's pray father each one of us now sitting in this room can recount in our lives diagnoses and issues that we faced and labels that have been placed on us more by the wisdom of man than the truth of the word of God and I pray for those dear friends and fellow believers right now I bow my heart before you and with tears in my heart

[68:11] I plead with you almighty God to open our eyes as your people to see the riches that we have in Jesus to enlighten our hearts and our understanding to see and to perceive in the full assurance that you have adopted us as sons and daughters into the kingdom of heaven Jesus is our mighty savior and king we are sons and daughters of the king of kings and you have not left us deficient in what we need to fulfill what you have called us to but you have given us our sufficient savior father you have given us our sufficient scripture in order to take us through this life in a way that is pleasing to you so that we truly are living out what you have made us to be a holy people a holy people and so we pray God help your people now in our weakness and in our frailty help our unbelief help us in the things that we struggle with help us almighty

[69:18] God to pull into this wonderful way of having you as it were reach down and tenderly hold our chin and lift our faces to heaven and say look unto me look unto me and I will give you rest father help us to do that and help us to help others do that I pray for our counseling center that we are already off the ground and establishing here at grace I pray that you will help us to help your people and others who are coming from our community to receive the kind of soul care that points them to Jesus and helps them to embrace the truth and to find in him an all sufficient savior and to find in the word of God an all sufficient answer for all of the issues that they face so help us to deal with the heart help us to deal with the soul the very thing that secular psychology and psychiatry and all of the other people helping ways of the world miss they miss the heart they miss the soul they miss the very thing that will survive this world and go on to face you help us to help each other

[70:45] God help us to minister and to speak the truth in love because we've learned to love the savior whose truth it is in his name we pray and for his glory amen