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Where We’re Going
Our passage teaches us that human beings have an amazing destiny: to participate in the divine nature. This idea goes back to Genesis. We are made in the image of God. God is the most glorious being who is creative, all wise, loving, powerful, and good, and the overflowing fountain of all good. Human beings are made to reflect that glory in a very unique way.
Now, how can human beings participate in the divine nature? Have you ever been walking along on a sunny day and not been looking up into the sun, then it’s like the rays of the sun come into your eye, and you have to look away. How can this be? Well, the sun’s light reflects off of a metal surface, and it’s like the light of the sun. That’s sort of the way that humans participate in the divine nature.
That’s the image that Peter saw when he was on the mountain of transfiguration and saw Jesus shining like the sun. He said:
For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
Jesus provides a glimpse of His coming in glory. He also provides a glimpse of our coming glory. Those who belong to Jesus will shine like stars in the heavens to all eternity.
Thinking about this glorious destiny of human beings, though, inevitably makes us realize that human beings often do not reflect the glory of God. Instead, they experience “the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Pet. 1:4). Instead of becoming what we are supposed to be, we are “corrupted.” Every few years, I get a new lawn mower, it seems. When I first get it, it runs just fine. However, by the next season, it doesn’t run as well. It’s been corrupted. Now, no doubt this is due in part to my failure to maintain it properly, so I don’t want you to become too angry at the lawn mower. However, that’s the idea of the corruption. It’s not working correctly for the purpose for which it was intended. That’s corruption.
That’s how human beings are, too. How do they get corrupted and not working properly? Our text says: “through evil desires.” We want the wrongs things, and we want the right things in the wrong way. to the wrong degree, and at the wrong time. Food, drink, sex, and other pleasures are good. In the right place. When we want them too much, it keeps us focused on something that should not be the focus of our lives. Taking a vacation is good, for example, but we can get angry when we don’t get one. We can envision the vacation we’d like to have and then get upset because it’s not what we wanted. Work is good, but work can be exalted at the expense of our marriage, our health, and our families. Knowledge is good, but we can focus on knowing the wrong things. Our ability to see the big picture often makes us more confident that we know the truth than we should be. Religion is good, but it is corrupted when it becomes a tool of our pride and causes contempt of other people. Almost anything we get our hands on becomes a tool of our corruption through evil desires.
So, we’ve got a glorious destiny, but we continually find ourselves corrupted and going in the exact opposite direction.
How We Get There
What are we to do? How do we get back to that glorious destiny? How do we become the glorious beings God has created us to be? The answer is that God intervenes. “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature . . .” (2 Pet. 1:3–4). I want you to note that God’s divine power has given us everything we need for a life that reflects His glory and to fulfil our destiny. A godly life is one where we love God, where He is our chief desire, and where we keep loving our neighbor, without losing our joy or peace. God has given us everything we need to do this. God has called us out of our corruption to experience a life of joy and peace in Him.
Now, why would God do this? It is by His own glory and goodness. It is His grace. It is His gift. He didn’t have to do it. He didn’t have to deliver us from our corruption, but He decided to do it. He did it for His own glory and to show forth His goodness. If anyone is called to be a child of God, let that person give thanks to God. As the old hymn expresses praise to God, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
I want you to notice something very important here. How did God call us out of this corruption and into a participation in the divine nature? It is through a call. It is His voice. It is His Word. He calls us to leave the life of corruption and return to Him and experience that glory. And that’s how we continue to participate in the divine nature. It is through His great and precious promises. It is through His Word. We shall return to this in a moment, but listen carefully. God is calling you to the glorious destiny of participating in the divine nature? Is that what you want? What could you want that is better?
But let’s get back to our text. If it is by God’s divine power that we are brought out of corruption, does that mean that we do nothing? Do we just sit back and wait for God to transform us? If that thought may occur to us, it did not seem at all to have occurred to Peter. In fact, He says the exact opposite: “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love” (2 Pet. 1:5–7). Make every effort, he says:
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Instead of being passive, we should make every effort. This will keep us fruitful and productive. It will align us with what God is doing. It will enable us to enter heaven on a full run, whenever the Lord chooses to take us!
But what kind of effort? How do we become the good, temperate, godly, loving people God has called us to be? I think the people to whom Peter was writing would have understood this. They would have recognized that to become excellent or virtuous people would mean that you would need practice and work over time. In the natural world, they would have understood that you can become a good fisherman, metal worker, musician, poet, or soldier. Just not today. You can’t become that all at once. It takes time and labor. You can develop excellence over the months and years. That’s how humans grow.
Think of running a marathon. How many of you could run a marathon today? Some of you, perhaps. But how many of you could do it if you tried real hard? Probably not much difference. It’s the sort of thing that requires training, and the right type of training over the right amount of time.
That’s how godly characteristics are developed in cooperation with the grace of God. We have to train and make every effort, but we have to make the right kind of effort. That’s what this series is about. We need to do the right kind of training. God has given us tools that will train us in the right way. These include such things as meditation on the Word of God, prayer, the sacraments, serving, and relationships. What this passage specifically points us to is making use of the Word of God as a tool of transformation.
How We Use the Word
Note that our text begins by saying, “Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” We experience that grace and peace by knowing God the Father and Jesus our Lord.
That’s why Peter wrote this letter. He wanted to remind them about Jesus and His glory:
So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.
We can only keep a few things in our mind on a regular basis. So, what is it that we are keeping in our mind? Peter says that it is Jesus Christ and His glory that we should think about. And where do we learn about this? In His Word. That’s why each one of us should make a practice of reading the Bible on a regular basis. It’s not just a duty, but it’s a way of keeping the knowledge of God in our minds so that we can experience its blessings.
I strongly suggest that you have a regular time each day that you devote to it. Even if you are busy with other things, make the Word of God a part of your daily routine. If you miss one day, then the next day is a new day. It is a new day to begin again in fellowship with the knowledge of God. Why not write down today what time you think would be best for you to read the Word of God at the end of this sermon?
But it’s not enough to read it. We’ve got to meditate on what we’ve learned. Remember that God has given us great and precious promises to enable us to participate in the divine nature. We should make the promises of God the key tool in our tool chest. It unlocks the doors of heaven. It should be our nourishment day and night. It is like a light shining in a dark place. As we experience that light, we begin to shine with the glory of Jesus, even if outwardly we are still in a dying body.
But let me try to make this concrete for you. What would this look like? How would this transform us?
Sometimes in the midst of a busy life, I worry that I won’t be able to simply enjoy life. When I get extremely busy, I start to fear that the busy-ness will just consume me. I won’t be able to enjoy anything. A few years ago, I was reading what God said to Adam and Eve in the Garden. There was a simple phrase, “And He blessed them.” Through that, God taught me that His basic disposition is not to work me like a slave but to bless me. Over and over again, I have found that in the midst of the busy-ness, God will provide me relief and enjoyment. He will say as He said to His disciples, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31). Each day, whatever happens, I can say, what does God want for me? He wants to bless me. I have been reminded of this recently through the words of the prophet Haggai, “From this day on I will bless you” (Haggai 2:19).
Here’s another example. A doctor I knew was really struggling with his relationship with one of his children. This went on for years. Finally, He began to see other possibilities through the grace of God and His unconditional acceptance rather than simply trying to control the relationship. The new patterns began to change the relationship. Then, he started to grieve. He said, “I had wasted all these years doing the wrong thing. What can I do to make up for it?” Then, he read something in the prophet Joel that taught Him something about God. God said, “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25). This assured him that God was a God who restores and that what had been lost could be restored. That’s why it’s worth reading the whole Bible. You might skip over Joel, but here is a promise that teaches us something about God and enables you to participate in the divine nature.
A good example of this is the story we looked at in Genesis 16 of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. It is a sad story of family dissolution. In the end, Hagar is transformed by the knowledge of God. She gets the courage to go back and serve Sarah because she sees the God who sees her. I talked to several people who were encouraged by that thought. “I am not unnoticed,” they said. “I see the God who sees me.” When we feel like we are invisible like Hagar, we can be assured that God sees us. This will cause us to lessen our desire to get others to see us and open up the door to simply serve.
I was talking to a person not too long ago about a time of waiting. All of a sudden one day, God reminded that person of the ark. The rain had subsided. The flood was receding. They still had to wait in the ark for a several months. This encouraged that person with the reminder in God’s Word that we often have to wait, but we don’t have to wait forever. God will bring us through trials and there will be days of rain that will be followed by days of sunshine. That’s the power for transformation that is contained in the stories of the Bible.
One last example. I was talking to another person who told me about a real injustice they had experienced. I mean, it was really bad, and it involved a lot of money and resources that had been saved up for a long time. Someone had stolen it all from them. This person was justifiably angry. But what do we do with that anger? How do we moderate our anger in the face of such terrible injustices? We can hear the Word of God, “Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord. “I will repay.” In other words, God sees these injustices, too, and He will make it right in a satisfying way in the end. We can trust Him, even when we see gross injustice. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to defend our rights. It just means that we have somewhere to go with our feelings other than just frustration.
My friends, that is why the Word of God is such a great tool of transformation. It gives an answer to all the things we struggle with. It tells us that God will not withhold anything truly good that is needed from His loved ones. As we make this the meditation of our heart, we lean into what God is doing in our hearts and lives and prepare for eternal glory. It is no mere word of human beings. It is the Word of God. So, let’s each resolve to submit to this commendation of the Apostle Peter, given by the Holy Spirit: “We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:19).