The Reward of our Salvation
2 Peter 1:8‑11
Father, again this morning with a sense of holy awe, we come to Your precious truth knowing that we are inadequate to understand it in ourselves and utterly dependent upon Your Spirit. So teach us, Lord, what You'd have us to know from this portion of Your revelation. And may we learn it well so that it changes us to make us more like You would have us to be and we'll thank You in Christ's name, amen.
Turn with me, if you will, to 2 Peter chapter 1...2 Peter chapter 1. We started a couple of weeks ago upon return from our sabbatical just to share with you some things from the heart and in preparing to do that, I was studying 2 Peter chapter 1 and it seemed as though Peter began to frame my thinking. Peter gave me the words that in myself I couldn't say. He pulled it all together for me and so what began really as just sharing out of this chapter has turned into a careful look at the chapter, at least in my own heart. And the Lord has really begun to open it to my understanding and it's been a special joy to share it with you. I never had intended to do a series on the first chapter of 2 Peter, but that's what its become. And I trust God in His infinite judgment that it is His plan.
And you'll notice that we took as kind of the basic verse that unlocks the chapter the twelfth verse where Peter says, "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and are established in the present truth."
In other words, Peter says my ministry is a ministry of reminding you. It is a ministry of remembrance. And we noted that in verse 12 he says, "Remembrance of these things." And that takes us backwards, the "wherefore" takes us back and the "these things" takes us back. And what he wants us to remember are the things listed in the first eleven verses.
And then if you go down to verse 15, he says, "Moreover I will endeavor that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance." It's as if the "these things" of verse 15 push us into the remainder of the chapter. So you have a "wherefore" and "these things" in verse 12, and you have a "moreover" and "these things" in verse 15 as if the "these things" of verse 12 are the first part of the chapter and the "these things" of verse 15 are the "moreover" or the second part of the chapter.
What I'm saying is that right in the middle Peter says what he's doing and then he does it surrounding in the verses that fill out the chapter. He calls us to remember. I told you that after so many years of discovery at Grace Church that we had laid the foundation and taught the basic principles and I suppose faced a crossroads of two things, either to go on to somewhere else and do that again or to stay and begin a ministry of remembrance. And the Lord in His wonderful providence brought me to this chapter and affirmed in my heart that His commitment is that we stay here and begin the ministry of remembrance, to teach you what you already know and to bring to your mind what you have already had established.
And as I began to think about that, it seems like week has gone by after week and I began to see more and more in the Bible about this whole area of remembering. Jesus said to the Twelve, for example, "Remember the word that I said unto you." Paul said to the Ephesian elders, "Remember the words of our Lord Jesus." Peter said to the Jews, "And then remembered I the word of the Lord." And John records that when Jesus was risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this. And they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus spoke.
Jude said to his readers, "I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this..." And then further Jude said, "Remember thee the words which were spoken before by the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ." In the third chapter of 2 Peter and the first verse, it says, "This second epistle, beloved, I know write unto you in which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance."
I think James put it another way. In chapter 1 verse 22 he said, "But be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving your ownselves, for if any be a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror, he beholds himself, goes his way and immediately forgets what manner of man he was. But whosoever looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed."
It isn't enough to look and turn away, you'll forget what you saw. But if you look and continue to look and continue to look, you'll remember what you saw. And thus it's important that you be reminded to remember.
You say, "Well, I've got these things so well established, I question whether I need much of a reminder." Well may I offer you a very interesting illustration? Turn in your Bible to 2 Timothy...2 Timothy. Second Timothy may well be the last epistle of the beloved Apostle Paul, his swan song. And he writes it to a young man in whom he has placed a great amount of trust, whom he loves, whom he cherishes, whom he considers his son in the faith, a young man who has had the best of all that life could give in preparation for spiritual effectiveness, a young man whose mother and grandmother, Lois and Eunice, were godly, virtuous, righteous women and who thus had instructed him in the Scriptures from the time of his childhood. He then had the amazing occasion of being called by the Apostle Paul himself to be his companion, to travel with him to be discipled by him, to be nurtured by him, to be taught by him. And he spent years with him.
And Paul invested all that he had in that young man. He taught Timothy all he could teach him about the revelation of God. He taught him all he could teach him about the effectiveness of ministry. He taught him all he could teach him about power. Paul was able to manifest in the presence of Timothy the signs and wonders and mighty deeds of an Apostle. He saw miracles, he saw ministries that were beyond human description. He saw it all. And not only that, but he felt the touch of God in his own life as he preached and ministered with great power. He had the marvelous occasion to be Paul's understudy and to pastor churches that Paul himself had founded. He was a man who had the best that everyone could get.
And you add to what he received from Paul and what he received from his parents and his grandparents, what he received from God. He had tremendous giftedness. He had capacities that seemed to be unlimited. He could preach. He could teach. He could evangelize. He had it all. And now what would be the sort of the sunum bonum of his life, the great reality of effective ministry, and something's gone wrong...something's happened. Has he forgotten? But could he forget? How? When he had so much from a child.
Well, let's look at see. Verse 7, chapter 1, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear." Now wait a minute. Fear? Timothy? What's he afraid of? The word literally means "timidity." God hasn't made us timid. If you're timid, Timothy, you're functioning in the flesh. God didn't do that. God doesn't function that way. God doesn't produce fear, intimidation, timidity. But God produces power, love, a sound mind. God helps you get it together. And if you're falling apart and you're impotent, it isn't God. I sense the implication here is that something has happened. Something has happened. Timothy is faultering. I believe he's at a low ebb. I believe 2 Timothy is an utterly crucial letter to restore a young man who is really faultering in his faith. He has become unproductive. He has become weak. And Paul speaks to the issue.
Verse 8, "Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord." Now that's shocking. The implication is that there was a sense of shame. He got tired of being identified with Jesus Christ and taking all the flack and the abuse. And, I mean, he wasn't down at the ground level with the folks, he was up there shooting on the front lines and having to battle the philosophers and the religionists and the God haters. And he got a little tired of it maybe.
And then he became ashamed even of Paul. "Nor of me as prisoner," he says. I mean, when you get to the place in your Christian life where you're ashamed of the Lord, and you're ashamed to be identified with people who love Christ, you're really at a low ebb, wouldn't you say? And he was timid and fearful to speak out.
Now I see thirdly there in verse 8 that he even got to the point where he was unwilling to make the necessary sacrifice to preach the gospel with power. He says, "Be a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God who saved us and called us." Timothy, you can't...you can't say well it's tough, so I'm not going to do it. In chapter 2, Paul says in verse 3, "You should endure hardness as a good soldier and you've got to do it to please the commander, not the ones that you're being attacked by." You don't have to please men. You're going to have to give yourself to this.
Imagine, Timothy...timid, powerless, loveless, impotent, ashamed, didn't want to be identified with the world's greatest prisoner, Paul. Unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices, his commitment level was at a low ebb. And Paul says to him, "You know, I suffer these things. I suffer them," verse 12, "but I'm not ashamed. Why should you be?" And verse 3 of chapter 2 literally translates, "Thou therefore suffer hardship along with me as a good soldier," I'm doing it. "Let my life be an example to yours and you can surely be of persuaded that He's able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." God will sustain you in it.
And then you know what's really shocking? Apparently Timothy began to vaccilate in his doctrine. He was so fearful of what was going on around him that he didn't want to be bold anymore and so he began to kind of change the message to fit the crowd. Verse 13, Paul says, "Hold fast the form of sound words which you heard from me." Don't change the message. Don't accommodate your society. Don't fit the situation. That good thing that was committed unto you, keep it...keep it.
I get the picture that he was even looking away from the ministry. Verse 15, "This thou knowest that all they who are in Asia turned away from me of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes." Don't you do it. You feel that almost pathos in Paul's heart. Hey, everybody else has left me, don't you leave me. He says, "The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain." He wasn't ashamed of me that I was always in prison.
And I really think that Timothy got to the place where he was even on the verge of losing his faith in God. Verse 13 of chapter 2, Paul says to him, "If we believe not, yet He remains faithful, He can't deny Himself. You may lose your grip on God at some point but He'll never lose His grip on you." He has a sort of an ebbing waning faith.
And you know what? I guess maybe he even wasn't very faithful in studying the Word of God. And so in verse 15, Paul says, you better be diligent or study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed. You better get back to the book.
Now this guy's in the ministry. And he's timid and powerless and loveless and ashamed of Christ and Paul and unwilling to make a commitment that means a sacrifice and he's vaccilating in his doctrine and he's looking away from the ministry. And he's even beginning to fight over his own faith. And he's failing to pursue the study as he should. And verse 16, he's involved in profane and vain babblings. In other words, he's fooling around with liberals and he's talking to the religionists and the philosophers.
Now I don't know how deeply he was involved in this but these seem to be indications of some real problems. He said, "These people's word eats like a gangrene," verse 17, stay away from that. He was fooling with the Christless false teachers. That's why in verse 21, Paul says, "If a man therefore purge himself from these, he'll be a vessel unto honor." And who are these? That modifies the gangrenous false prophets. You have to purge yourself from those...those dishonorable men, those erroneous men. And verse 23 he says, "Those foolish and unlearned questions, you should avoid."
And Timothy lost apparently some of his humility. He was becoming defensive. Verse 24, "The servant of the Lord must not fight," is what it means, "but be gentle in meekness." Timothy was becoming defensive and fighting, argumentative. Verse 22, "Flee youthful lusts." Apparently he was being pulled by the power of those youthful lusts.
And I think over in chapter 3 verse 14, Paul says to him, "Look, evil men are going to get worse and persecution is going to get worse, Timothy, don't quit. Hang on to the things you've learned and been assured of. Hold on to all scripture which is given by inspiration of God." I mean, the guy was beginning to let go of the foundation, the Word of God.
And then in chapter 4, of all things, in verse 1, "I charge you," and this is really strong language, "therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ," now that doesn't sound like just advice, I mean that is laying it on really heavy. "I charge you, preach the Word." Get out of that wrangling about theology and religion and profane and vain babblings. Preach the Word. Be diligent in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long‑suffering and doctrine because you don't have much time. I mean, the guy was kind of folding it up in the pulpit. In verse 5 he says, you watch everything and you take suffering, and you do the work of an evangelist and you make full proof of your ministry. This is really a powerful letter.
Four times in this letter Paul hints at the idea that Timothy was coming to a place of abandoning him. Verse 8 of chapter 1, he says, "Don't be ashamed of me." Verse 15 of chapter 1, he says, "Everybody else has turned away from me." Chapter 4 verse 10, "For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world." And back in chapter 2 verse 4, "No man that wars entangles himself with the affairs of this world." He says don't you get into what Demas got into. He left me.
Chapter 4 verse 16, "At my first defense, no man stood with me but all men forsook me." I get a pathos in this that Paul is saying to Timothy, "hey, don't do this to me...don't do this to God."
What's the solution to get him back on track? I think it's very simple. Chapter 1 verse 6, in order to go forward you have to go backward. "Wherefore I put thee in...what?...remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee." In other words, Timothy, remember that affirmation of a Spirit‑given gift affirmed unto you by the laying on of apostolic hands which was the custom then. Remember that. You have that power and that gift and that affirmation.
And then in 2:14 he calls on Timothy to go back and to even put his people in remembrance. And in chapter 3 verse 14, continue in the things you've already learned and been assured of.
But the capstone is in chapter 2 verse 8. If you never remembered anything but this, it would be enough. Remember, here's the Greek rendering, remember Jesus Christ born of the seed of David, risen from the dead according to my gospel for which I suffer trouble as an evil doer, even unto bonds, but the Word of God is not bound. He says‑‑Look, when the tough times come and you want to quit and you bail out and you start to fall apart, remember Jesus Christ born of the seed of David...born of the seed of David is His humanity, risen from the dead is His deity.
In other words, remember Jesus in His sympathy as a man, in His power as God, is all available to you. And go and preach, the Word is not bound.
Now what am I saying? I'm saying simply this, that the best of us can forget...the best of us can forget. Back to 2 Peter chapter 1. And I want you to watch carefully what I'm going to say this morning, believing that this is what the Spirit of God has put in this passage and knowing how important it is, there's a sense of urgency in my heart as I speak.
Now we understand why Peter says remember, because if you forget, all kinds of disastrous things happen...as they did to Timothy.
What are we to remember? Well, verse 12 says to put you in remembrance of these things. What things? Well, we said that the "wherefore" takes us back into the first eleven verses. The first thing we're to remember is the reality of our salvation...the reality of our salvation, verses 1 and 2. That we have obtained or been given by divine allotment a like precious faith, through the righteousness in God and our Savior Jesus Christ, that we have had grace and peace multiplied unto us through a deep knowledge, a genuine knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
In other words, don't forget your salvation. Remember your salvation. Remember that it came from God, that you have a faith of equal value that gave you an equal standing, that multiplies unto you grace and peace. Remember the reality and the greatness of your salvation. Don't ever forget.
I think that's why the Lord gave us this table so that we would remember and remember and remember and remember whose children we are and what God has done for us. I think it's so wonderful and we sing the hymns about our salvation and we hear messages again and again about it so that we would never ever forget to whom we belong and never forget the extent to which God went to redeem us and the magnanimous nature of His love in expression at Calvary.
Secondly, we are not only to remember the reality of our salvation, we are to remember the riches of our salvation. Not just that we were saved, but what it means to be saved. And verses 3 and 4, that it has been given to us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, that we have received great and precious promises exceedingly great and precious promises, that we have been made partakers of the divine nature. We have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
We talked about that, didn't we? Incredible dimension of riches that are ours in Christ. And we said that the word "glory" and the word "life" refer to the internal. The word "godliness," the word "virtue," the external. We have all things that pertain to spiritual life to transform us on the inside and to manifest that transformation on the outside. We have it all. All in Christ. All spiritual blessings complete in Him, able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think, according to the power that works in us. If you go around with a sense of impotence, you've forgotten the riches of your salvation. You can confront any situation in the power of God.
Thirdly, and we looked at this in detail last time, the responsibility of our salvation. That's so easy to forget. We say, "O, the Lord has done it all for me." And then you just kind of sit back and do nothing. But that's what comes baring into our hearts in verse 5. "Because of this, give all diligence and add to your faith." God has done it all and yet we have all we can do to add to it.
What an amazing and mysterious paradox. And we are to add virtue. What does that mean? Excellence and excellence as far as the excellence of a man is concerned is to be like Christ, the perfect man. And to excellence we add knowledge, and that means practical wisdom, a living goodness. And to knowledge we add self‑control which is breaking the will to sin. And to that we add patience which is persevering courage that never gives up. It's like Ephesians 6, having done all to stand. And we add to patience godliness, eusebeia, reverence, awe, a sense of the awareness of God's presence. And to that we add brotherly kindness which is deep compassionate friendship, caring for one another. And to that we add love which is self‑sacrificing, humble service.
In other words, we are to add these things, have you forgotten? Have you thought that all you have to do is go to church? All you have to do is just hold your Bible once in a while on Sunday? Throw it on a shelf the rest of the week? Make little or no investment and you're all right forever? Then you've forgotten the responsibility of your salvation.
Fourthly, Peter says I don't want you to forget the result and the reward of your salvation...the reward of your salvation. What is it that God wants to reward you with in your life? What is it God wants to produce? Verse 8, this is so good, "For if these things," there's that same phrase, "these things" again as over in verse 12, "if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren or unfruitful in the deep knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Now listen to what he's saying. When in your life all of these things previous elements are true, faith and virtue and knowledge and self‑control and patience and godliness and brotherly love and love, when all of these things are manifest, what happens? You are neither barren nor unfruitful. Therefore the reward of your salvation to which he speaks is your fruitfulness. God wants to produce in you fruitfulness. But He can't do it unless you follow the pattern in the previous verses.
Now look at the word in verse 8 "abound." If these things be in you and abound. Fascinating word. It literally means to grow and to increase...to grow and to increase. There's an interesting translation in the intransitive use of this verb which gives it the meaning "to have more than is necessary." And I think that's a most interesting use. To have more than is necessary. In other words, there ought to be enough fruit in your life to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt to whom you belong. God is not interested in marginal manifestation.
Now you look at some Christians and you say, "Well, I just...every once in a while I see a shriveled grape, but I can't be sure. I mean, there seems to be some productivity...and then there's not..." God isn't in that marginal stuff. The manifestation of fruitfulness in a believer's life should be that which is more than is necessary to prove the point.
The reason some people have so hard a time figuring out what Christianity's all about is because there are Christians who manifest no fruit. They make the claim but there's nothing there to support it and that's very confusing. But the transitive sense of the verb means to bring forth in abundance, to bring forth in great increase or to become rich.
See, if you are in your life rich in faith, rich in virtue, rich in knowledge, rich in self‑control and patience and godliness and brotherly kindness and love, if there is more than is necessary of this, then there will be in your life the product of fruitfulness. Where these things are in abundance and where they increase, they evidence a true epignosis for you're not barren and you're not unfruitful.
Now listen, these two words are very potent and I want you to watch them carefully. First of all, the word "barren." Most fascinating. I decided to trace that word through the New Testament this week and find out what I could about it. And I found something very interesting. The word is argos. It means "useless or unproductive." It is used in the New Testament eight times...eight times. Sometimes it is used in a secular sense in the New Testament and there it means to be unemployed. It's translated very often by the word "idle." And a person who is employed is not idle, it is used to speak of an unemployed individual who is absolutely no good to society. In fact, in