Oct. 4 – 2 Peter 1:1-4, “Granted to Us All Things”

Oct. 11 – 2 Peter 1:5-11, "Confirm Your Calling and Election”

Oct. 18 – Guest Preacher, Jim Thomas

Oct. 25 – 2 Peter 1:12-21, “We Have the Prophetic Word”

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We are taught from a young age that our nation is a meritocracy – people get what they earn. This is generally a good and true principle. Indeed, the United States of America has been blessed with vast natural resources. But the great source of American wealth has always been earned through the labor of her people. The massive financial crisis of 2008-9 was largely due to financial investors seeking to circumvent the traditional method of attaining wealth – work for it – and seek instead to gamble on “credit default swaps.” We often see ads that promote various “get rich quick” schemes, and we rightly dismiss them. We have been trained to work hard for what we have, then to save and invest wisely. 

 

I think perhaps this might lead to a resistance to the biblical reality of God’s grace. Shaped by our culture, we tend to develop a natural allergic reaction to grace. It sounds too good to be true! “You mean to tell me that God is willing to just take all the bad things I’ve ever done upon himself and, in exchange, give me the perfect righteousness that Jesus earned? No way!” But the Bible repeatedly insists that, in spite of our open rebellion to God’s will, he loved us so much that he sent his only Son to die for our sins and to give us abundant and eternal life. 

                                                                                                

Some folks hear this news and say, “Right, but all that’s for good people. I’m not good. You don’t know the terrible things I’ve done in my life.” But that’s the whole point of grace! “Good” people don’t need grace. When Jesus was seen hanging out with notorious sinners, the religious people of his day, the Pharisees, couldn’t believe it. “Why is he eating with them?” Mark 2:17 records Jesus’ reply, “And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

 

The irony is that the religious people were in the same boat as the worldly sinners. In the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), Jesus tells us about a son who ran off from home and indulged a sinful lifestyle, only to repent and return home to his loving father who embraced him and threw him a party. Meanwhile, the older, “good” brother resented his father and refused to go in to the party. Tim Keller reminds us that there are two ways to be far from the heart of the Father – through sinful indulgence or through moral performance that seeks to justify ourselves. Romans 3:23-24 assure us, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

                                                                                                

But grace is not only the unmerited pardon for our sins. God’s undeserved favor is also the power of God to live like a Christian. In 1 Corinthians 15:10, the apostle Paul says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” 

                                                                                                

In our sermon texts for this month, in the first chapter of 2 Peter, we’ll see how God’s grace is the foundation for a life of godliness. If you’re a Christian, then God's grace didn’t simply forgive you; it enables you now to live, serve, endure, obey, persevere, and, one day, to reach your glorious inheritance. God’s grace in the past has obtained our salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection. God’s grace in the present sustains us in our Christian journey. And God’s grace in the future assures us that God will finish the good work he started in us. My prayer is that 2 Peter would function like good medicine to guard against  our grace allergies. Let’s give up trying to be “good” on our own and allow God’s grace to take the reins of our lives, empowering us each day to follow Christ with all that we are. 

 

Grace and peace,​