Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.18
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
Once again, we come to the close of a short epistle. I would encourage you to read the whole of the three chapters in one sitting. I think you will hear many of the
different things we have looked at but also will see them all in their context which is as helpful as it is lovely.
Before diving into the conclusion of the letter it is worthwhile to not that in verse 16 Peter refers to Paul’s writing as “Scripture”. This puts the writing of the
Apostle Paul on the same footing as the Old Testament Scriptures. This is early internal evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit being recognized early in the first century as our New Testaments were being written down by men, “carried along” by the Holy Spirit.
(1:21)
The final paragraph of Peter’s short letter summarizes the main point of the epistle as a whole. “Grow
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” is, in brief, what Peter began with in the opening verses of the letter. “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, and knowledge
with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” (1:5)
The teaching of the Bible is certainly that Christians should ‘grow’, learning more and more throughout the entirety of our lives a deeper experience with the Lord.
Holiness, godliness, the virtues of knowledge, self-control, steadfastness and love are not static, they are dynamic, that is they continue to grow deeper and deeper still. At least that is the way it is supposed to be.
This is not something that Peter alone thought. Think, for example, of Paul in Ephesians 4:15: “Rather, speaking the truth in love,
we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in
love.” Or Paul’s similar statement in Col. 1:10 in which Paul says that he prays for the Colossian believers precisely that
they may increase in the knowledge of the Lord.
When our eyes are opened to the wonders of Christ and the grace and mercy that we find in Him alone, a relationship begins that needs, as all relationships to be nourished,
cultivated, weeded, and protected until roots are sunk deep and the relationship begins to bear increasing amounts of fruit. Indeed, much of the Bible’s instruction in the Christian life is designed to create the inner and outer environments in which a Christian
will grow. All that the Bible says about our dependence upon one another, our use of spiritual gifts, our life of prayer, our study of the Word of God, our practice of the faith, even about the suffering that God has appointed for us, even the moral failures
that darken our lives…all of this is directed toward this one goal: an ever-deepening godliness and goodness to the glory of God!
The sobering reality however, is that this is not always the case for Christians. There are many believers today who are no different than they were 10 years ago.
There are many in the Bible of whom we would be forced to conclude that they began well but did not end so well. Solomon, Gideon, Asa or Hezekiah just to name a few. We see the same thing in the New Testament as well. Paul tells us of those who do their work
poorly, and not for the glory of the Lord. On the day of judgment, their work is destroyed. He himself is saved, but as through fire. (I Cor. 3)
Sadly there are many in our day who seem to have learned little to nothing over the course of their many years of their Christian lives. I have also noticed that a
lot of needless contention in the church is caused by people like that; people who never learn how to manage differences with grace and humility. So, let’s be sure that you and I do not miss the obvious. Peter finished his letter exhorting us to grow in the
grace and knowledge of the Lord because it is altogether possible that even a real Christian won’t or won’t very much! We must not be among them!
Of course, the question is, “how…how does a Christian continue to grow?” A couple of mistakes to avoid: First, we must not assume that growing in years and gray hair
automatically means growing in godliness. It should be this way, but alas it does not. But Peter isn’t saying that we will grow automatically or without any serious intention on our part.
He is commanding us to do something! And it seems to me that here is the key point. What Peter is asking of us is serious intention, a determination, a commitment to growth. We are not to take that growth for granted; we are to seek it.
Second, we must not assume that knowledge means growth, and by knowledge, I mean the accumulation of information about Jesus, Christian History and/or Theology. We
often talk about head knowledge and heart knowledge. When someone speaks this way, we know what they mean: A person knows things ABOUT Jesus in their head…but they don’t live it, they don’t have it in their heart. That may be helpful but it is not the way
the Bible speaks. The Bible does not make a difference between ‘head knowledge and heart knowledge’. To know the Lord, to know things ABOUT the Lord is to love Him, adore Him, and desire His will to be done in one’s life. The Bible would say of those who have
knowledge ABOUT the Lord but are not faithful to Him, that they, “Don’t know the Lord.” So, when we are admonished to grow in the ‘knowledge of the Lord’ we are not being called to learn facts about Christian theology, as helpful as that may be. We
are being called to live faithfully in godliness. We are being called to mature, to become masters of Christian living.
At this point one may be expecting the answer to ‘how do we grow’ to sound quite typical: Pray, read your Bible, be faithful in worship where God’s presence is experienced
as it is at no other time. Those things are of course true and necessary…most necessary. But perhaps our ‘growth’ can begin with the cultivation of two practices, (virtues): Thankfulness and remembering.
Begin and live in the world of gratitude to the Lord. Gratitude for the life He has given, for the salvation that is yours. Thankfulness that for some reason unbeknownst
to you, God has placed His name and His love upon you…and for nothing good in you! Why? Why would the Lord love you? Why exhibit the kind of patience toward you that He has and continues to show? Why notice you??? But He has! Thank Him, as hard as it might
be, for your trials…your sorrows…thank Him because you believe Him that these are instruments to drive you to a deeper dependence upon Him…to help you grow.
And then, Remember. Remember all His mercies. Recount them, over and over. Tell others how thankful you are to your Father for all His gifts and mercies. Remember
the answered prayers, remember the unanswered ones as well. Remember His commandments, which are simply the instructions of love. Remember them…to do them, to walk in them. Remember, that His commands are not a burden, they are life.
Friends, we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Savior…but maybe it is better put: We GET to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Savior. The simple truth
is the more we know Him, the closer we walk with Him, the more wonderful He is, the more loved we know ourselves to be and the more we desire to please Him in all things!
Prayer: Father, by your grace I ask that I may grow more and more in my relationship with You. I want to know You more deeply and to have a living experience of
walking with You in faithfulness until I walk with You, no longer in faith but by sight when Jesus comes in His glory. Do this great work for the glory of Your holy Name, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Ok, not a hymn but a gospel song! Enjoy!
Just a Closer Walk with Thee
