| |
March 12, 2006
|
2 Peter
|
Pastor Brian Shimer
|
|
"God's Recipe: Add knowledge"
2 Peter 1: 1-11; Ephesians 4: 7-24
- If I were to teach you a tap dance, I would have to first teach you to do the step and then could connect the steps (with the help of Dian Punzel) into some order to create a wonderful rhythm.
Once in that rhythm, the steps have been choreographed. That word, choreography, is like the word used by Peter here for the idea of "adding" to our faith. It is the idea of stepping upon the faith with yet this step. It is supplying our faith with ingredients that we can continue to mature.
The analogy breaks down though, for once a dance step is left behind to move to the next step, that first step is no longer there. It has been danced and left. However, Peter is saying to supply this next thing without losing the first. Faith is not diminished by adding goodness but is enhanced. So, we supply something new while growing in what was there.
Now the additions are not what we have to produce on our own. Remember, God is saying to us, he has given us the steps, and if we are going to mature in the faith we have to put them together into the choreography he has given us. It is what God puts into us that we bring out to add to our faith. We do not have to invent steps we do not have in us, but God has put himself into us, we are partakers in the divine nature, we have His very great and precious promises, we have been called by his own glory and goodness, so when we add to our faith we are adding what has been added to us.
So, last week we spoke of adding goodness. I tied that to beginning with our thinking about God, focusing on God's goodness. For the reality is that any thought does not just stay in our heads but will be made known through our bodies. So as we meditate on the great goodness of God, then God will work that goodness through our lives as well. The old evangelist had it right who said "whatever gets your attention, gets you."
- Now it makes sense if this first step involves the mind that the next one would as well. Not only do we think on the goodness of God, and then manifest that goodness in our lives as well but we also add knowledge to goodness.
Now we know that there are different kinds of knowledge. There is knowledge about something or someone and knowledge that is relational, it is the knowledge of our heart about someone. The first is about facts, about data, it is important. The second is about relationship. Peter here is meaning both kinds.
He wants his readers to grow in their knowledge of Jesus Christ. He begins and ends his book with this theme. The very last verse says to them, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…" To Peter in this book faith is the knowledge of God and of Jesus. So to add to our faith-goodness knowledge is to add more faith, it is to grow in our relationship with God.
Peter finds this important in this second letter of his to these Christians for he is warning them in this letter that there will be false teachers among them. This is does more in the 2nd and 3rd chapters than here. And he wants them to authentically know Jesus before they have such teachers infiltrating their lives. He wants them to know the truth - that that is what Jesus is, he is the truth personified.
Christian truth is not just ideas about something, but moreso, Truth is a person. We know truth by knowing the person. This is a far cry from what any other world religion can claim.
A couple weeks ago at midnight my daughter Grace and her roommates were packing to leave for Houston the next day in order to attend an Acquire the Fire event there. Grace and these roommates are interns at the honor Academy, a yearlong discipleship program aimed at reaching out to the youth of America to awaken them to the gospel.
Back to the story: One of her roommates reached to get her duffle off of the closet, fell, landed upon a glass on the floor. The glass shattered under her and she got a couple gashes in her behind.
The girls wrapped her in a towel and got into the car and raced into Tyler to the local hospital emergency room. There she received 15 stitches, but the reason for the incident seemed to unfold as the doctor was working on her. Grace commented that it was amazing to her that God could take brokenness in the body and heal it. The Doctor responded with saying, "yes, it is."
Grace followed up that observation by asking if he had seen witness to the power of God in his practice.
He said, "well, I have searched into all kinds of religions over the years and kind of have my own belief."
"Really. What have you discovered?" Grace asked.
"They all seem pretty similar," was his response.
"But have you found the truth?" Grace asked.
That stopped him. "Truth. Huh. I guess that is what I have been searching for."
So a stitch at a time Grace told him about Jesus, and the truth she has discovered in Him. It was a simply shared witness of faith and was a seed planted in the doctor's heart. No, he did not fall down that night and accept Jesus, but a seed was planted. The seed was possible to plant because when we know Jesus we know truth, and in knowing truth we can share that with people in the world who are searching for it.
- We can always grow in our knowledge of Jesus. Not only by reading our Bibles, by knowing what is said about God, about Jesus, but also by spending time with Jesus.
This weekend I was so thankful to "know the truth" for I read this novel that spent its time twisting truth. The main villain turned out to be a Catholic priest. The bad guys were made to look good. There was a major effort to make what is known to exist and be bad to actually be good. There were twists and turns throughout.
I read it because someone had loaned me the book and encouraged me to read it. I found it a fast read but so dark in many ways. When I walked away from the book, I was so glad to "know" Truth. That I don't just know about Jesus, but I know Jesus. He can cleanse my mind and he can set my thinking straight. When I look for Truth I need look no farther than Jesus.
Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free," (John 8:31) and that He would send the Holy Spirit who would "lead you into all truth," (John 16:13). So we both have truth and will be led into truth through relationship with Him.
We all know how we grow in friendships with people in our lives. We grow as we share together, tell stories, experience ups and downs, support one another, etc. There is no difference here. We grow in relationship with Jesus as we spend time with Him, as we learn to know him better through the Word and through time, in order that we go through hard and good times with Him and grow to know Him better and He us.
It is a process of growth.
And the amazing thing as we add goodness or add knowledge, we are never going to arrive at the end of adding either. The more we discover about the goodness of God, the more there is to discover. And the more knowledge we gain about and in Jesus, the more there is to know of Him.
So, add knowledge. Find ways to continue to grow your faith and as you do God can work in and upon you.
|
|
|