Grow In Your Love For The Truth

Amen.

Thank you, Alan, for that.

You know, every time I hear a preacher sing, I think you guys got a raw deal with me.

That's why I try to dress nice and wear boutane ears and try to distract you from my deficiencies.

If you have your Bible with you, would you open it to 2 Peter chapter 3?

2 Peter 3 · chapter mention

We are going to be looking at verses 15 and 16 today.

As we work our way through this epistle, we uh pick up here at the end of chapter 3, verse 15.

And it says, An account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, has written unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest, as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction.

Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you today so thankful for the blood of Jesus Christ that makes the way open to us.

We know that we do not have an audience with you because of any merit of our own, but only because we stand in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Father, we're so thankful that not only did you send your Son to us, but you sent your word and that we have a clear word from heaven directly from you that will guide us and instruct us, correct us and shape us.

Father, I pray that the ministry of your word would go forth today unhindered.

And we know that it will do what you designed it to do.

And so my prayer today is that we, Lord, would be complicit in that work, that we would be compliant when it seeks to do that work in our lives.

And so, Lord, I pray and ask that you'd help me to be a faithful minister of your word today.

And I pray that in Jesus' name.

Amen.

These verses have a direct connection to the previous verses.

If you remember last week we talked about how verse 3 through 14, Peter directs his attention to the second coming of Jesus Christ.

And so obviously, these verses continue on about the promise of the second coming of Christ and its long delay.

It lingers or awaits a long time.

And Peter reiterates that the delay is an act of God's long suffering.

That it is not an act of God's delinquency, but it's an act of his long suffering in order to give more people time to get saved.

He's not willing that any would perish, but that all would come to repentance.

You can think of it this way: it's a grace period.

And literally, that's the dispensation that we're in.

We're in the age of grace in which God is showing us unprecedented grace, and that grace is the free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ to all who will believe.

And so the reason, if you wonder sometimes, why does Jesus delay his return?

The answer is because of grace.

He wants more people to have an opportunity to get saved.

To confirm this, Peter cites the writings of the Apostle Paul and states that they say the same thing, right?

Our beloved brother Paul writes about these same things as I have written about.

He also points out that there are critics of Paul's writings.

He said there's some that try to twist them and wrestle with them and turn them into other things.

But what is most significant is that Peter clearly and without qualification states that the writings of Paul are inspired scripture on par with the established scripture of the Old Testament and the Gospels.

I cannot tell you how big of a statement that is.

That though Peter is citing Paul to reinforce and confirm what he has just said, that the other apostles say it too, what I find so significant is that he says Paul's writings are scripture.

And he sets them on the same shelf with the canon of the Old Testament and with the Gospels that had been written.

It is significant to know that all of the books of Paul had been written at this point in time.

So at the time that Peter writes this letter, Paul has penned all of his letters.

And so the jury is not still out.

It's not as if, hey, maybe some of Paul's letters weren't inspired.

No.

Peter has the whole collection and he says, these are inspired scripture.

Now, I want you to understand something about the process of inspiration.

It did not happen all at one time.

In other words, God didn't just drop the whole Bible down at one time from Genesis to Revelation.

It was a progressive revelation that took place over about 1,500 years.

And primarily it begins with Moses back in the Old Testament as he begins to write Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

And it concludes with the Apostle John writing the revelation.

That is about 1,500 years.

And so until that last book is written, the Revelation was not complete.

But at this time, when Peter writes, though the New Testament's not completed, John is yet to write his books, the Old Testament, the entire Old Testament, has been completed.

It has already been canonized by the time of Christ.

In fact, Jesus affirms the canon of the Old Testament scripture.

Sometimes as a pastor, I get the question well, how can I trust the Bible?

It has written a long time ago in different languages, and people monkey around with that, and you know they could have twisted it and used it.

How do we know?

How do you know?

And because that's the appeal we always make.

Well, the Bible says, right?

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible says God created the heaven and the earth.

The Bible says that God is holy.

And you say, well, how do you have confidence in the Bible?

Well, one of the reasons I have confidence in the Bible is because Jesus Christ had confidence in the Bible.

And when Jesus walks on the earth, he refers to the law and prophets, which was an epithet for the Old Testament, the inclusion of the entire canon.

You understand that that Old Testament had been completed for 400 years before Jesus came.

And so there had been four centuries of scrutiny.

There had been four centuries of people trying to take their shots at it.

And the canon had stood the test, and what emerged is the 39 books of the Old Testament, and Jesus affirms that those are divinely inspired Scripture.

In fact, Jesus quotes directly from 20 of the Old Testament books.

Direct quotations from 20 of them.

You say, well, I don't know if I believe the Bible.

I don't know if I believe that Genesis stuff.

Jesus did.

And so you're in a quandary.

If you don't believe Genesis, then you don't believe Jesus.

And if you don't believe Jesus, then you don't believe anything.

We cannot pick and choose.

It's not a la carte and say, well, I believe in the Jesus part, but I don't believe in that creation stuff, or I don't believe in that wrath stuff.

No, no.

Jesus is the one who affirms the Old Testament.

And so if we're going to believe in Jesus, we're going to believe what Jesus believed in.

And so by the time that Peter writes this letter, the Old Testament had long been completed, but the New Testament was still in the process of being revealed.

So at the time of Peter's writing, the Old Testament is there.

It's all done.

But the New Testament is still being written.

And so that is an ongoing process at this moment.

But what I also want you to realize and keep in mind is that there were other letters and books that were also being written during this time, but not all of them were inspired Scripture.

Sometimes we'll hear some news and say, well, we found this book and it's from this century and it bears this apostle's name and it's this and that, and so it's missing from the Bible.

No, listen, there were always ancillary writings that were happening during that time.

And some of them were from good and faithful brethren.

They just simply weren't inspired.

Others were from enemies of the gospel who were trying to distort it.

But I have confidence in the word of God that it's all there.

There's not any of it that is missing.

I don't need any other books to make sure that I've got it right.

I love what Mark Twain, who was not a believer, said about the Bible.

He says, what bothers me about the Bible is not the parts that I don't understand, it's the parts that I do understand.

And if people would stop worrying about what books they're missing and just start reading the books that they have, it would be life-changing for them.

And so I'm telling you, the Bible is sufficient.

And even during this time, there are letters that are being written.

So Peter is using discernment when he says that Paul's letters are scripture.

That's extremely significant that Peter makes that statement.

And no doubt Peter was inspired to write that.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

So I have no doubts that Peter's not just throwing his compadre, a compliment, but that the Holy Spirit of God has inspired Peter to declare that Paul's writings are scripture.

That is, that God didn't just speak every word, God inspired them to that.

Here's what I want you to see.

It's not mechanical dictation.

So when Peter says that Paul's writings are scripture, that's not mechanical dictation.

It's not that God just dictated that to Peter and Peter wrote it down.

Inspiration is God speaking through these individuals.

The Holy Spirit inspired it, but it comes through their personality.

It comes through their language.

It comes through the experience of the writer.

For example, does Luke sound like Mark?

No.

Well, now they're writing the same thing.

They are both inspired of God.

They are both giving us a similar account of the life of Jesus Christ, but there are distinctions about those guys that we can tell something about their personality, we can tell something about their vocabulary, and we can tell something about their experience.

And so this phenomenon of inspiration is that the Holy Spirit speaks through the personality, language, and experience of the writer.

Let me give you an example of this.

Listen to how Luke and Mark describe the same event.

And it's the occurrence of the woman with the issue of blood who's trying to touch the hem of Jesus' garment.

So here's what Mark writes: a certain woman which had an issue of blood twelve years and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.

Now, let me read to you Luke's account.

Keep in mind, Luke is a physician.

And here's what Luke writes.

And a woman, having an issue of blood, twelve years, which had spent all of her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any of them.

And so, just to curse her reading, I would say, Mark's a little critical of physicians.

And I'd say, Luke is sympathetic to physicians, right?

Isn't that the take that you get?

Mark's like, man, she suffered a lot from all these physicians, and she spent all of her money, and she's not better at all.

And Luke's like, she couldn't be healed.

And I just point that out to show that there is personality in Scripture.

And that doesn't make it deficient, that doesn't make it uninspired.

That is how God chose to do it.

He inspires these writers.

For another example, John does not write like Paul.

If you look at the word grace, John, John who talks more about love, I know John's not a legalist.

John only uses the word grace six times, and three of them is in a simple greeting of like grace and peace be with you.

While Paul uses the word grace ninety-nine times in his writings.

Obviously, it comes out of Paul's experience.

Remember, John, young John, is a faithful Jew in Galilee who is serving with his father on his ship when he meets Jesus, and Jesus calls him to follow him from a young age.

And Paul was a Pharisee who was trying to stamp out Christianity and was authorizing the execution of Christians when Jesus intercepted him on the road to Damascus.

And Paul knows the grace, the depth of the grace of God that it took to save him.

He knows that he is undeserving.

And so when Paul writes, Paul writes more about grace than anybody else in the Bible.

Inspired, yes.

Experience, yes.

God speaks through this individual.

Now, the reason that I am belaboring all of this is in order to point out to you another dimension of what Peter wrote about Paul, which I believe reveals some personal growth in Peter.

We're talking about 2 Peter, and we are talking about how the theme is grow, or to add to our faith.

It begins with that.

It ends with, but grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And along the way, I pick up on the fact that Peter has grown.

Now, I'm not saying he's grown from the beginning of this letter to the end.

I'm saying from the beginning of the time when we're introduced to Peter in the Gospels until we get to this, his last letter, it's evident that he has had some personal growth.

First, notice that Peter calls Paul his beloved brother.

His beloved brother.

And then he endorses and recommends everything that he wrote.

And you might read that and say, well, what's the big deal about that?

They're both apostles, they're both a Christian.

Why is that a big deal that he calls him beloved brother and then endorses everything that he wrote?

The big deal is that Peter and Paul have some history.

And not only do they have history, but Paul wrote about it unvarnished.

If you would, look at Galatians chapter 2.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

I want to show you the history that Peter and Paul have.

And how then Paul doesn't sugarcoat.

Paul doesn't glaze anything over when he writes about this.

And so Galatians 2, verse number 11, Paul writes this.

But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

Whoa.

For before that, certain came from James, he ate with the Gentiles.

But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

And then other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.

But when I saw that they walk not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter, before them all, if thou being a Jew livest after the manner of the Gentiles and not after the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?

Well, that sounds like some beef to me.

How about you?

There's some history there.

Not only did Paul call Peter out in front of everybody, right?

He said, in front of them all, I would stood him to the face because he was to be blamed.

Hey, listen, buddy, you're saying one thing and you're doing another, and now you're leading people along the path that is going the wrong way.

Not only did Paul call him out in front of other people, he wrote about it in Galatians for all to read.

And let me tell you what he didn't include.

He didn't write Peter's defense.

He didn't write what Peter responded.

He didn't write that Peter repented and got it right, which I have no doubts that Peter did that.

But it's not included in Paul's letter.

All that is included is that Paul called him out about this because it was wrong.

Furthermore, that letter has been in circulation for 20 years.

So can you imagine?

Everywhere Peter goes to preach, somebody probably asked him, what happened between you and Paul?

What was that all about?

You know how nosy we are.

Hey, we read that letter to the Galatians.

Tell me about that.

What happened?

Do you like to relive your failures?

So I'm just telling you, that was written, it was circulated for two decades.

Peter has heard about it.

Peter has had to talk about it more times than he wanted to.

And now he writes this letter.

Let me ask you, let me ask you to think about what you know about Peter's personality from the Gospels.

Peter was impertinent.

Peter was outspoken.

Peter was defensive.

Peter was confrontational.

For instance, when Jesus dealt with Peter's denial in John 21, remember after the denial, he comes back.

Peter, do you love me?

Yes, Lord, I love you.

Feed my sheep.

Peter, do you love me?

Yes, Lord, I love you.

Then feed my sheep.

Peter, do you love me?

Lord, you know that I love you.

Well, feed my sheep.

And then he says, hey, listen, Peter.

You're going to have a hard road to hoe, and uh one day you're going to be taken where you don't want to go for the gospel.

And you remember what Peter's response is?

He points at John and says, What's he going to do?

Or when Jesus was arrested.

Peter comes out swinging a sword, the only one.

He cuts a dude's ear off.

I guarantee you he wasn't aiming for his ear.

It wasn't a surgical incision.

He was trying to take the guy's head off.

I just want you to think about what we know about Peter.

What probably reveals Peter's personality the most is the fact that he tried to argue with Jesus on multiple occasions.

How many of y'all know somebody who'd argue with Jesus?

Yeah, I'm looking at a few.

But do you remember in Matthew 16?

Jesus for the first time says, listen, I'm going to be taken, I'm going to be arrested, I'm going to be crucified.

And Peter gets in his face.

No, you're not.

You're not going to, not on my watch, you won't be crucified.

And you remember what Jesus has to say to Peter in that moment?

Get behind me, Satan.

Do you know who else Jesus said that to?

Satan.

And that's it.

How would you like to be on that short list?

In John chapter 13, when Jesus is in the upper room and he's going to wash the disciples' feet.

John 13 · chapter mention

He comes to Peter and Peter says, You'll never wash my feet.

Jesus says, If I don't wash your feet, I have no part with you.

Oh, well, in that case, wash me all over from head to foot.

And Jesus is like, you don't need to be washed all over.

You've been washed.

You just need to have your feet washed.

Matthew 26.

Jesus says, Tonight I'm going to be betrayed and everybody will depart from me.

And Peter says, I'll never deny you.

I'll go to the death for you.

And then just a few hours later, I don't know him.

You talking about?

I don't know what you're talking about.

And so I'm just pointing out to you, Peter has some personality flaws.

We all do.

And so I find it astounding that old last word Peter didn't clap back at Paul when he had a chance.

Nor did he even try to set the record straight.

I mean, from what I know about Peter in the Gospels, this guy can't hold his tongue.

What I know about Peter from the Gospels is he has a bit of an ego.

What I know about Peter from the Gospels is that he engages his mouth before he engages his brain.

And Paul has given to him what could be considered to be a great slight in writing about that in Galatians for all eternity.

And yet, when Peter has a chance, he writes the last word.

He doesn't take a swipe at Paul, and he doesn't even try to say, let me set the record straight for you.

Here's the rest of the story.

And here's the reality.

Peter didn't even have to make any reference to Paul, did he?

He doesn't make a reference to anybody else's writings being scripture.

He doesn't do that for Matthew.

He doesn't do that for Luke.

He doesn't do that for anybody else.

And so he really, at best, he could have just not said anything about Paul, right?

I'm not going to take a swipe back at him.

I'm not going to set the record straight, but also I'm not going to praise him and recommend everything he writes as scripture.

The explanation can only be found in the text.

And I would sum it up this way: Peter has grown in his love for the truth.

I'm convinced that Peter has grown in his love for the truth.

It's obvious to me that Peter grew to be thankful for a friend who would confront him and correct him for the sake of the gospel.

You see, what Paul is doing in Galatians is not just taking a swipe at Peter.

Paul is defending the gospel from all enemies near and far.

And legalism is an enemy of the gospel as much as liberalism is.

Legalism says you've got to do more, you've got to be more conservative, you've got to do all these things if you really want to be accepted of God.

And Paul is saying, listen, that's not the gospel.

And what Peter was participating in was going down a path of legalism where the Jews were separating from the Gentiles under old law standards.

And Paul loves the Lord enough and he cares enough about Peter to confront him and to say, you're wrong in doing this.

And so I believe that as Peter writes these words, that he's grown to the point where he can appreciate that somebody would correct him for the sake of the gospel.

And I think he wants us to grow in this area also.

Because Peter says that some of the scriptures are hard to receive.

You ever had some hard truth to receive?

Those conversations where somebody has to tell you something about yourself that you need to hear, but you don't really want to hear it.

And Peter says the immature will wrestle with that.

The immature will resist that.

The immature will struggle with that.

And that's not only in the area of eschatology.

I know that's the subject of the text, and Peter is saying, listen, Paul wrote the same things that I'm writing to you about.

Some of those things are hard to understand, and the unlearned, the unstable will twist them.

And so, yes, specifically he's writing about the end times, but it's not only the end times.

He is writing about everything in Scripture that confronts us.

If we are immature, we're going to try to twist it in our favor.

But if we grow to love the truth, we'll let the Word of God correct us, even when it's uncomfortable.

But you and I need to know that correction is one of the ministries of Scripture.

It's one of the ministries of Scripture.

Just listen to what our beloved brother Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3.16.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for anybody know the next word?

Correction.

The word of God was given to us not just to build us up and to equip us, but it was given to us to correct us.

So if you read your Bible on the reg, there's going to be some times that it confronts you and it wants to correct you, and you're going to be in the same position that Peter is in, and you're either going to receive the correction or you're going to reject the correction.

And I know that Peter's heart is that we would all receive the correction.

Let me tell you, the scriptures are going to confront you.

If you read the Bible, it's going to confront your beliefs.

Because we all have beliefs about how the world came into being and what happens after we die and what do we need to do in preparation for that.

Everybody on the planet has beliefs.

The Bible's going to confront those beliefs.

The Bible's going to confront behaviors.

We all behave in a certain way.

And the Bible is going to confront some of our behaviors.

The Bible will most definitely confront our sins.

The Bible says we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

And that sin is the root problem, but the manifestation of sin comes out in so many different ways.

And so when you and I read the Bible, the Bible is going to confront our sins.

But your correction is not automatic.

The Bible will confront you if you read it, but it doesn't automatically correct you because correction is not easily received.

You and I have to decide that we will be corrected by the word, just as Peter was corrected by the inspired word of God.

To be corrected by Scripture, you must grow in your love for truth.

That means that you've got to love the Word more than you love yourself.

Before I got saved, I lived for myself.

And I did what I wanted to do, and I talked how I wanted to talk, and I thought how I wanted to think.

And I didn't really want somebody correcting me.

And then when I got saved and I started reading the Bible, the Bible started correcting me.

And it started confronting me about the things that I was doing for myself.

And I'm just telling you, if we're going to grow in our love for the truth, we have to grow in our love for the word more than we love ourselves and more than we love our sins.

I can't tell you how many times I've had gospel conversations with people where people say, Preacher, I know I ought to do this.

I just don't want to quit.

I don't want to give that up.

I don't want to change my lifestyle.

What's the problem?

They love their sin more than they love the word.

As believers, you and I need to love the word more than we love our sin.

And in case your defense mechanisms are kicking in, if there's only Peters in the crowd who are getting defensive already and are thinking, I don't need to be corrected.

I was saved before you were born, whippersnapper.

I've been walking with Jesus since the days of Methuselah, and I've done all the changing I've needed to change.

I don't need to be corrected.

I would just remind you that the people God used most had to be corrected.

Abraham had to be corrected.

Jacob had to be corrected.

Moses had to be big corrected.

David had to be corrected.

Job had to be corrected.

Elijah had to be corrected.

Jonah had to be corrected.

Paul had to be corrected.

Apollos had to be corrected.

Peter had to be corrected.

If all of them had to be corrected in order to be used by God, chances are you and I need some correction.

And if we love the truth, if we grow in our love for the truth, we will receive that correction.

And so let me ask you the big question.

How do you handle correction?

How do you handle correction?

I mean correction, like when the Bible gets in your face.

When the preacher preaches a message that goes from preaching to meddling.

How do you handle that?

Do you get defensive?

Do you start thinking of all the reasons why you're justified in what you're doing and how what you're doing is not as bad as what somebody else is doing and how you know there's a whole lot worse things on?

I mean, do you struggle with being corrected by God's word?

Is it an area in which you need to grow?

I have good news for you.

I mean, I've got really good news for you.

If impetuous Peter can grow in his love for the truth, especially the truth that confronts and corrects, then so can we.

If Peter can be corrected because of his love for the truth, we can too.

Would you bow with me?

So we bow our heads for just a moment.

So we bow our heads, close our eyes, we do this not out of some ritual, but really just to help us focus on the fact that it comes down to us and God, me and the Lord, and that in this moment, right here, right now, it doesn't matter what anybody else in this room does.

What matters is what I do.

And is God speaking to me through his word?

If he is, then I need to respond in the affirmative.

There are probably some people in this room who know that the Bible condemns something that they are practicing, and they have not yet quit it.

Maybe today is the day that you grow in your love for the truth, that you allow the confrontation of the word to become the correction of the word in your life.

Listen, I'm not calling you out.

I'm not up here trying to name every sin that I can think of in order to indict you.

But I believe that the Holy Spirit does that work in our hearts.

And I think that this is so serious that we need to take a moment to contemplate is God correcting me?

Does he want to correct me through his word?

And if so, we ought to be compliant.

Because that's what makes us more like Jesus.

Dear Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you for the way that it confronts me in my life.

Lord, I just pray and ask that you would help us to be so in love with the truth that we receive the correction of the word.

Lord, uh we are pathological in our self-defense.

We so often try to defend and justify the things that we want to do that we know that the scripture does not sanction.

May we be done with all of that.

May we just make a unilateral decision today that whatever your word says, that's what we'll do.

If it tells me to believe, I'll believe.

If it tells me to repent, I'll repent.

If it tells me to uh flee from evil, then I'll flee from evil.

If it tells me to abstain from adultery, I'll abstain from adultery.

If it tells me not to steal, not to kill, not to cheat, not to lie.

I'm just gonna be corrected by your word.

I'm gonna let your word be the authority in my life.

At the end of the day, Lord, I know no greater tool than this in our sanctification.

And so, Father, I pray and ask that you would help us to grow in our love for the truth and that we'd allow it to correct us when needed.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you would stand with me and I, and let's sing, I will serve thee.