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Wait. There is a world of articles, books, and information out there when it comes to Christianity, but we are mostly stuck with rhetoric and double talk when it comes to our relationship with the Lord, our new identity as believers, and the security and finality of the work of Christ. Are you getting everything you need spiritually from your church? Or do you find yourself feeling hungry for more? Join Lenny as he unpacks what Scripture really taught about our Lord Jesus Christ in context and why this matters to you. Wake up, wake up, wake up to grace.

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Did you know that in Peter's second epistle, he gives the readers a template for Christian living? He tells us exactly what grace living should look like. How do we live by the faith that we've been given? He starts his letter, Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. There's just so much in this one little statement that you could go on and on. But he basically tells them, You've obtained a faith of equal standing with ours, and it's not because of anything you did. It was by the righteousness of God and the Savior Jesus Christ. That's what your faith is based on. And then he tells us that grace and peace is multiplied to us in this knowledge. The knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ gives us an abundance of grace and peace, and it can be multiplied. It doesn't just stay the same. It can grow. And it's based on the knowledge that we've been given. How can we have more grace? It's a free gift. If it's a free gift, how do you get more? How does that even make any sense? You just keep getting more free gifts from God for doing nothing? Grace is an unmerited gift. How do you merit something that's unmerited? Well, you don't. It's kind of confusing when we first think about it, but Peter doesn't tell us how to earn grace at all. But he tells us it's multiplied through what you already have. He continues saying, His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. That means the knowledge of the gospel that saved you has also given you everything you need for life and godliness. How much your life could be chalked up as life? It's everything, it's the whole thing. It's every struggle, it's every great moment, it's every boring moment, it's every moment. God's living with us through all of it. According to Peter, we have what it takes to get through all of it. The mean time where nothing really seems to be going on, but we're just living, the good times where God just seems to be powerfully at work, and then even the horrible times, when we're just suffering and we feel alone. We have everything we need, according to Peter, for all that, and also for godliness. And how? Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. It all begins with the knowledge that we've been given at salvation, the faith we've been given. What caused you to have faith? It was a knowledge of the Lord. It was a basic knowledge, right? But Peter's saying that there's something that can be multiplied through this knowledge. And he continues, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that's in the world because of sinful desire. Having escaped from the corruption that's in the world because of sinful desire is something that he seems to put in the past. Why? Because we've been cured of the sin problem that got between us and God. We're no longer under judgment, we're no longer collecting judgment and storing it up for a day of wrath. We've been made right. And he's given us these very great promises as a treasure, so that we can become partakers of the divine nature. There's a reason he gave us this faith. It wasn't just the assurance of going to heaven someday. There was a greater cause. Peter's saying that our calling is to be partakers of the divine nature. This is the whole purpose. There's a purpose to the Christian life. It's a living faith that starts now. It doesn't start later in heaven. It's not something we look forward to later. It's not something we earn our way to so that we can have it later. Sinning less doesn't get us more, according to Peter. It's quite fascinating that he put sin in the past in this place, but what he's strictly talking about is that we have another place to turn to. Before we were given faith, where did we go? What other pl what other choice did we have other than to sin? We didn't know what it was to be righteous. Until we have the righteousness of the Lord given to us, we don't have an option. We don't have an escape from sin. We're just in spiritual death. This all happened in Genesis and continued on in humanity until Christ came to do away with that, but that is something that can only be done away with through faith. The sin problem is behind us. But if it's so far behind us, why is it the focus? Why is everything about sin today when we talk to Christians? We're judging each other based on the amount of sin that we have in our lives. This person's a Christian. How can they be living in sin? How can they be doing these things that they're doing if they're a Christian? And we contemplate and we wonder and we come to conclusions based on our own principles. But the question is, is how much emphasis did Peter put on sin when it came to grace living? How much of emphasis did any of the apostles put on sin when it came to grace living? In Peter's first epistle, this is what he says about sin. He says, put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander. He says to put it away. Put away sin, Peter says. He doesn't say meditate on sin. He doesn't say beg for forgiveness for sin, apologize deeply, put it away. Don't give it any attention. Put all that stuff behind you and shift your focus is what Peter's saying. So then continuing into his instruction, which is where we really dig into the meat, we'll notice as we're reading that he doesn't even mention sin in his grace-living instruction. Living the Christian life actually doesn't even have anything to do with sin, it seems. Sin is actually just put away in the background. It's not our focus. It's not something we log in a journal every day in order to become more pious. According to Paul, rules and regulations like the law increased sin and made it even more sinful. So this would perfectly explain why Peter just says, put it away. Get it out of the way so that you can do what I'm about to tell you here. And so in 2 Peter 1 5 we read, after telling us that we've escaped the corruption of sin, he says, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and 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. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So Peter's showing us how to bear fruit here. This is the exact analogy that Christ gave us in his vine and branches analogy in John 15. So let's go through the details here, because Peter's teaching us the template for the vine and branches analogy that Jesus taught. He's telling us exactly what it looks like. And this is from a grace perspective, because this is after the cross. They probably really didn't know much of what Jesus was saying when he gave them this analogy, but when they received the Holy Spirit, which is the guiding principle here, then they could understand it. This is a spiritual understanding. This isn't something you're going to get out in the world. These aren't worldly instructions. There's no worldly wisdom to be gained here. You're not going to learn this from a guidance counselor. You can only learn this from the counselor that God gives us. So Peter starts with the word virtue. The Greek word translate as virtue can be defined as the excellence of a person's mind or body. So he's saying to take your faith and supplement it with virtue. You have this faith that's been given to you and you supplement that with virtue, which is an excellence of mind or body. What is it that would be excellent in our thinking as a Christian? That we would both supplement to this faith? What is the perspective that we should have? Well, of course it'd be the same perspective Jesus modeled in his life, a dependency on the Lord. Did he not turn to the Lord for everything? He said it's not me that does these things, it's the Father that works in me. Jesus relied on the Father for his power and strength as a human. He modeled this so that we could live by that as well. And Paul agrees with Peter perfectly on this, saying, Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Be transformed. So as we see Peter's template here, we're going to see this being transformed, what it looks like. How are we transformed by the renewing of our mind? The renewal of our mind is what Peter talks about here as virtue. Let that reign in your life, having a focus and clarity on what you've been given, this faith you've been given, this living faith. That is our guide for how to live. It's not just something that we put away. We put away sin, we don't put away the gospel. If you put away the gospel, then you just brought sin back out into the light so that you can live by that instead. You can really only put away one or the other, and Peter is saying, Don't put away the gospel. Put away sin. Keep the gospel at the forefront of your mind. The righteousness of Christ, the dependency on the Lord. Don't forget, depend on the Lord for all things. That's virtue. Virtue is strictly relying on God, because at the beginning, Peter clearly said, It's the righteousness of God and our Savior that gives you the equal standing that we have. So our focus is on dependency. The vine and branches. Christ said apart from me you can do nothing. Those who abide in me bear fruit. Peter is just confirming this. And the first step is dependency, a conscious state of depending on the Lord, and not yourself. So then he continues. To virtue we supplement knowledge. So this all started with the knowledge of our Lord. What does he mean by that? We just keep adding more of the same stuff? Just keep saying, Jesus died for my sins. Jesus died for my sins. How many times can you say that? It's pretty simple. No, there's more depth to it. He's saying that you need to know Jesus. You need to know him. You gotta understand him. The more you know about Jesus, the more you know about your own identity in him. You have an identity in Christ, and it's all based on what you believe about him. If you believe the wrong thing about Jesus, you're gonna believe the wrong thing about yourself. People that don't believe that all their sins are forgiven, that's the wrong belief about Jesus. It's clearly stated that we're of equal standing with the apostles by the faith we've been given. How well do you think the apostles stood before the Lord? The Lord loved his apostles, so how much does he love you? How many of your sins has he forgiven? Did he forgive Peter when he was acting out of line and Paul had to rebuke him? Today we put so much weight on believing about Jesus whatever we're told. If we find a place we're comfortable with attending at church, we believe what they say about Jesus, and we all nod our heads. What we're gonna find in Peter's instruction is that our lives are guided by the knowledge that we have of Jesus. So we find that what we believe about Jesus is the most important thing in our lives as Christians. With over forty five thousand denominations worldwide and two hundred different denominations just here in America, we gotta wonder, what do people believe about Jesus? Even in our own church gatherings, if we're attending a local church, do you know what your friends believe about Jesus? Or do you just assume that you believe the same things? Knowledge is the next thing in line with having a dependency. We have to have an excellent knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and that involves his finished work. What did he finish? How much of it is finished? How did he behave? How did he act? What did he find to be good and excellent? We want to know these things, and we learn these things from the apostles, who were able to explain what he taught through the Holy Spirit. I don't know if you're picking up on this or not, but this all started with the faith that God gave us. God gives us his faith, he gives us the initial knowledge of Christ, and then we're supposed to meditate on it, according to Peter, and then we're supposed to continue learning more depth about it, more depth about Jesus, more depth about his finished work. And these are the very early steps in his template for Christian living. So when we judge other people, when we see a neighbor who's walking an old lady across the street and paying his respects and another neighbor who loves their family greatly, do we see Christ at work? How do we know? Because according to Peter, it all has to stem from this faith and from this knowledge. And if this knowledge isn't of Christ, then what is it? If somebody doesn't believe in Jesus, are they performing good works? And if somebody's performing good works that aren't based on the faith they've been given, but rather an idea or a concept in their mind that they're earning their way to salvation, do those bear fruit? Because Christ said apart from me you can do nothing. So if you're doing your work independently of Christ, according to Jesus, you do nothing, and Peter's saying the same thing. It's the knowledge of Jesus that produces the fruit, we can only bear it. So we see that the only way to truly judge a Christian or not on how they're living is based on their knowledge of Jesus, what they believe about Jesus. That's the starting point. But there's more to it. It does continue further, because Peter says to build on this knowledge was self-control. So this is an incredible statement. Self-control. We're constantly judging other Christians who sin. If we know somebody's looking at pornography or they're not married and they're living together, committing these kinds of sins, we're very judgmental, and it is sin. So we can judge that as sin. But self-control goes a lot further than that. As we're judging other people who don't have their life together, are we missing things that we're not doing ourselves? Have you ever considered that anxiety and stress that's unmanaged is a lack of self control? Have you ever considered that not being able to manage your finances might be a lack of self control? Blowing your temper, getting triggered, having road rage. Is that considered self control? Self control goes further than what we're not doing. Self control is actually controlling what you are doing. And how do we control it? How do we gain self control? Self control isn't the first thing that he says. He doesn't say to Christians, have self control and then build on it with knowledge. There's an order here. He says to add self control to your knowledge, not the other way around. In order to have self control, we first have to have the correct knowledge. There is no self control in sin management. It's not about sin management. Peter doesn't even teach it. He's saying that you need to know and have the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Build on the faith that you've been given. That's the love of God. It starts with love. God loved the world, so he gave his one and only Son, so that we could have eternal life. It was a love gift. And eternal life starts when you believe, not later in heaven. Eternal life is life in the presence of the Lord. It's guidance from the Lord. We're living a life right here on earth, eternally through the Lord. So self control comes through knowledge. So we start to gain self control as we're guided by the love that the Lord had for us, and we're guided by the grace that He has given us. We're guided by the thankfulness for the sin that He blotted out forever, making us perfect, so that we don't have to have that in our way anymore. And that wasn't so that we could sin more with a clear conscience. It was so that we can worship with a clear conscience and live a holy life with a clear conscience. And what is a holy life so far? It's virtue, it's dependency, it's knowledge, it's self control in that knowledge. It's a self-control that comes through dependency on the Lord and the knowledge of what He's done for us and how much He loves us, not how much He's judging us. And then to knowledge, we add steadfastness. What is steadfastness? It's a patient enduring, it's sustaining. It's the perseverance that we have because of our knowledge and self control. Knowledge and self-control build on steadfastness. This is how we're building on the foundation that we've been given. Paul talks about not building with materials like hay or straw, because those are gonna burn. We want to build on it with eternal bricks and mortar. So this is building on the gospel, building on the faith that we have with knowledge and self control. And this gives us steadfastness. This is how we endure. There's a strong call to endurance in the New Testament. The authors were urgent about this. It was an urgent matter to endure through the suffering. And how did they do that? Peter's telling us how to prepare so that we can endure through the hard times that are coming. Jesus didn't say, If hard times come, the vine will be there for the branches. Although that may be true, Jesus said that I taught these things so that you wouldn't fall away. I'm teaching you this vine and branches analogy so that you won't fall away so that you will endure. This is the whole point of the vine and branches analogy, and Peter's explaining it all here. So we build up to steadfastness that we have endurance. He doesn't say learn it later. He doesn't say figure it out later, worry about it later. It's a strong call to endurance, because as Jesus said, in this life there will be tribulation. He didn't say if in this life there is tribulation. He says there will be, and you'll need to endure. And Peter's telling you exactly how. It's through the knowledge of Jesus. It's through building on the faith that we have with knowledge and self control and steadfastness. And there is an order there. These things build as we go. We don't just automatically endure. We don't become a Christian and automatically endure according to Peter. These are things that have to be built upon. And He's given us instruction. This instruction wouldn't be necessary if it was an automated process that every Christian that was given faith would automatically have and instinctively know how to do. It's a gift that's been given. We've been given everything we need, but it needs to be built on properly. And then to this endurance, we supplement godliness. So as we're enduring through trials, we've gotten so far as to be able to persevere and honor the Lord by being strong in our weakness, as Paul would say, enduring through God's strength. We're not the strength, Christ is the strength, but as we endure, we build on awe and respect, the godliness, the reverence towards God. We begin to just be in awe of His grace because we see how it's sustaining us. This is a gift. These are all gifts that come from faith that we build upon through our dependency, through our virtue, through our focus, all these things are stemming from faith, being transformed by the renewal of our mind, walking by the Spirit. These are all things that Paul taught. And then, behold, from this endurance and reverence comes brotherly affection. Now that we've learned steadfastness, now we're going on to brotherly affection. I don't think it's hard to develop steadfastness in this life. We're surrounded by problems daily. This is something you can practice immediately. Every little problem you have, practice enduring faithfully and just giving it to God. Cast your anxiety on Christ. That's what he calls you to do. If it's written to cast your anxieties on Christ, what does that mean? Does that mean that we pray that God take it away? Think about this a minute. Have you ever considered that when you pray for strength or when you pray that God will take something away? Have you ever considered the instruction? Cast your anxiety on Christ? We have this great anxiety at times, and we pray, Lord, just take it away, just take it away. But we're not willing to give it. He says to cast it. That's something that we have to be consciously doing. We need to trust the Lord. We're called to trust him with our anxiety. In order to trust him with our anxiety, we have to let him have it. He's the owner of it. He's saying, I own your problems. As Paul said, you're either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. You could rephrase that today saying you're either a slave to anxiety or you're a slave to the Lord. You're one or the other. If you're living a life based on pure fear, you're not living a life guided by grace. That's just point blank truth. That's just the way it is. We are going to feel fear, but we're not to be led by it. We're to cast it. And this apparently takes practice. We need to be training our minds. We need to be transformed by our minds. It's the knowledge, the self-control, building up, and it leads us to brotherly affection. When we start to achieve this peace, this multiplication of grace in our lives and peace, we can now love our brother affectionately. And then he says with brotherly affection, add love. When you read John's epistles, you have this theme of love. It's all about love. And we make it a rule today. We read these things. And we try to turn into some kind of a rule, it's not a rule that you become a Christian and you love. It's not a rule, it's not a regulation, it's not one of the Ten Commandments that we have to follow. It's an expression of Christ living in and through our lives. This whole thing started with faith that you were given. You didn't earn it. You couldn't earn it. God said, Here is your faith. Let this flow in and through you in an expression of Christ Himself. And it flows through the virtue, through the knowledge and self-control, the steadfastness, brotherly affection, and it comes out as love. This is a process of an inner transformation, the same one that Paul describes. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Be transformed is the call. You don't put away the gospel, you put away sin, and you live by the gospel. All these things come from dependency on Christ, who is our source of life. It begins with love and it ends with love. To reiterate again, Peter says, For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So if you don't see these things increasing, you're going in the wrong direction. If you continue to struggle with anxiety, continue to struggle with fear, struggle with pornography, struggle with any sin. Let's go back to the beginning of Peter's template and learn again and see where we're in error. There's something wrong in our minds that's guiding us improperly. It always stems from knowledge. It's what we believe about Jesus that changes our life. So don't believe in a false teaching about your Lord. Don't accept anything from anybody that you haven't proven with a hundred percent certainty in your own mind to be true to the best of your ability. Because don't forget, you've been given everything that you need for life and godliness. That means you can read your scripture and come to your own conclusions through the guidance of the Spirit that lives within you. You don't need pastor, you don't need priest, you don't need anybody. You have everything you need to learn the love of God. So Peter continues, for whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he's blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sin. Peter's like, if you lack these qualities, let's not forget what these qualities are. These qualities describe somebody who is very focused on the Lord. If you lack these qualities, you forgot about God's love. He goes as far as to calling it cleansed from former sins. Earlier he said you've escaped the corruption of the world because of sinful desire. And now he's saying if you're lacking and you're not growing in these qualities, you've just become nearsighted and blind. You forgot what you've been delivered from. You put it away. You put away grace instead of sin. You don't need to stop sinning. You need to start living by grace. Peter continues, therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. Does that not sound familiar? Jesus, when he laid out his vine and branches analogy, said I teach you these things so you will not fall away, and Peter passes on the same words that he received from his Lord and Savior. On to us. Peter echoes the words of Jesus with clarity. This vine and branches analogy, this detailed instruction on grace living through the vine is a gold mine for the Christian. Don't let this pass you by. To Peter, Christianity wasn't just a one-time thing, where you believe and you move on and you put in your pocket for a later date. To Peter and all the rest of the apostles, Christianity was a way of life, and faith was alive. That's what I got for this week, guys. I look forward to talking to you guys again soon, and I got some fun things in store. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. The content of this message can be found on my blog post at wakinguptograce.com. My writings include linked references and visual aids, which will give even more valuable insight, and it's always free of charge. The comment section below each message is a place where we can share mutual encouragement and insight with one another outside of the social media method. My blog post is always a click away.