Grow in insight

So far in our look at 2 Peter, we have seen how Peter has been encouraging us to grow. To grow in our knowledge of Jesus: who he is, what he has done, and also to grow in our response of love and obedience to him.

He has been encouraging us to grow in our "remembrance", that is, in our firm commitment to the foundational truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To the death of Christ for our sins. To his resurrection. To his future return.

And Peter has also encouraged us to grow in our confidence in Christ.

To grow in our confidence in the trustworthiness of the message that we have received because it has been given to us by those who were eyewitnesses of the truth.
To grow in confidence because we have this truth in both the prophets of the Old Testament, as well as in the Gospels and letters of the New Testament.
To grow in confidence because these writings are not the words of mere human beings. Instead, these individual authors were carried along by the Spirit of God, so that the words that they wrote were divinely inspired, declaring to us exactly what God wanted us to hear and know.

But in our reading this morning we notice one further way in which we need to grow,[1] for Peter shows us that we need to grow in our "insight". That is, we need to grow in our discernment of the truth.

And this is different from growing in our "knowledge" of the truth, for growing in knowledge has more to do with the facts, with understanding the truth, while growing in "insight", growing in "discernment", is very different to that, for "growing in insight" has more to do with being able to distinguish truth from falsehood.

Being able to distinguish the way of God from the way of the world.
Being able to hear more than just the words that are being said but being able to comprehend the implications of what someone is saying, and how what that person is saying is either consistent with, or deviates from, the foundational truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And it is this need to recognise where something either deviates from, or is consistent with the Gospel of Jesus, it is at this point that we all need to grow in our discernment and insight. For even though Peter said in 2 Peter 1:20-21:

First of all, you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

He then goes on to say in the very next verse:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.[2]

Peter then warns us that these false prophets and teachers:

will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them.[3]

And not only will they do that, but we then read in 2 Peter 2:2 that:

Many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned.

That is, through a lack of discernment and insight many people will be led into a false understanding of Jesus, the Gospel, God, and the way of salvation; and their false understanding of the Gospel will lead to false living. And their false living will result in the true Gospel of Jesus Christ being mocked and ridiculed.

And although Peter and the apostles did not:

follow cleverly devised myths when [they] made known to [us] the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but [they] had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.[4]

These false teachers will, as we read in verse 3:

In their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words.

They will make up things out of their own minds, their own imaginations in order to lead people away from the truth of Jesus Christ in order to enrich themselves. And because of this, we all need to grow in our discernment. We need to do this so that we might recognise the truth, recognise the error, and as we do so we might cling to the truth, and reject the error.

And the remainder of 2 Peter 2 is Peter describing what these false teachers are really like, while also describing the dangers of following these false teachers. All of which emphasises the need for discernment, the need for insight, and so we read in 2 Peter 2:17-19a:

These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved.

For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error.

They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them.

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them.

It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns back to its own vomit,”[5] and, “The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud.”

Verse 10 says that they are:

Bold and wilful.

While verse 12 says that they:

Slander what they do not understand.

And that is why we need "discernment". That is why we need "insight" to go beyond the mere words that people say, and to begin to listen to the implications, the consequences, and the impact of what people say upon the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because, let's face it, if someone came up to us and said, "Jesus was only a man, he wasn't God", we would immediately reject it because the Bible clearly states that Jesus is God. God become a human being. But if someone in the fourth century, like the Alexandrian church leader Arius, came up and said that:

The Bible says that there is only one God.

We would all agree. And if they then said that:

The Bible says that Jesus is the Son of God.

We would all agree. And if they then said that:

The Bible says that Jesus is "begotten".

We would agree. So far, so good!

And, therefore said Arius in the fourth century, (and Jehovah's Witnesses today), Jesus must have come after God, because he is begotten by God, and so he isn't the same as God, and so he can't be God, because he came after God. And if he isn't God, he must be a creature. Or, in Arius' famous line:

There was when he was not.

And Arius drew tens of thousands of followers after him, including at least one Roman emperor, and it was only the insight and discernment of other church leaders (such as Athanasius in Alexandria, among others) which led to this teaching eventually being rejected as inconsistent with the truth of Jesus and, ultimately, undermining the Gospel of Jesus!

We need insight and discernment in order to recognise error, so that we might cling to truth.

The apostle John is in total agreement with Peter on this need for discernment, for he says in 1 John 4:1:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

That is, don't blindly accept everything that you read or everything that you hear because the world is filled with people who will say things, and teach things that are not only opposed to the Gospel of Christ, but they will teach and say things that are so contrary to the Gospel of Christ that they end up denying the Gospel of Christ.

And not only does John call these people "false prophets", but he also calls them "antichrists".[6] They are those who either are opposed to Christ, or they are trying to bring in a "substitute" Christ, for the Greek word anti can mean either. That is, they bring in a replacement for Christ by teaching something that is contrary to the truth of Christ.

This is what Paul was up against in his letter to the Galatians, for in the churches in Galatia, churches founded by Paul and Barnabas on their first journey, churches founded on the solid foundation of the Gospel of Jesus that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus alone, Paul discovered that someone was slowly introducing the need for "law".

You have to keep the Ten Commandments.
You have to be circumcised.
You have to keep all of the rules, regulations, and rituals found in the Old Testament.

Yes, faith in Jesus is important, but you need something 'extra' to really arrive in the Christian faith.

And it sounded so good. So plausible. So believable. After all, the Bible that they had, the Old Testament, talked about circumcision, and law, and feasts, and commandments. So why not?

But their lack of discernment, their lack of insight into the implications of what they were being taught by whoever this person was, led them down a path that, ultimately, would have led them away from faith in Jesus Christ.

Why? How? This is what Paul tried to show them throughout the letter to the Galatians.

He asked us whether, if we begin to depend upon "Law", upon rules, and upon regulations, are we really depending upon Christ? And if we are depending upon "Law", then isn't it also the truth that, ultimately, we will be looking to what "we do" for our salvation, our assurance, our standing with God, instead of looking to Christ, and to what he has done for us on the cross?

And if we begin to say that we need to be circumcised according to the Law of Moses in order to be saved, in order to be Christians, then aren't we also saying that faith in Christ "is not good enough", and that we "need something else to get us over the line? Something better than Christ?"

And if we are depending upon an external, such as circumcision, or baptism, or confirmation, or church membership; the spiritual gifts that we have, our work in the church, or even our theological education; then are we depending upon Christ, or are we depending upon ourselves?

And if we say that we have to keep the Law of Moses and have animal sacrifices, then aren't we saying that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was not good enough, lasting enough, to bring us forgiveness and new life? This was, in fact, one of the major issues in the letter to the Hebrews, where he shows that ongoing animal sacrifices undermined faith in the sufficiency of Christ and his once for all time death on the cross for us.

And so, even though some people today teach that during the Millennium there will be a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem with animal sacrifices, I say, "No!", because that would undermine the all sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, once for all time.[7]

And so, as Paul writes to the Galatian Christians, we see that this lack of insight, this lack of discernment on their part led to the point where they accepted a "good sounding argument", or, as Peter would call it:

A cleverly devised myth,[8]

without thinking through the implications of that argument. Without thinking about the impact on the truth of Christ that these new teachers were trying to pass on.

And this is my biggest problem with the theory of evolution. This theory is put together by some very smart people, looking at evidence gleaned throughout the world through palaeontology, biology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, and numerous other fields of science. But, ultimately, the theory of evolution undermines, it gets rid of the need for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

How does it do that? Well, if we all evolved over billions of years, beginning our existence as glorified pond scum. And if over the billions of years we developed, and mutated, and changed, and evolved, from that glorified pond scum into what we now call "humanity", having first passed through other stages of development (Homo habilis; Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and, eventually, homo sapiens, in whatever order they want to put them in) then how do we explain sin?

Is sin the rebellion of human beings against the will and ways of God or is sin merely a sign that we haven’t yet evolved enough. And if the problem is simply that we, as human beings, haven't evolved enough to remove all of these negative ideas, emotions, and actions that plague us as human beings, isn't then the solution to the problem simply more stages of evolution?

But what does that idea do to the Gospel? To the teaching of the Bible that humanity's fundamental problem is sin. Open, active rebellion against God? What does the theory of evolution do to the need for Jesus? After all, as Christians we believe that the fundamental problem of humanity is sin. And we believe that the greatest need of humanity is a restored relationship with God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ who died on a cross to deal with the consequences of human sin, of human rebellion against God.

But evolution gets rid of all of that, for if there is no sin, if there is no rebellion, then what is the need of Jesus? What is the need of the Gospel?

And that is why we, as Christians, need discernment. That is why we need insight. That is why we need to have our faith grounded firmly in the fundamentals of the Gospel.

The deity of Christ.
The virgin birth.
Christ's perfect life.
His death on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin. Paying the penalty for our sin.
His resurrection from the dead.
And a future day of accountability for our lives, our thoughts, and our actions.

And having our foundations right. Having the fundamentals of our faith right, we then must discern, and evaluate, and think through what people are telling us, instead of just blindly accepting everything that we are told.

And this need of discernment, this need of insight is one of the motivations for Paul's prayer in Philippians 1:9-11:

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

And notice what Paul wanted for the people. First of all, a growing love for one another. That is, a growing care for the good, the welfare of everyone around you. And "love" is not letting someone do whatever they want. Instead, love is encouraging someone to become all that God desires for them.

But this growth in love was to be founded upon, it was to spring from an increasing "knowledge and full insight", that is, an increasing understanding of the truth of the Gospel, a greater comprehension of what the Gospel really is – and what it is not. With the end result that, “we may determine what is best”. That we might understand the right way to go. The best way to live.

And, having discerned what is best, we are enabled to remain pure and blameless for we have kept to the right, and rejected the wrong, and have remained faithful to Jesus. And so, Paul prays that we all would have that type of discernment. That type of insight into all that we hear, and read, and are told, so that we might always remain faithful to Jesus and do what is right in his sight.

And in his own earthly life we see that Jesus himself needed that exact same discernment and insight so as to remain faithful to God the Father. We see this especially during his time of testing in the wilderness in Matthew 4:1-10:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.

The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”[9]

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”[10]

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”[11]

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”[12]

And as we look at the temptations it would be so easy to say, "why not"!

Why not turn those stones into bread? After all, you are hungry, and hasn't God given you the gifts, the power to do miracles? Why not use them?

Why not jump off of the temple? After all, it would give God an opportunity to show to the world just how faithful he is to his promises, and wouldn't God be glorified in this way?

Why not bow down to the tempter. After all, it is only a "little" compromise, and besides, if you do, you will get everything that God was going to give you anyway? So, what difference would it make?

And this is why insight, discernment, is so important, because it is so easy to do what someone tells us to because it seems like a good idea. However, through "insight" and "discernment" we would see that turning stones into bread would not be an act of faith, but an act of self-sufficiency. It would be a way of saying:

I don't need God to provide; I can do it all by myself.

Now we know that:

whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.[13]

But it would be so easy to do something to force God's hand, because we really do want the glory of God, and this would be a way of forcing God to show his glory. However, insight and discernment would show us, just like it showed Jesus, that trying to force God's hand, "putting God to the test", is not faith, it is folly. It is us trying to manipulate God into doing what we think he should do, rather than us trusting God to do what he chooses to do.

It would be so easy to try to get a good thing through a bad means. It would be easy to justify the "means" because of the end result, but that would not bring glory to God, for to achieve that end we would have to deny God, abandon God, and reject God.

We need to stop and think clearly about what people say. And not just what people say, but the impact that this would have on our relationship with God. The impact that this would have on our understanding and living of the Gospel. The impact that this would have on our proclamation of this Gospel.

We need discernment, and we need insight. We need what Jesus had as a twelve-year-old boy as he sat in the temple talking with the teachers. Luke says that:

All who heard him were amazed at his understanding [i.e. his insight [14]] and his answers.

But how do we get that? How do we get that type of insight and discernment? We read in Proverbs 1:7 that:

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

And, again, in Proverbs 16:6:

By loyalty and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the LORD one avoids evil.

The “fear of the Lord” is the beginning, the starting point.

The fear of the Lord, that full recognition that God is God, and we are not, and so we turn to him, trust him, and follow him. The full surrender of ourselves, the submission of ourselves to him, his will, his ways. It is us, learning from him, listening to him, and following him.

And as we trust him, we seek to grow in our understanding of what he has revealed in his Word, and then we seek to put it into practice. And through this, we grow, not only in our knowledge of God, but also in our discernment, our insight into the Gospel, our insight into the ways of God, so that we might remain faithful to God.

It is easy to "grow in knowledge". All we have to do is read a lot. Listen to a lot of sermons. Go to more and more meetings and conferences, and through all of this our "knowledge" will grow. It is something altogether different to grow in insight.

To grow in discernment requires that we not only listen and remember, but it also requires us to think.

And, as the starting point for all of that, it demands that we, first of all, surrender ourselves fully to God. Allow God to be God and learn from him.

[1] 2 Peter 2:1-13

[2] 2 Peter 2:1a

[3] 2 Peter 2:1b

[4] 2 Peter 1:16

[5] Proverbs 26:11

[6] 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7

[7] Hebrews 9:26; 10:10

[8] 2 Peter 1:16

[9] Deuteronomy 8:3

[10] Psalm 91:11-12

[11] Deuteronomy 6:16

[12] Deuteronomy 6:13

[13] Romans 14:23

[14] Luke 2:47. σύνεσις [sunesis]

Grow in insight

So far in our look at 2 Peter, we have seen how Peter has been encouraging us to grow. To grow in our knowledge of Jesus: who he is, what he has done, and also to grow in our response of love and obedience to him.

He has been encouraging us to grow in our "remembrance", that is, in our firm commitment to the foundational truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To the death of Christ for our sins. To his resurrection. To his future return.

And Peter has also encouraged us to grow in our confidence in Christ.

To grow in our confidence in the trustworthiness of the message that we have received because it has been given to us by those who were eyewitnesses of the truth.

To grow in confidence because we have this truth in both the prophets of the Old Testament, as well as in the Gospels and letters of the New Testament.

To grow in confidence because these writings are not the words of mere human beings. Instead, these individual authors were carried along by the Spirit of God, so that the words that they wrote were divinely inspired, declaring to us exactly what God wanted us to hear and know.

But in our reading this morning we notice one further way in which we need to grow,[1] for Peter shows us that we need to grow in our "insight". That is, we need to grow in our discernment of the truth.

Being able to distinguish the way of God from the way of the world.

Being able to hear more than just the words that are being said but being able to comprehend the implications of what someone is saying, and how what that person is saying is either consistent with, or deviates from, the foundational truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And it is this need to recognise where something either deviates from, or is consistent with the Gospel of Jesus, it is at this point that we all need to grow in our discernment and insight. For even though Peter said in 2 Peter 1:20-21:

First of all, you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

He then goes on to say in the very next verse:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.[2]

Peter then warns us that these false prophets and teachers:

will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them.[3]

And not only will they do that, but we then read in 2 Peter 2:2 that:

Many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned.

And although Peter and the apostles did not:

follow cleverly devised myths when [they] made known to [us] the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but [they] had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.[4]

These false teachers will, as we read in verse 3:

In their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words.

And the remainder of 2 Peter 2 is Peter describing what these false teachers are really like, while also describing the dangers of following these false teachers. All of which emphasises the need for discernment, the need for insight, and so we read in 2 Peter 2:17-19a:

These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved.

For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error.

They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them.

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them.

It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns back to its own vomit,”[5] and, “The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud.”

Verse 10 says that they are:

Bold and wilful.

While verse 12 says that they:

Slander what they do not understand.

The Bible says that there is only one God.

We would all agree. And if they then said that:

The Bible says that Jesus is the Son of God.

We would all agree. And if they then said that:

The Bible says that Jesus is "begotten".

We would agree. So far, so good!

And, therefore said Arius in the fourth century, (and Jehovah's Witnesses today), Jesus must have come after God, because he is begotten by God, and so he isn't the same as God, and so he can't be God, because he came after God. And if he isn't God, he must be a creature. Or, in Arius' famous line:

There was when he was not.

We need insight and discernment in order to recognise error, so that we might cling to truth.

The apostle John is in total agreement with Peter on this need for discernment, for he says in 1 John 4:1:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

You have to keep the Ten Commandments.

You have to be circumcised.

You have to keep all of the rules, regulations, and rituals found in the Old Testament.

Yes, faith in Jesus is important, but you need something 'extra' to really arrive in the Christian faith.

And it sounded so good. So plausible. So believable. After all, the Bible that they had, the Old Testament, talked about circumcision, and law, and feasts, and commandments. So why not?

But their lack of discernment, their lack of insight into the implications of what they were being taught by whoever this person was, led them down a path that, ultimately, would have led them away from faith in Jesus Christ.

Why? How? This is what Paul tried to show them throughout the letter to the Galatians.

And if we begin to say that we need to be circumcised according to the Law of Moses in order to be saved, in order to be Christians, then aren't we also saying that faith in Christ "is not good enough", and that we "need something else to get us over the line? Something better than Christ?"

And if we are depending upon an external, such as circumcision, or baptism, or confirmation, or church membership; the spiritual gifts that we have, our work in the church, or even our theological education; then are we depending upon Christ, or are we depending upon ourselves?

And so, even though some people today teach that during the Millennium there will be a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem with animal sacrifices, I say, "No!", because that would undermine the all sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, once for all time.[7]

And so, as Paul writes to the Galatian Christians, we see that this lack of insight, this lack of discernment on their part led to the point where they accepted a "good sounding argument", or, as Peter would call it:

A cleverly devised myth,[8]

without thinking through the implications of that argument. Without thinking about the impact on the truth of Christ that these new teachers were trying to pass on.

But evolution gets rid of all of that, for if there is no sin, if there is no rebellion, then what is the need of Jesus? What is the need of the Gospel?

And that is why we, as Christians, need discernment. That is why we need insight. That is why we need to have our faith grounded firmly in the fundamentals of the Gospel.

The deity of Christ.

The virgin birth.

Christ's perfect life.

His death on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin. Paying the penalty for our sin.

His resurrection from the dead.

And a future day of accountability for our lives, our thoughts, and our actions.

And having our foundations right. Having the fundamentals of our faith right, we then must discern, and evaluate, and think through what people are telling us, instead of just blindly accepting everything that we are told.

And this need of discernment, this need of insight is one of the motivations for Paul's prayer in Philippians 1:9-11:

And notice what Paul wanted for the people. First of all, a growing love for one another. That is, a growing care for the good, the welfare of everyone around you. And "love" is not letting someone do whatever they want. Instead, love is encouraging someone to become all that God desires for them.

And in his own earthly life we see that Jesus himself needed that exact same discernment and insight so as to remain faithful to God the Father. We see this especially during his time of testing in the wilderness in Matthew 4:1-10:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.

The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”[9]

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”[11]

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”[12]

And as we look at the temptations it would be so easy to say, "why not"!

Why not turn those stones into bread? After all, you are hungry, and hasn't God given you the gifts, the power to do miracles? Why not use them?

Why not jump off of the temple? After all, it would give God an opportunity to show to the world just how faithful he is to his promises, and wouldn't God be glorified in this way?

Why not bow down to the tempter. After all, it is only a "little" compromise, and besides, if you do, you will get everything that God was going to give you anyway? So, what difference would it make?