Grow in Understanding

One of the underlying themes throughout Peter's second letter is the idea of "growth". Spiritual growth. He says in 2 Peter 3:18:

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

In other words, the goal of everything he says to us throughout this letter; his final challenge to us in his second letter, is to "grow". Don't remain what you are, instead, become all that God desires you to be.

And Peter says that this spiritual growth exhibits itself in various ways. There is growth in our perseverance in the faith. Growth in our confidence in Christ. And growth in our insight into the mysteries of Christ.

There is also growth in our holiness. There is growth in humility. And, as we will see over the coming messages, Peter talks about each of these areas of "growth" in his second letter.

But this morning I would like us to think about a different area of growth, one which we observe in the very first verse, where Peter says:

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.[1]

We read in 2 Peter 3:18 that Peter challenges us to "grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ". That is, to grow in our understanding of what Jesus has done, and what our response to Jesus should be. But here, in the very first verse of his letter, Peter challenges us to grow in our understanding of who Jesus is, for he calls Jesus:

Our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Not, "Jesus the king". Not, "Jesus the healer". Not, "Jesus the miracle worker". And not simply "Jesus the Messiah", or "the Christ". All of which happen to be true. But Peter calls him, "our great God and saviour, Jesus Christ". Here, in the very first verse of his letter, Peter clearly states that this Jesus whom he preaches, this Jesus in whom he trusts, is not only our saviour, the one who brings us the forgiveness of sins and new life, but this Jesus is also our God!

And as we think about these statements we need to remember that all his life Peter was a good, monotheistic, Jew. That is, like the rest of Israel he believed that there is only one God. Not two, three, or fifty-seven. There is only one God.

And for Peter to say that Jesus is "our great God and Saviour", was truly amazing, for both of these titles were reserved only for the Lord, the God of Israel, who had delivered Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Only this one God, and no one else, was "God and Saviour". Along with all Jews, Peter agreed with that great proclamation of faith found in Deuteronomy 6:4:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.[2]

A statement that Jesus himself affirmed.[3]

And not only was Peter convinced that there is only one God, he was also convinced that this one God is the true saviour, the only saviour of humanity, for we read in Isaiah 43:10-11:

You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no saviour.

And what we see here is that not only does Isaiah affirm that there is only, ever, one God, but Isaiah also declares that there is only, and always, one saviour.

And for Peter to call Jesus "God" was a giant leap in his knowledge about Jesus, his knowledge of God because, as they all knew, there is only one God. And for Peter to call Jesus "saviour", something he does five times in this letter,[4] was an equally large step, because, as they all knew, there is only one saviour, and that is God himself. And yet Peter calls Jesus both "God" and "Saviour". And in doing so he gives us a sign of his growth in the:

Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

A growth in his understanding that took him from thinking that Jesus was only a man; a good man, but only a man, to recognising that Jesus is God in the flesh. An understanding that this same Jesus whom he had listened to, learned from, and spent years with, this Jesus is God, and he is saviour.

And Peter isn't the only one who grew into this understanding of who Jesus is. The apostle John said in John 1:1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Paul said in Titus 2:13 that:

We wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The writer of Hebrews said that Psalm 45:6 were the words of God the Father to Jesus.

Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal sceptre is a sceptre of equity.[5]

As well as the words of Psalm 102:25:

Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.[6]

And the context of Psalm 102 shows us that the words of this psalm were addressed to God, the Lord, the great deliverer of Israel. But the writer of Hebrews came to understand that this Psalm is all about Jesus, who is God!

And Philippians 2 is a hymn of the church, composed, sung, and shared within thirty years of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and which proclaims the full deity of Jesus.

And, as Rabbi Jacob Neusner pointed out in his book, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus,[7] when, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said such things as:

You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.[8]

Rabbi Neusner says that when Jesus said such things as this, he was claiming to be the only one who could change the law, that is, one who is himself God. For in saying, "but I say to you", Jesus was setting aside what had been said through Moses and was bringing in a new instruction. A different instruction, and only one who is God could do that to the Law of God.

And this issue of the full identity of Jesus came up several times during the life and ministry of Jesus, for we read in Mark 2:5-7 that when the four friends of a paralysed man lowered him through the roof so that Jesus could heal him:

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

And, of course, they were right. God is the only one who can forgive sins. But in his very act of forgiving sins Jesus was proclaiming to the crowds that he was more than just a man. Instead, he was God in the flesh.

And in John 10:28-30, when Jesus said to the crowds:

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.

We then read beginning in John 10:31-32 that:

The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?”

And how did the crowds respond?

It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.[9]

You see, the crowd understood Jesus' words to be a claim to equality with God. A claim to deity.

And in John 5:17-18 John says that this also happened earlier on, for we read:

Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” For this reason, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

And although some of the people understood the full implications of what Jesus was claiming; Peter and the other apostles did not. At first, Peter and the others thought that Jesus was just a man. A great man, but just a man.

John the Baptist had said about Jesus:

Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world![10]

But what that actually meant, none of the disciples understood. And, besides, Peter wasn't even there to hear what John said, but his brother Andrew heard it, and he thought that Jesus was the Messiah, and he was so excited that he brought Peter to meet Jesus,[11] but we have no idea about what Peter thought at the time.

We know that Peter followed Jesus. And we know that Peter called Jesus "lord",[12] and "rabbi",[13] but that meant nothing more than "someone that I serve", and someone who is a teacher. But they are most certainly not Peter's declaration of belief in Jesus as God. No. That understanding, that knowledge of who Jesus really is, grew slowly, for as far as Peter was concerned, Jesus was only a Rabbi.

But as he started spending time with Jesus. As he listened to Jesus preach and teach. As he saw Jesus heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, still the storms, walk on water, feed the multitudes, give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to those who could not speak, Peter's understanding about who Jesus really is began to grow. And so, when Jesus asked his disciples in Matthew 16:15:

Who do you say I am?

Peter answered straight away:

You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

But that didn't mean that he thought that Jesus was God, because the priests in the temple were also "anointed".[14] That is, they were "Christs" or "Messiahs", for the word simply means "anointed". Kings were anointed, and the King of Israel, in particular, was referred to as "The Lord's Anointed".[15] That is, "the Lord's Messiah". Even Cyrus, king of Persia, was called "the Lord's anointed", because he was chosen for a particular task.[16]

And calling Jesus "son of God" didn't mean that Peter thought that Jesus was "God in the flesh", because the kings of Israel were also thought of, and referred to as, sons of God.[17] And God had said about David's descendant, the one who would reign after David:

I will be his father, and he will be my son.[18]

So maybe Peter just thought that Jesus was the promised king who was going to restore Israel.[19]

And in John 6:69, when Peter said to Jesus:

We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.

This isn't a profession of faith that Jesus is God. It is simply a statement that Jesus is a holy man who has come from God. But this means nothing more than the fact that Peter probably thought that Jesus was the Messiah, or Jesus was the Prophet Moses had promised.[20] But not God become a human being.

And so, during the earthly life of Jesus Peter came to believe that Jesus is a great Rabbi, a messiah, a son of God in that Old Testament sense. But he did not yet believe that Jesus is God in the flesh.

But what we do see in the Gospels Is that Peter's understanding of who Jesus was grew as he spent more and more time with Jesus.

The more time he spent with Jesus, the more he began to understand about Jesus, Peter's knowledge of Jesus' life, his character, his person, his work, and ministry grew and developed, and deepened as he listened to Jesus, and as he observed Jesus. Peter's knowledge of Jesus grew so that he wasn't that "new born babe" that he had been when Andrew first found him and brought him to Jesus.

But Peter was not yet where he needed to be in order to state clearly and plainly that Jesus is our "great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ". That would no doubt begin to be understood when he, along with Thomas and the other Apostles, saw the risen Jesus after his crucifixion and Thomas bowed before Jesus, exclaiming:

My lord and my God![21]

But not yet. Not during Jesus' earthly life.

And one thing that this reminds us of is that growth in our understanding, growth in our knowledge about who Jesus is and what he has done, spiritual growth takes time. Nobody is "born again" with a fully developed systematic theology. With a full understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are all "born again" as brand new babies, and like brand new babies we need:

[to] long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation.[22]

And like brand new babies, it takes time to grow up. To mature. And like brand new babies, without that "pure spiritual milk", none of us will grow, develop, or mature in our faith.

We need to remember that when Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter he had been walking with Jesus for over thirty years.

When John wrote in his Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He had been walking with Jesus for some fifty to sixty years.

When Paul wrote in Titus 2:13 that:

We wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

He had been walking with Jesus for some twenty-five to thirty years. And before that Paul had been steeped in the teaching of the Scriptures his entire life, although he had not yet come to understand what they fully meant.

It takes time to mature in our faith. It takes time to grow in our understanding. It takes time, it takes effort, and it takes commitment. And the understanding that each of these men had did not come instantaneously. It came over time as they each spent time with Jesus.

And like Peter, John, and Paul, for us to grow up, to mature, to grow in our knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is, we need to spend time with Jesus. We need to spend time reading the Word of God. Spend time thinking about the Word of God. Spend time praying about what we read. We each need to:

Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.[23]

But to do that, we need to spend time with Jesus.

We also need to remember that, even though Peter, Andrew, and the others spent three years with Jesus, none of them fully and properly grasped the full implications of what Jesus was saying about himself. None of them fully grasped the implications of his teachings, his life, or his ministry until after the resurrection. Do you remember when Jesus asked his disciples, "who do you say I am"? Peter replied that he thought that Jesus was both Messiah and Son, but when Jesus:

began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.[24]

We read in Matthew 16:22 that:

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you."

Even though Jesus had clearly and plainly said it, Peter did not accept it. He rejected the teaching of Jesus, and it would take time for Peter to accept, and to fully grasp the meaning of everything that Jesus said.

Have you ever been reading your Bible, or at a Bible study, or in church listening to the message, and all of a sudden the "light goes on", and you say to yourself:

I never realised that! I never knew that!

And you might have read that passage of scripture dozens, hundreds of times, but then, all of sudden, God takes that passage, opens up your understanding of its meaning, and "AHA!", and growth in the knowledge of our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, happens. But that takes time.

But not only does it take time to grow in our knowledge of Jesus, it also takes effort. That is, we have to apply ourselves, we have to discipline ourselves. Jude, the brother of Jesus said that we are to:

build yourselves up on your most holy faith.[25]

And "building" takes effort. It is hard work.

It takes effort to change our priorities so that we begin to read the Word of God, and pray, and think about the Word of God instead of doing all of the other things that we sometimes do. It takes effort to allow ourselves to be challenged by the Bible, or by the messages we hear in church, or by the good Christian books we might read. It takes effort, because it is so much easier to simply read without thinking about what we are reading. It is easier to hear without really listening to what is being said. Is it any wonder that Jesus said in Mark 4:9:

Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.

It takes effort to allow our current thoughts, ideas, or understanding to be challenged, and then to investigate what the Word of God says, and to apply the Word of God to what we hear, or to what we read.

It takes effort to be like the Bereans, who:

Examined the scriptures every day to see whether these things were so.[26]

It is so much easier to just blindly accept everything that is said – or nothing that is said. It is so much easier to just accept everything that we read – or nothing that we read. It is much harder to apply ourselves, to think through the issues, to think through the Word of God, and then to apply the Word of God to our lives, our thoughts, our values, our ethics, and our behaviour. But that is the only way to spiritual growth.

In the King James, or Authorised Version of the Bible, we read in 2 Timothy 2:15:

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

And that word which the King James translators translated as "study" doesn't mean to just pull out a book and read. It translates a word which means to "make every effort".[27] Or, as many translations put it at that point, "do your best". It is that same basic word that we find in 2 Peter 1:5:

For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge.

Or 2 Peter 1:10:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble.

And also, in 2 Peter 3:14:

Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish.

“Every effort.” “Eager.” “Strive”. Throughout this letter Peter is encouraging us to not be slack. To not be lazy. To not think that spiritual growth will "just happen". He is encouraging us to devote our time, our effort, our commitment, to growing in grace and in faith. To make every effort to grow in spiritual maturity. To make every effort to grow in assurance. To make every effort to grow in holiness.

But this isn't "salvation by works". This isn't "God gets us started, but we have to do the rest". Far from it. It is instead:

Us by the Spirit.[28]

It is us cooperating with the Spirit of God, as the Spirit of God cooperates with us. And as we, by the Spirit follow in the path of God, then holiness, growth, maturity, comes.

But not only does this take time, and not only does this take effort, but it also takes commitment from us.

It is not, "well, I'm a bit tired today, so I will read my Bible tomorrow”. Instead, it is I'll read daily. I will listen to God daily. I will seek to understand the Word of God, and what it says, and what it means for my life, daily.

It is not, "well, I’ll pray at a meeting", or "I'll pray in the morning", or "I'll pray when I get around to it". Instead, it is "pray without ceasing".[29]

It is not, "I will follow Jesus, I will obey Jesus when it is convenient for me". Instead, it is "I will take up my cross daily".[30] Every day I will die to self, I will die to selfishness, and I will follow Jesus.

Spiritual growth is God's goal, God's desire for us. But is spiritual growth our goal and desire for ourselves? If it is, then to achieve spiritual growth in our lives will take time. It will take effort. And it will take commitment.

• Are you willing to take the time?

• Are you willing to make the effort?

• Are you willing to make the commitment to walk with Jesus every day of your life?

Then I encourage you, I challenge you, to:

Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.[31]

[1] 2 Peter 1:1

[2] Or, “the Lord alone”, (NRSV).

[3] Mark 12:29

[4] 2 Peter 1:1, 11; 2:20; 3:2, 18. c/f Paul in Philippians 3:20; 2 Timothy 1:10; Titus 1:4; 2:13; 3:6. Notice that Paul refers to God as saviour in 1 Timothy 1:1; 2:3; 4:10; Titus 1:3; 2:10; 3:4. See also Jude 1:25.

[5] Hebrews 1:8

[6] Hebrews 1:10

[7] Neusner, Jacob A Rabbi Talks with Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 1993)

[8] Matthew 5:21-22. c/f Matthew 5:27-28, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44

[9] John 10:33

[10] John 1:29, 36

[11] John 1:40-41

[12] Matthew 14:28; 26:22; 17:4; 18:21; Luke 5:8; 12:41; John 6:68; 13:6, 9, 36-37; 21:15, 17, 21

[13] Mark 9:5; 11:21

[14] Hebrew: מָשַׁח [mashak] Greek: χρίω [chriō].

[15] מְשִׁ֣יחַ יְהוָ֔ה. [m^Əshiach Yahweh]. 1 Samuel 16:6; 24:6, 10; 26:9, 16; 23; 2 Samuel 1:14, 16; 19:22; Lamentations 4:20

[16] Isaiah 45:1

[17] Psalm 2:7

[18] 2 Samuel 7:14

[19] Acts 1:6

[20] Deuteronomy 18:15, 18

[21] John 20:28

[22] 1 Peter 2:2

[23] 2 Peter 3:18

[24] Matthew 16:21

[25] Jude 1:20

[26] Acts 17:11b

[27] σπουδάζω [spoudazō], or σπουδή [spoudē], 2 Peter 1:5.

[28] Romans 8:13

[29] 1 Thessalonians 5:17

[30] Matthew 10:38

[31] 2 Peter 3:18