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2 Peter 1:1-11 Spiritual Adulting March 3, 2019pm

READ 2 Peter 1:1-11

A friend of mine retells the story about when he turned 18. He went

around the house jokingly making sure that everyone knew it saying something like “It’s good to be a man now.” His dad met the joke with a

real quick one-liner about maturity. “Real men don’t have to remind everyone that they’re men.”

I’m sure you have heard the term “adulting” at some point recently. You may have even used it. It’s an homage to our culture’s ability to make a

verb out of any noun. Adulting is simply doing the things that accompany adulthood: going to work, paying bills, etc. Those of you who are hearing

the term for the first time are probably wondering why society feels like that even needs another term other than “living.” And that’s an excellent

question. Short answer: we don’t. It kind of goes back to “Real adults don’t have to remind everyone that they are one.”

It speaks to the lack of maturity that we have in our culture today, but worse than our culture’s immaturity is many Christians.’ One of my pastor

Corey M. Minter Page of 1 8

www.newhopefwbc.com 1285 New Hope Road J o e l t o n , T N 3 7 0 8 0 6 1 5 . 7 4 6 . 6 4 0 3


friends always jokes that the church nursery should be expanded in every church not for the infants but to make way for the growing number of

believers who refuse to grow in Christ. Playing off the classic Peter Pan story, another has written that the church has become a Spiritual Never

Neverland with lost boys wanting to stay in their spiritual adolescents instead of going on into deeper faith and understanding of Christ.

This is the group to whom Peter writes in 2 Peter. He is not hateful or brash as you may remember him in the Gospel accounts. He is older,

wiser, more aware of his personal failings and shortcomings and his need for a gracious Father. In a word, Peter is more mature, and with that

maturity, he sees the church’s necessity for spiritual growth better than anyone else.

As it stood in its infancy, the first century church was filled with genuine, sincere believers who truly desired a closer relationship with God

in the Word, but they were naively falling for rank heresy from some false teachers who had woven their way into the church community.

In verses 1-4, Peter starts with the basics that we talked about a couple of weeks ago. You stand in danger of falling for heresy if you have

a wrong view of yourself, others and God. So Peter sets the record straight about self-worth (really God-worth).

While deeply flawed and in us in no good thing, God has chosen us and sent us out into this world as His emissaries. As one popular worship song

reminds us today, “I am who You say I am,” not floundering Simons but Petros (rock). We are slaves (bondservants) of God, but He has called us

to a high calling of sharing the Message with the nations.



If you think too lowly of yourself, you will impoverish the grace of God and think too lowly of Christ’s sacrifice. But if you think too highly of

yourself, you start fighting for the spotlight which is Christ’s, and it is not about you.

Some Christians were falling there, but others struggled with their view of others. Looking at the new influx of Gentile believers taking their

places in the church, some of the Jewish Christians incorrectly believed that their salvation was more spiritual than others. After all, they were

God’s chosen people—twice chosen by God as a nation and now as the church.

With one short phrase in verse one, Peter sets them right. 2 Peter 1:1 …To those who have obtained like precious faith with

us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ… The Jew and Gentile believer have the exact same standing. They

have received the exact same precious faith from Jesus Christ. There are no second class citizens in the kingdom of God.

If you start thinking that you are more spiritual or more deserving of salvation than someones else, beware. You are fertile ground for some

pretty serious false teaching to take root in your life. Hopefully that catches you up a little on 2 Peter 1. A few weeks ago,

I left you hanging at the most important point: your view of Christ. If you have a wrong view of Christ’s working in your life, you are an easy catch

for some cultic offshoot of Christianity. Some of you may remember that I actually assigned homework,

asking everyone to continually read over 2 Peter 1:2-4. I’m not going to ask



for a show of hands or put anyone on the spot, but I will just say “Thank you.” I received texts, had conversations and even read some of your

hand-written commentary on 2 Peter 1:2-4. Based upon some of your work over the last 2 weeks, I am pretty confident that some of you really ought to

be the ones preaching this message. Seriously, there is no greater joy as your pastor than to see our people roll up their sleeves and delve into real

Bible study. You’re a weekly encouragement. Let’s read it.

2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,

3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by

glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious

promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through

lust. Knowing Jesus, not just as a factual, historical character but as an

intimate Friend Who personally died, rose and is even now preparing a place and advocating for you is all you need to start the steps to spiritual

maturity. I will never forget a conversation that I had with a saint who is now

with Christ. She was a fairly new believer, and she had a group of co-workers who fell into a Charismatic camp. During breaks, they were all the

time talking about “the second blessing,” baptisms by the Holy Spirit,



visions, ecstatic tongues, dreams and all that kind of stuff. She was worried that she had missed it…that there was more to Christianity. She

even began to doubt her own salvation decision in Christ because in her mind compared to them she was “coming up short.”

I loved being able to share with her the Truth about the sufficiency of Scripture, that any direction she will ever need in life can be found in the

Word of God and not some petty dream or private prophecy. “You have everything you need for the Christian life here.”

It was like this immense weight was lifted off her shoulders because no longer was the burden of growing in Christ based upon something

flimsy like interpreting a personal language with God the historically accurate, ever relevant very Word of God and the direction of the Holy

Spirit within her as she read its pages. Verse three tells us that Jesus has given us His divine power. Do you

know what that means? That means that we do not just have mere self-restraint or self-discipline in our lives to combat temptation. That means

that our sanctification, our growing, our maturing in Christ is not just based on something fragile like our own willpower or self-determination. The

Christian has been gifted by God through the knowledge of Jesus Christ in Scripture the Holy, Divine power to refuse sin and seek holiness.

I have heard a lot of people ask questions like, “Why don’t we see miracles like we did when Jesus was ministering on the earth?” We do!

Every single time the gossip refuses to pass on that juicy news that he just heard because His growth in Christ is more valuable than idle talk: miracle.

Every time, she flees sexual immorality because her growth and purity in



Christ is more real than any human relationship she might have: miracle. Every time a Believer shares his faith with an unbeliever as a means to

glorify Christ: miracle. Every time that student who has hit the books hard all week opens the Word because she knows Its Truth is more necessary

to her life than any other facts and figures that she could regurgitate on a paper: miracle. Every time he turns off the computer that tempting. Every

time she casts her anxieties before her Creator. Every time they give sacrificially, welcome the prodigal with open arms, work tirelessly for the

Kingdom: miracle. The daily dying to self by the Believer is not an act of will power but miraculous, Divine power given to every Christian so that he

might proclaim the glory and virtue (excellence) of Jesus. It’s by that Divine power that the child of God can die to self, choose

Christ, run so that he might receive the crown of life and a place in the Kingdom as a joint heir with Christ, where Jesus calls him His “Brother”

and calls her His “Sister.” Verse four tells us that we are partakers of the Divine nature, as if Jesus gives us His spiritual DNA. So that ultimately

when we stand before a righteous Judge (and everyone will), God doesn’t see title-loving, judgmental Corey. He sees His Son standing in my place. I

in Him and He in me. The Father makes His judgement off of Christ in me the Hope of

Glory, and now, I have escaped the corruption of this world that was brought in by Adam and Eve’s lust for power and prominence.

So then what? If my spiritual maturity (or spiritual adulting) is a work of Christ’s divine (and miraculous) power, what does that mean for me? Do

I just coast and tell God to do the work, treat Him like my own personal



sanctification genie? No. If all of Stan Lee’s Marvel superheroes have taught you anything, it ought to be that “With great power comes great

responsibility.” So it is with this divine power. We have a great responsibility.

If you’re like me, you kind of prickle at lists in Scripture. I have called it Checklist Christianity—doing spiritual things so I can check them off and

make myself feel better for having done them. I want to avoid that knock-off brand of sanctification that sometimes I get sick looking at a list like

what we have before us in verses 5-7. So it is necessary for us to remember while we read through these that you can technically do all of

these things on the list, complete them, dot the i’s, cross the t’s, check off the last one, and if you did it out of pride or because “it’s just what good

Christians do,” then you have not grown one inch in your life with Christ. You’re saying you’re spiritually adulting but mature Christians do not have

to keep reminding everyone that they are growing. It’s evident. 2 Peter 1:5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to

your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to

perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.

8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.



10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble;

11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We have in these verses what genuine spiritual maturity looks like. One step pushing you farther, urging you a little more deeply to run well

the race that is set before you. Tonight, I’m going to do the same thing I left you with last time.

Hopefully, I can whet your appetite a little for this passage of Scripture, you can spend some time real prayer and study, and then we’ll meet back and

dig deeper over the next several Sunday evenings about what Spiritual Adulting really looks like.

• Faith • Virtue (moral excellence)

• Knowledge (Biblical) • Self-control (wisdom)

• Perseverance (healthy dissatisfaction) • Godliness (living like you’re looking up)

• Brotherly kindness (living in community with other believers) • Christian love (sharing Christ with the world)


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