"The Knowledge Of Our Lord Jesus Christ" – 2 Peter 1:3 “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” Everything we need for life and for godliness comes through one channel: knowing Jesus. And knowing Him is not a matter of religion or of position, because no one can bend Him: what He says is no, is no. The study shows that this knowledge forms a firm character no one can shake; that it teaches us to pray, since the only one who can carry our prayer to the Father is the Son who intercedes at His right hand; and that it is the channel of holiness, for to know Him is eternal life (John 17:3) and to grow in His knowledge is to grow in holiness. It closes with the five callings Peter names and the seven precious things of his letters.
I. Looking into our inner being.
A. Knowledge is the possession of many interrelated things within your being.
1. If we are speaking of Jesus, your face ought to break into a smile.
2. You are what you have acquired: from what you lived, knew and received from others.
3. What I want to be is what I have acquired from God.
B. Knowledge is passed on: what one distributes, that person distributes to another.
1. So it becomes established and shapes us into what the Lord should be in our life.
2. I do not boast of what I have: I boast of what hurts and of what I have lived.
II. Knowing the Lord forms a strong character.
A. Not rudeness, nor bad manners, nor opinions about people: a strong character.
1. What I will not laugh at, I will not laugh at; what I will not swallow, I will not swallow.
2. Whoever fills his life with the knowledge of Christ does not waver nor think twice.
B. Who comes to deform what we have formed in seeking to love God?
1. Seeing all He has done and how much evil He has delivered us from.
III. Through the knowledge of Him who called us.
A. He called us by His glory and excellence, and that imprints His knowledge on us.
1. Satan confronted Him to fight with Him, and He was the victor.
2. Who conquered death? He Himself. And who can tame Him?
B. What Jesus says is no, is no; and what is complicated is our stubbornness.
1. We try to bend Jesus out of a lack of knowledge.
2. Jesus does not act like the ordinary fathers and mothers of the earth.
3. What you do not want to see, Jesus has already seen.
C. This road is not double: either you sin, or you are sanctified.
1. Predestination and election are doctrine; they must be studied.
2. Who is the one resisting: Jesus, or man?
IV. How to be kept from falling.
A. Whoever wants to sow something almost always does it with a whisper.
1. Without the knowledge of God, that whisper is nothing but deceit.
2. Things are a yes or a no, not a “maybe” or a “perhaps”.
B. What you do not know is how to pray for yourself: Jesus does it at the Father's right hand.
1. He pleads with the Father and prays for you.
2. Every prayer ends in the name of Jesus, for only He carries it to the Father.
3. No prayer reaches the Father directly.
C. It is not the blood of God: it is the blood of Christ.
1. The Father is on His throne; Christ paid, because the Father sent Him.
2. The blood of Christ cannot be contaminated, not by a single speck.
V. Everything pertaining to life and godliness.
A. Godliness is that devotion to what is holy, that desire for all that is holy.
1. It has been granted by His divine power, through His death.
2. It is not “I want to preach or lay on hands”: it must be granted by the One who paid.
3. Here it is not position, nor pretense, nor ambition to display.
B. We depend entirely on Jesus: He is the one who does everything.
1. Let us not treat Jesus as weak.
2. When you know Him, you fear Him and you dread failing Him.
3. He is glorified at the Father's right hand: He conquered death and our sins.
C. The order is: first life, then godliness.
1. The Gospel is God's power to save us from sin's penalty, power and defilement.
2. At conversion the Holy Spirit comes, because the blood of Christ is on the body.
3. It includes Christ's high-priestly work, the Spirit's ministry and the angelic agencies.
VI. The power to live a holy life.
A. It comes through the knowledge of Him who called us.
1. The day you say “I am leaving this misery behind”, deliverance will come.
2. Whoever wants to escape escapes with tooth and nail.
B. The sad thing is deceit; Satan is quickly found out, but man deceives with tears.
C. Whoever shares in sin does not love his own: he loves the evil that rots him.
1. “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap”: it is law.
2. His divine power is the source of holiness, and knowledge is its channel.
VII. To know Him is eternal life (John 17:3).
A. To grow in His knowledge is to grow in holiness.
1. The more you know Him, the more you are sanctified, because you know what Jesus says.
2. Whoever knows Him repents even of an ugly thought.
3. If you do not know Him, you do not grow in holiness: you are the same as the world.
B. The better we come to know Him, the more we will resemble Him.
1. Whoever has that knowledge speaks according to heaven when he opens his mouth.
2. Because Jesus is gentle and humble in heart.
3. Not knowing Him is the cry of your deeds; the whole life gives it away.
VIII. Our calling, Peter's favorite theme.
A. Peter did know Him: that is why he asked not to be crucified like the Master.
1. He was punishing himself for having denied Him.
2. A rooster cried out against him: not another apostle, not a high priest.
3. Because that is Jesus: He defends Himself alone, and so He is supreme authority.
B. The callings Peter names.
1. Out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).
2. To return good for evil and blessing for cursing (1 Peter 3:9).
3. To His eternal glory (1 Peter 5:10), and by His glory and excellence (2 Peter 1:3).
C. He called us by revealing the wonders of His person.
1. Saul of Tarsus was called on the road to Damascus when he saw the glory of God.
2. “I looked at His face, and I was forever lost to all that was not His.”
3. This is knowing Him completely, not by halves.
IX. His precious and magnificent promises.
A. It is reckoned that there are at least thirty thousand promises in the Bible.
1. The way of life is so covered with them that one cannot take a step without passing one.
2. That is how we live: from glory to glory, not from ruin to ruin.
B. The seven precious things Peter names.
1. Faith more precious than gold (1:7) and the blood of Christ (1:19).
2. Christ as living stone (2:4), as cornerstone (2:6) and as of great value (2:7).
3. A gentle and quiet spirit (3:4) and the promises of God (2 Peter 1:4).
C. The absence of knowledge makes us faint.
1. It keeps us from being men and women of faith.
2. Knowing Him is what puts to death the passions that will one day come to light.
Christian Church Mega Zoé · Pastor Edermira Cruz
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