Last Sunday, Pastor Kyle finished up our church’s sermon series through the New Testament book of 2 Peter. For a tree, it is often the things that are going on under the surface that bring life or decay and this same principle is true for our faith.
2 Peter 3:14-18 “Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 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.”
Every Believer is waiting to be found by the Lord because one day Jesus will return for His church. How do you want to be found by the Lord? The Apostle Peter is not talking about what we will be doing when He returns. He is speaking about the overall condition of our soul. God wants to find His church growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We need to be diligent to remain two characteristics until Jesus comes and finds us. The implication is that if we are uncareful and lazy, then we’ll be found in a poor spiritual condition. The two chrematistics are: (1) without spot or blemish, and (2) at peace.
Habakkuk 1:13 “Thou [God] art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity”.
Spiritual growth means daily obedience and faithfulness to Jesus. That term “without spot or blemish” refers to the required condition of sacrificial lambs in the Old Testament. God instructed Moses as to what are acceptable and unacceptable sacrifices to the Lord for sin. Leviticus 1:3 made it crystal clear that the people needed to bring a male lamb without blemish for their offering. Giving one up one of their best and most valuable assets signified a true sacrifice unto God. The sacrifice is costly because sin is costly. God cannot let sin go unpunished or else He is neither holy or just. God’s penalty for sin is death (aka the wages of sin is death) for the sinner. A sinless human substitute could take the place of a sinner, but all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God’s Law made a provision for a temporary sacrificial substitute of a perfect lamb annually. A lamb without spot or blemish symbolized sinless perfection [a sinless sacrifice] to be offered unto God, so innocent blood had to be shed to pay the cost of our sin. Sometimes, losing something is the only thing that helps us understand the cost of what we have done.
In 1 Peter 3:17-18, refers to Jesus Christ as “the lamb without spot or blemish”. I John 1:29, John the Baptist identifies Jesus as “the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”. Only Jesus Christ was the perfect sacrificial lamb without spot or blemish to pay for the sins of all sinful mankind once and for all. That is why He came. The Apostle Peter tells us that we are to be found by Jesus without spot or blemish. That means we are to be found in the pure, spiritual state of obedience and faithfulness to the Lord. That doesn’t mean that we will never sin again in life. The Apostle Paul explains in Galatians 5:16-17, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” This side of Heaven, we all have to struggle with the sin nature of the human flesh desires. As we walk in the Spirit, we grow more daily into the likeness of Christ. Even though we will never be that perfectly spotless lamb without blemish, we should try every day to live as Jesus would want us to live. When we don’t, we need to confess our sins and ask for forgiveness, repenting and honestly work to obediently do what is “right” in the eyes of the Lord thereon. Jesus wants us to be growing and found obediently faithful, not just when He comes, but every single day.
Let's continue Pastor Kyle's Message on growing in grace and Knowledge in the next post. In Christ, Brian
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