Sermon Tone Analysis

II Peter Intro 1-

Study #2 Originally shared Sunday, November 6th, 2011

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Last time I had the privilege to teach you all….

• We had just introduced the book of II Peter.

• And started looking at the first few verses.

We took a moment to talk about Peter.

• How we have seen his heart

• How we have heard his words.

• How we have shared in his actions

• Peter is a disciple of great love and compassion for the followers of Jesus.

• We remarked how Peter was such a great encourager.

• Encouragement, over and over.

• Loving kindness over and over.

• He began with his first epistle with encouragement, ended with encouragement…

• …and took us to task in being diligent in living out the words that Jesus had taught him, and us.

And then, introducing the letter of II Peter…

• How peter continues to encourage, but that it is different this time.

• He encourages us, yes.

• But this time not about trials and tribulations…

• Now it’s about ourselves.

• About us as individuals, and about us as a church.

• How we live out Christianity.

• Peter will asks us as believers and says…

• “if you are a believer, you had better know the Word of God, and know it well.”

• He makes it clear that you cannot be complacent!

• He warns that you need to be continually growing in faith and spirit and knowledge of God’s word.

• And that if you are not growing, not only are you wrong…

• But you need to check your commitment…

• That we need to be producing fruit in our lives…

• …and in the church.

• And if we are not, to check our very faith.

So let’s look at 2 Peter.

1 Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

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.

We covered most of this in our last lesson.

• But there is so much to learn here.

• And I want to key on a couple of points.

Here Peter exposes the readers to the supernatural.

• Because the world is always taking what god has made for good, and turning it into sin, or something bad…

• When we hear the word ‘supernatural’, many of us simply cringe and assume what is being talked about is evil.

• TV is inundated with shows about the “supernatural”.

Ghost Stories, Celebrity Ghost Encounters, Haunted Houses, Zombie this and Zombie that, etc.

• Those shows all display things about ghosts, the undead, and more…

• These shows do all they can to convince the world that the “supernatural’ exists.

• And that there really ARE evil spirits out there to be afraid of, and that walk amongst us.

Well, in part, they are right.

• But what troubles me most is that they have taken the word supernatural…

• …and caused it to be associated with evil and the occult.

• When in fact, supernatural simply means simply that which ius unexplainable by the laws of nature.

• Beyond our natural laws.

• It now also means things which pertain to God or a deity…

• …as well as things pertaining to ghosts, goblins or the occult.

• But these are later definitions.

What comes of as strange to me in all this…

• …is that the “world” and Hollywood works overtime to get you to believe that ghosts and goblins are real…

• …there we are getting ready to face the Zombie apocalypse…

• In this sense they are completely willing to believe that ghosts and ghouls are real supernatural things.

• That there is a Supernatural evil out there to be afraid of….

• But they will fight tooth and nail…

• … in the media and even in the courts to get you to believe…

• …that there is NO GOD!

On one hand…

• …the hand that collects the cash from the movie tickets you buy to go see movies about Vampires, and ghosts and ghouls and zombies and haunted houses…

• …the hand that collects the advertising revenues from the TV shows like this…

• …billions of dollars…

• Is the same hand that will slap you with a law suit for praying in school

• Or mentioning the name of Jesus at a public meeting.

Supernatural for evil intent or from evil sources is promoted…

• …while the supernatural for good and from God…

• …is hated, despised.

Well, God IS Supernatural.

• The things He can do are supernatural.

• When we think of supernatural, we think evil and ghostly things that the world has corrupted this word to mean.

• But we must not forget that the Supernatural things of God Do exist.

• And through His supernatural workings, healings, provisions and all sorts of miracles are performed everyday!

Now does this mean that the supernatural as the world displays it on TV...

• …that of demons and ghosts etc….

• …do not exist or are not real.

• As demons are real, and Satan and his minions can cause things to happen…

• …can cause us to see things that perhaps are not there.

• They too have some supernatural powers that are very real.

• It is for this reason that we need to stay out of this stuff.

• We need to not be watching these things

• And partaking in the spread of what is ungodly into the culture.

• When we watch these things, read about these things…

• …we are opening our minds to things of the enemy.

• My point here is that you can’t have it both ways.

• If the supernatural exists, you must have room for supernatural god as well as supernatural evil.

• And we must not do that.

But that s not what I wanted to focus on.

• What I do want to focus on is GOD’S supernatural power.

• As verse 3 says:

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

• God’s divine power exists.

• God’s divine power is real.

• And as we have been called to be holy as God is Holy

• To live a life blameless

• To emulate Jesus in all things…

• And this divine power that does exist, and exists in us…