By Captain Michael Ramsay
There has been a lot of civil unrest and other things in the world lately: Let’s have a bit of a quiz to see if you can identify the incidents in the press:
- This country is now under military rule after their President Mubarak who had won 5 consecutive elections was ousted. (Egypt)
- This country issued warrant for its past President and its Prime Minister resigned this week. (Tunisia)
- Civil unrest continues in this country and the American Military surrounded the nation this week; Canada even sent the HMCS Charlottetown there. (Libya)
- A Canadian man has recently been abducted by the Taliban in this country. (Afghanistan)
- I read a headline also this week that says this country invades Denmark. Who invades Denmark? (Holland)
The headline read: Holland Invades Denmark. Sounds scary. Anybody know what the story was about? What the article is really about though is a little less scary: The Canadian women’s curling championship, the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, was this past week. For those who don’t know - Skip Amber Holland and her team of curlers from Saskatchewan won the tournament; so now Holland and her team are off to the world championships that are held in Denmark this year; thus Holland invades Denmark.
Today’s scripture reading – I think has a lot to do with team work and identifying with a team and what it takes to win as a team and how you identify people who are on a team.
Let’s see how we can do at this? Can we identify these teams?
- Team Canada Men’s Hockey celebrating their medals.
- Swift Current Indians celebrating their championship.
- Saskatchewan Roughriders practicing adding.
How do we identify teams? What do they have in common? They all play the same sport, usually play different positions, they wear the same uniforms, they practice together, they usually play at the same level – juniors play juniors, seniors play seniors, amateurs play amateurs, pros play pros: our Swift Current Broncos of the WHL for example aren’t going to challenge for the Stanley Cup with the professionals – actually they probably aren’t even going to challenge for the memorial cup with the juniors anytime soon but that is another story …
2 Peter 1:3-11 that we are looking at here talks a little bit about what it is like to play for Christ’s team. We remember 1 Peter that we have been looking at these past few weeks. In 1 Peter we are encouraged as to how to act and interact with outsiders, with the world in general.[1] Peter was instructing people to be holy as God is holy and how to stand fast in the grace of God in the midst of the world around us (1 Peter 1:15, 5:12; cf. John 17:14-18, James 1:27).
Today we are looking at 2 Peter. Both 1 and 2 Peter are occasional letters that were meant to be passed around to different church groups in different cities (cf. also Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27; Revelation 1:3 for evidence of the practice).[2] 2 Peter was likely written by the same author as 1 Peter. There is good reason to believe that the Apostle Simon Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter– for one reason, it says so right at the beginning of each of these letters (1 Peter 1:1, 2 Peter 1:1).[3] Both letters were probably written to churches in the Roman province of Asia, which is in modern day Turkey. And these letters would then need to have been written sometime before 68 CE or so because 68 CE was probably when the Roman government executed the Apostle Peter.[4]
Where the letter 1 Peter addressed the question of being holy in our dealings with the outside world, 2 Peter addresses how to interact as insiders[5] – which isn’t that much different by the way. This letter even tells us that there will be imposters posing as insiders, as our teammates who are in reality working for world, for the other side (and they might not even know it; see 2 Peter 2). 2 Peter is very concerned with both how to identify our true teammates and how to keep on playing as a team for Jesus (1 Peter 1:5-9; 2:1-22). This letter is like a hockey coach’s talk to his team as they head into the 3rd period of game 7 of the Stanley Cup final – or the final encouraging words in the fourth quarter of a big game to the Roughriders from their math tutor. These are words that are supposed to motivate them and get them going.
2 Peter 1:3-4: “His [Jesus’] divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
This paragraph is exciting and it is very much like 1 Peter that we have just finished looking at. It says that we can be free from the burden of sin (cf. TSA SB 281). We can be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:13); we can even participate in the divine nature of God himself -not through our own efforts- but through Jesus Christ and this is exciting (2 Peter 1:4; cf. John 1:12, Ephesians 4:24, Colossians 3:10, Hebrews 12:10, 1 John 3:2). God called us to be saved. God called us to be saved from our sins. We no longer need to be a slave to sin; instead we can be free from the power of sin (cf. Hebrews 10:19-40, Romans 8:9-17; cf. TSA d.7, d.10). We can be holy and this is good news (cf. 1 Peter 1:15, Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7; cf. also Psalm 89:35, Matthew 5:48, 2 Corinthians 13, Colossians 1:28, Hebrews 11-12).
I’ll skip down to Verses 10 And 11. Here Peter writes, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things [from verses 5-9 which we will look at in a moment], you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:10-11; cf. Philippians 3:16; cf. also cf. TSA d.7, d.9, d.10).
This is neat. Verses 3 and 4 and Verses 10 and 11 are the bread of the gospel sandwich that contains the meat or the peanut butter and jelly of Verses 5-9. Verses 3 and 4 and 10 and 11 tell us that Jesus Christ has called us and has made it so that we can indeed be saved and be holy and that as we do the things listed in Verses 5-9, then there is absolutely no reason why we wouldn’t, Verse 11, “receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Doctrine 10 of The Salvation Army states, “We believe that it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Peter is encouraging us to keep on keeping on. Peter is encouraging us to keep on going (cf. 2 Peter 1:15, 3:14; cf. also Philippians 3:12-14). Apparently in the time that this letter was written there were people in the Christian community who did not believe that Jesus was coming back soon. They believed that if he was going to come back soon then he would have come back already. Because they didn’t believe that he was coming back soon, they were telling their friends from church that it really didn’t matter what were their actions.[6] It didn’t really matter. ‘Jesus isn’t coming back tomorrow so if you just do what you think is right in your own eyes, if you aren’t overly concerned about doing what is right, it will be okay’, they’d say, ‘He’ll forgive you’. Some of the actions that people had given up upon becoming Christians, such as attending business dinners or social functions in pagan temples, they were starting to return to.[7] They were slowing ceasing to separate themselves from the profane elements of a pagan culture.
We see and hear this same sort of thing today, don’t we? I’m not going to go on today about the epicureans or their modern near equivalent, the secularists;[8] but are there ways in which we in the churches are tempted to slide back into the ways of the world? How many times are we tempted to cut holiness corners, so to speak, figuring that God understands; God will forgive us? ‘I’m late for work; God will understand if I speed just this once’: one holiness corner cut. ‘I have heard some really important news; God will forgive me if I share it with someone – even if it is gossip – they really need to know’: another holiness corner cut. ‘Jesus isn’t coming back in the next couple of moments while I am filing my tax returns, he won’t care if I don’t declare this money that I earned under the table.’ Or another holiness corner that people tend to cut all the time: how about this one? ‘God doesn’t care if I don’t at tithe at least 10%; I need the money more that Jesus does right now. I can’t even afford to make ends meet.’ This is the sort of trap that Peter is encouraging us to avoid here (1 Peter 1:5-9). He says in effect don’t cut holiness corners!
I remember when in university, I was a janitor. I was diligent in refusing to work Sundays which I claimed for religious reasons at least on one occasion but – as my boss wasn’t with me when I worked - I would often finish my four hours of work in two hours and go home two hours early and still write down four hours on my pay timesheet. You know how you know when some things just aren’t right but you do them anyway? I don’t know what bothered me most about leaving after only 2 hours and consistently writing 4 hours on my time sheet that I still remember it now, 20 plus years later. I don’t know whether it was the fact that I was technically cheating my boss or the idea that I was letting God down or the reality that the security guard who always saw me leave early inevitably asked me everyday what God would say about my leaving early? When we cut holiness corners like this, we are giving Christians a bad name. When we aren’t giving holiness, salvation, and God 100%, we are making God look bad because people associate Him with us. When we do this, we are like athletes on a team who believe that the game is out of reach for their opponents; who believe that their position is secure. It is like the team who is so far ahead in the standings that they don’t think that anyone can possibly catch them – they already have enough points to be the league champions. They have the star player on their team who has basically already assured them of victory so the other members of the team, they stop playing. They figure that their star player has already assured them the victory so they stop putting in the 110% that athletes like to say is expected of them.
While it is true that the race for the Cup of Everlasting Life is already secured and that Jesus has already scored the penultimate goal, giving us everything we need for a godly life; Coach Peter tells us that that doesn’t mean that we can stop playing because if professional athletes quit playing they can find themselves traded or sent to the minors and then even though the victory is already guaranteed, even though their team is to be awarded the cup, if they are no longer playing for the team, they won’t experience the victory (Romans 13:11-14; cf. TSA d. 9).[9]
Jesus is God –2 Peter 2:3 – and He has already given us everything that we need for a godly life. He secured the victory for His team which [hopefully] we are on. We don’t need to sin. We don’t need to fail. Christ has already won the championship and secured the victory. We have already received everything that we need for a godly life through simply knowing Jesus and being on his team. And Jesus himself is the one who called us to play on his team (2 Peter 1:3; cf. 1 Peter 2:9, Revelation 17:14). Because Jesus himself has given us absolutely everything that we need for this godly life, we don’t need to give into sin or evil desires anymore instead we can - Verse 4 – we can be like God. As athlete on the Christians’ team, we should play like Christ!
This is the beginning of the Coach Peter’s spiel. In the letter to the Christians in Asia in the first century and to us here today, Coach Peter is telling us that we can do it, as Christ has done it (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22). Christ has already secured us the cup. We can experience the victory with Christ when the season is finally over. The championship is ours for the taking; provided we just don’t give up, quit the team, or get ourselves sent down to the minors because we have quit playing for the team.[10] Keep your eye on the ball, Peter says. Keep your stick on the ice, Peter says. Keep your head up, Peter says. Give 110%, Peter says. The victory is ours, Peter says, Verses 5-9.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; [Coach Peter says, Verse] 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; [Coach Peter says, Verse] 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love [Coach Peter says. Verse] 8, For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 9: But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.
Coach Peter is telling us that this season’s championship is in reach for us. Jesus has secured us the victory. All we need to do is keep playing, keep giving our 110%, and stay on God’s team. Keep seeking God with all our heart and mind and live up to what we have already obtained simply by being with Jesus who loves us. When we love someone, such as a husband, a wife, a child; we don’t want anyone to hurt them. We, ourselves, want to do everything we can for those we love not so that they will love us any more than they already do but because we do love them as much as we do; we naturally do these acts of love for those dear to us simply because we love them. It is the same Christ as we love Him; Verses 5-9 again:
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.
The game is almost over, in just a little while the final whistle will sound and we, Coach Peter says – so long we don’t quit playing and thus get traded to another team or sent to the minors – as we remain on Christ’s team, everything will be okay; we will be crowned champions with Jesus Christ at the end of the day. As we are huddled around Coach Peter now in the text with time ticking off the clock; Coach Peter says, just keep your stick on the ice, play your heart out, don’t give up and the we will experience that victory that Christ, our Lord, has already won for us for eternity. 2 Peter 1:10-11, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, [let us] make every effort to confirm your [our] calling and election. For if you [we] do these things, you [we] will never stumble, and you [we] will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
[1] Donald W. Burdick and John H. Skilton ‘Introduction to 2 Peter’, in NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), 1938.
[2] Cf. Edwin A. Blum, ‘The Expositor's Bible Commentary’, Pradis CD-ROM:1 Peter/Introduction to 1 Peter/Literary Form of 1 Peter, Book Version: 4.0.2
[3]Michael Green, ‘2 Peter and Jude: An Introduction and Commentary’, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1987 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 18), S. 30: “It is unfortunate to find in many commentaries on 2 Peter a virtual abandonment of the normal criteria used for establishing the authenticity of any other ancient document—for example, the Letters of Plato. There is a clear methodology among literary critics, and that is to allow the text to speak for itself. It is then considered whether the grammar, style, contents, what the letter claims and what the author says or implies about himself contradict the putative authorship. If not, the claim is allowed to stand. Nothing has been demonstrated in the language, style or content of 2 Peter which falsifies the claim that it is a mid-first-century ad letter, deriving from Simon Peter.”
[4] Simon J. Kistemaker, ‘Commentary the First Epistle of Peter’ (NTC: Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007), 99.
[5] Donald W. Burdick and John H. Skilton, 1938.
[6] Duane F. Watson, ‘The Second Letter of Peter’ (NIB XII: Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1962), 325.
[7] Duane F. Watson, 325.
[8] Cf. Jerome Neyrey, ‘2 Peter, Jude’ (Anchor Bible 37C: New York: Doubleday & Co.: 1993), 122-128
[9] Cf. Captain Michael Ramsay, ‘Victory: The Final Whistle (Romans 13:11-14)’, presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on December 02, 2007 and to Swift Current Corps on August 16, 2009. Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/victory-final-whistle-romans-1311-14.html
[10] Cf. Pheme Perkins, ‘First and Second Peter, James, and Jude’ (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky, USA: John Knox Press, 1995), 170.
Posts
