Series: 2 Peter
Title: What is Grace and Peace?
Text: 2 Peter 1: 2
Date: November 17, 2011
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
There are certain words I use so often when preaching that I take for granted that you know what those words mean.
Illustration: What are babes?
Two of those words are “grace and peace.”
2 Peter 1: 2: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you…
Title: What is Grace and Peace?
Proposition: Grace and peace is the sure work wrought by God for and in every child whom he saves through the righteousness and sacrifice of Christ Jesus the Lord.
Divisions: 1. Grace; 2: Peace; 3: Multiplied
I. WHAT IS GRACE?
God is Grace. When we see Christ Jesus by faith we see Grace for Christ Jesus is the express image of the Father.
We add qualifiers to define “grace” but truly “grace” includes all these things: grace is sovereign, free, irresistible, unchanging, unchangeable, preserving, saving grace. The grace of God is all of those things because the God of all grace is all of those things.
When the truth is proclaimed that “salvation is of the Lord” and “ye are saved by grace” it really amounts to the same thing. Salvation is entirely by grace because salvation is entirely of the Lord and salvation is entirely of the Lord because salvation is entirely by grace.
So what is included in salvation by the grace of God? All of salvation—beginning to end. And all grace is IN CHRIST JESUS. One of the all-inclusive texts that declares it so clearly is:
Romans 8: 29: For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30: Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
A. By grace, God the Father chose and predestinated his children unto the adoption of children in and by Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 1: 3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
No sinner deserves to be saved or merited salvation. It was the prerogative of God to be gracious to whom he will be gracious. Grace and works exclude each other. They cannot be mixed.
Romans 11: 5: Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6: And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
B. By grace, Christ Jesus came and finished the work of redemption. In Christ the believer is redeemed, forgiven, and justified by grace.
Ephesians 1: 7: In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Romans 3: 24: Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
When a sinner is made to hear the good news in saving faith, we discover that it was only by the grace of God that Christ Jesus tasted death for every elect child of God.
· Redeeming us
· Justifying us
· Making us the righteousness of God by his obedience unto death
C. By the grace of God every sinner for whom Christ died is quickened to life together with Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2: 5: Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
D. By grace, the Spirit of God gives faith and repentance, and all other graces that pertain to life and godliness—sanctifying us in Christ Jesus by grace.
Ephesians 2: 8: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9: Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Humility, temperance, brotherly kindness, charity are graces given us by grace. Hope is a “good hope through grace.”
E. By grace every believer shall be kept until the day Christ Jesus returns.
Philippian 1: 6: Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: 7:…ye all are partakers of my grace.
F. By grace, every child of God shall be resurrected into glory to sing of God’s grace in Christ for all eternity.
Romans 6: 23: For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Zechariah 4: 7: Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
So we see God is the God of all grace. All grace comes from God. Every saved sinner owes all to God who has, is and shall save us by his grace toward us.
Illustration: The Woodpecker!
Oh to grace how great a debtor,
Daily I'm constrained to be!
II. WHAT IS PEACE?
2 Peter 1: 2: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you…
A. When God crosses a sinners path with the gospel of grace God reveals his righteousness in the face of Christ Jesus—God begins to make us truly hear—at first we have no peace.
God destroys every false refuge: a man will blame the preacher, the brethren, his dog and his cat.
Illustration: A drowning man thrashing about
When God shows the truth of his word, the truth of his law, it makes a lost man—religious or otherwise—to see that HE IS ALTOGETHER SIN.
· His lewdness—unrighteous
· His decision he made in false religion—unrighteous
· The works he thought would commend him to God—unrighteous
God makes him to see that all has only been the lust of his flesh. Sin becomes “exceeding sinful”. “The law worketh wrath”. Wrath from heaven is revealed against all his unrighteous ungodliness. He looks fearfully into the judgment and fiery indignation of God towards him. And Grace always wins! The poor wretch begins to cry out, “Woe is me, I am undone!”; “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
The Spirit of God takes the things of Christ, and shows them to him. The “Sun of righteousness” arises with “healing in his wings” saying, “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee!” Matthew 9:2. His heart is sprinkled and his evil conscience purged from the sin of all his dead and dreadful works—he beholds the lie in his right hand and counts all his former confidence just dung. It is called repentance.
Grace flows and PEACE LIKE A RIVER FLOODS HIS SOUL. Peace with God—
· Peace of free justification by Christ’s righteousness
· Peace of full pardon and atonement by his blood and sacrifice
· Peace of being reconciled to God
· Peace that we are complete in Christ Jesus
· No more warring against God, no more guilt, no more working for acceptance, no more condemnation
· The peace of assurance by faith in Christ Jesus.
Romans 5: 1: Therefore being justified, by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
The Peace Christ gives AND the Peace Christ is—is not the peace the world gives, nor is it given to his redeemed in the way the world tries to give peace.
John 14: 27: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
True peace that comes through the Holy Spirit is peace in believing:
Romans 15: 13: Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Illustration: Bad, bad news followed by the news that everything is alright.
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
How so?
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
III. HOW ARE GRACE AND PEACE MULTIPLIED?
Lord willing, we will look at these things more in depth another time. But let me show you that God multiplies grace and peace to his child the same way grace and peace come to us in the first place.
A. First, through our hearing and studying the gospel of our God and Savior.
2 Peter 1: 2: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,…5: And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6: And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 7: And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. 8: For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The same way he put the fruits of his grace and peace in us is the way God multiplies them unto us—through his gospel. We grow in grace and in the peace God gives by giving ourselves to hear and study and learn more about God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
If we are too busy to hear the gospel then we are too busy. If you are too busy to read the word then you are too busy. Where God gives grace and peace he makes the doctrine that was so dead and cold becomes good news of our LIVING REDEEMER! We grow in grace and peace the more we hear of the grace and peace accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ.
B. Secondly, the word continues to be made effectual by his Divine Power and Wisdom
2 Peter 1: 3: According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to [by] glory and virtue: 4: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
His Divine Power and Wisdom brought the gospel to us. The same Power and Wisdom regenerated us—making us partakers of the divine nature. The same Power and Wisdom called us by his glory and virtue.
Illustration: The woman with the issue of blood “Virtue is gone out of me”—healed!
The same Power and Wisdom that made and fulfills his exceeding great and precious promises to us; the same power and wisdom by whom we have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust is the Divine Power and Wisdom—God and our Savior Christ Jesus—who alone multiplies his child in grace and peace.
The Conclusion of the Whole Matter of Our Salvation
From the beginning, right now, and until we are finally with our God in glory the ultimate end of everything that God has and is doing towards, upon, and in his elect through Christ is:
Ephesians 1: 6:…to the praise of the glory of his grace.
Every believer that has tasted of his grace rejoices that we are “saved by grace” and we say with Paul
1 Corinthians 15: 10: By the grace of God I am what I am.
And this is all our peace!
Amen!