God saved us to become like Christ

II Peter 1:1-8

God has a perfect will for imperfect people, people living in imperfect bodies and in an imperfect place.

God’s will is to take the worst of humanity and give them salvation and the power and resources to become like Christ.

According to 2nd 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 glory and virtue.”

Everything God has planned for us he has made a way for it to happen.

Our souls are eternally saved but the bodies we are living in are subject to sin, flesh and Satan.

But the good news is that God did not save and leave us but came to live in us by way of the Holy Spirit.

Eph. 1:13, “In whom ye also trusteth after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.”

The master plan of the Master Planner is to do something unheard of. My mother would say a leopard can not change his spots, but God can. The new thing that God wants to do is change us into the likeness of Christ.

To take immoral people and make them morally like Christ.

Moral attributes of God which can be developed in our lives: holiness, love, mercy, grace, patience, goodness and faithfulness.
That is what it looks like to become like Christ is this life and according to this text God in us and Hs word can make it happen.
 
  1. Grace and peace multiplied to become like Christ- vs. 2
  2. Divine power to become like Christ- vs. 3a.
  3. Knowledge of Christ to become like Christ- vs. 3b.
  4. Precious promises to become like Christ vs. 4

Three questions every believer must come to grips with in order to live the best life in Christ
  • Who am I? Why am I here? What am I to do?
The answer to all three is found in God’s will for our lives.

God will is spiritual maturity, and this is being like Christ.

When we live life in Christ and through Christ, we become like Christ
 
  1. Grace and peace multiplied to become like Christ- vs. 2

“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”

  1. God is the God of multiplication; we can add some things, but God multiplies to us what we need
  2. We need grace multiplied to change us from being us to being like Jesus.
  3. We need peace multiplied to help us to change into the likeness of Christ
  • Grace is God dispensing his power to us
  • Peace is the absence of worry and strife, which moves doubt and exercise our faith to trust God’s plan
Grace and peace are received through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
  • We need all of God to become like His Son
 
  1. Divine power to become like Christ- vs. 3a.

“According to his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness…”

  1. Divine power is omnipotent power that only God has.
  • All power with no limitation
  • If God has given his power to save us, God has the power to change us
  1. This power is for salvation, “life” is zoe in the Greek.
  2. This power is for godliness, which is to be like Christ.
God’s divine power is what saved us, and God’s divine will is to transform our sinful bodies into Christlikeness.

I know we are saying I can’t be holy like Jesus. I got all these urges and desires to please me and what please me will not please God.
 
  1. Knowledge of Christ to become like Christ- vs. 3b.

“Through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.”

  1. God has equipped us with his word to become like Jesus.
  • Not just any word but logos found in John 1:1.
  • The expression and revelation of God.
  • The incarnate and the inspired word
  1. We become like Christ through the knowledge of HIM
  • Knowledge is the Greek word epignosis which is the transformational word.
  • If you read it, study it, meditate on it, and do what the word says you will be changed.
Listen, that’s why Satan tells you: Sunday school is for children, you don’t have time for Bible class, and he puts you to sleep when real preaching is taking place.
  1. Through the knowledge of Christ, we become like Christ.
  • How well do you know Jesus?
  • Not know about Him but know him intimately.
  • We know him through knowing the Scriptures.
Listen, if all you know is nursery rhymes, such as: yes, Jesus loves me, this I know for the bible tells me so!
 
  1. Precious promises to become like Christ- vs. 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.”
  1. The promises of God are yes and yes.
  • If God said it, God will do it
  1. He promised he would send the Savior and He did.
  • But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might received the adoption of sons (Gal. 4:4-5)
  1. He promised to change us into the likeness of Jesus
  • But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass (mirror, which is the word) the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from gory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2nd Cor. 3:18)
  1. He promised to finish what he started.
  • 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 (Phil. 1:6).

I was sinking deep in sin seeking to rise no more but the master of the sea heard my despairing cry and from the waters lifted me now safe am I

I found all I needed. I found it in the Lord

Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I am found was blind but now I see

God is working on me, in me, and through me!