Lets open our Bibles up this morning to 2 Peter 1 (page 1204 of pew Bibles). This is the fourth week of the series weve been on called Virtuous Reality. This morning, were talking about knowledge. Its our third book of virtues that well be discussing today. Remember back in the day when you would get the knock on the door, and it would be the encyclopedia salesman? Im dating myself here, but we really dont see encyclopedia salesmen too often [anymore], do we? This encyclopedia salesman was trying his best to get this family to buy a set of encyclopedias. No matter how hard he tried to sell them, the father was not interested. He said, I dont need those. Oh, but you do. It has everything you need, A to Z. There is so much information packed in here. This is the best. No, really I dont need the encyclopedia. But you dont understand. When the kids have projects, the kids have reports to do, or you need information about a vacation destination youre going to or whatever… He was thinking off all kinds of uses for the encyclopedia, but to no avail. Everything he said, the man responded back simply by saying, We dont need those encyclopedias. Finally in exasperation, the salesman said, Why? Why dont you need this set of encyclopedias? Im offering you a great deal here. Finally, the man said, Well, I dont need those encyclopedias because I have a set of teenagers, and they know everything. You might have some of those at your home right now. The truth of the matter is none of us know everything. We are always learning and always growing on this spiritual walk, this spiritual journey. So Peter tells us that knowledge is the key to this completeness, to this wholeness in Christ that we desire. Were going to start reading with Verse 2 of this passage that weve read and read and read. You almost have it memorized by now, Im sure. Ive not talked a whole lot about Verse 2. We usually just read it and scan over it. Today, I want to talk a little bit more about it because of the subject matter. Ive been kind of saving it until this week. Verse 2 says, Grace and peace be yours in abundance... How many of you would like more grace and more peace in your life? About half of you. The other half has all the grace and peace you possibly can need. What a group! Wow! Grace and peace be yours in abundance, how? …through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. So grace and peace grow in our lives; [they] are ours in abundance through our knowledge. That word, that preposition in can mean through; it can mean by; it can mean with. You can insert any of those prepositions in there, and it wont change the meaning. Grace and peace come by or through or in our knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Now is he teaching here that all you and I have to do is stuff our heads with information and facts? Is that what hes teaching? If you just amass this volume of information, this knowledge, that somehow thats going to multiply grace and peace… Well, I dont think thats true. I think there are a lot of people that have a lot of knowledge that are still very miserable inside and still lack grace and peace. Its interesting when you study this that this word in Verses 2 and 3 for knowledge is different than the word for knowledge in 5. When we look down to Verse 5, we see the word knowledge, it looks exactly the same in our Bibles; but in the Greek, there was a nuance there that we dont have in our English. It adds the word epi in front of the word knowledge. Epi means to move toward something. So Peter is not teaching here that you just need to amass knowledge, but it is a knowledge that moves toward [something]. In other words, what Peter is saying is, The more you know Jesus, the more you will experience grace and peace. Thats what hes saying here. As you draw nearer to the Lord, as you learn about Him, youre drawn toward Him; in the process of drawing toward Him-drawing near Him, you will experience more grace and peace in your lives. Verse 5 says, For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness… Thats moral excellence. …and to your moral excellence, knowledge. Thats the normal word for knowledge. Of course, the implication is that it is knowledge of spiritual things: knowledge of God and His Word that Peter is addressing here. Just like last week, we talked about moral excellence. That does not happen through your willpower. It is a partnership. Remember we talked about partaker of the divine nature and what that meant? It meant you are a partner with God. You are a sharer of the divine nature-not that you are in any way divine, but God is wanting to partner in you to bring about His will and purpose in your life. You work on your salvation; He works in and through His Spirit and through His Word. So as it is true in the area of our moral excellence or goodness, it is also true in the area of knowledge that we need to partner with the Holy Spirit. Its not just about your human mind trying to wrap itself around these great theological concepts and truths; it is about the Holy Spirit illuminating and disclosing His truth to us. Please turn to the Book of John 16. John 16 is a part of a discourse in which Jesus is imparting to His Disciples important truths about the working of the Spirit and about the fact that He is going to be leaving soon. He says in Verse 12 (page 1069 of pew Bibles), I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. In other words, You dont know everything about Me, the Gospel or the Kingdom that youre going to learn; but you know enough for right now. As you grow and as you mature, I will impart more to you. Our dancers this morning did not start off in the first lesson standing on their toes like they did this morning. They started with basic fundamental movements in ballet that probably even you and I could do. Then they became increasingly more difficult as they learned. Our musicians didnt start off playing guitar, drums or keyboards like that. They started off with very fundamental scales and grew more complicated-harder-as they learned. So it is with revelation God revealed Himself progressively: through His Word, through the Prophets, through Jesus and through the Apostles. So He says in Verse 13 that …when He, the Spirit of truth… Thats the Holy Spirit. …comes, He will guide you into all truth. So the Holy Spirit will be a guide; the Holy Spirit will be a teacher guiding you into truth. …He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. So, theyll be a prophetic element to this Holy Spirits teaching. He will bring glory to Me from taking what is Mine and making it known to you. Knowledge, again the Holy Spirit will impart knowledge. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is Mine and make it known to you. Reveal it to you. Now, this Scripture is true for you and me in the general sense. The Holy Spirit is still teaching us, guiding us, in the truth. However, this passage is true in a specific sense to the Apostles. I believe Jesus here is speaking of what is to come. He is speaking of the revelation that they would hear from the Holy Spirit and write down for us this Word of truth that we call the Bible, the new covenant. Jesus was speaking that day to the Apostles and Matthew, John and Peter. He said the Holy Spirit is going to speak to you. This word speak wasnt just an interleading or impression; it meant to communicate in a way that was unmistakable-a clear form of communication. We know that the Holy Spirit communicated to these men the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ, and they wrote it down for us; and thats what we study. The words that were given by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and written down for us-that is the truth that Jesus said He would reveal about Himself to them and impart to them. So we need the Spirits help to understand the words of the Spirit as we study them. Paul talks about that in the Book of 2 Timothy-if youd turn to 2 Timothy 15. [This is] a well-known verse of Scripture that were going to spend some time on this morning. This is page 1179 if youre looking in your church Bible, or you can read it on the wall there. It says, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the Word of truth. The first thing I want to draw your attention to is the phrase do your best. Some translate it as be diligent. The New American translates it as to be diligent. It means to make haste or to exhort an effort. In other words, God is not simply just going to dump knowledge into your head while you sleep. You have a part to play. You have to put yourself in a place to hear or to read. You have to be listening. You have to be humble and teachable. You have to work, grapple and wrestle with these truths because sometimes truths are difficult to understand; so I have to study, meditate, and reflect on and work through these principles. He says, You and I are going to be diligent. Were to have that desire in our spirits. Socrates, the famous philosopher, was said to have had a student come up to him. The student said, Oh Master Socrates, if I could just have your wisdom. If I could just have your knowledge… Socrates says, Come with me. He took him into a body of water. He did something very unusual. He dunked the young man in the water. He held him down until the man would have had a difficult time not taking a breath, and then he lifted him back up. He said, What is it you seek? The young man said, I seek knowledge. Down again he went. He held him down a little longer this time. He pulled him up a second time, and he said, What is it you seek, young man? Wisdom! I want to be wise like you… Down again, he went a third time into the water. He had to be processing this thinking, Boy, Im not coming up with the right answer. I thought he wanted me to say wisdom or knowledge, but Im still under the water. Other students are looking in thinking maybe Socrates is going to drown this young man. He finally pulls him up. Hes grasping for air, and he says, What is it you want, young man? He said, Air! I want to breathe! I want air! He was gasping, and Socrates said, Young man, when you desire as you desire your next breath, you shall find it. I dont know if that really happened or not, but its a good story, right? It tells us the importance of desiring knowledge, desiring truth. Is that you? I think the fact that youre here this morning wanting to study the Word of God is a good indication, but what do we do beyond that? I was so thrilled to see between our youth, our college and our adults approaching 100 people in Real Zeal, the one-on-one mentoring ministry that has begun. Thats an exciting thing to me to see that take place. I was, then on the other hand, disappointed when our Theology for Dummies class-which starts at 11 oclock-the enrollment was not what it needs to be for that class. Maybe youre offended because somebody is going to think youre dumb, I aint no dummy! But its basic theology; its not for dummies, really. Its just a play on the book, Computers for Dummies. It is an important theology class. Are you taking advantage of the opportunities that the church has to increase your knowledge? Parents, let me talk to you for a second. Our daughter is engaged in a lot of activities right now. She does ballet, Dance Attitudes-like these girls did on stage here. Shes there year-round. She takes piano every week; shes classically trained on the piano. She studies that, and shes involved in sports at her school. So she is a very busy young lady, but there is no higher priority than we have as parents than to get her here on Wednesday nights for F.R.O.G. Club. Thats her time of discipleship. Thats her time when she memorizes the Word of God, when shes trained in the Word of God to increase her knowledge of the Word of God. If anything was to go from that list, sports or dance or piano, they would all go before we would get rid of that Wednesday night commitment to F.R.O.G. Club. As parents, we have to make those decisions. Whats going to come first in our childs life? Making a priority of the knowledge of Gods Word is imperative. He says in Verse 15, …present yourself to God as one approved… I want to talk about that word approved for a moment. It was most often used in coinage. Their currency was a lot different than ours. They didnt have the banking system. They had a whole different financial economy than we have, which was probably a good thing for them. They didnt have dollars; they had metal-different metals. It was not just the metal that the coin was made from; it was also the weight of the coin that determined the value. There were these people called the money changers who were a dangerous group. The coins were a little bit softer and more pliable than our coins. One of the things they would do was actually shave off some metal to make it lighter when they would exchange money. Youd give them your money, and you would think you were getting back an equal amount of money, but you werent because theyd literally shave the coins. You were not getting what that amount of coin should normally be because it was shaved. Those who refused to practice that were called The Approved. They wouldnt take any shortcuts. They wouldnt compromise. They were people of integrity. They had values. Hes saying here that you and I are not to compromise when it comes to our study of being a student of the work of God. We are to put forth effort to show ourselves approved. Pastor Tim, to me, is a poster boy for this. I think about the fact that when Pastor Tim worked for Patch Products, he was doing artwork for places like Wal-Mart, Target, and McDonalds who would contract Patch to design their materials. He was learning how to do things like this banner that were using today. While he was doing that, he was in school studying for the ministry for years, diligently taking class after class to earn his degree. While he was in school earning his degree, he was ministering and leading our mens ministry here at the church, Brother to Brother. He was taking what he learned at school and applying it to ministry as he went on, but he was making knowledge of Gods Word a priority in his life. That's the next part of this verse. It says, A workman who does not need to be ashamed… A workman or a laborer. God says Hes not just about stuffing our head with knowledge for the sake of having knowledge so you can impress your friends with Bible trivia, so you can get puffed up and impress people with your knowledge of the Word of God. Thats not the purpose. The purpose is that it goes from your head to your heart; and from your heart to your mouth; and from your heart to your hands and feet; and you become a laborer. One of the reasons we have the mentoring ministry that weve started is that we dont want those people who are mentors to then after the end of this year say, Okay, Ive done that mentoring thing. Im done with that now for the rest of my life. Were hoping that group will take another group and mentor them. It doesnt have to just be people within our church. You can mentor somebody outside of our church. Were just interested in building the Kingdom-not just Faith Community. Those who are mentored-[we hope] they will not just say, Thanks! Okay, I have more knowledge. Ive been mentored. See you later. [We hope] the following year, they can become mentors. They can begin investing in other peoples lives as well; so that group of near 100 people doesnt just fade into the sunset, but they find another group they can mentor and invest in. God doesnt want us to just accumulate. Paul says, These things entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Dennis Babish is one of our teachers here at the church. He invested much of his time in recent years into the theology program through the Centurion ministry. He didnt just amass knowledge and say, Okay, I have a bunch of knowledge. He is teaching classes here at Faith. I would encourage you to check that theology class out, to start looking and say, What are the opportunities to increase my knowledge? Maybe some of you want to consider going back to school and studying the Bible. Even if you dont want to go into ministry full-time, its a worthy thing to do. Janet Bales is back in college studying the Bible. Jesse Thompson, our minister to college, is working on his masters degree. Im always taking some. Our trustees are gracious enough to send me to class, so Im taking classes year-round, always, because theres so much to learn. There are so many ways we can grow in our knowledge of the Word of God. He wants us to be workmen. Why is that so important? He says in the remaining of that verse, …who correctly handles the Word of truth. God wants you to be able to correctly handle His Word. When you can correctly handle His Word, it forms a Biblical-role view. As you process the events of your world, you can align them with Gods Word and make right decisions. Your decisions should not be based on what an author says, what a talking head on TV says or what a politician says. Your views should be formed by what Gods Word has said. Form a Biblical-role view, so you can guard yourself against air-both air from within and air from without. Paul made it very clear that there would be air within the church. There would be people who would succumb to aberrant doctrines and even heresy, false teaching within the church. There are churches out there, for instance, that say, Dont question me. A teacher or leader might say, Never question what I say. You know what thats called? A cult. If somebody is up there saying, Dont question anything I say, thats a cult. The Bible says that when Paul spoke to the Bereans, they called them noble-minded. Why? Because they went back to the Word of God to determine whether what Paul said was true [or not]. Right away when somebody says, This is the only way to God. Listen to what I say. This is the only church that has it right. Im the only person who has it right, a flag should go off. There was a church near Rockford where I lived. The pastor taught if you believed, followed that church and followed that pastor, you would never die. [You would] physically, literally never die. I ran into somebody from that church when I was having lunch in Rockford years ago. I said, How is that pastor doing? He said, Oh, shes dead. That theology didnt work out so well. How do these cults come about? Its because people are careless and dont investigate truth and align it with the Word of God. God wants us to be discerning. Then there are attacks from without too. There is a deceiver in the world, and he is spreading lies and half-truths. God wants us to guide and be careful. It says in the Book of Colossians 2:8 (page 1166 of pew Bibles), See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of the world rather than on Christ. There are lies out there. There are distortions and perversions. When you know the truth, youre not going to succumb to those lies and perversions. One of the most prominent examples I can think of in recent times is the rise of Gnosticism. It is a first, second and third century heresy that the church-much of the New Testament writings-exists to counteract and fight that heresy of Gnosticism. There was a book out, a best seller book, called The Da Vinci Code and a subsequent movie that was made by Ron Howard. It starred Tom Hanks. They told a lot of lies, perversions and distortions about the Church and about the Bible. I could elaborate on this for quite a while, but Ill take just a couple from that movie. This is a very prevalent point of view. There is a push in the world, a deception, thats trying to teach that Jesus never claimed to be God. There was a struggle within the church for the deity of Christ. There were those in the church who believed Christ was a man, and there were those who believed He was God; and there was this struggle. Those who believed He was God won, and they did away with the books of the Bible, the Gospels that talked about the humanity of Christ. In the book, the professor says that there was this struggle. The books that talk about the humanity of Christ were removed, and the Gospels that talk about the deity of Christ were kept. What a lie! They were presenting that as fact, but thats a lie. In the Gnostic gospels that were removed, Jesus is a God who creates the world; but Hes incapable of pain. He is not really a man; Hes not fully a man. Hes really still a God, so thats a heresy. It is only in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that Jesus cries; that He feels pain; that He struggles with temptation; that He is sleepy; that He is hungry. It is the Gospels that we have that preserve the humanity of Jesus. The Gospels where He was not human or rejected by the church-they are second and third century writings called Gnostic Gospels-pseudopigrafa that has the names of people who didnt write the books. It told in that movie that Mary Magdalene is the wife of Jesus. That was something that as soon as I heard that, I just could not believe what I was hearing. Ive had conversations with people who believe it because it says that in the Da Vinci Code. What is the evidence that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Christ? Zero, nada, zilch. There is one manuscript from the Gospel of Philip-again a Gnostic gospel written in the second and third centuries. There was one extant copy or one existing copy of that manuscript. There are words missing, and it says that Jesus would kiss Mary often on the blank. It doesnt say if its forehead or cheeks, but theyre going to assume it was the lips. That made the Disciples angry. They said, You love her more than us. Because of this little paragraph in the Gospel of Philip [they believe] that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Christ. Wow! What a stretch! Lets say I gather male staff in our church, so I have a meeting. Jesse is there; Mikes there; Jim is there; Tulio is there; Jerrys there; Tims there, and I have this meeting. My wife walks in. I stand up and I give her a kiss. Would they get mad and go, You love her more than us! Id go, Yeah, I do, and Im not going to kiss you either. If she was truly Jesus wife, would the Disciples have gotten mad that He kissed her? Would they get mad that He loved her more than them? This is ridiculous, but people just swallow things hook, line and sinker. It said in the movie there was a vote of the Council of Nicaea as to whether Jesus was man or God. After a close vote, they affirmed with Constantine that Jesus was God. Those who decided that Jesus was a man were expelled from the church. Now what makes this so serious is although this is a fictional story, they are portraying it as being fact. What happened in Nicaea is a historical fact. There was a vote. Bishops and church leaders from the east and the west did assemble. Constantine was neutral in the struggle. There was a vote. It was not on the humanity of Christ vs. the deity of Christ. It was a debate on whether Jesus was of similar substance or the same substance as God. Is He in fact equal with God or was He still divine, but lesser than God the Father? He still created the world but not of the same substance as the Father. That was the debate-not man vs. God, but God vs. divine. There was a vote. It was 316 to 2 affirming the deity of Christ-that He is of the same substance as the Father. Two bishops from Egypt voted that He was of a similar substance-He created the world, but He was not of the same substance as God. They were expelled and excommunicated from the church. Its a heresy called Arianism. It still exists in religions today: the belief that Jesus is a lesser being, that He is created. Would you call 316 to 2 a close vote like the movie said? In our Presidential Election in November, if one of the candidates gets 99 percent and the other one gets 1 percent, are the commentators going to come on the air and say, Well, that was a really close vote this year? I know people that cross Christianity off their list because they said, Well, it must not be authentic. It must not be real because of the claims of this book and this movie. I know of Christians whove said, Im not going to church anymore because I feel like Ive been duped. I feel like its a scam or fraud because Ive been believing a lie. Friends, thats sad, and that makes me angry. At the same time, those people have a responsibility to check out the facts. They have a responsibility to be discerning, to investigate claims for themselves. Dont be lazy and just listen to everything that you hear and swallow it hook, line and sinker. You need to be students of the Word of God, so you can discern truth from air. When we find truth-when truth enters our spirit, that knowledge draws us toward the Lord, so we grow in grace and peace. God doesnt want it just to sit up there in our skulls. He wants us to become laborers so that it goes from our heart to our mouth to our feet to our hands. We begin to pour in to others; we begin to invest in ministry and carry out His will. Thats why He wants us to grow in knowledge.