The Power of Grace

Welcome! Today we will have a shorter message followed by a time of remembering the Lord with the bread and cup, and then a sharing time. Last week we began to explore the book of II Peter and went in detail into Chapter 1. The chapter exhorts us to take radical steps in growing our character. Today I want to talk about God’s grace and how grace is related to the ideas of this chapter. I will start by rereading the first part of II Peter 1 and summarizing the ideas we talked about last time.

Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours: Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness 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 and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. – II Peter 1:1-4

Divine Power

 2 Peter 1

Welcome! I encourage you to continue praying the secret prayer. Today we begin a journey into the book of II Peter. The message this week is entitled Divine Power. In my opinion, power is a unifying sort of theme throughout the book of II Peter, and we will touch on this as we go through the series.

This series was prayerfully planned several months ago, and it was then that I first saw this theme of power running through II Peter. As you all know, the world has been witness to a different kind of power in the last week and a half. I looked up information on the Richter scale to see just how powerful a 9 point earthquake really is, to get some kind of equivalent measure that I could compare it to. I found that a 9.0 earthquake has the energy release equivalent to 476 megatons of TNT. By comparison, the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had an energy release equivalent to about 15 kilotons of TNT. In other words, the recent earthquake in Japan had the energy release of more than 30,000 nuclear bombs of the type that destroyed Hiroshima.

Living to Serve

1 Peter 4:12-5:14

Welcome! Today we finish up our look into the Book of I Peter, focusing on the end of Chapter 4 and all of Chapter 5. I will start by backing up a few verses and looking at the verses we ended with last week:

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. – I Peter 4:12-15

Living for God

1 Peter 4

Welcome! Today we continue our series of messages in I Peter. Today we look at Chapter 4. Because it starts with a “therefore,” I am going to start with I Peter 3:18 and then jump into Chapter 4.

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit… - I Peter 3:18

Therefore, since Christ suffered in His body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. – I Peter 4:1