Good morning, Church family. Happy Lord's Day. We will now begin our service. Hold me now. Well, good morning, church. Can you guys do me a favor? We haven't done this in a while. It's not that we're loosening up restrictions. But can you look at the person next to you and just give them kind of like a cool-- right?

Smile with your eyes. They can't see your mouth. And just do a little hello. Let's break a little bit of ice. We haven't done that in a long time. It feels very, very good. If you guys have your apps out, let's look at a few announcements before we continue with our service.

Starting next week, we're going to have another round of membership classes going on. And if you guys don't already know this, we recently got the keys to a new building. So we are owners of that building across the way. And the membership class, which was previously held upstairs in the education department, is now going to be on the other side.

So if you guys want to take a look and see what's there, by all means, everything is open. And soon enough, we're going to have the cafe services and things up and running as well. So membership class is for people who have the intent of becoming members at Marine Community Church.

It's 9 to 1020 every Sunday for the course of about eight weeks. OK? If you are a college student, you guys probably already know that there is a seminar coming up on April 17 on just biblical gender roles. And that's going to be from 10 to 12. If you're not a college student, I would encourage you guys to just pray for that time.

There's a lot of confusion just in our world, and especially on our college campuses. So that's going to be happening about five Saturdays from now. On May 22, we have a woman's fellowship. It's called a woman's film-o-ship, not because they're watching anything, but they're going to be listening to an audio recording and just having a good time of discussion and fellowship.

So if you are a lady and you are interested, please do. Look at the information there and sign up. And if you have any questions, contact Carrie. OK? This is a very important announcement for you guys who are members of our church. On April 25, we are going to have our quarterly members meeting.

And it is mandatory. But we're not quite ready to meet physically yet. So it is going to be all online. So please do your best to prioritize that and to log on. And the information will be forthcoming once the day gets closer. I don't know if you guys are aware, but tomorrow is Berean Community Church's 24th anniversary.

So April 12, 1997 was when the church got launched and got started. And tomorrow is our anniversary. And so just kind of in lieu of the new building that we got and also just to kind of reflect on God's faithfulness over the last near decade and a half, the leaders yesterday, we actually sat around for a couple hours just putting together a podcast of the history of the church.

And most of us have been here almost the whole two decades or so. And so it'll be a good time for you guys if you're interested in learning more about how this church got started, how it kept going despite difficulty and challenges. And it's about an hour and 49 minutes, but there is a lot of interesting stuff.

So it's on the Facebook page. So if you guys want to log on to that and check it out, by all means, please do so. We're going to have our sister Sydney being baptized today. So after our pray is set, she's going to come up and share her testimony, and she's going to be baptized.

And so my encouragement is as you're listening to her testimony, the story of how God's been working in her life, that you also pray as you listen that God really would not just use her testimony to bless us today, but her change to life, that her life would be useful in just bearing much fruit for the kingdom.

And so Sydney's going to be sharing her testimony, and then we're going to have a time of the word. So if you've prepared an offering, if it's physical, we have a box in the back. But if not, I will give you an opportunity to just submit that electronically, and then our praise team is going to lead us in praise.

But let me pray for us, and then we'll continue. Father, we confess that everything that we have is from you, and you are the Father of lights. You do not change. And every good thing that we've been given, you've provided. And so we come this morning wanting to say thank you, not just with our words, but just with our gifts and offerings.

And we want to ask, Father, for just great joy as we give. And I pray that you would use it, whatever is collected, really building up of your kingdom. And so we thank you for this morning. We pray for your blessing over our time, and we ask these things in Jesus' name.

Hi, my name is Sydney Bellamy. I'm currently a first year attending UCI, and this is my testimony. I've grown up in a Christian home my entire life. Both my parents are Christian, so they raised my brother and I up in the church. We would go to church every Sunday, and even though this was a weekly part of my entire life, I didn't really go out of a love for Christ.

Growing up, I just thought this was something you always do, and I honestly was just going through the motions when I went. I became a Christian in fifth grade. I did believe that Jesus, the Son of God, died and was resurrected for the forgiveness of my sins, but my reasoning was entirely selfish.

I didn't want to become a Christian because I wanted to surrender my life and be reconciled with God. Truthfully, I just didn't want to go to hell when I died. As you'd think, no change in my life occurred after becoming a Christian. By the time middle school rolled around, my friend invited me to youth group.

I started going because it seemed like the right thing to do, but I still didn't have any burning desire to get to know the Lord. But I kept going, and I actually started to have an interest in church and in God. In eighth grade, I went to winter camp for the first time, and it was in that time that I realized I never really surrendered my life to Christ.

I continued to get to know him as such a gracious and loving father, and I wanted to be his child. For a while, I thought that was when I became a Christian on the last night of camp, when they had a call to altar moment. But after we came down the mountain, that Jesus high just wore off, and life reverted right back to the way it was.

And even though I wasn't in the bad crowd or living a rebellious life in my worldly eyes, I certainly wasn't living a life for Christ. After middle school, my family and I started trying out different churches. The summer right before my sophomore year of high school, we settled on a new church.

By the end of summer, I finally started going to the high school group, but I was extremely nervous and timid. I started going to Bible study with the girls in my class once school began, and I instantly clicked with these girls, and for the first time, found a community that seemed to love Jesus, and I learned how personal a relationship with God is.

It was then that I reflected on my own life and realized that's not enough to just know that I'm a sinner and believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and that I'm made new because of it. I needed to make a 180 degree turn in my life and live for Christ and be an image and reflection of him, not of this broken world.

I started going to church not out of obligation, but with a heart that wanted to know God so that I could grow deeper in a relationship with him. Slowly but surely, when it came to doing my Bible study, I actually had a desire to do so and learn more about who this holy God is.

I desired to show others not just through my words, but also through my actions, that my heart and life belonged to God, and I realized that there was no way for God to work through me without working in me first, and that I had to die to myself, serving in defiant flesh so that I could be born again through the Lord and be his obedient servant and vessel for his word.

I can't really pinpoint an exact time when I was saved, but I know that I was saved sometime in high school. At the church that I was currently attending, they did baptisms in a way that was very showy, and it didn't seem right in my heart to do it there, as it was much more man-centered rather than God-centered.

I think for all this time that I've waited, I also just wanted to make sure I did it with pure intentions, not just because everyone else had been baptized. I've realized what an absolute joy it is to get baptized and make that public declaration that Jesus is my king and Lord of my life.

I can see clearly in hindsight how faithful God was and continues to be in my life, despite my endless shortcomings. By the grace of God alone, my walk with Christ has continued to strengthen as I try to keep my eyes fixed on him. Going off to college and coming to Berean has been such a blessing in my life, as my faith is challenged more than it ever has been.

But I'm so incredibly thankful for that and all that I've learned, constantly trying to examine my heart and intentions by hand, every word, action, and thought. I've learned how everything in this life is meaningless outside of God and how having an eternal perspective on life is imperative. Despite my stubborn and selfish heart wanting to live for myself over all those years, he ran after me with a jealousy and compassion that is unmatched.

I'm eternally grateful that he did because I now know the permanent joy that is found in living for him, forgiven of my sins and walking humbly before him. I love Romans 5, verses one and two, that say, "Therefore, having been justified by faith, "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, "through whom also we have obtained our introduction "by faith into this grace in which we stand, "and we exult in hope of the glory of God." It's so humbling and overwhelmingly comforting to know that there's not a single thing I could ever do to deserve salvation, yet God still chose to give me this gift of eternity in relationship with him.

Though I was dead in my trespasses, he has given me life. He is the only good in me, and I will continue to run this race with my eyes fixed on Christ so that I may glorify him with my life. Thank you. (audience applauds) (audience member speaks off mic) (audience member speaks off mic) (audience member speaks off mic) (audience member speaks off mic) (audience applauds) - Sidney, thank you for your testimony.

I'm sure a lot of that resonates with a lot of people who have similar testimonies, and every time you hear a testimony of a changed life, it kind of reminds us just to be grateful that really it's not something that we've attained. It's something that we've been given. So praise God for Sidney's testimony.

If you guys have your Bibles with you, please turn with me to 2 Peter, and I'm gonna read just the first four verses of 2 Peter, and it'll be projected up overhead. So take a minute, or take a second, to go to 2 Peter, verses one through four. "Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, "to those who have received a faith "of the same kind as ours, "by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, "grace and peace be multiplied to you "in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, "seeing that his divine power has granted to us "everything pertaining to life and godliness.

"Through the true knowledge of him "who called us by his own glory and excellence. "For by these he has granted to us "his precious and magnificent promises, "so that by them you may become partakers "of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption "that is in the world by lust." Let's pray together.

Lord, would you speak and feed your people this morning, and that we would become just all the more appreciative of our lives in Christ, and Lord, that that appreciation would overflow into lives that shine brightly for you and for your kingdom. Help us to receive your word, to be challenged by it, to be changed by it, and help us to grow more and more just hungry to feed more each and every week.

So we thank you for giving us the opportunity to gather today. We pray just for your grace and your blessings over our time together. In Jesus' name we pray. So well, first off, I just wanna say thank you to my church family for praying for us and loving on me and my wife and the kids, especially over the past 14 months.

By the grace and kindness of God and the support and love of the church, I am completely cancer-free. I was diagnosed, for those of you guys who are visiting, with stage 3C colorectal cancer back in December 2019, and now I'm done with all my treatments. And as most of you guys do know, the last step of the treatments was a couple weeks ago at the end of February, and I took most of March off just to recover and rest, but now I'm back, fully healthy, running around pretending to be busy.

Actually, no, I am busy, but I'm trying to look the part. God's answered many of your prayers in the affirmative, and I'm much indebted to this church family for all the love and the care. We literally had like 14 months straight of a minimum of two meals delivered to our home.

I received, at the very least, one physical snail mail letter written just to encourage me, to say and remind me that people are praying, and that's not even including all the texts and the emails and stuff, and so, thank you. It's been a good year. And one of the strangely wonderful things about cancer is that you come face-to-face with your mortality.

And I don't say like wonderful facetiously because there are aspects of it that are horrible, but being reminded that you might possibly die very soon is spiritually a very powerful thing. I'm in my 40s, and normally in your 40s, you don't think about death too much. But I remember we've had quite a few funerals of our church family members, families, just over the course of this year, and I remember at one of the first ones, shortly after my diagnosis, just watching the casket, singing the hymn with the deceased persons, like family and friends, and I actually was imagining my body being lowered into the casket, and it wasn't like a morbid, depressing thought.

It was the first time I had that thought, but it was actually rather like a sober reflection on my reality. So that reflection caused me to just want to just live better, to be better, and with the remainder of my time. And because of the size of the tumor and the staging of my cancer, those first few days, I was bracing for the worst, and I had a lot of time, especially those first few days, to think about death.

I had a lot of time to think about the remainder of my life, and I was forced to think through how I would live my life if I had like a year remaining. If my end was near, how would I maximize the time I had left? What would I emphasize to my kids?

What would I preach to you? What would I be so eager to press upon those closest to me? So with death on my mind, there was a sense of urgency with which I wanted to live my life, and there were many things that I felt so compelled to share, to preach, and to communicate.

For the Apostle Peter, it wasn't cancer, but rather his trial and his looming execution. He knew he didn't have much time left, and I'm going to read verse 14 and 15 of the beginning of the epistle for you. "Knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling "is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ "has made clear to me, "and I will also be diligent that at any time "after my departure you will be able "to call these things to mind." So Peter's writing as he's nearing the end of his life.

He knows that he will soon return home to be with his Lord. He knows his time is almost up, so he's writing with urgency, and he wants to make absolutely crystal clear how he wants the church to carry on this gospel ministry baton after he's gone. So he wants them to know what to prioritize.

He wants them to know what to fight for. He wants them to know how to fight, what kind of things to abstain from, and he makes very clear in 2 Peter the priorities of the church and the priorities of his saints. And he tells the churches to be very careful.

He explicitly points out that the looming dangers, what they are that threaten the church, and he reminds them of the fact that this corrupted world and all that is in this corrupted world will be utterly destroyed by fire. So 2 Peter is very intense. It's actually probably one of the most intense books of the New Testament.

So in 61, very intense verses, the apostle Peter gives what appears to be his last will and testament to his spiritual children. And so much of what Peter wrote to the churches in Asia Minor and in this second epistle, they do apply to us as well. So we're going to take a look at that.

So this morning, I'm going to take a look at primarily the first four verses found in the introduction, and then I will walk you through some of the major themes of the whole of 2 Peter because the contents of the entire letter are weighty, they're intense, and of supreme importance.

So I'm going to give you an outline up front. Who we are. So Peter first says, "This is who we are. "This is our identity." And then he continues to, "What we have been given," verses two to four. And third, "What kind of people we ought to be." So who we are, what we've been given, and what kind of people we ought to be, especially in the light of the fact that everything is going to crash and burn.

Okay? So who we are, or in our context, who the Apostle Peter is and who he's addressing. So it says in verse one, "Simon Peter, a bondservant "and apostle of Jesus Christ." So the letter opens with the apostle introducing himself as Simeon Peter. Simeon is a Hebrew form of Simon.

If you guys are using the ESV, that's not a typo. There is an E in there. The ESV actually has translated it correctly, while the NASB did not. So one point for the ESV. Okay? Simeon Peter, so he calls himself a bondservant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. And bondservant is a very nice way of saying slave.

And the word slave in our modern context is very negative, very incendiary, and it carries a lot of baggage. So because it carries so much baggage, most English translations, they use a more neutral feeling bondservant. But the word doulos really does mean slave. One whose sole purpose is to obey his master and to be useful to his master.

So in a worldly sense, the word slave feels super offensive and insulting, because no one likes to think that he only exists to be used. In a worldly sense, it's offensive. But I wonder how different the word slave would feel if history was full of examples of selfless, sacrificial, compassionate, generous, protective, and loving slave masters.

I mean, which we don't have much of, right? But if a slave had a master who was always looking out for his good, I think there would be many volunteer slaves. Right? And actually, that's our reality. We serve a good shepherd, a good master, one who would even elevate us slaves to the level of friend, brother, co-worker, and even co-heir.

Okay, so spiritually, slave of Jesus Christ is not a position of humiliation, but one of honor. Why? Because the master is good. So you and I also are slaves. Okay, so here's what Peter is saying when he's saying that he's a doulos of Jesus Christ. First, he is inalienably possessed by Jesus Christ.

So he is a possession. He is owned. Second, Peter says he's unqualifiedly at the disposal of Jesus Christ. So he has been created and called to be used and to be useful. Third, owing and unquestioning obedience to Jesus Christ. If Christ commands, he does. No questions asked. Christ is Savior and God.

He is creator. Peter is creation. Okay, so and fourthly, when Peter says, "I am a doulos of Christ," he's saying he's constantly in the service of Christ. So Peter gets no breaks, no holidays, no PTO. All right, so he is permanently indentured. And the apostle Peter is calling himself a slave of Jesus Christ.

And that title for him is good because Jesus Christ is supremely good. Christ is Peter's master and Lord. Peter is a slave and a mouthpiece of his good Lord. His life is meaningless outside of Christ. His sole purpose in this life is to honor Christ. And this purpose costs Peter everything.

But actually, if you read through 1 and 2 Peter, there is absolutely no hint of bitterness, regret, insecurity, or shame. He does not care that following Christ has cost him everything. He is a slave and messenger of Jesus Christ. Christ has been and will continue to be his Lord for all eternity.

So Simeon, Peter, a bondservant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Slave and apostle of Jesus Christ. And after introducing himself in the letter, Peter turns his attention to the audience. It reads, "To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ." So he's addressing this letter to all the other fellow slaves who, like him, have been purchased at a very expensive price, the blood of Jesus Christ.

So 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He made him who knew no sin be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." So the believers in the churches of Asia Minor had received the same faith. They had received, they had responded in the same way to the gospel of Jesus.

They who were poor were made rich because of the voluntary poverty of Jesus Christ. And though they weren't especially called to be apostles, these Christians, their faith in Christ made them bond servants of Christ, just like Peter. We too are bond servants. We too are slaves. Jesus Christ cannot be Savior only and not Lord.

Does this make sense? Jesus Christ cannot be our Savior only and not Lord. He is not the means to our goals. Pleasing him is our goal. We are his means. And I'm hoping you're tracking along. And Peter's call and burden is our call and burden. Peter's master and Lord is our master and Lord.

And this is the identity of every person who would call himself a Christian. And you cannot land, you cannot but land on that conclusion if you're reading through the scriptures. You cannot accept Christ as Savior and reject him as Lord over your life. Are you guys tracking along? Okay.

Why do you call me Lord? Lord, and do not do what I say. Luke 6, 46. Words of Jesus. So has your soul been purchased by the precious blood of Christ? Have you been restored to your Creator? Have you become in him the righteousness of God? If Jesus is your Lord, you have no rights.

I'll say that again. If Jesus is your Lord, you have zero rights. You have no purpose outside of Christ. And your primary and chief aim in life is to proclaim the excellencies of him who calls you out of darkness and into his wonderful light. Okay? So this is your identity.

This is my identity. This is who we are. We are douloi of Jesus Christ. Amen? All right. So you and I exist to serve our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And it's very good this morning to be first reminded of this truth because modern-day church culture kind of nudges us to think that Jesus Christ exists to serve us.

And we need to make something very clear. It's the other way around. All right? So who are we? We are bond servants of Jesus Christ. And may he do with us as he deems fit. Amen? So this brings us to our second point, what we have been given. So for the who we are part of the sermon outline, it's all there in verse 1.

So it's not hard to catch. All right? But the what we have been given part, it's a little bit more challenging because we have to look at all the verses from--or 2 through 4. So I'm going to reread verses 2 to 4 for you. "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.

For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust." So in the Greek, there's grammatical awkwardness all over the place in these three verses.

And in the Greek, in the new section, is clearly starting at verse 3, but Peter has let the grammar flow from verse 2. And there's also no main verb in these verses. And Peter goes back and forth from you to us, us to you, you to us. So if you're doing like an inductive Bible study through these verses, you would come up with a lot of grammatical questions.

And the English translations have smoothed out things a little bit in these verses, so they read easier. But if you compare all the English translations, there's commas and semicolons and periods in different places. So the grammar is a little awkward and complex. But syntactically, there are two things that are highlighted in these verses, and they come after the words "has granted to us." "Has granted to us." First, the term "everything" is in the emphatic position.

So Peter is stressing and emphasizing how God's divine power has granted to all believers everything they need. And everything pertaining to what? To life and godliness. So you can actually interpret that as a godly life, and that would not be incorrect. So there are a lot of little couplets in 2 Peter where two words are used to kind of describe one idea.

And this couplet is the first one. Life and godliness or godly life. So God has given to the apostles, to the churches in Asia Minor, and to all of us who know him, everything we need for life and for godliness. And everything we need for a godly life. So what is Peter saying?

You lack nothing. You have everything you need. You want to know God? You have everything you need. You want to please God? You have everything you need. You want to lead others to God? You have everything you need. And that's consistent with what we see all over the scriptures, and this is nothing new.

So the apostle Paul points to us, to this truth, that God's grace is sufficient. 2 Corinthians 12.9. That he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. Philippians 4.13. In Psalm 23, what does King David say? He says, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want." I like how the NIV translated it.

"The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing." Okay, so hopefully this isn't new teaching for you. Hopefully this has been and is familiar biblical truth for you. You have everything you need. Okay, let me repeat that. You have everything you need. And we sing about this all the time, right?

We sang about it just 15 minutes ago. Your grace is enough. Your grace is enough. Your grace is enough for me, right? And hopefully when you sang it, you weren't lying, and you weren't just mindlessly and habitually moving your lips, especially if you had like your praise face on.

You're like, "Your grace is enough for me." Hopefully you were really saying that as a confession. And this isn't a song that we sing as much now, but you know that song? ♪ Christ is enough for me ♪ Nod your heads if you guys know that song. ♪ Christ is enough for me ♪ ♪ Everything I need is in you ♪ And whenever you sing these kinds of things, it doesn't like cause you to be like, "That's a lie." No, so this is a truth that you guys already know academically, but do you really believe this?

2 Peter 2, 1-2, Peter warns that there have always been distorters of God's truth, and that there will always be false teachers among the people, and that there will be destructive heresies that try and infiltrate the church. Okay, so I'm going to read this for you. "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned." And you know the tricky thing about heresies and lies in general? Heresies contain a whole lot of truth with a slight distortion. If heresies were very obviously heresies, it would be a pathetic heresy.

You guys following that? Heresy, a lot of what is contained in there is truth, with a perversion and a distortion of an element of it. And there have been all kinds of destructive heresies that have battered the walls of the churches over the years. And here's one destructive heresy that I believe that many in our pews today are tempted to believe.

Okay, and here it is. "I don't have enough." That's a lie. "I don't have enough." "I don't have enough money." "I don't have enough time." "I don't have enough knowledge." "I don't have enough worth." And the list goes on and on. And so many church people work very hard and expend a lot of energy trying to gain more, trying to attain more, trying to buy more, trying to move out of state, perhaps.

Why? Because a part of them has bought into the lie that they don't have enough, or that their circumstances are not enough to make them happy or useful to the Lord. What does Peter emphasize here? His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." "The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing." You have everything you need for life and godliness.

Do you believe that? You may not have a lot in your bank account, but you have everything you need for your life of godliness and gospel ministry. And I know many of you love Romans chapter 8, verses 31 to 32 are two of my favorite verses in this chapter.

It reads, "What then shall we say to these things?" "If God is for us, who is against us?" "He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" So hopefully when you're singing, "Your grace is enough," or "Christ is enough for me," you're not just honoring Him with your lips while your heart is super far away.

Do you believe that His divine power has given you everything you need for your life and godliness? So the second thing that has been granted to believers is God's precious and magnificent promises. So we're not told exactly what the content of the promises is, but the focus of these promises is our participation in the divine nature and escape from corruption that is in the world.

The world is cursed. It's going to burn. We escape this corruption, we escape this destruction, and we partake in the divine nature. And we gain a little bit more insight into this at the end of the letter in chapter 3, verse 13, where the word "promise" is used once again.

So I'm going to read that for you. "But according to His promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." So we have been granted everything we need for life and godliness. We have received promises of salvation and a great future hope. And all of these things, all of our sufficiency, all of our blessings come through a true and full knowledge of God.

So the word "knowledge" will keep coming up again and again in the entirety of Peter's letter. So I'm going to have a slide up here for you, and we'll just read through this real quick. "Grace and peace in the knowledge of God, through the knowledge of Him, in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge," add such and such a thing, "nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord.

We may known to you, but know this first of all, escaped by the knowledge of the Lord. Know this first of all, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard." So the word "knowledge" is very important to the Apostle Peter. It's used twice here in just this grammatically challenging section.

And you'll see it again in verses 5, 6, 8, 16, and 20, just in chapter 1. And this whole epistle ends with a last exhortation to actively grow in the knowledge until the very end. So verse 18 of chapter 3, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen." So as I've mentioned before, grammatically, this is not an easy verse to fully understand, but what God has given every believer, what you and I have received, is very easy to discern. So He has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises. And He has granted to us access to know Him, to know of Him, and to be known by Him. And to know God actually is what eternal life is all about. John 17, 3, "This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." And we remind you time and time again, we have everything we need.

And if you are a child of God, if you put your faith in Christ, eternal life has already started. So here your knowledge of God may be like that of a poor reflection, but one day you will know fully and see Him face to face. Eternal life does not start the moment you expire your Lord into the casket, "Oh, eternal life." That's not where it starts.

It starts with your initial knowledge of the living God. He is Lord. We are slaves. We have everything we need. We lack nothing. Eternal life has already started. Our goal in life, our all-encompassing purpose in this life and in the next, is to know Him and to make Him known.

Do you believe this? Does the way you live your life proclaim this? So going back to our outline, who we are is we are slaves of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. What have we been given? We have been given everything that we need for life and godliness. And this brings us to our final point, what sort of people ought we to be?

Verse 4 briefly touches upon the truth that we will be partakers of the divine nature. So there's an already but not yet element here because these promises, though initiated here, won't be fully actualized until His promise of a new heaven and a new earth is fulfilled. So verse 13 of chapter 3, "We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." And I mentioned to you that a destructive heresy many today are tricked into believing is, "I don't have enough." Here's another one.

"This world is our home." And that's another dangerous lie that you and I cannot be tricked into believing. "This world is our home" is a very subtle, destructive lie that many are tempted to buy into. This is not home. The Bible says this place is going to crash and burn.

So I'm going to read together what the Apostle Peter says about what awaits this world. So chapter 3, verses 7 and 10. "But by His word, the present heavens and the earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up." So I don't have enough?

That is a lie. "This world is our home"--that is another lie. You know what sounds nice but is extremely foolish? "Let's make this world a better place." Nice but extremely foolish. It is great folly and unnecessary distraction if you're thinking of expending a lot of energy making this world more comfortable, more habitable, and more peaceful.

Why? It's going to crash and burn. So trying to make this world a better place is akin to applying beautiful paint on cabinets in a burning house. So I'm not saying that we shouldn't be good stewards or that we shouldn't be salt and light in the world while we are in this world.

What I am saying is that we should put very little hope in this world. So I actually wrote a list down of what things I would try to save in the event of a fire. I'm going to share that with you. If I wake up in the middle of the night, things are burning, what am I going to go and scramble to save?

The first thing is photo albums. Nod your head if you guys would do the same, like old photo albums. Second, legal documents, social security cards, passports, birth certificates. Those things are a hassle to replace, right? I would save legal documents. I would go after my laptop because there's important stuff on my laptop.

Cloud hasn't been updated in about a week and a half, and it's a hassle to try to get a new computer, so I would save that. I would save my wallet because I need some kind of form of ID. I may need my credit cards. I will save that.

I will save my Bible that I've taken notes on, right, because it's hard to replace all of the inspiration that I've gleaned from just my quiet times. I would save my Bible. I would go after Bailey, our dog, because she's family. She's been with us since 2012, so she's been with us for a while, so I would save Bailey.

And I would probably grab our car keys, maybe, if I had some time, because you need a temporary shelter and a mode of transportation. So I would save all of these things. These are all important and valuable and useful to me. And some of these things cannot be replaced.

And some of these things, though they can be replaced, it's a big old hassle to try to get them replaced. So it would behoove me to grab if I can't. So none of you guys are probably thinking I'm going to fault that guy for grabbing these kinds of things, right?

You would save your dog, too. But if this was the entirety of my list, you would fault me, because what's missing? I didn't mention my wife and my kids. What about my wife and my kids? So all the other things that I would grab are not unimportant things, and I do hope to get them out of the house.

But in the event I wake up in the middle of the night to a fire, I need to prioritize. I need to prioritize my people. I need to prioritize my wife and my kids, even if my dog perishes. She's old anyway. She's like 10, right? She's lived a full life.

Even if she were to perish, I would have to go after Becky and the kids first. And that's not saying that I don't love Bailey, my dog. But I'm going after human family first. There's a quick priority being done. So make the world a better place. What are their foolishness?

What backward priorities? The Bible says that this world is going to crash and burn, and that truth is all over the pages of Scripture. Prioritize. Give your kids a solid college education. Save for your retirement. Help the world get rid of racism. Help the poor. Be a voice for the oppressed.

And these are not unimportant things. But our priority, with the short time that we have in this life, get souls restored to their creator. Get people saved. And remember, His divine nature has granted to you everything pertaining to this task. Charles Spurgeon once said it well, "Great numbers of persons in the churches have no concern about eternal things.

They care more about their cats and their dogs than their souls." And perhaps Spurgeon is describing some of us sitting here today. So what is Peter saying here? First, we are slaves of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Second, what have we been given? We've been given everything we need pertaining to life and godliness.

We've been given His precious promises that were a seal. He does not go back on His promises. We were given these things, and what sort of people in response ought we to be? And in 2 Peter, there's a ton of applications that Apostle Peter lays out, a ton of exhortations, but I'll just leave you with a couple.

2 Peter 3, verse 11, 14 and 15. "Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation." So what is he saying?

Keep yourself unstained by the world and get to work rescuing souls. And I'll take you also to the verses immediately following the verses that I read in the beginning, verses 5 through 7. "Now for this reason also, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence in your moral excellence and knowledge, and in your knowledge self-control, and in your self-control perseverance, and in your perseverance godliness, and in your godliness brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness love." It may be a foolish and distracting endeavor to try to make this world a better place, but we are called to be kind.

We are called to love. But all of that is under the umbrella of knowing God and making Him known because there is no hope outside of Christ. That has to take central priority in your life. You know, as I was meditating upon 2 Peter chapters 1, 1 through 4, my mind kept going to Psalm 23.

You guys know that Psalm, like, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." And to the song, "Shepherd of my soul." And there's a line in there that says, "Be it in a quiet pasture or by a gentle stream, the shepherd of my soul is by my side.

Should I face a mighty mountain or a valley dark and deep, the shepherd of my soul will be my guide." In life there are seasons where it feels like there are more mighty mountains or dark valleys than there are quiet pastures. For me, the 14 months fighting cancer felt like a mighty mountain.

And sometimes life is full of little inconveniences and challenges. How do we respond in worship and trust? How do we conduct ourselves in holiness and godly conduct? Every trial, every inconvenience, every person even, is in your life on purpose. How do we respond? In all things we seek to know him and to make him known.

His sheep hear his voice. He is a good shepherd, and he has other sheep that are not yet of this fold. You guys following me? He has other sheep that are not yet of this fold. So in your knowing him, in your trusting him, our call is to help others to know him and to trust him, and you and I have been adequately equipped to do this.

You lack nothing. A lot of things, both big and little, both good and bad, have happened in just the last five weeks. So on February 26th, I went in for my final surgery, and up until that point I had an ostomy bag on me. And February 26th, I was going to get the stoma taken down, and I was going to go back to life as normal.

That was my final step in the cancer journey. And the first time I was there, I was there for about four days. And so I had taken a lot of work to do, because I was thinking, "Hey, this whole cancer treatment's been easy. After surgery, I'm just going to do memory verses.

I'll do Bible study and all of these things." And I realized it's kind of hard with all these wires strapped to your fingers and your body and the drugs running through your system. So I said, "Okay, this time around, I'm just going to kind of relax." So I was expecting three or four days where I could just sleep.

I could actually get to a couple TV shows, and I was ready to relax. And I was sitting there, laying there, and then all of a sudden, they wheeled in another dude in my room. And I was thinking, "Man, I had peace and quiet, but they're wheeling in this other dude." This 18-year-old kid who just had his appendix about to burst, so they did an emergency surgery, and then he was there.

And he was a very nice kid, but he was 18. And he was talking about--he was calling his friends for three, four hours at a time, talking about all kinds of silly things that 18-year-old kids talk about. He was watching his TV shows at a very high volume. And at first, I was like, "Lord, you know I need to rest.

What's going on?" But then the thought that came to mind was, "If every person is on purpose, every meeting is a divine appointment, and I am called to save souls, and he has equipped me for everything pertaining to life and godliness, I need to use this to my advantage." He's sitting right next to me.

So we just talked about life. I talked about how I got cancer. I talked about my wife and my kids. And he just nodded along and then called his girlfriend again. So I don't know what happened since then. And then after that, I had jury duty. A couple--like a week later, I was thinking, "Oh, man, I got to take advantage of my last few days off work because once I get back to church, it's going to be busy." And the last few times I did jury duty, it ended really quick.

But this time around, for some reason, I was there all the way till 4 p.m., and then they said, "Come back tomorrow." And I was like, "Man, this is so inconvenient." And I just started striking up a conversation with a lady named Deb, and I made a new friend named Alex.

And each step of the way, I was thinking, "Man, there is no shortage of opportunities where God wants me to minister." I don't know if anything happened after that. And just a month ago, on March 11th, I got a phone call saying that my mom in Korea had passed away.

So she got diagnosed with--she was worried about me, and in December, I got a phone call saying that she got diagnosed with lung and bone and breast cancer. A little bit had gone into her brain, so it was a little bit urgent. And I was thinking, "I need to get to Korea.

I got to try to figure out how to get there." And I was calling the surgeon, trying to see would I be okay to travel with this ostomy bag. And then COVID hit Korea pretty hard, and so I wouldn't have been able to go see my mom. And then exactly one month ago from today, March 11th, she passed away.

And the thing that I was thinking was, you know, the emotional highs and lows are there, but the truth of my reality is that His divine power has given me everything I need for life and godliness. The truth of the reality of this life is that it's going to end, but she's with the Lord.

And my main duty in all of this is just trust and obey, to put my hope in Christ, to know Him, and to make Him known. His divine power has given me everything I need to respond to every hurdle, every high mountain, every low valley, in a way that gives Him glory.

In every trial, in every inconvenience, in every joy, success, and victory, in every relationship, what is your purpose, oh beloved slave? You are to trust Him, to know Him, and make Him known. You know what, that hymn, "Trust and Obey, for there's no other way," what? To be happy in Jesus.

So to the shepherd of your soul, give Him full control, and wherever He may lead you, follow and follow well. Be it in a quiet pasture or by a gentle stream, remember that the shepherd of your soul is by your side. You lack nothing. His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His glory and excellence.

You lack nothing. And as our good shepherd leads you through the highs and lows of this life, worship, trust, obey, know Him, and make Him known. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we need your help to know how to properly give you the worship that you do in every situation, in every circumstance.

And we pray that as we walk with you, that you would give us greater wisdom, greater insight, greater faith, so that as we walk with you, we will grow in excellence in knowing how to trust and obey. Lord, we thank you for your kindness in our lives. We thank you for your patience.

Help us to reflect you in a way that is so pleasing. In Jesus' name we pray. Let us all rise using our closed praise. Let's sing "Shepherd of my Soul." Shepherd of my soul, I give you full control. Wherever you may lead, I will follow. I have made the choice to listen for your voice.

Wherever you may lead, I will go. Let's sing "Shepherd of my Soul." Shepherd of my soul, I give you full control. Wherever you may lead, I will follow. I have made the choice to listen for your voice. Wherever you may lead, I will go. Be it in a flying pasture or by a gentle stream, the shepherd of my soul is by my side.

Should I face a mighty mountain or a valley dark and deep, the shepherd of my soul will be by my side. Shepherd of my soul. Shepherd of my soul, I give you full control. Wherever you may lead, I will follow. I have made the choice to listen for your voice.

Wherever you may lead, I will go. Be it in a flying pasture or by a gentle stream, the shepherd of my soul is by my side. Should I face a mighty mountain or a valley dark and deep, the shepherd of my soul will be by my side. Be it in a flying pasture or by a gentle stream, the shepherd of my soul is by my side.

Should I face a mighty mountain or a valley dark and deep, the shepherd of my soul will be by my side. The shepherd of my soul will be by my side. That's great. Lord, we give you full control of our lives, and we ask that you would help us, help our passions to daily more and more just align themselves with yours, and would you grant us just wisdom and grace and insight as we seek to love those around us and as we seek to be just a blessing in the lives of those around us.

We ask for your help. We thank you, Lord, for your kindness. Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of our Heavenly Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each and every one of us now and forevermore. Amen. God sent his Son, they called him Jesus.

He came to the world, the earth, to the dead to buy my heart. An empty grave is there to save your life. Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future. And life is worth the living just because he lives.

All right, if you guys are sitting on this side of the sanctuary, we do ask that you would, in an orderly fashion, go out that way. And for you guys who are here, go out through the courtyard. We thank you. Have a victorious week.