Y’all, I can’t imagine anything we need more right now than peace.
And, Grace, and we don’t need it in measures that we can provide for ourselves.
We need it in divine proportions that only god himself can pour out upon us.
Uh, when I was going off for college, I’ll tell you this, and then we’re gonna pray.
When I was going off to college, I for a graduation gift.
My parents threw a graduation party for me and a friend, and people came over, you know, and they had gifts for us.
And I remember that, you know, most of the people who were at the party were not our friends.
They weren’t this other seventeen to eighteen year olds. They were my mama and them friends.
Because those are the people that had the stuff to help us to go ahead and get to college with, you know, something in our pockets.
So my parents’ friends were there. One of the ladies that we have known for so many years now.
She, I remember, gave me a book, promises of god, was the name of the book.
And I remember opening up the bag and thanking her for the gift feeling a little bit deflated.
Like, for real? Thank you.
So I did take it to college with me, and I remember having it there, I remember putting it on my desk.
And then over time, throughout those years in college, it would get packed away came back home for the summer, and then it would come back out into the room, but it would be further and further down in the drawer, you know, of stuff that was layered on top, the busyness of college life.
And I remember during all of those college years, you know, doing what college students do.
By the time all the gifts that you may have gotten to go there, run out, then you’re scrounging around with all your friends every nickel and dime and dollar you can find to go and buy a little meal with your friends here or there, hang out over there.
And so you’re search and what for whatever you can find.
I remember so many days like that until one day in my last year of college.
I remember that I was looking through one of the big drawers in my room, and I looked down and realized that that book was in the back sort of pressed up in the corner.
Of this drawer. So I reached back there under all of this stuff, and I reached back there, and I pulled this little book out and kinda smiled thinking about Missus Holt who had given me that book, and I cracked it open for the first time, and outfluttered a check.
The whole time that I had been scrounging and looking and searching in feeling like I had insufficient funds and just having to struggle so much the whole time there was something accessible and available to me, but I had to open up the book.
And every time we open up the book, y’all, we find out about treasure we didn’t know was there.
So we don’t have to to live below our spiritual means anymore.
We can operate according to the inheritance that has been given to us.
So it feels like a gift to me a privilege every time I open it up personally, but the privilege that it is to do it with you, um, is a joy tonight, and I’m praying that God will speak to you as clearly as he had to has to me encouraging me through this little portion of scripture.
Let’s pray. Lord, I thank you so much for your word that it is living in active than and sharper than any 2 edged sword.
I pray father that you would give me a clear mind, and I yield my mouth and my word to you, lord, to do with it what you will.
Father, I ask that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart would be acceptable to you.
In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. 2nd, Peter, is where you’re headed.
If you’ve got your Bible, maybe you still actually use fible with paper pages like I do all old school and stuff or your iPhone, your iPad, any manner of I this can take you to 2nd Peter chapter 1.
That is where we’re going to be.
And in this passage of scripture, we meet Peter, the bond servant an apostle of Jesus Christ, this is that, Peter, the one who you know, the kind of lead Cycle whose name continues to show up all throughout the gospels.
He has written to us a couple of epistles that end up being letter that you and I can glean from.
And he says in 2nd Peter, chapter 1 verse 12 through 15.
Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them.
And you’ve been established in the truth, which is present few verse 13.
And I consider it right, as long as I am in this body, in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up, to wake you up, to awaken you.
And how I’m gonna do it is by way of reminder.
Knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling, my body is imminent as also the lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me verse 15.
So I’m gonna be diligent that at any time after my departure, you’re gonna be able to call certain things to mind.
Peter says, my whole goal is to remind you of some things. I wanna stir you up.
I wanna wake you up by way of reminder.
One of the things that sometimes becomes a little overwhelming to me as a parent are the reminders.
It’s that I end up having to say the same thing over and over and over again.
It’s the redundancy that me sometimes.
We have a couple of things that I’ve been telling my boys since they were very little.
They are getting ready to be nineteen, seventeen, thirteen years old now.
And the same thing I was telling my nineteen year old when he was one seems like the exact same thing, but I’m telling him right now.
Like, sir, when I talk to you, the response back to me is not yeah. Mm-mm. I can’t handle that.
I need you to put a handle on that. Yes, ma’am. Yes, sir.
I’m still telling him that after all these years.
One of the other things that happens in our house is that when the boys wake up in the morning, or when they return home from something like they’ve been at practice or school or something like that and they come home.
Before they move about their life and about their day, They have to come to me and their dad, and they have to ask a question.
Is there anything that I can do to help? You just have ask? The answer might be no.
It might be yes, but you do indeed have to ask. Most of the time, the question looks like this.
There anything I can do to help?
Well, a lot of times, the question doesn’t even come out like that.
I just don’t get the question at all.
So I find myself having to search for the boys, the same boys.
I’ve been telling this since they were very little and reminding them to ask the question.
And I keep telling them, this is to your benefit. Do you realize you’re gonna be a husband one day?
And it’s gonna bless you to bless your wife by asking her this question.
I’m trying to help you, and I’m trying to make sure I dollars in law who rise up and call me blessed.
Reminders when we’re telling somebody the same thing over and over again.
But the reality is when we think about own life and our own experience, the stuff that has stuck with us over time are the things we’ve been reminded about.
Things that have become habitual. The reminders have actually dug a rut of routine and have it into our life so that we don’t even recognize sometimes the kinds of decisions that we’re making or the words that we’re saying or choosing not to say, the kind of relationships that we choose or don’t choose that a lot of that stemmed from the reminders that we’ve been given.
I remember my mother telling me when I was growing up, Priscilla, it’s not what you said.
It’s how you said it. Your mama told you that too. Reminders.
She would say it over and over and over again.
And at times, when we hear something that we’ve heard before in the season of life that we’re in at that point, that exact same statement or exact same direct or bit of instruction, it hits us completely different because we’re at a sensitive place in our life or we’re at a hard place in our life or our mind or our heart has been turned in a different direction.
And so reminders are necessary because they give us a 3 d perspective of a particular a particular insight or a particular principle.
Peter believes this obviously because he says that the way that I wanna our you up, wake you up, alert you to the things of god, and to how what it means to grow spiritually and to live at victorious life and to grab hold he’s writing about in this book, to grab hold of everything that god has planned for you.
The way for me to get you on that track is to are you up by way of reminder.
Now this is interesting to me because, you know, this is Peter.
We’re talking about Peter Peter is the one who actually traveled with Jesus for three and a half years.
This is a guy we’re talking about who walked with Jesus and talked with Jesus.
This guy witnessed the actual transfiguration of Jesus.
This is the one who lost Jesus feet at the last supper.
This is Peter, the one who denied Jesus three times, but then knew what it was like to feel the grace and the mercy of god reach out to him and restore him after that station.
This is Peter who saw the empty tomb. This is Peter who saw the resurrected Jesus.
This is Peter who after the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit Peter would be a leader of the church, which was at Jerusalem.
Peter did missionary work and preached Jesus as the Christ for the rest of his life.
And when it time for him to write this letter.
He says, I don’t wanna stir you up by telling you anything you have not already heard before.
After everything I’ve seen with Jesus and the walking with Jesus, the discipleship with Jesus, the friendship with Jesus, I’m telling you that the things you have likely already heard are the things you just need to be reminded of.
Because if you’ll be reminded of old things, instead of constantly trying to come up with new things, then you’ll realize that the treasure that you’ve been looking for, you actually already have access to.
So he says, I’m getting ready to stir you up I’m going to do it by way of reminder.
And so from the top of that chapter, he just starts reminding you of things.
He just starts calling them out one after the other, and we’re just gonna take a few of them, a handful of them to be reminded of tonight so that we can be awakened so that we can be encouraged and challenged to remain alert, aware, and reminded of these truths that he wants to share with us.
The very first one in the very first verse at the top of the chapter.
He writes, Simon Peter, a bond servant, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith as the same kind as ours.
By the righteousness of our god and savior, Jesus Christ.
If you read it too quickly, you’ll miss the reminder that he has tucked away and embedded within this verse.
He says, hi. I’m Simon Peter, and just so you know, I’m a bond servant apostle of Jesus Christ, and I am writing to those who have received the same kind of faith as ours.
Peter says, let me be clear. I have an intended audience for this letter.
I am writing to those who have received a certain a faith that has come to us through one channel, through one means, he says it’s through the righteousness of our god whose name is Jesus Christ.
The first reminder comes to us here as he challenges us to consider and to clarify the content of our faith.
He says make sure your faith is the same kind of faith as ours.
The reason why he needed to remind the people that he was writing to and by the Holy Spirit is because one chapter later, if you read it, you will find that he starts detailing the fact that there were false teachers that were right up within the church, and they were they were preaching a twisted version of the good news.
They were watering down the purity of the gospel.
They were introducing twisted heraises and even denying the singular deity of Jesus Christ.
And so in this second chapter, of this same book, he begins to detail how the way of truth was being slandered by people who just were introducing slight perversions and hints of manipulation added opinion and philosophies to the purity of the gospel.
So, Peter, right here at the top of the letter.
He says, I wanna remind you that there is a faith that is the same kind of faith as ours, and it is the faith that comes through faith alone in Christ alone to redeem you from the purity and the power of the good news of the gospel.
And he says, I ain’t messing around with this faith of ours. I’ve walked with him. I’ve talked with him.
I’ve seen his miracles. I’ve heard his voice.
I saw him suffer a gruesome death and become a ransom for all my mankind, so I came to remind you that there is no other way that with through which you can be saved except through This one who is indeed the Christ, our faith, he came to remind you, is in Christ and Christ alone.
The reason why this is such an important reminder y’all is because we are living thus is seeking if you look closely to water down the gospel in a culture that is seeking to generalize god so that he is one of many options instead of a singular unmatched entity without comparison and with no counterparts.
Peter says I’ve come to remind the women of awaken tonight that there is our great salvation, and that salvation comes by no other name and through no other way, except through Jesus Christ.
So he’s stirring you up by way of reminder that the gospel y’all is still the good new It has not changed because our savior has not changed.
And listen to me, you are going to have to be incredibly discerning in this day and day You’re gonna have to have a keen spiritual ear and listen to what you were being fed through your social media feed and on through your screens.
And even as you sit in the building on some Sundays in some spaces, you need to make sure that what you’re hearing is actually what it is that Jesus says.
He says, I’m I’m just challenging you in this day and age where everybody’s just seeking to add little hints and cleverly divide tails and a popular opinion, and that which is politically correct, that you’re gonna have to tune your spiritual ears to make sure this right here is the same kind of faith as ours.
Just because someone says it passionately, and charismaticly and didactically.
If it adds to or takes away from the purity of the good news, then it is not the same kind of faith as hours.
And then after you yourself, after we, our cell sisters, have had our own discernment tuned in.
Our spiritual radar up to make sure that we have balanced everything against the truth of the word of god.
We are also going to have to be clear and confident and unashamed and unmoved in our own salvation.
You are living in a day and age where you’re gonna have to have some boldness to be clear about who your savior is.
You’re gonna have to have some spiritual fiber, some spiritual fortitude.
You’re gonna have to have some spiritual meat on your bones in order to stand up and be unashamed about the good news of Jesus Christ, to use your influence, to use your social media plat form, young people who are in the room.
I mean, I’m still young, but I’m just saying.
That I’m just saying that if you are in your twenties in this room, the lord has given you unmitigated influence in a way that previous generations did not have.
And it’s gonna take some boldness and some courage to be willing to stand alone separate from many in your peer who will refuse to have intake and who will not cave under the pressure of the culture to stand up without shame and say there is only one name by which men and women can be saved.
And that is the name of Jesus Christ. You’re gonna have to be bold.
The Holy Spirit is gonna have to give you some courage.
You’re gonna have to be fortified because it will not be, at times, politically correct. It will not be popular.
You not receive the applause. You will be unfollowed, but you have to be like Paul and say, it is my grace that I have been saved.
And I am strain. The love of god constrains me. He’s done too much.
He’s saved me to from too much.
He’s redeemed me too radically for me to add to or take away from this good news, this gospel that has saved my soul.
Christ alone. It’s Christ alone y’all.
It doesn’t matter how clever the culture becomes with adding to and trying to morph a new set of ideas and ideals and philosophies, we have to be clear on who our savior is.
The means of the gospel is actually quite narrow, Christ alone.
But the scope of life, not to some, but to all, not to one nation, not to one political party, not to one race, not to one religious sect but to every breathing human being, the salvation of our god through Jesus Christ has been extended.
Do you know the great lengths that god has gone through to win you?
Do you know what a miracle it is that after where we’ve been and what we’ve done?
After the rebellious heart that we had, the times that we turned our back on god, the times he came looking for us, and we kept diverting his his advances toward us, the fact that we’re sitting in this room tonight in relationship with him, do you know what he did to woo you to himself?
Even when you wanted to run, the hound of heaven would not let you go.
And I mean, if we had time to tell the story, if we had time for me to just take this little phone off and start right here on the front row and just go down one by one all throughout this room all the way until the furthest reaches of this sanctuary.
Time would not allow us enough opportunity to tell the stories of how we were far away from our head but he came, and he found us, and he loved us, and he called us to himself.
And this love story between you and he, you do know it did not just start at the time of your birth.
It started before the foundation of the war that he already had you on his mind, and he was already looking and watching and waiting for the opportunity when he knew in his sovereignty and on missions that he was going to to redeem humanity to himself he was already planning for you.
Okay. I want you to think about this.
I want you to think about what a miracle it is that you were born.
I’m talking about physically born in this day, in this age, in this generation, in that body, in that color with that hair texture.
With those facial features, with your personality, it is not by chance. You are not a surprise to god.
Your parents may have been surprised. God was not.
He was not in the heaven saying, oops, that one slipped past me. Nope.
He planned for you, which is little rabbit trail here.
The reason why you can be confident in who you are in that skin with that hair texture in that body is because you have been fearfully and wonderfully made with that personality, with the way your mind is wired and the creativity that you have or don’t have, you don’t have time to be comparing yourself with her and what she has and what she can do.
God may you as you for a reason.
He did it strategically and intentionally.
It’s a miracle your birth and mine.
And by the way, not only is the is who we are a miracle, but the time in which we live has been strategically designed and defined by god.
Meaning, you and I didn’t come through 2020 on accident.
He didn’t mistakenly set you in this decade on accident that your lifespan and mind was situated in this generation on purpose because there is a testimony you’re going to have that you’re gonna tell your grandkids and your great grand it’s about the faithfulness of god.
He made you for this, in other words.
Your great, great grandfather, with the 7,000,000,000 plus people that are on the planet He just happened to intersect lives with the woman who would be your great, great grandmother.
They came together and had your great grandfather.
And then with the 7000000000 plus people that are on the planet, your great grandfather just happened at the right time in the right generation in the right year on the right day to intersect lives with the woman who would be your great grandmother.
The two of them came together and created grandfather.
And then with the 7,000,000,000 plus people that are on the planet, he just happened to intersect lives with the woman who would be your grandmother.
And then the 2 of them came together and created your father.
And then your father with the 7,000,000,000 plus people that are on the planet.
He just happened to intersect lives with the woman who would be your mother, and then the 2 of them came together and they created you.
There ain’t nothing chance about that. That’s the divine hand of god.
Orchestrating circumstances in orchestrating scenarios and the movements of people in different times and days and generations to make sure that you would be born for such a time as this.
And If you think then that it’s a miracle that you were born, how much more of a miracle is it that you were born again?
Since before time began, god’s been orchestrating stuff to make sure that he could win your allegiance to himself.
I’ve heard my dad describe it as a cosmic chessboard.
God is sitting on one side of the cosmic chessboard, and the enemy, you do know there is an enemy who’s also been vying for your soul, vying for your allegiance, vying for your attention.
He’s been on the other side of the cosmic chessboard. God made the first move.
He put Adam and Eve perfect people in a perfect environment, perfect relationship to himself perfect opportunity to have rapport and cultivate a deepening friendship with god.
But then the enemy made a move. He slithered into the garden and introduced sin.
And now culture, uh, devolved to such an extent that Cain ended up killing a And now that perfect relationship was infringed upon because sin was introduced in the garden.
They were separated in relationship from god, and it seemed like all hope was lost.
But our god never to be outdone, he made another move.
He caused Adam and Eve to come back together again.
They had a baby boy named Seth, and Seth gave birth to Enoch.
And I don’t know what it was about Enoch, but Genesis after 4 says that when Enoch was born, everybody started to worship god again.
But then the enemy made another move.
He introduced sin back into the equation and it proliferates it so much so that the entire earth had to be destroyed by a flood.
And this time, it seemed like for sure the enemy had won our god. Never to be outdone.
He made another move on the cosmic chessboard, and his name was Noah.
And he said, Noah, I need you to go build me an arc. Noah said, what?
He said, I need you to go build me an arc because it’s gonna rain.
And through one man’s obedience mankind was preserved.
The enemy made another move so that sin and rebellion proliferated through the hearts of mankind once again, even after the flood.
And it seemed like all hope was lost, but then god made another move.
He went to a little pagan town called er, and he plunked out of it a man named Abram.
And he said, Abraham, I’m gonna change your name, and I’m gonna change the GPS coordinates on your destiny.
I’m gonna send you to a brand land. And he said, look up in the stars, Abraham.
You will see as many stars are in the sky.
That’s the number of descendants that I’m going to give to you.
I’m gonna to create a brand new group of people. They will be my people, and I will be theirs.
Then the enemy made another move.
Now god’s people went down into Egypt, captured 400 years of brutal slavery.
And it seemed like this time, for sure, there was no hope.
They would never come out of this slavery, but then god made another move in his name as Moses.
And at just the right time, he raised Moses up as the prince of Egypt, and he told Moses, Moe, go tell pharaoh, let my people go.
And after 10 miraculous plagues in 40 years in the wilderness, they came into the promised land.
The people of god’s promise in a place of promise where his presence and and blessing has been promised to them, the land flowing with milk and honey.
But by the time you get to the end of the book of judges, the enemy has now introduced idolatry so much so that listen to me, the children of Israel did not have to turn their back completely on Yahweh.
They just set idol worship, cultural idol worship, alongside their worship of Yahweh.
So they had one foot in idolatry, worshiping the idols of the culture, and one foot of allegiance worshiping god and it denigrated the culture so much so that the last book y’all of the the last line of the book of judges says and everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes.
If that don’t sound like America in the year 2021, I don’t know what does.
And it seemed like all hope was lost, but then god made another move.
And her name was Ruth.
And Ruth’s story got off to a rough start, but then at the right time, Ruth met her kinsman redeemer and the 2 of them came together and had a little baby boy named Obed.
And Obed gave birth to Jesse, and Jesse gave birth to a little baby boy named David.
And with that one move, the enemy didn’t even know it, but the checkmate was already on the way.
And then the old testament closes, and there’s 400 years of silence.
God is on one side of the cosmic chessboard.
The enemy is on the other side, and nobody makes a move for 400 years.
All of history and humanity is hanging in the balance, waiting to see who’s gonna make the next move.
And then the new testament opens.
And god makes a move, the likes of which the enemies still to this day, has never had a response for.
He basically puts on flesh and says, let me come down here and take care of this myself.
He lives a perfect life, and he dies a substitutionary death.
And 3 days later, he’s resurrected from the grave, and he offers salvation once and for all, for you and for you and for you and me.
Do you realize what he went through for us?
How dare we be ashamed of a salvation like that?
And so Peter says I came to stir you up by way of reminder today that you would never forget there is a certain kind of face.
And that faith comes through righteousness in Christ Jesus, found in Christ in Christ alone.
He’s got another reminder for those who have that kind of faith.
He says that’s who I’m writing to verse 1, those who have received a faith of the same kind desires.
He says verse 2, here’s your second reminder. Grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Not only has he came to come to remind you of the same kind of faith, but he wants to remind you of a multiplication of peace and of grace.
This makes me happy because I like god’s math.
You see, a few verses later around verse 5, Peter’s gonna start talking about addition.
He’s going to tell us to add to our faith, moral excellence, add godliness, add kindness, add love.
He starts to tell us the things that we need to add to make sure that we are growing up spiritually and maturing in our faith.
He’s about to talk to us about addition, but he before he ever gets to us regarding what we need to add to our faith, he tells you right up here in to god’s working in a completely different set of metrics.
He’s going to multiply to you. He’s going to multiply grace and peace. They are not added.
They are multiplied. I exponential explosion of peace to you and grace to you.
Y’all, I can’t imagine anything we need more right now than peace and grace.
And we don’t need it in measures that we can provide for ourselves.
We need it in divine proportions that only god himself can pour out upon us. Peace.
Do you know what it is? Pieces is the capacity and the potential for calm in the midst of chaos.
Piece is an internal anchor of stability in the midst of unhindered instability that swirls all around you.
Pieces, the capacity to remain steady when everything around us is completely unsteady, peace in the midst of a storm.
There is a storm if you have not noticed that is raging around us.
And It doesn’t matter what your personal concerns may or may not be right now in this particular moment.
We wanna tell you, though, if you personally are not going through storm, we just wanna tell you how happy we are for you.
But for the vast majority of us who are in this room, we are in one three places.
We either right smack dab in the middle of a storm on our way into a storm or on our way out of 1.
Because it’s the nature of the life in which we live. Jesus himself said it in john 16.
He said, in this world, you will have trouble. You don’t have to go looking for storms.
Y’all just keep living. Yeah. The storm is eventually gonna come and you in one way or another, but even if personally, you’re not having the the heavens open up over you in the hurricane, the rains, the the difficulties of life are not pressing in on you right now.
Personally, all of us, collectively, have been in a storm.
Because we have not just been through and still going through one pandemic.
Y’all, there have been layers of pandemics upon pandemics.
There’s been a medical one, yes, but there has also been a political one There’s been a racial one, layers of pandemic upon pandemic.
And in order for us not to succumb, to anxiety and fear or us and say, I’ve lost this person.
And that person, I have suffered this difficulty and this difficulty, but I could still come up with smile on my face and still serve the people of god and still serve the house of god and not succumb to bitterness or resentment or skepticism of the goodness of god is if there is an anchor in her soul.
The peace of god anchors you in your soul.
It’s a supernatural peace that he multiplies to you.
And Peter says, I wanna you that if you have received the same kind of faith as ours, then you can know that that kind of anchoring piece is going to be multiplied.
You. Jesus said in John 14, my peace. I leave with you.
I give it to you in spadefuls. Not as the world gives it.
Because they give it sparingly, and they give it temporarily with condition.
But not this piece that I give, this is the kind of peace, Philippine, and 47 that passes all understanding.
You know these kinds of people.
It’s the friend that you have or the person that you work with, and and she’s girl.
You know what she’s going through.
She’s filled you in on the trouble that she’s had and the struggle that she’s going through and the call she just got from her kid’s school or the tragedy that has just happened or the financial struggle that she’s been under under, or the doctor’s diagnosis that’s just called.
You’ve been privy to all that information, and yet she keeps getting up every day.
She keeps showing up. She still has a sense of calm.
She still has a bit of a smile on her face. She’s not ignoring her reality. She’s not denial.
She’s very aware of it, and she needs to deal with it.
But at the same time, she’s able to stay steadfast, unmoved.
This is a supernatural kind of piece.
It’s a piece that makes you go, because it passes all understanding.
But not just peace that is multiplied to you. Grace.
It says I’m gonna multiply grace to you. Grace is god’s unmerited favor on your life.
That’s what it is. It is god being free to do everything he wants to do for you because of what Christ has already done for you.
Grace is the goodness of god dispense to you that you do not deserve that you could not repay and that you cannot earn.
Grace is, of course, the basis of our faith y’all, but there is not only a grace that saves you There is also a grace that sustains you.
This is what I call a grace for grown ups.
This multiplied grace is the grace for grown ups.
It’s it’s the grace that actually meets you in the details of your days and the Marcus hours of your night.
It meets you in your struggles and your strife and your difficulties and your daily decisions.
It’s a grace that if peace anchors you, grace is actually an engine that motivates you and encourages you and sustains you.
It’s an uplifter and a keeper. It’s a second win that keeps you moving forward.
Well, honestly, you would have caved a long time ago. Grace gives you inspiration to keep going.
It sustains you when everything around you is not changing.
The difficulty is staying the same, but somehow, god gives you a grace that keeps you moving forward when the marriage is still hard and the finances are still low and the babies are still not sleeping through the night.
And the adult children are still living in a way that is outside of the way that you raise them to live and the relationship with that person is still trained or your heart is still broken or the business is still flailing when your needs are still seemingly unmet unattended, there is a grace for grown ups that can be your keeper.
Y’all, I don’t know that I have ever in my life had personal testimony this quite the same way I do now.
We’ve all, as I said, corporately been through a whole lot of stuff.
But y’all, the last 2 years of our my life, our life as a family, has been devastating.
In the past 2 years, we have lost 8 family members. Back to back.
It started off with the loss of of my, one of my closest friends and my biological cousin.
She actually was a member of this church, And one day, we were planning to go to the movies.
I still have the voice mails from her trying to organize our her kids coming to my house to hang with their cousins while we went to the movies.
That’s what we did together. Hang out at the movies, over hot buttery salty popcorn, and a good coke.
And one day, we’re planning to go to the movies, and the next day at thirty eight years old, her heart just stopped.
And that loss started a string of losses in our family one after the other.
Ending with December 2019 right before the the pandemic began in December, the same month, My grandfather died, my father’s father, the beginning of the month, and at the end of the month, December 30th.
My mother died. 8 months later, my mother-in-law died. In between those two deaths.
The doctor saw something on my left lung that needed to be removed.
And the only way they could remove it was to actually take out the entire left lobe, upper lobe of my lung.
So a week after my mother’s funeral, I had to go have that surgery.
One thing after the other.
And I don’t know if you’ve ever had a season of your life where you look back on it and you realize Grace sustained me through that.
That it had to be grates, that it had to be something supernatural that we’ve still had our minds regulated, that we have still kept our faith and our trust and our hope in him, he is indeed a grace giver, and he extends grace for folks going through grown up situations like you and are facing.
He gives a grace for grown ups.
So I want you to know that there was a multiplied piece And I want you to know from my own personal testimony that there is a multiplied grace that has been extended to you.
Paul, the apostle talked about it a little bit in second chapter 12, he said there’s this thorn in my flesh.
Oh, if I could get rid of this thorn, my life would be so much easier and better.
And he prayed, He asked the lord to get rid of the thorn because that’s what we do.
Lord, if you can change the situation, this thing that’s poking me, it’s uncomfortable. It’s bothering me.
If you could get this out of my life, then everything would be fine. Jesus, god heard the prayer.
He prayed three times that the thorn would be removed, and god in his sovereignty and his goodness and his grace to us sometimes does not remove the thorn.
Listen to that again. Somebody needs to hear that.
That god’s sovereignty, that god’s goodness, that god’s love for you has not been misplaced just because the thorn remains in your life.
He said to Paul, no, I’m not taking away the thorn because it’s by this thorn.
It’s because of this thorn that you’re getting ready to learn that my grace is sufficient for you.
In other words, the multiplication of grace is tied to the hard things that we are facing.
The sometimes the lord allows it because you’ll never see the multiplication without it.
So if you’re praying, lord away this thorn. Lord changed this difficulty.
The thing that you wrote down on those cards that we wrote our request down on earlier and turn them in, and you’re praying.
And the lord in his goodness in sovereignty chooses not to take away the thorn.
Then we begin to know we are growing up in our faith and touring a little bit spiritually when instead of completely caving in hopelessness or bitterness and resentment against the lord that the foreign remains.
We instead sit on the edge of our seat with our chin in our hands in holy anticipation that if he’s allowed the thorn to remain, that must mean there is a more vacation of grace that’s on the way.
So Peter says I came to stir you up by way of reminder.
That there is the same kind of faith as ours, but also there is a multiplication of grace and peace that is coming to you.
And god, 2nd Corinthians 98 says, is able to make all grace abound to you.
So that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.
Paul has reminded us about the same kind of faith.
He has reminded us about the multiplication of peace and grace.
And finally, He reminds us that there are magnificent promises for anything and everything that you face In verse 3, he says, 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 glory and his excellence.
His divine power, he says, and his precious promises have been given to you for everything that you need for life and for godliness.
Please don’t miss the two layers of living that he addresses right here.
Everything you need, not just to live, but to live in a way that honors god.
He’s given you everything you need for that.
For both layers, not just to keep getting up out of bed in the morning, but actually to walk in a matter worthy of the calling by which you have been called.
He’s given you enough grace for that. He’s given you promises for that.
He has given everything you need to be able to sustain you, to not just live, but to honor God in your living.
To not just live, not just keep on waking up every day, but to face your day with a measure of faith and hope and spiritual maturity.
Everything you need to engage both of these layers of living, you have already been given, even if you don’t see proof of it, and even if based on your current level of lethargy or apathy or indifference or lack of energy, you feel a little discouraged because you feel like this cannot be true for you.
Peter says, that’s why I came to remind you that everything you need, you already have.
Y’all my boys, 2 of them are him here with me tonight.
Some of y’all probably saw them outside.
They were helping, um, many of you bring your bags in earlier tonight, but my boys are are gargantuan.
They’re they’re huge. And they just keep getting bigger, and I look at them now with all these muscles popping out and their voices are all deep and they’re walking around with their shirts off.
It’s nasty. Shucks.
I’m looking at all of that manliness walking around.
And everything that they needed to become who they currently are and will be.
They already had at the moment of conception.
When they were in my womb and we did that first ultrasound 6 or 7 weeks in, it just looked like a little little a little ball of of, like, an acorn, very, very small.
Everything though that they would develop into was already there.
To the extent I cultivated and and, um, took care of the new life that was on the inside of me.
That was the extent to which they would be able to completely flourish.
But everything that they are now, they already had. Everything that you need, you already have right now.
The new life of god is on the inside of you and the person of the Holy Spirit.
Do you realize that the DNA of god himself is pulsing on the inside of you and as you cultivate and keep healthy, the life of god on the inside of you, everything that you will become, everything that you need to be sustained through the hardships and the difficulties and the struggles and the joys, the ups and the downs of life.
Everything you and I need, we all he have.
Do you know that in the scriptures, there are over 8000 promises?
That daughters, sons and daughters of god, have been given access to over 8000.
But most of them, he did not put in our hand.
He put them in our reach, which means you have the opportunity to experience god in the way that that promise confirms that you should, but it’s not just set in your hand.
It’s in your reach that as you trust him, as you believe him, as you walk with him, as you remain connected to him, as you deepen your friendship with him, then you begin to see that outworked in your life.
Peter says somebody needs to be reminded today that according to colossians chapter 2 verse 10, you are complete in him.
The enemy wants to dull you in that regard, and me.
He wants to make us think that we need to go outside of Christ side of what he has given us to find completion.
And so we become codependent in relationships, and we become addicted to substances.
And we go outside of our relationship to god to find stuff that he has already given you access to, but every treasure that you need.
It’s already there if you’ll just open the book.
There will some things will come tumbling out of the book, some treasures, some insights, some details, some strengthening power will come tumbling out for you so that you will know that everything you need to become and to be who god has called us to be as women of god, you and I have already been given Peter says, I just stopped by awaking to stir you up by way of reminder.
To remind you, of the power and the purity of our faith, to remind you of the multiplication of peace and grace and to remind you that the magnificent promises of god are yours for anything and everything that you face.
Amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.