Priscilla Shirer - Remember God's Promises and Hold on to His Peace
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Summary
In this message, Priscilla Shirer emphasizes the power of reminders from Scripture to awaken and encourage believers, drawing from 2 Peter 1 where Peter seeks to «stir up» readers by reminding them of foundational truths. Through personal stories—like discovering a hidden check in a neglected book of God’s promises—she illustrates how believers often overlook accessible spiritual treasures. Key reminders include: salvation through faith in Christ alone amid cultural pressures to dilute the Gospel; multiplied grace and peace for life’s storms; and God’s magnificent promises providing everything needed for life and godliness. She urges boldness in proclaiming Christ, discernment against false teachings, and cultivation of the indwelling Holy Spirit to access inherited promises.
Opening Story: The Graduation Gift
When I was going off to college, I remember for a graduation gift, my parents threw a graduation party for me and a friend. People came over; you know, they had gifts for us, and I remember that most of the people who were at the party were not our friends. They weren’t other 17- and 18-year-olds; they were my mama’s friends because those were the people who had the means to help us get to college, you know, with something in our pockets.
One of the ladies we have known for so many years, I remember, gave me a book called «Promises of God.» I remember opening up the bag and thanking her for the gift but feeling a little 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 as I 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, beneath the busyness of college life.
I remember during all of those college years, you know, doing what college students do; by the time all the gifts you may have gotten to go there run out, then you’re scrambling around with all your friends for every nickel and dime and dollar you can find to go and buy a little meal with your friends here or hang out over there. So you’re just searching 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 pulled this little book out, smiling, thinking about Mrs. Holt who had given me that book. I cracked it open for the first time, and out fluttered a check!
The whole time that I had been scrimping, there was something accessible and available to me, but I had to open up the book. Every time we open up the book, y’all, we find out about treasures we didn’t know were there. So we don’t have to live below our spiritual means anymore; we can operate according to the inheritance that has been given to us.
Opening Prayer
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 is a joy tonight, and I’m praying that God will speak to you as clearly as He 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 and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. I pray Father that you would give me a clear mind, and I yield my mouth and my words to You, Lord, to do with them 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.
Introduction to 2 Peter
Second Peter is where you’re headed. If you’ve got your Bible, maybe you still actually use a Bible with paper pages like I do, all old school and stuff, or your iPhone, your iPad, any manner of devices can take you to Second Peter chapter 1; that is where we’re going to be.
In this passage of Scripture, we meet Peter, the bondservant and Apostle of Jesus Christ. This is that Peter—the kind of lead disciple whose name continues to show up throughout the Gospels. He has written to us a couple of Epistles that end up being letters that you and I can glean from.
He says in 2 Peter 1:2-15, «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 with you.» 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 going to 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 going to be diligent that at any time after my departure you’re going to be able to call certain things to mind.»
Peter says my whole goal is to remind you of some things. I want to stir you up; I want to wake you up by way of reminder.
The Power of Reminders
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 gets 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 19, 17, and 13 years old now, and the same thing I was telling my 19-year-old when he was one seems like the exact same thing that I’m telling him right now. Like, «Sir, when I talk to you, the response back to me is not ‘Yeah, ’»—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.
Another thing 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, before they move about their life and about their day, they have to come to me and their dad and ask the question, «Is there anything that I can do to help you?» They just have to 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: «Is there anything I can do to help?» But 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 to since they were very little, and reminding them to ask the question. I keep telling them this is to your benefit!
Do you realize you’re going to be a husband one day? It’s going to 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 have daughters-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 our 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 habit 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. A lot of that has 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, right? Reminders. She would say it over and over and over again.
At times, when we hear something that we’ve heard before in the season of life that we’re in, that exact same statement or directive hits us completely differently. 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. So reminders are necessary because they give us a 3D perspective of a particular insight or principle.
Peter’s Purpose: Stir Up by Reminder
Peter believes this, obviously, because he says that the way I want to stir you up, wake you up, and alert you to the things of God and to what it means to grow spiritually and live a victorious life and grab hold of everything that God has planned for you—the way for me to get you on that track is to stir you up by way of reminder.
Now this is interesting to me because, you know, this is Peter—Peter is the one who actually traveled with Jesus for three and a half years. This is the 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 washed 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 devastation.
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, would be a leader of the church in Jerusalem. Peter did missionary work and preached Jesus as the Christ for the rest of his life.
And when it comes time for him to write this letter, he says, «I don’t want to 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 will be reminded of old things instead of constantly trying to come up with new things, then you’ll realize that the treasure you’ve been looking for you actually already have access to.
Reminder 1: The Same Kind of Faith
So he says, «I’m getting ready to stir you up, but I’m going to do it by way of reminder.» And from the top of that chapter, he just starts reminding you of things; he just starts calling them out, one after the other.
The very first one is in the very first verse at the top of the chapter. He writes, «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.»
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 bondservant and an Apostle of Jesus Christ. 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 kind of faith—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 clarify the content of our faith. He says, „Make sure your faith is the same kind of faith as ours.“ The reason he needed to remind the people 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 rising up within the church. They were preaching a twisted version of the good news; they were watering down the purity of the Gospel.
So Peter, right here at the top of the letter, says, „I want to 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 your sins.“ Peter cuts through the lies and the errors and the efforts to malign the purity and the power of the good news of the Gospel, and he says, „I’m not 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 mankind. So I came to remind you that there is no other way 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.
Boldness in a Diluting Culture
The reason why this is such an important reminder, y’all, is because we are living in a culture and in a day and age where it’s a very similar scenario to what he was describing. We are in a time when the culture around us 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 to 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 news. 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 age. You’re going to have to have a keen spiritual ear and listen to what you’re 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.
Just because someone says it passionately and charismatically 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 ours.
And then after you yourself—after we ourselves, sisters—have had our own discernment tuned in and 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 going to have to have some boldness to be clear about who your Savior is! You’re going to have to have some spiritual fiber, some spiritual fortitude. You’re going to have to have some spiritual meat on your bones in order to stand up and be unashamed about the good news of Jesus Christ.
Use your influence; use your social media platform. Young people who are in the room, the Lord has given you unmitigated influence in a way that previous generations did not have. And it’s going to take some boldness and some courage to be willing to stand alone, separate from many in your peers who will refuse to have integrity 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.
The Scope of the Gospel
The means of the Gospel is actually quite narrow—Christ alone—but the scope of the Gospel is very broad. It is for everyone from every sphere 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 sector, 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 advances toward us—do you realize 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!
The Miracle of Your Birth and Rebirth
And I mean, if we had time to tell the story, if we had time for me to just take this little microphone off and start right here on the front row and just go down one by one all throughout this room, all the way into the furthest region of this sanctuary, time would not allow us enough opportunity to tell the stories of how we were far away from Him, but He came and He found us and He loved us and He called us to Himself.
This love story between you and Him, you do know it did not just start at the time of your birth; it started before the foundation of the world—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 omniscience that He was going to have 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 skin 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 heavens saying, „Oops! This one slipped past me.“ Nope! He planned for you.
Which is a 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 made 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 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. Your lifespan and mine was situated in this generation on purpose because there is a testimony you’re going to have that you’re going to tell your grandkids and your great grandkids about the faithfulness of God—He made you for this!
The Divine Orchestration
In other words, your great-great-grandfather, with the seven billion plus people that are on the planet, 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 seven billion 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 your grandfather. And then with the seven billion plus people that are on the planet, he just happened to intersect lives with the woman who would be your grandmother. And then the two of them came together and created your father.
And then your father, with the seven billion plus people that are on the planet, just happened to intersect lives with the woman who would be your mother. And then the two of them came together, and they created you! There ain’t nothing chance about that! That’s the Divine hand of God orchestrating circumstances and orchestrating scenarios and the movements of people in different times, 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?
The Cosmic Chessboard
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 has 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 with 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 devolved to such an extent that Cain ended up killing Abel, and now that perfect relationship was infringed upon because sin was introduced in the garden. They were separated in their relationship from God, and it seemed like all hope was lost.
But our God, never to be out, 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 Enosh. When Enosh was born, everybody started to worship God again.
But then the enemy made another move; he introduced sin back into the equation and it proliferated so much so that the entire Earth had to be destroyed by a flood. This time, it seemed like for sure the enemy had won. But our God, never to be out, made another move, and His name was Noah.
He said, „Noah, I need you to go build me an ark.“ Noah said, „Do what?“ He said, „I need you to go build me an ark because it’s going to 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 Ur and plucked out of it a man named Abram. He said, „Abram, I’m going to change your name, and I’m going to change the GPS coordinates on your destiny. I’m going to send you to a brand new land.“
He said, „Look up in the stars, Abraham; you will see as many stars as there are in the sky, that’s the number of descendants I’m going to give to you. I’m going 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 for 400 years of brutal slavery. 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, and His name is Moses.
At just the right time, He raised Moses up as the Prince of Egypt and told Moses, „Mo, go tell Pharaoh, let my people go.“ After 10 miraculous plagues and 40 years in the wilderness, they came into the Promised Land—the people of God’s promise in the place of Promise where His presence and blessing have 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 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. It denigrated the culture so much so that the last line of the Book of Judges says, „and everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes.“ If that doesn’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. Ruth’s story got off to a rough start, but then at the right time, Ruth met her kinsman redeemer, and the two of them came together and had a little baby boy named Obed. Obed gave birth to Jesse, and Jesse gave birth to a little baby boy named David. 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 going to make the next move.
And then the New Testament opens, and God makes a move the likes of which the enemy 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, dies a substitutionary death, and three days later, He’s resurrected from the grave, offering 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!
Reminder 2: Multiplied Grace and Peace
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 faith and that faith comes through righteousness in Christ Jesus—found in Christ and Christ alone.“
He’s got another reminder for those of us who have that kind of faith. He says that’s who I’m writing to. Verse one: „Those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours.“ He says, „Verse two: Here’s your second reminder. Grace and peace be multiplied to you.“
Not only has he 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 five, Peter’s going to 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.
So he’s about to talk to us about addition. But before he ever gets to us regarding what we need to add to our faith, he tells you right up here in verse two: 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! An 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? Peace is the capacity and the potential for calm in the midst of chaos. Peace is an internal anchor of stability in the midst of unhindered instability that swirls all around you. Peace is 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 want to tell you though, if you personally are not going through a storm, we just want to tell you how happy we are for you! But for the vast majority of us who are in this room, we are in one of three places: we’re either right smack dab in the middle of a storm, on our way into a storm, or on our way out of one—because it’s the nature of the life in which we live!
Jesus Himself said it in John 16: „In this world you will have trouble.“ You don’t have to go looking for storms, y’all; just keep living, and the storm is eventually going to come and find you in one way or another.
But even if personally you’re not having the heavens open up over you and the hurricane rains, the floods, the difficulties of life are pressing in on you right now personally—all of us collectively have been in a storm. Because we have not just been through and are 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 cave to hopelessness and despair, the only Prefeitura in me could still come up with a smile on my face, still serve the people of God, and still serve the house of God and not succumb to bitterness or resentment or skepticism about 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 want to remind you that if you have received the same kind of faith as ours, then you can know that that kind of anchoring peace is going to be multiplied to you.“
Jesus said in John 14, „My peace I leave with you; I give it to you in spades—not as the world gives it, because they give it sparingly and temporarily, with condition—but not this peace that I give! This is the kind of peace, Philippians 4:7, 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 she’s your girl. You know what she’s going through; she’s filled you in on the trouble she’s had and the struggle she’s going through and the calls she just got from her kid’s school, or the tragedy that has just happened, or the financial struggle that she’s been under, or the doctor’s diagnosis that 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; it’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 and unmoved.
This is a supernatural kind of peace—it’s a peace that makes you go, „Huh?“ because it passes all understanding!
But not just peace that is multiplied to you—grace! He says, „I’m going to 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 dispensed 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, but 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 the grace that actually meets you in the details of your days, in the darkest hours of your night. It meets you in your struggles, your strife, 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 wind that keeps you moving forward!
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 how you raised them to live, and the relationship with that person is still strained, or your heart is still broken, or the business is still failing, when your needs are still seemingly unmet and unattended, there is a grace for grown-ups that can be your keeper!
Personal Testimony of Grace
Y’all, I don’t know that I have ever in my life had personal testimony of this quite the same way I do now. We’ve all, as I said, collectively been through a whole lot of stuff. But y’all, the last two years of my life, our life as a family, has been devastating. In the past two years, we have lost eight family members back to back.
It started off with the loss of 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 voicemails from her trying to organize her kids coming to my house to hang out 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 38 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 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. Eight 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 realize grace sustained me through that—that it had to be grace, that it had to be something supernatural—that we’ve still had our minds regulated, and 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 I are facing. He gives a grace for grown-ups!
So I want you to know that there is a multiplied peace, and I want you to know from my own personal testimony that there is a multiplied grace that has been extended to you.
Grace Sufficient in Thorns
Paul the Apostle talked about it a little bit in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. He said, „There’s this thorn in my flesh—ooh, if I could just get rid of this thorn, my life would be so much easier and better!“ And he prays; he asks the Lord to get rid of the thorn because that’s what we do: „Lord, if you can change this 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 or 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 and God’s goodness and 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 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. Sometimes the Lord allows it because you’ll never see the multiplication without it.
So if you’re praying, „Lord, take away this thorn! Lord, change this difficulty!”—the thing that you wrote down on those cards that we wrote our requests down on earlier and turned them in—and you’re praying, and the Lord, in His goodness and sovereignty, chooses not to take away the thorn, then we begin to know we are growing up in our faith and maturing a little bit spiritually when instead of completely caving in hopelessness or bitterness and resentment against the Lord because the thorn 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 multiplication 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, 2 Corinthians 9:8 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.“
Reminder 3: Magnificent Promises
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 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 manner 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 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 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—two of them are here with me tonight; some of y’all probably saw them outside—they were helping many of you bring your bags in earlier tonight. But my boys are gargantuan! They’re huge, and they just keep getting bigger! 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!
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.
When we did that first ultrasound, six or seven weeks in, it just looked like a little nut, a little ball, like an acorn—very, very small. Everything, though, that they would develop into was already there! To the extent that I cultivated and 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 in 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 and the ups and the downs of life—everything you and I need, we already have!
Do you know that in the Scriptures there are over 8,000 promises that sons and daughters of God have been given access to? Over 8,000! But most of them He did not put in our hands; 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, „I just stopped by awakening 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.