God's Power Has Given Us?

Minister:	Rev. Ronald Van Overloop
Date:	2/23/2014 PM
Text:	II Peter 1:3,4
Psalters:	409, 319, 73, 8

The powerful fact.
1. God’s divine power gives to each elect everything they need for spiritual life and godliness.
  1. The key to the removal of all natural fears is knowing God and His divine power!
  2. This power is at work in every believer.
  3. What has God initiated? Life and godliness.
2. The way God powerfully works in us is “through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue.”
  1. He has “called us” to faith by the efficacious inward (special and powerful) call.
  2. God’s call is unto His own “glory and virtue.”
  3. And God calls us by His own glory and virtue, i.e., by the glory of His power.
The result of God’s calling us is that we are “partakers of the divine nature.”
1. First, we are “escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
  1. This is the corruption of the world.
  2. The corrupt vices of this world are specially the sins of desires for self.
  3. The gospel irresistibly influences the redeemed so they are escaped from the sovereign dominion of these horrible vices.
2. Second, God gives us to be “partakers of the divine nature.”
  1. This is not essentially, so we are deified as Jesus is (would make us equal with God).
  2. But means that we resemble and are like Christ.
Finally, we are to know that God has given to us the greatest and precious promises.
1. God’s promises are the greatest and the most precious, i.e., they have the highest possible value.
2. God’s promises center in Jesus and all His riches, for He is the Mediator, surety and messenger of the covenant.
  1. Because they center in Jesus, they are all fulfilled for He came and through Him we have salvation and eternal life (3:13).
  2. So when we receive promises from Him, then we know that they arise from great grace and favor.
3. God promises the greatest ends and purposes, the glory of God and everlasting good and happiness.