The Crowded Life

2 Peter 1:2

For the first time in 20 years, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary is being revised and published, next month.

You might think a paper version of a dictionary would be unnecessary, but Merriam-Webster still sells hundreds of thousands of copies a year. But millions of people visit the online site each week.

This new edition will include more than 5,000 new words – words that began as slang terms but are now mainstream.

Like Rizz – shortened form for the word charisma.

They’ve added the word Adulting – to describe doing grown up tasks – like getting out of bed and going to work and paying the bills.

They’ve added the term Dad-bod – a term that – and I quote – describes the slightly out of shape male physique. I have no idea what they’re talking about.

They’re adding the word Dumb-phone – as opposed to a smart phone, a dumb-phone is a basic phone that doesn’t have internet or email – the kind of phone we oughtta all be using.

Because if you don’t, they’ve also added the word – Brain-rot – this word refers to what happens to someone when they spend too much time on social media.

But if you don’t care about brain-rot, and you spend hours surfing anyway – Merriam-Webster has added the word Doomscrolling – it’s defined as: the act of obsessively scrolling through bad news. Which, if you noticed, most of it is.

The average person today is spending anywhere from 2 to 4 hours a day on all forms of social media platforms – and a lot of it is doomscrolling – one headline after another that leaves you somewhere between angry and despairing and tired.

A recent survey revealed this result – here it is: 66% of Americans feel exhausted by the news – the endless procession of negative or upsetting or shocking news that never stops sending you notifications.

An article I read recently was entitled – and I thought this was an interesting title to the article: “You Can Turn off the News and Still be a Good Citizen” (Christianity Today online (September, 2024) – the author wrote, “In today’s fast-paced world, the constant stream of news can feel like you’re drinking from a firehose.”

Political scandals and partisan squabbles, conspiracy theories, relational blowups, weather alerts, natural disasters, gruesome crimes, courtroom drama, arguments, fights, debates – the average American is inundated by the Niagara Falls of news.

The trouble is, misinformation travels faster than the truth – and you’re not sure which is which.

It’s nearly impossible now to discern important news from just more noise.

Did we really need to know:

• what so-and-so said to so-and-so –
• how much the alimony payments are –
• what the latest trend is –
• and who got a restraining order on who –
• and who moved in with who –
• and who lost their job for what –
• and who won the award for whatever.

Maybe you’re old enough to remember that news used to be a scheduled event, not a 24/7 fire-hose.

I’ll sound like my grandfather here, but when I was a boy – you ever heard that? – when I was a boy, the news was an event that came on television at night – for an hour.

For people who wanted more information – they got a newspaper – it was delivered early in the morning by a paperboy.

Not a boy made out of paper – from a 3-D printer – he was an actual boy who rode his bicycle down your street and threw your newspaper on top of the roof of your car – in the rain.

News used to be daily, not every 60 seconds.

Go back in time about 150 years ago. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president, the news took 8 days to travel across the country – from the east coast to the left coast – and it traveled by pony express.

Imagine that – 150 years ago you had to wait 8 days to find out who stole the election.

I’m trying to offend everybody.

I have read that the average American 150 years ago heard or read about 200 news events a year.

Today, one article I read said that the average person processes more than 300 news items a day.

Ryan Burge goes on to write that we were never designed by God to drink from a firehose of media consumption. For Christians who find themselves getting angry after watching cable news or scrolling through social media, we must admit that our fallen flesh is easily addicted; we crave things that titillate us; excite us; shock us, enrage us, worry us – and we simply reinforce journalistic models to keep the firehose on. [SOURCE: ^{Adapted from Harvest Prude]}

We are surrounded by – crowded in by – swamped by the noise around us.

Wouldn’t it be great if we got paid to be quiet? If news sources got an award for notifying people the least amount of times – for producing the least amount of noise?

Reminded me of Paul Hampton, who wrote that he and his wife and their little boy were out running errands. Fighting the crowds and the traffic was stressful enough, but their four-year-old, Christopher, insisted on asking questions about everything – Paul writes, “He talked nonstop; asking questions – telling me how to drive more carefully; he sang every song he knew at the top of this lungs; finally, Paul writes, “I made him an offer – ‘Christopher, if you’ll be quiet for just two minutes, I’ll give you a quarter.’” It worked. And since he couldn’t tell time, it worked longer than 2 minutes.

When we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant, we got a booth, but then I had to constantly remind him to sit up straight; stop kicking the seat; lean over his plate; be careful and not spill his drink; don’t talk with food in your mouth. Finally he said with all seriousness, “Dad, if you’ll be quiet for just two minutes – I’ll give you a quarter.” [SOURCE: ^{Paul M. Hampton, Cold Spring, Kentucky, The Christian Reader, “Kids of the Kingdom”.]}

We live what I would like to call today “crowded lives”. Crowded – surrounded – by a noisy world.

The question is – what are we allowing to crowd in on us – who have we allowed to influence us – to make the most noise in our lives today?

The apostle Peter is about to pray a specific prayer request. His prayer doesn’t start with “Dear Lord” and then end with “Amen”.

But he’s about to deliver what one New Testament scholar called a “prayer wish” – a “prayer request he’s writing out loud on their behalf.” [SOURCE: ^{Adapted from D. Edmond Hiebert, Second Peter and Jude (Unusual Publications, 1989), p. 38]}

I invite your attention to the apostle Peter’s second letter – where he makes this prayer/wish – let’spick up our study here in chapter 1 and verse 2:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 2 Peter 1:2

Now remember, Peter is writing to believers. In verse 1 he identified them as having received a faith of equal standing with the apostles. 

They knew Jesus Christ as both Deity – God, and Deliverer – as their Savior.

So Peter is praying this for Christians – they needed this in their world just as much as you and I need it today.

You need to notice here that Peter isn’t wishing they had grace and peace – as believers they already have them. [SOURCE: ^{Ibid, p. 38]}

Peter isn’t praying that they’ll get them – he’s praying that they will grow them.

May grace and peace multiply in every aspect of their lives.

Now what does it mean for grace and peace to multiply?

The verb “to multiply” is used in a negative manner where the Lord says in Mathew 24:12 that lawlessness is going to multiply in the coming tribulation.

In other words, it’s going to spread out – it’s going to expand – one day it will crowd it’s way around the entire globe.

In Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, the noun form of this word for multiplyoriginally meant “a crowd” – Plato used it for a crowd of people – numerous people crowding around. [SOURCE: ^{Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992), p. 866.]}

The verb form was used to refer to the Nile River overflowing its banks – its waters effectively multiplied. [SOURCE: ^{Ibid, p. 867]}

If you were caught in the flooding of the Nile River, you’d be surrounded by its water – you’d be carried along in its current.

Likewise, if you were caught in a mob, you would be surrounded by – engulfed by – a crowd of people.

I referred earlier to the fact that we are surrounded by the multiplication of news sources – we can be caught up in the current of our culture – our minds and hearts can be flooded by the never ending stream of the sensational, the irrational, the superficial, the criminal, the controversial, the temporal stuff of the day.

Peter is saying “I want you to be surrounded by – swept along through life by the current of grace and peace – these two distinctives that will keep you focused – they will free you from the gravity of this world system.

Let’s take a closer look at these two distinctives that ought to characterize our lives today.

The first distinctive here is grace.

As a theological concept, grace refers to the favor of God toward the undeserving.

I grew up learning the acrostic for G.R.A.C.E.

• God’s
• Riches
• At
• Christ’s
• Expense

If you took a tour of scripture, you’d discover several kinds, or categories of grace.

You would discover what we call common grace.

Common grace is the kindness of God upon all of fallen creation – upon both believer and unbeliever.

It rained yesterday, finally, and I noticed it rained on my yard, and also on all the yards in my neighborhood – even people who aren’t going to church today – they got some rain too – that’s the common grace of God.

Common grace has given all of mankind a sense of right and wrong.

Which is why when you witness to someone you don’t need to get them to agree that they’re a sinner, you just need them to admit it. They already know they’ve got a sin problem, because of the common grace of God written through His law upon their hearts.

Secondly, there is what we could call saving grace. 

That kind of grace is for believers only.

Paul wrote about saving grace in I Corinthians 1:4 that he thanked God for the grace they’d been given in Christ Jesus.

Paul wrote about it to the Ephesians “For by grace you have been saved through faith…” (Ephesians 2:8)

One of the five Reformation sola’s we call them, is sola gratia. It’s carved on the face of my pulpit, along with the other four solas.

Sola Gratia refers to the doctrine of salvation by grace alone – in other words, salvation is unmerited, unearned, and undeserved.

Now third, there’s something we call today “cheap grace”.

In the 1940’s, a Lutheran pastor by the name of Dietrich Bonheoffer coined this category of grace which he called “cheap grace”. He challenged the church to stop watering down the gospel.

In his book entitled, The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoffer wrote:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance; baptism without church discipline; communion without confession . . . cheap grace allows the Christian to live like the rest of the world; to model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin.”

––Dietrich Bonhoeffer [SOURCE: ^{Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Macmillan, 1937), p. 44]}

So, you have common grace, saving grace and cheap grace.

Now if you track through the New Testament, you can see what grace is gonna look like as it multiplies in your life as a believer.

So rather than simply define grace – the Bible gives us a look at the demonstration of grace.

Let me give you 2 demonstrations of grace.

First: Grace empowers you to handle hardship with happiness.

You might have expectedme to put a period after hardship. Grace empowers you to handle hardship – period.

No – multiplied grace goes even farther than that.

Paul writes to the Corinthian believers a very transparent personal testimony of his own hardships and suffering. He writes this:

A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

It’s gonna take grace in our lives to handle hardship – but to handle hardship with happiness – to be gladly content as we depend on the strength of Christ – that’s gonna take grace multiplied – grace times grace times grace!

Secondly, grace not only allows you to handle hardship with happiness –

Grace enables you to respond to critics with kindness.

Paul writes to the Colossians in chapter 4:

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, (unbelievers) making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Colossians 4:5-6

What is it in your life that enables you to respond kindly and wisely to noisy people in this noisy world? 

Grace!

Pass the salt? We’re in the South – we say that a lot! How about, “Pass the grace”.

Salt your speech with grace.

It’s interesting that the world uses the expression “salty speech” for someone who is profane – “salty speech” is using profanity.

The Bible says the exact opposite. Salty speech is speaking with graciousness, and tactfulness.

Tact is a word of grace. Somebody said that tact is making people feel at home when you wish they were.

That’s a demonstration of grace that can lead to peace.

Perhaps that’s why Peter pairs grace here in verse 2 with peace. 

The world of Peter’s original readers was growing more and more dangerous. External peace – civil peace – social peace – for the believer was becoming a thing of the past.

Peter’s is not praying here for the believer to have a peaceful world. That isn’t gonna happen.

I like the way one author I was reading said that the grace of God meets every outward need where the peace of God meets every inward need. [SOURCE: ^{John Phillips, Exploring the Epistles of Peter (Kregel, 2005), p. 228]}

This is peace within.

The prophet Isaiah wrote that God keeps us in perfect peace when our minds are fixed – are stayed – on Him.Isaiah 26:3

In other words, peace isn’t related to the outward pressure, peace is related to an inward focus.

In light of what is going to happen in the Roman empire over the next 5 years – Nero will burn the Palatine Hill to make room for his new palace, and blame the Christians for setting Rome on fire – the storm clouds are gathering and Peter knows what it means to cave under pressure by a charcoal fire and the accusation of a servant girl.

Imagine the pressure when all of society rises up and with fury and hatred asks the Christian, “Are you a follower of that Galilean?”

So you might think Peter would be praying here that grace and courage would be multiplied to them. Not grace and peace.

But Peter is praying for peace – this old apostle has learned that the peace of God within the heart of a believer is not found in the absence of trouble, it is found in the presence of God.

Peter learned by experience not to focus on the storm, but the fact that the Savior was in the boat – in the middle of the storm.

So the question remains – how do you get these distinctives of grace and peace to multiply in your life today?

Peter answers that in the verse 2 – notice again:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you – now notice – in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 2 Peter 1:2

This is the first of ten times in this little letter that Peter is gonna refer to knowledge. [SOURCE: ^{Michael Bentley, Living for Christ in a Pagan World (Evangelical Press, 1990), p. 183]}

In fact, Peter opens this letter by referring to the knowledge we gain about God through the word of God.

Knowledge is the key word – you could call it the key principle of growing in these distinctives of grace and peace.

Now the normal word for knowledge is gnosis – to learn intimately and personally. Here Peter adds a prefix to gnosis (epignosis) so that it woodenly translates – to grow in knowledge toward an object. [SOURCE: ^{Adapted from Guy N. Woods, A Commentary on the New Testament Epistles of Peter, John, and Jude (Gospel Advocate, 1991), p. 148]}

And Peter gives us the objects here – you’re growing in knowledge toward:

• God (a reference to God the Father)
• and God the Son – Jesus Christ –
• and we know our Divine teacher is God the Holy Spirit (John 14:26) –
• who uses the inspired textbook of scripture to reveal the truth.

We’re not just talking about facts written by the Author – knowledge relates to fellowship with the Author.

The more you learn the written word, the more you come to know the Living word – Jesus Christ.

The knowledge of Jesus Christ is what one author called “the master science” of all sciences. Other sciences can bring new skills, new knowledge, new abilities, new discoveries; but the master-science, the knowledge of Jesus Christ – that brings you what no other science can offer – grace and peace. [SOURCE: ^{William Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter (Westminster Press 1976), p. 295]}

Some of the greatest scientists of all time understood this.

Blaise Pascal, a brilliant scientist and inventor in the 17^th century came to faith later in life and considered the knowledge of Christ to be the supreme truth over all human reason.

He was the one who famously said that there is a God-shaped vacuum in the human heart that cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.

Francis Collins, the leader of the Genome Project that produced the first complete map of the human DNA sequence in 2003 – imagine mapping 3 billion pairs in that spiral DNA we’ve seen pictures of –

Collins wrote, “The God of the Bible is the God of the genome. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful.”

Collins would write that knowing Christ personally was greater than all his scientific achievements.

But let’s be clear – the only book on planet earth that reveals Him to us is this Book.

So there can be no substitute for growing in grace and peace than the study of this Book.

The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:

All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

I like Warren Wiersbe’s outline of this text:

All scripture is:

profitable for teaching – that tells you what’s right

for reproof – that tells you what’s not right

for correction – that tells you how to get right

for training in righteousness – that tells you how to stay right.

So that you will be equipped for life – that word “equipped” referred in the first century to a wagon that was loaded down with supplies for a long journey;

it also referred to a ship that had taken on board all the supplies needed before it set sail.

How many Christians think they can sail through life and forget their supplies; take off on a journey and forget to stock the wagon with the right equipment.

And the right equipment is not a new Ipad.

Peter is reminding them and us that growth in grace and peace would be the result of dedicated time and disciplined study.

• It is simply impossible to know God intimately if we treat this Book casually.

• It will be impossible to live biblically if we don’t think biblically.

And this will demand the discipline of denial.

Develop the discipline of denial and say “No” to a noisy world, and get immersed in this Book.

If you are being crowded by everything else so that God’s word is being crowded out of your life – get rid of that other crowd.

In practical terms:

• turn off the noise
• turn off cable news
• silence your notifications
• put your phone down – buy a dumbphone
• clean house of any other distraction that eats up your time and keeps you from growing in this one thing – the highest and greatest knowledge of all – the master-science of our Divine Author . . .

Deny the crowd of distractions.

And pray this same prayer with Peter – that you will demonstrate in multiple ways grace and peace that comes from a more intimate knowledge of this Book, and by it, a deeper and more intimate walk with your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.