“but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (2 Peter 3:18)
1. Grow = Likeness
2. Knowledge = Learning
Be like the Lord and learn of and from the Lord = Growth in Christ
Bruised
Richard Sibbes says,
“…there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us…it is better to go bruised to heaven than sound to hell.”
The Bruised Reed, p. 47
The Incarnation
What a mystery is found in the words of John: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” First, the fact of divine conception. The Lord takes to himself our humanity in all its frailty and weakness. True mortality. Second, He tabernacles with us. he lives his life before us. It is observable, real and complete proof that Immanuel was among us. May we see his glory – full of grace and truth.
The Grace of the Gospel
Outline of 1 Corinthians 15:1 – 11
I. Receiving the Gospel – Grace Delivered (vv. 1, 2)
II. Preaching the Gospel – Grace Described (vv. 3 – 5)
III. Living the Gospel – Grace Displayed (vv. 9 – 11)
Grace Without
This is one of the most important truths for a believer to grasp. Thomas Boston puts it like this: “The great stay of the believer is not the grace of God within him; that is a well whose streams sometimes run dry; but it is the grace of God without him, the grace that is in Jesus Christ, which is an ever-flowing fountain, to which the believer can never come amiss.”
(Thomas Boston, Human nature in its Four-Fold State, p. 312)