STUDIES IN II PETER

�� In the old days when people traveled in coaches the driver would charge three fares.� The first class, second class, and third class.� All passengers were placed in the same coach and those who paid the first class fare would often complain that there was no difference, and that they receive no better accommodations than those who paid less.� The driver would urge them to be patient and they would soon see the difference.� When the coach came to a steep hill the driver stopped and announced, "All first class passengers keep your seats; all second class passengers get out and walk; all third class passengers get out and push."

�� In the journey through life all people still fall into these same categories:� The parasites, the passivites, and the pusherites.� The tendency of our age is to think that the ideal is to be a first class parasite, but the Bible is clear from Genesis to Revelation that the goal of the believer, and true success, is to be a third class pusherite.� Before the Disciples of Christ learned this they were eager to become first class passengers.� They debated among themselves as to who was to be the greatest.� James and John even asked Jesus outright for seats at His right and left hand in glory.� Jesus at that point laid down a principle that made Christianity the most unique and effective movement under the sun.� He said, as He pointed out the contrast of the world's values and His own, in Mark 10:42‑45, "You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.� But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.� For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many."�

�� Jesus refused to be a first class passenger and a privileged parasite.� He came to seek, to save, and to serve.� The idea of service was dominant in the Old Testament, and the great prophecies of the coming Messiah portrayed Him as the suffering Servant.� Israel was chosen, not for privilege, but for service, and Jesus likewise called His disciples, not to be privileged characters, but to be servants.� This is the greatest and highest title available to those in the kingdom of God.� That is why you will find the Apostles proud to declare themselves to be servants of God.� It was only a handful of men who gained the distinction of being Apostles, but it is of interest to note that when they listed their titles they put the title of servant before that of Apostle.

�� Paul begins his Epistle to the Romans, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle."� He begins Titus, "Paul, a servant of God and an Apostle of Jesus Christ."� James begins his letter, "James a servant of God..."� Jude begins, "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ."� Peter begins his second letter, "Simon Peter, a servant and Apostle of Jesus Christ."� Servant was the title of honor, the title that even the Apostles chose to put before their unique office of Apostle.� Jesus succeeded in teaching them that the way to true greatness is the way of the servant.�

�� This was no easy lesson to communicate.� Peter was the most stubborn student of all.� You recall the night in the upper room when Jesus washed the disciple's feet?� It was customary for a host to wash the dusty feet of guests before they ate, but apparently none of the disciples were going to stoop to this humble task.� They sat down to eat with unwashed feet.� Jesus, seeing that no one was going to perform this service, rose and laid aside His garments, girded Himself with a towel, poured water into a basin, and proceeded to wash His disciples feet like a servant of the house.� The others may have been shocked and surprised, but Peter was offended.� He said to Jesus, "You shall never wash my feet."� He was not going to be party to such indignity.� He considered Jesus to be his Lord and not his servant.� But when Jesus said, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me,"� Peter yielded.� Jesus said that He did this as an example of what they were to do and be. They were to be, above all else, servants.

�� This concept was the key to their becoming the foundation on which the church could be built.� The very essence of the Christian life is found in service.� This is an idea that clashes, however, with the value system of the world, and the modern day church has tended to neglect this basic truth.� The church has promoted leadership rather than servanthood, and has reaped the reward of reversing the values of Christ.� Bishop Stephen Neill, deeply involved in recruiting youth for missions and the ministry, said, "To tell a man that he is called to be a leader, or that he is being trained to be a leader, is the best way of insuring his spiritual ruin, since in the Christian world ambition is more deadly than any other sin, and, if it is yielded to, makes a man unprofitable in the ministry."�

�� It was not by leadership that the church turned the world upside down.� It was by service, and the only way the church can regain its powerful influence in the world is by means of service.� Not all Christians can be leaders, but all can be servants.

The purpose of all the gifts of the Spirit is to make great servants.� Former President Dwight Eisenhower said, "The struggle between communism and freedom is a struggle of ideas.� To win in such a battle our ideas must be better." The only ideas that can win this battle of ideas are the ideas of Christ, and the idea of servanthood is one of the key weapons for victory.� This truth applies to all the conflicts of life.� The winner will be the best servant.� Joseph and Daniel were lead to high places of leadership in foreign lands because they were willing to be servants to those people.�

�� E. Stanley Jones said, "That religion will hold the world which is willing to serve most and to become the servant of all."� Only as the Christian concept of servanthood is practiced by Christians, and made the ideal of our society, can we hope to be victorious.� Our ideas of government are based on the Biblical principle of service.� Leaders exist to serve the people.� In Romans 13 Paul says three times that rulers are the servants of God.� Servanthood is the primary virtue of the leaders in both the church and the state.� On the other hand, the vice that corrupts both church and state is the power that demands and compels people to serve them.� This is why Jesus told us to call no man master.� We have one Master and that is Christ.� He is the only one capable of being Lord with total power without using that power to oppress.� When any man or group seeks to become master rather than servant, anti‑christ is at work.�

�� Probably the most outstanding example of a government that was toppled because it refused to be a servant, rather than a master, is that of Egypt when it oppressed the Jews.� God sent Moses to the head of the government, to Pharaoh himself to plead for freedom.� His hardness of heart lead to the necessity of threats.� One plague after another put the pressure on Pharaoh, but the economic loss was to great, and he would not let Israel go.� It took the violence of the destruction of all the first born of Egypt to get Pharaoh to respond to the will of God.� The principle here is clearly written in historical events.� The government that oppresses rather than serves will certainly not endure, but will suffer the judgment of God.

�� It is the Christian duty to strive to keep the government of his nation as a servant.� The truly great men in American history were great servants.� The church has a great responsibility in� teaching and in providing an environment in which people are trained to be servants.� We can serve God, the world, our nation, and ourselves, all at the same time by practicing what Jesus taught.� This involves meeting every need that we are capable of meeting.� All men need Christ, therefore, soul‑winning is the most essential and universal service we can perform. But nothing is so small that it will go unnoticed by God who scans the world for servants.� Jesus said that even a cup of cold water given in His name will not go unrewarded.� No service goes unnoticed by Him who is the Servant of all men.

Jesus is the only one who ever performed a great service for every human being.

Service is our watchword, service for our King;

Service, fruitful service, daily ours to bring.

Service for the needy, service for the lost;

Self upon the altar, counting not the cost.

Service in the home‑land, where'er sounds the call;

Sacrificial service, reaching unto all;

Service pure, exalted; loyal and unpriced;

Loving, loving channels, bearing forth the Christ.

Service o'er the ocean, serving not for gain;

Meeting every duty, be it toil or pain;

Service that is Christly, giving up to God

Every selfish motive; treading where Christ trod.

�� Jesus spent His life in service.� He went about teaching, preaching, and healing.� Everywhere He went He met the needs of people, and in his acts of service He was teaching the importance of servanthood.� At the wedding of Cana He performed His first miracle to meet the need of lack of wine. You� recall that Mary said to the servants, "Do whatever He tells you."� This is the very essence of service, for service like this makes us the instruments of God's will in the world.� The servants could not make water into wine.� Jesus never asks anyone to do what they cannot do.� He asks them to fill the water pots with water, for that they could do.� He asks them to dip out and carry to the steward of the feast, and this they could do. They probably felt foolish carrying water to the steward, but as good servants they took orders and did what Jesus told them. The result was they became partners with Jesus in a miracle.

�� This same principle is seen in the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus broke the bread and told his disciples to distribute it. He did not ask any miracle of them, but only some service in doing what they could do.� When they did what they could do, they became partners with Christ in doing a miracle.� Do whatever He asks‑that is the secret of success and power.� All God wants from us is obedience.� He will work in power through our service to accomplish His will.� The world does not understand much of what we believe, but they cannot fail to understand service.� This is the power that will convince and convict, for in service we become channels of the power of the Holy Spirit.�

�� Without an outlet for service we become insulated and the power of the Holy Spirit will not flow through us.� Electricity will only flow in when there is a way to flow out, and the Holy Spirit's power follows this same law.� Psychiatrists are discovering that mental disorder is largely due to the lack of an outlet.� People are miserable who turn their attention in on their own problems.�� A life devoted to concentration on one's self leads to depression and loneliness.� But when a person concentrates on the needs of others and becomes a servant of those needs, he becomes more alert, happy, and positive.� This outlet seems to open and inlet, and he becomes a channel of power.

�� James A. Magner in Mental Health In A Mad World says that the effect of taking an interest in others is not unlike that of a gambler at a horse race.� It makes a great difference to him which horse wins, for he has an investment in the outcome.� For the non‑gambler who is not financially committed there may not be the slightest concern over which one wins.� The comparison he admits is faulty, but it does illustrate the psychological benefits of directing our attention and service toward those outside ourselves.� The servant is not only great in the eyes of God, and good for the nation and community, he is a happier person within himself.

�� The best symbol of the Christian life is that of an ox between an altar and a plow showing it to be ready for either service or sacrifice.� E. Stanley Jones in his book Christ Of The Round Table tells of a prominent Indian official who attended one of his evangelistic meetings.� He listened to the testimonies of his fellow townsmen of how they have been saved by Christ, and had left their idols, and conquered their evil passions.� He finally stood and said that he too was saved, but not by Christ, but by his own religion.� He thought that closed the subject, but the evangelist said, "I am glad to know you too are saved.� I invite you to join us as we go to the outcaste quarters of our village.� We will take food and clothing and most of all our friendship for these poor brothers.� We will be glad to have you come.� The Brahman was very uncomfortable, for if the shallow of an outcaste fell on him he would be defiled.� So he said, "I am saved.� I still say I am saved.� But I am not saved that far."�

�� If one is not saved that far, one is not saved at all.� We are not truly children of God until we can, like Peter and the other Apostles, be proud to claim the title of honor‑servant of Jesus Christ.� God forbid that we who profess to be Christians are ever to busy to serve Christ and be servants ready to meet the needs of those about us.� It is Christians who are too busy to be servants who are in large measure responsible for the chaos of our contemporary world.� The only hope for recovery is for Christians to once again aim for the highest by becoming active servants of Christ.� God has given every Christian a chance to be great by being of service to others.� All of us can earn the greatest title God bestows on men‑Servant, A Title Of Honor.

2.�� THE FOUNDATION OF FAITH�� Based on II Peter 1:1

�� In 1781 Sir William Herschel, the English astronomer, discovered the planet Uranus.� He plotted the course that this new planet should follow, but for some mysterious reason Uranus did not follow the predicted orbit.� Other astronomers checked his calculations and found no mistake.� It was necessary for the scientists to take a leap of faith and believe that some unknown and unseen star was responsible for deflecting Uranus from its normal orbit.� For 60 years speculation about this unseen body was developed.

�� One astronomer was so certain of its reality that he wrote in 1846, "We see it as Columbus saw America from the shores of Spain."� By faith he saw the unseen, and that very year a German scientist named Galle gazing through a new telescope equipped with more powerful lenses saw for the first time with the eye of flesh, the planet Neptune, which was responsible for the movements of Uranus.� There it was, visible to the eye of sense in the very spot that the eye of faith had said it must be for 60 years.��

�� Faith is not a leap in the dark, but it is a leap in the direction toward which the light is shining.� Faith follows the path of evidence, and then leaps out ahead of the evidence in the belief that the evidence will eventually catch up and support, and justify the leap of faith.� Leslie Weatherhead defines this faith of the intellect as "An attitude of complete sincerity, and loyalty to the trend of all the available evidence, plus a leap in the direction of that trend."�

�� Faith is the basis of all progress into the unknown.� Faith adventures into the unknown and unseen believing that there is more to reality than is presently known.� Faith is not opposed to reason, but it is faster.� It runs ahead and lays hold on truths which reason is not yet capable of seeing.� Reason travels by horse and buggy, while faith flies as fast as the speed of light‑the light of God's Word and revelation.� The man of faith is always ahead of his time because he is always living on the basis of truths that go beyond the best that reason and sight have developed.

�� This is the ideal that faith makes possible, but we need to be careful not to make faith everything, and put all of our resources into a foundation, and have nothing left with which to build.� The servant and Apostle Peter make it clear that faith is the foundation of the Christian life.� In verse 1 he addresses Christians as those who have obtained like precious faith.� In verse 5 where he begins the climb up the ladder of Christian character and effectiveness, he starts with faith, and says add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge etc.� We see that faith is the foundation, and is absolutely essential as a basis from which to begin the climb, but it is not enough in itself for the full Christian experience.�

�� We are saved by faith alone, and none of these additions are necessary for salvation.� Faith alone can receive the free gift of God's grace, but no Christian can be content with being saved alone.� Salvation is just the start of what God has for us.� To often people are content to stop at the start.� There is a life to be lived for the glory of Him who saved us.� We are to avoid barrenness and unfruitfulness, and the danger of falling by diligently adding to the foundation of faith all of these other values that Peter lists.� Consider an airport as an illustration of the Christian life.� The first thing you need is a runway.� This is the foundation of an airport.� It is to the airport what faith is to the Christian life.� Everything else is just to increase the usefulness of an airport.� If you build hangers, a tower, and a restaurant, but have no runway, you do not have an airport.� The runway is the foundation, and all else must be built around it and added to it.

�� Therefore, before we can take any flights into the atmosphere of Christian experience we have to have the runway of faith, for it alone is the only adequate launching pad for adventurous aviation into the skies of God's blessings.� Our runway of faith has already been laid by Jesus Christ, but as every good pilot learns all he can about the runway, so as wise Christians we should learn all we can about the runway of faith.� It is the foundation from which all our flights to the higher Christian life must be launched.� Peter tells us two interesting and valuable things about faith in this first verse.� The first is‑

I. THE EQUALITY OF FAITH.

�� The Greek word for like precious means equal honor.� This is the only place the word is used in the New Testament, but outside of the New Testament the word is used to describe the equality of men in terms of political privileges.� Josephus the Jewish historian says that the Jews of Antioch were made equal in honor and privilege with the Gentiles who lived there.� He used this same word that Peter uses here.� Peter is writing to the Gentiles, and he says they have equal standing with the Jews before God by faith.� In Acts 11:17 Peter describes his reaction to God's giving the Gentiles equality with the Jews by giving them the same the gift of faith. �He writes, "For as much then as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ:� What was I, that I could withstand God?"�

�� Peter is now writing to Gentile Christians, and he emphasizes the equality of faith.� Faith is a runway that all have the equal privilege of using.� God is no respecter of persons.� He gives the gift of faith freely to all who receive His Son as Savior.� Most new translations bring out the equality of faith that Peter refers to here.� The RSV has it, "To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours."� The NEB has it, "To those who share our faith and enjoy equal privilege with ourselves."�� And the Amplified has it, "To those who have obtained and equal privilege of like precious faith with ourselves."�

�� God is the author of equality where it really counts.� There are numerous inequalities among men in temporal matters, but all are free to receive the gift of faith.� All saved people are equal in the faith that Peter refers to, for it is saving faith, which is not of man, but the gift of God.� All who receive it do so equally.� There is no one who is more or less saved than another.� All� who are saved are equally saved.� There are degrees of sanctifying faith, but not saving faith.� This means all pilots in the realm of redemption have the same solid and precious runway.� We all launch from the same foundation which is a gift of God.� The second thing we see is‑

II. THE EXCELLENCE OF FAITH.

�� It is not only a runway we can all use equally, it is in excellent condition.� It is precious says Peter.� It is of great value and to be highly treasured.� Peter loved the word precious.� He used it more than all the rest of the New Testament writers put together.� In his first letter he calls the trial of our faith more precious than gold that perishes.� He refers to the precious blood of Christ, and to Christ as the living stone chosen of God and precious.� He says unto you which believe He, that is Christ, is precious.� Now in this chapter in the first 4 verses he refers to precious faith, and to precious promises.

�� It is not hard to tell what Peter valued most in life.� His value system was not materialistic at all, for all of the things he counted as precious revolved around Jesus.� Faith was one of these precious values that all believers had in common, and so all believers were equally rich in the values that really matter.� Faith is precious for at least two good reasons that the Bible stresses.� It is precious because it is‑

1. POWERFUL.

�� It is powerful first of all to save.� "He that believes shall be saved; he that believes not shall be damned."� There is no power but the power of faith that can save.� It alone makes the difference between heaven and hell.� Faith is also the power that enables the believer to persevere and overcome.� "Faith is the victory that overcomes the world."� Faith provides the energy necessary to endure to the end.�

�� In September of 1949 a 19 year old Navy seaman by the name of William Toles of Rochester, Michigan was washed overboard from his carrier without a lifejacket.�� It was 4 in the morning, and he was far out to sea off the coast of Africa.� No one saw him, and he knew his chances of being rescued were almost nil.� Doubt and despair would have led to drowning, but he had the resource of faith.� He kicked off his dungarees; tied knots in the legs, and used the seat to trap air in the legs to inflate them.� He fashioned his own lifejacket, and then he prayed continually, "Please God‑let me be rescued."�

�� He gained such good control of his fears that he even tried to sleep by resting his head against the inflated leg of his dungarees, but the waves kept slapping him awake.� By morning he was sick from the waves and from swallowing too much water, but he kept praying assured he would be found.� At three in the afternoon he was spotted by sailors on an American Export Lines freighter and was rescued.� The captain of the freighter could not explain what compelled him to switch the course of his ship from its usual course, which would have taken him several hundred miles away from the spot where Bill Toles was asking for God's help.� Thousands of such experiences have happened to believers.� The unbeliever will say it is coincidence, but the believer will recognize it as the power of faith which makes it so precious.� To say that faith is powerful is an understatement.� It is like saying that the H‑bomb is really dynamite.�� Faith is the power that can rescue from the literal sea and from the sea of sin. It is also precious because it is‑

2. PERMANENT.

�� Peter said in his previous letter that it is not like gold which perishes, but is everlasting and indestructible.� It is this quality that makes it so precious.� Quality makes a great difference in value.� A diamond is carbon in a unique and permanent state which gives it a quality that makes it precious.� Quantity cannot match it.� What bride would be satisfied if her groom tried to please her with quantity, and brought her ten tons of coal rather than a diamond ring?� She would not consider the coal precious, but she would the ring.� The Christian faith is the diamond amidst the tons of the coal of natural faith.�

�� Every person has some measure of natural faith.� We trust in men, money, and machines, all of which is necessary, but none of which gives permanent assurance and security.� Only Christian faith can give this, for it alone is based on the eternal righteousness of Christ.� Christ is the foundation of the foundation of faith.� Even a runway needs to have a foundation, and faith has its foundation in the righteousness of Christ says Peter.�

�� We have only looked at a couple of the great values of faith.� It's equality and excellence makes it precious.� May God grant us the wisdom to exercise this precious gift, and experience in the present the unseen but certain victories of the future.� Robert and Mary Moffat worked and prayed for 10 years in the Bechuana Mission of Africa without a convert.� Mary was not limited to the dark present, however, for she had faith in the promise of God, and she said, "We may not live to see it, but as surely as tomorrow's sun will rise, the awakening will come."

�� Friends urged them to give it up, but she asked that a communion set be sent to them.� This was fantastic faith or folly.� Only the future could determine which.� When the future spoke it spoke for faith.� In 1829 a great spiritual awakening swept the mission.� Prayer and Christian hymns filled the air, and for the first time the Lord's table was prepared.� The communion set that Mary ordered three years previous had just arrived the day before.� If this was an isolated case we would not make much of it, but it happens all the time in Christian history because of believers who build their lives on the foundation of faith.��

3.�� MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF MARVELOUS GRACE 1:2

�� A snowstorm made it impossible for a guess speaker to get to the church where he was to preach. Therefore, a local man was asked to come in as a substitute. The speaker began by explaining the meaning of substitute. If you break a window he said, and then place a cardboard there instead‑‑that is a substitute. After his sermon, a woman came up to him, shook his hand and wishing to compliment him said, "You are no substitute. You are a real pane." Unfortunately, verbal communication does not reveal how a word is spelled, and so, if he heard "pain" rather than "pane" as she intended, he would have received a message just the opposite of what she meant to convey. We must constantly be aware of the complications of language if we hope to effectively communicate.

�� Words can be alike and yet be very different depending on the context. If I say you have good vision, or you have good sight, these words are very close in meaning. But if I say my daughter is a vision, and yours is a sight, I am in trouble, for some how they do not remain synonymous in this context.

�� When we come to the word grace, or charis in the Greek, we are dealing with one word that can mean opposite things depending upon the context. We miss the complexity of this word because in our English translations there are 11 different English words used to translate this one Greek word. We are not even aware most often that charis is being used. The root idea of the word is that which is pleasing, or which gives pleasure. From there it develops numerous connections with various kinds of pleasure and favor. It's meaning becomes so diverse that it is hard to see how the same word can be used for so many things, and often with no apparent connection.

�� Our English word grace has followed the same pattern in a small way. You have a 30 day grace period on your insurance policy. This fits the idea of unmerited favor. They carry you for 30 days even though you don't deserve it, because you have not paid your premium. But what has this got to do with saying grace before you eat? You do not say unmerited favor, but you say thanks, which is your expression of favor to God. But if you say the swan has grace, you do not mean it has unmerited favor, or that it has thanks. You mean it has natural elegance, beauty of line and movement. It makes a favorable impression on us by its grace. We haven't begun to list all the meanings this word can have, but it is clear from these few examples, that the word has to be constantly redefined according to the context.

�� A man living on the boarder of Minnesota and Wisconsin was puzzled for years as to which state he actually lived in. Finally he got around to having a special survey made. When the surveyor reported to him that he lived in Wisconsin, he tossed his hat in the air and shouted, "Hooray! No more of those cold Minnesota winters!" Of course, redefining where you are located does not change the weather, but to redefine a word can change the whole atmosphere of a passage.

�� Grace is a warm and positive word usually, but it can be used in a cold and negative way. Charis means favor, and favor can be shown to those who do not deserve it, and thus, you have unmerited favor. Sound great doesn't it? But what if you were a student who worked hard for a scholarship and fulfilled all the requirements, but the gift went to student x, who didn't do a thing, but whose sister was the wife of the teacher, and so got it because of connections? Here is a form of unmerited favor which we call favoritism. It is unjust because it favors someone at the expense of another more deserving. Greek citizens had to swear an oath not to show this kind of charis for or against a fellow citizen.

�� Charis, in this sense, is equivalent to the Hebrew idea of respect of persons. The Bible makes it clear that God is no respecter of persons. He shows no favoritism. That is why the universalism of God's grace is stressed in the New Testament. Christ died for all men. This avoids any danger of reading the negative idea of favoritism into God's grace.

�� The word is used this way in the New Testament, however. Paul, the apostle of positive grace, was a victim of negative grace. In Acts 24:27 we read, "Felix desiring to do the Jews a favor left Paul in prison." Here was favor, or grace, expressed for a selfish reason, and at the expense of another‑‑namely Paul. In Acts 25:9 we see the same thing. Fetus wishing to do the Jews a favor took their side against Paul. This is the kind of grace that corrupts. The poet put it‑‑

When rogues like these (a sparrow cries)

To honors and employment rise,

I court no favor, ask no place

For such preferment is disgrace.

The paradox is that there is a grace which is a disgrace, for it is the receiving of unmerited favor which is unjust, because it is at the expense of others.

�� Now, as if this is not enough complexity, being able to mean either good or bad unmerited favor, we want to see that it can also mean merited favor. Most often Christians define grace as only unmerited favor, but this is putting a limit on the word which the New Testament does not do. It should not be surprising that grace can also mean merited favor. It is logical that favor is going to be shown toward those who merit it. No man merits salvation, which is the greatest aspect of God's grace, but many are pleasing to God by their obedience, and God responds to them in grace.

�� To see this in operation, we need to go to the very first reference to grace in the New Testament. In Luke 1:30 the angel says, "Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God." Favor here is charis again. Mary was not sinless, but she was pure and lovely in character, and her life pleased God. She was chosen to be the mother of the Messiah because of her pure life. It is obvious she did not merit this honor in the sense that she was worthy, for no person could ever be worthy to give birth to the Son of God. On the other hand, she was not holy unfit to be Christ's mother, for she had a life pleasing to God, and the kind of life needed for His purpose. God did not favor her because she was less pure and righteous than others, but because of her exceptional purity and righteousness. She attracted God's favor by the beauty of her life.

�� The clearest example of merited favor is in connection with Christ Himself. Luke 2:52 says, "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." Favor is charis again. You can see how meaningless it would be to define grace here as unmerited favor. This would mean that Jesus was not worthy of the favor of God, but God granted it anyway. And men, out of the goodness of their hearts, showed favor to Christ, even though he did not deserve it. This, of course, would be sheer nonsense. Grace here means merited favor. Jesus by the inherent beauty, goodness,� and harmony of his life, attracted the favor of God and man. Jesus had a quality of character that fully merited all the favor He received.

�� This is an aspect of grace that we are seldom aware of. We tend to think of grace as a one way street: God's grace toward us. But favor works both ways in the New Testament. If God favors us and gives us blessings, we in turn favor God, and respond with gratitude to His graciousness. Our response is described by this same word‑‑charis. We respond with grace. Listen to Paul in‑‑

I Cor. 15:57, "But thanks be to God who gives us the victory..."

II Cor. 2:14, "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph."

II Cor. 8:16, "But thank to God who puts the same earnest care for you into the� heart of Titus."

II Cor. 9:15, "Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift."

�� In each case, do you know what the Greek word is for thanks? It is charis, the same word used all through the New Testament for grace and favor. Grace be to God Paul says over and over again as he expresses his love and gratitude for God's grace. Here is grace which is merited. God merits our favor in every way, and therefore, all of man's grace to God is merited grace. This, of course, is where grace gets its connection with prayer before meals. We express our favor and thanks to God for His favor and goodness to us. Therefore, to multiply in grace means to grow in thankfulness, among other things.

�� There are numerous passages where grace is the root idea in thanksgiving. The Greek word for thanksgiving is eucharist, and you see charis as the heart of it. The Lord's Supper is called the feast of the eucharist, or the feast of thanksgiving. It is our expression of grace for the great grace of God in giving us His Son. Grace at the very heart of the Gospel, as it is expressed in this poetic version of John 3:16.

For God‑‑the Lord of earth and heaven, so loved and longed to see forgiven,