Welcome And Where We Are

Donald E Coleman 0:00

Alrighty. Well, welcome back. I am so excited that I listened to the Holy Spirit on this one and took this side road with Peter. It's been phenomenal. And as we approach today, we're in movement three. And basically, we're going to do a quick review of our second Peter. And I want to look at 2nd Peter from this perspective, basically, like calling it the ladder that ends in agape. And I want you to grab a hold of that because we know that Peter gives us a development path or a stepping stone to go on. And that's what we're going to discuss right now, because it's the ladder or the progression that ends in agape. And 2 Peter is quite interesting. And I never really thought about it from this perspective, but I always read it, always read Second Peter, but then I skipped, not skipped over, but I just read the verse, but it jumped out at me today. So 2 Peter, Peter's second letter, is shorter and more urgent and written with the awareness

Peter Writes With Death Near

Donald E Coleman 1:26

of death is near. I want you to catch this. He has been given advanced notice. He says as much in 2 Peter 1, 14 and 13 and 14. And I want to read this because this is extremely important. He says, I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, verse 14, because I know that I will soon put it aside. As our Lord Jesus Christ has made it clear to me. Jesus revealed to him that he is about to experience or he is moving into that place where he is going to experience his death. I mean, did you catch that? Like, but that's the love. Oh man, that's the agape that Jesus has for Peter. And that's the love that Peter has for Jesus and the agape for the saints. And us reading this, what he has for us. All of his life was shaped in this. Right? Peter knows what is coming. And what he chooses to write in the face of that knowledge is not a final warning. He chooses to write a vision of formation, a ladder of virtues that culminates in one word, agape. So I want to read this and I want and want you to pick up on something first. First thing I want you to pick up on is in the beginning of all the letters, we know that there's a signature on how letters were written. Peter, 1 Peter starts out, it says, Peter, well, let me read exactly what it says in First Peter, because I don't want to mess this up. Right? So it says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. That's the first letter he wrote. Now, in this second letter, with his foreknowledge of what's coming, listen to his introduction. He says,

A Ladder Of Virtues To Agape

Donald E Coleman 4:30

Simon Peter, a servant, and apostle of Jesus Christ. Do you see the difference here? So he's acknowledging who he was and what he is by saying Simon Peter. Isn't that beautiful? And then he takes on the role of servant. And who is he serving? Us. He's serving the church that was then and the church that is today, and the church that will be as long as Jesus tarries. Really want you to grab that. Because it's so beautiful how he did that. And my main point that I want to focus on is in 2 Peter 1, 5 through 7. But I want to read from verses 3 to 7 because I want you to hear what Peter is saying here, because there's a lot of meat here calling us to a place beyond what we know. Look what he says here. He says, His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. And it says, through through these, he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may listen to this now. This is extremely important. He says, So through them, what is them? His great and precious promises. So through them you may participate in the divine nature, have an escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. Now, verse five, here's the point. Watch this now. For this reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, mutual affection, and to mutual affection, love. I just want let me just let that settle because that mutual affection, he says, until mutual affection, agape. So at the top of that spectrum is agape. It's taking you right back to the very source of the love. And so what we see here is kind of one of the most precise descriptions of spiritual formation in Peter's writing. He presents it as a progression, each quality building on and deepening the previous one. Each step preparing the ground for what comes next. But before I break this down, before I read, read it slowly through the four movements of divine love, remember what those four movements are. Agape, agapitos, the beloved, like accepting your belovedness, agapeon, the formation being formed and shape into the vessel that God desires, and then agape, that vessel then being filled, so that agape can flow out to God and to others. But I want you to catch those words. It says so that through them you may participate in the divine nature. He's saying right here that through the precious promises and everything that he's seeing after this, that we might participate in our Christ-likeness, in us becoming the vessel of God, becoming Christ-like. Now you understand why he was saying in First Peter, if you read through it, he said that we are a royal priesthood, right? That we are a priesthood of believers now. It's no longer just a Levitical priesthood. Now all believers are priests. We have the capacity to be able to allow God to live in us and us to live in God with no separation. Wow. Let me read this five and seven one more time. For this reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness and to goodness knowledge, and to knowledge, self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, mutual affection, which is Philadelphia, and to mutual affection, agape. Now let's look at this. Let's break down each one of these things that show up through the movements. The first is faith is the foundation. It says, add to your faith.

Faith Built On Belovedness

Donald E Coleman 11:35

Faith is the foundation. The simple act of receiving what agape has offered. The only way that we can receive anything from God is through faith. It's not through works. It is through faith. And Peter is defining the first movement as faith as being the foundation of everything. And this is the first movement because here's the key: agape as the initiating love received by trust. See, you can't force someone to accept agape. And this is why I believe God has me on this mission now, and I know that this is part of what I'm to do, is to reverse what has been out of order. We put belief before belovedness. So we have to express and let people know that they are loved, and as a result of them being loved, faith is built. You see? And then they can receive based on their identity of knowing that they're loved, and trust is built in that. So faith and trust is built from an established identity. If you are people and you're trying to force them to believe, they may accept it, but that doesn't mean that they believe it visually. That doesn't mean that they believe it in every fiber of their being. And everything that we receive from God is received through grace. And here's the key: you cannot begin the ladder or the progression without faith. Because you cannot climb towards something you have not first received. We've been asking people to believe something and they don't even know who they are. We've been calling them sinners and saying you need to be converted, and God is saying, Stop it. Those are my agapeos. They are the beloved. Love them into the kingdom versus trying to convert them into understanding or a knowledge of something. Let me say it this way: Agape them into the kingdom versus forcing them to learn knowledge or doctrines or dogma. This is what God is saying. This is what the tsunami of agape is doing. It's increasing our consciousness, but it is also meeting people right where they are so that they can have a full understanding, they can have a greater consciousness of the love of God through knowledge, but also through a sense of feeling, a sense of belonging, a sense of being attached. You can't limit how God approaches individuals. That's why the Holy Spirit was poured out to be able to minister to each person right where they are, the same way God ministered to each one of us right where we are, and He continues to minister in the exact same way. God never forces us to do anything. People do when they're operating out of their protective self or they're hijacked by their saboteurs because they're going back to their lower level, their flesh level. But Peter is inviting us, he said here, to participate in the divine nature. That means that we are to participate in the life of Christ, the living, breathing, living, breathing life of Christ that dwells within us through the power of the Holy Spirit. And let me say it this way: Jesus saw everything through the lens of wholeness. Jesus didn't see things from a duality perspective where you have to choose. He saw everything from a non-duality perspective or the choice of wholeness. It was always not an either-or with Jesus. It was a yes and or a both and.

Participating In The Divine Nature

Donald E Coleman 19:13

So I say it this way: John 1 14, and the word of God became flesh. So in everything, all that we know is going to be tested. And grace will be present with us. So keep remembering that. So this is the second and the third movement of the framework: awakening to the agapitos, to our identity, and then formation into agapitan. Now, at the last part of this, mutual affection, he said, and to godliness, mutual affection or philadelphia. So mutual affection is that warm communal expression of the formed identity of our belovedness. It is the genuine care that flows when people are genuinely formed. They're not faking it till they make it, they're living from their place of being empty. And this type of living is not performance. This is the sincere love of Peter's first letter, one twenty-two, appearing again. The real felt affection of a community shaped together by agapeos. And then what comes after that? And then agape. And agape is the crown of the ladder or the progression. It's the crown, right? Not because it is the most achieved, but because it is the most fully given. Everything below, everything below agape has been preparation, the formation of character, the deepening of community affection. The steadfastness of faith tested by persevering and suffering. And all of that, all of that, and from all of that, agape flows. Not as effort, but as the natural cumulation of a life fully formed by divine love. Or let me go back to my metaphor of the six ceremonial jugs, of six of the jugs being full to the brim. And now agape flows out of us

Philadelphia Becomes Agape Overflow

Donald E Coleman 22:45

in the form of agapow. This is the fourth movement. And Peter is living through this. It's agapow as overflowed, as the natural expression of a life rooted and established in our belovedness, Agapitos. And here's the key here. And here's what makes Peter's like placement of this ladder profound. He writes it in the shadow of his approaching death. He's not writing a theoretical progression for others to someday achieve. And who has arrived at the only destination he was always moving towards agape. Isn't that what it is? Are we not moving towards love? Are we not moving towards agape because God is love? Were we not created in the image of God? Our DNA is agape. Now, I want to just, I'm going to go here to 2 Peter 2. I mean 2 Peter 3.15, because I'm going to read this and this is the last part. I'm getting ready to close this down, 3.15, right? But I want to focus on this because here's what's transpiring here. And one of the most quietly remarkable moments in his letter, Peter references our dear friend Paul. And when he says, our dear friend, that

Calling Paul Beloved After Conflict

Donald E Coleman 25:05

word is agapitos. He calls his fellow apostle, whom he had a public, documented conflict, and you can read it in Galatians two and eleven. His agapitos. Here's a man that has been fully, fully formed and shaped. He called him his beloved, the one held in divine love. And this is not a small thing, y'all. And this is what's happening in the earth. Peter and Paul disagreed publicly. Paul confronted Peter to his face in Antioch for behavior that compromised the gospel. And yet, here, near the end of his life, Peter holds Paul in the very language of the beloved. The same word used at Jesus' baptism and the transformation to describe the Father's relationship to the Son or God's relationship to Jesus. This is what agape formed into agape looks like in the texture of actual relationships. It can hold a person who has publicly challenged you, and you can call them beloved. Why? Because you have been emptied of yourself. Let's transition here into our contemplative pause here. Take a couple of slow breaths.

Contemplative Breathing And Reflection

Donald E Coleman 27:27

Keep breathing in and out. And remember as you breathe in, you're breathing in the agape of God. And as you exhale, you're exhaling the agape of God. Keep breathing. As I read. Peter climbed a ladder that ended in agape. Not a theoretical love, but the love of a man who had been at the bottom and been restored. Who had been stretched beyond what he could bear, who had been covered when he did not deserve it. Where are you on the ladder right now? Is it the steadiness of perseverance? Simply holding on when it's difficult? Is it the warmth of Philadelphia, the mutual affection for your community? Or is it something earlier? Trust that must be rebuilt. Character that must be deepened. Wherever we are on the ladder or in our journey, God knows and He has us right where we need to be. You're exactly where formation is meeting you. And as you inhale, I want you to say these words, I am being formed rung by rung towards the love I was made for. And as you exhale, I trust the agape that holds me at every stage of my journey. Inhale this, I am being formed. Just remember that. I am being formed towards the love I was made for. And exhale, really simple. I trust the agape that holds me. Let me close this up here. The pattern of Peter. Now I want you to think about this. When we step back and we look at both letters together, what Peter shows us is something no other writer in the New Testament can offer in quite the same way.

Love Under Pressure And Restoration

Donald E Coleman 30:50

Peter offers us the testimony of a person formed by failure and restored into fullness, who then poured that formation into a suffering community. Peter Zagapau is never theoretical. He used etenos at full stretch, that's the Greek word, at full stretch, and he tells us he knows what love under pressure feels like from the inside. His declaration that love covers over a multitude of sins tells us he has been covered, not merely forgiven in the abstract, but met in his specific failure and held. And that agape is always the crown, never the first rung, or never at the beginning of the journey. And his final reference to his beloved friend Paul tells us that Agapau can hold even those with whom we have been in real conflict. This is a Gapau from within restoration, from the inside of having been found at the shore and commissioned back into a world with the same love that first called you out of the boat. So the question Peter leaves us with is not, do you love enough? No, it's the same question Jesus asked on the shore. Do you love me with what you have where you are? As we end this with Peter, Paul would say that agape never fails. In our next episode, we turn from the scriptural foundation to the lived reality that so many believers are navigating without language. The distinction between the protective self-doing and beloved self-doing. We will name it with compassion because the protective self did not arise from nowhere.

The Shore Question And Next Steps

Donald E Coleman 34:06

It arose for reasons, and the path through it is never shameful. It is always only return. Until then, carry this. The shore is always open, and the question Jesus asked Peter is the question he is always asking Do you love me with what you have?