December 10 Sermon: What Sort of People Ought You to Be?
On the second Sunday of Advent, we reflect on impatience in a fast-paced world and contemplate our waiting for the return of Jesus. We dig into 2 Peter 3:8–9, which addresses the delay of Jesus' return, emphasizes God's patience, and calls us to live in purity and readiness for the promised new heaven and new earth. As we delve into Peter's message, we are reminded to consider God's patience as an opportunity for repentance and faithful living each day.
Consider these questions as you listen to this week's message:
1. How does the concept of God's patience, as described by Peter in 2 Peter 3:8-9, challenge our human understanding of time and urgency regarding the return of Jesus?
2. In light of the impending judgment and the call for a pure and holy life, how does Peter's message in 2 Peter 3:10-12 encourage believers to prioritize eternal values over worldly pursuits?
3. According to Peter's teaching about the promise of a new heaven and a new earth in 2 Peter 3:13-14, how does this hope shape the way believers wait for the return of Jesus and live their lives in the present?
Transcript:
In general, I don't think most people are inherently patient folk. Maybe I'm just pushing off onto other people my personal problems here. I'm not a patient person most of the time, unfortunately, and I don't know if this is a consequence of a modern on-demand society, but I'm guessing that, regardless of time or environment, people have probably always wanted things to happen quickly and when they want it to occur. They want it when they want it. Like I just said, I know that I'm very guilty of impatience. I want to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, within the confines of the law, of course, but even when I'm not in a hurry, I find myself in a hurry. For example, I pull up to a stoplight Instead of sitting there and waiting patiently. I usually watch for the don't walk sign on the crosswalk to start to blink, because that's how I know that I can start watching the stoplight on the cross traffic. And there I sit, like a guy watching the Christmas tree at the drag strip, ready to go. There's no reason for that. I'm not in any type of a hurry. I don't need to watch for the yellow and the red on the side to get where I'm going and I'm probably just going to end up at the next stoplight with the person behind me in front of me. But for some reason that is just the way things are. And it isn't just travel that shows our impatience. We prefer the quick and the easy path. With our food prep, with our studies, we're always looking for some sort of magic bullet to make things faster, to make things easier. We want everything to be streamlined, and perhaps the basis for that desire isn't just our impatience, maybe it's just the fact that we've been sort of trained this way by a culture of ease, because it most assuredly creates impatience in us. Right, because we have things so easy in so many different areas of our lives, we expect stuff to be simple, to be quick, to be easy.
As we sit here in Advent, we find ourselves considering the second coming of Jesus. His return at the end of history is something that we confess, something that we believe. We know that Jesus will come at the end of history to judge the living and the dead, and countless prayers throughout the history of the church have uttered words at the end of them where it is said come, lord Jesus. And as we observe suffering in the world, as we see things in our own lives that are difficult. This prayer can increase. Lord. We're praying for this circumstance, but this is awful Come quickly, lord Jesus. This has been uttered countless upon countless times throughout the course of history and as we think about the second coming of Jesus, we can easily stop and have this thought, like we have this hope. We believe that this is what is going to happen, but we end up with these questions why doesn't Jesus come? Why doesn't he leave the Father's right hand and put all His enemies under His feet? Why doesn't he come and end suffering and injustice and pain? Why doesn't he come and begin the eternal state where there's no more pain, no more suffering and every tear is wiped from the eyes of His people? Why? I know I've had that question. I've had that question last week, so I know that you've had it. But in the midst of this, we also have a great assurance that we are the only generation that's asked this question, because, as we look at this passage, it sure would seem like Peter is addressing questions similar to the ones I just said, the questions that you and I struggle with. So, as we consider these timeless questions, we're going to break down the passage that we read from Peter this morning.
Today, and we're going to break into three points, and today they all start with peace. The first thing that we're going to see is the patience of God. The Apostle Peter gives us insight into our perspective as we consider this idea. God is outside of time. The Triune God is an uncreated, all-powerful being. Time has no bearing on Him and, compared to the scope of eternity, what you and I are experiencing is but a vapor, and we're to understand this about the nature of God and trust that he is in control. And our second P today is a call to purity. The truth of the return of the Lord Jesus to judge the living and the dead should give us a desire to live a life of holiness and a life of godliness. And then our final point today is the promise, the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. While you and I might be impatient that Christ has not yet returned, the end of history will one day come and everything will be set to right. And so, as we come to 2nd Peter 3, verse 8, we really need to set the context of what we're reading here. What comes before.
It is really important, by the way, that verse 8 begins, it's clear that Peter is addressing something. Well, in the preceding verses we see him saying that in these last days, scoffers are going to come with scoffing, something that scoffers will most assuredly do. I'm assuming it says that they will come with scoffing. But what are they scoffing about? Well, peter tells us that they're asking questions regarding the return of the Lord. We see, in verse 4, they will say where is the promise of His coming? Forever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. So, even within a generation of the promise that was made by Jesus before he ascended to the Father's right hand, even within a generation of that event, people were wondering if he was ever going to come back. And what they were saying here is they're saying look, the state of affairs hasn't changed for a long time.
In verse 4, it says forever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing. This call for judgment, peter, has been coming for a long time. This promise of God setting things to right, this promise of a judgment by God, the prophets have been talking about it for generations. They're dead, they're in their graves, graves. Nothing has changed. So now you're saying this about Jesus nothing's going to change. Where is the promise of His coming? It's all a bunch of predictions of judgment that are never going to come to pass. So this helps us understand verses 8 and 9 really.
Well then, doesn't it? Peter is saying look, it seems slow in coming to you and me because we're finite creatures. Our perception of time is really limited. We think a few years is a long time, right, but when we map out history and we think about this, we realize how short our lives are. Let's just think about the American Revolution. That was a long time ago. Seventy-seen 76, it is something that I don't think you and I can even really wrap our minds around. It was that long ago. Now, of course, we can do the math and pull out our calculators. Well, I would pull out my calculator. You all could probably do it in your head. Pull out our calculators and say 70 and 76 minus 2023 is 247 laps around the sun since the American Revolution. That feels like a long time, but we really don't even have a concept of that because that's so much more than you and I have been alive. There's nobody alive who knows anybody who was alive during that anymore. It's been a long time.
Well then, think about history some more. Being that church history guy, I'm going to use two examples in church history Protestant Reformation 1517. Think how long ago. That was more than 500 years. And then the split between the Eastern Church and the Western Church in 1054, that was almost a thousand years ago. That was so far away.
I can't even wrap my mind around that much time, and I'm sure you're seeing my point here. Our lives feel like a long time, but suddenly we realize that even if we are blessed with 100 years to serve God, it isn't that much. And even the people you talk to, on their 100th birthday, what do they tell you? Oh, I went by so fast. And now I'm talking about this all from the perspective as a creature who's bound by time. Right, we are bound by time. We are born, we are going to die, and so that limits our understanding of time.
To even begin to wrap our minds around the idea of a being who is all powerful, infinite, eternal and outside of time is really impossible for you and I. And so to help wrap our minds around this idea, peter does something that I think is really helpful. He actually goes back to a Psalm and quotes it indirectly here. He says that with the Lord, one day is 1000 years and 1000 years is a day. Now, after hearing that, I still can't grasp the idea of the infinite. But it gives me some place to start right. It gives me sort of a framework, and the idea here is that God is sovereign over time. This isn't a math equation to tell us well, for God, today is a thousand years and it's a thousand years as a day. That's not the point. The point is here to help us to understand the power, the majesty, the sovereignty of God, how he isn't bound by our limitations and understandings of time.
And Peter shows us the greatness of God and his control over creation. But he's just as quick to say, yes, god is sovereign, god is powerful, he's over all of this. But he also wants us to see the mercy of God here, because he tells us that God isn't slow, god's patient, and you and I know there is a difference. There's a difference between being slow and being patient. And God is patient, he's at work. He tells us that he's calling His people to repentance. This is a sign of His mercy, this is a sign of His grace that he shows to His people.
And we have to understand that when Peter says that God wishes for all to come to repentance, peter isn't saying here that God would just love for everyone, everywhere, to be saved, but he just can't do anything about it. That's not what's being said. He isn't saying God's sitting on the judgment in hopes that, oh, maybe everyone will come around. That's not what's happening here. Remember, god is sovereign. He's sovereign over time, he's sovereign over history. He is also sovereign over the salvation of His people. So the context of the book of 2 Peter is that God is calling His people to turn away from their false teaching that they've fallen for. That's the point of 2 Peter. So, in other words, peter is telling the people about the patience of God and he's saying it's a good thing, some of you have bought the lies of these false teachers, but God is patient with you and so turn to Him, turn away from the false teaching and turn back to the truth, return to God and be faithful to Him.
And this is such a vital point of application for us in the season of Advent Because, as we prepare to remember and celebrate the first coming of Jesus at Christmas and we look to the second coming. The call to you and our you and I is repentance Every day that Christ tarries. That's a blessing. It's a blessing from God because it offers us another day to rise in repentance and in faith and to serve the living God. Every day is Him showing us mercy and grace. Each rising of the sun is a gift from Him, where you and I have the opportunity to serve God by loving our neighbor, sharing the gospel, discipling our children and living to God's glory. Yes, we desire that Christ would come and he would restore all things to right, but each and every day is a blessing where we can glorify God. We will have eternity with Him In repentance and faith. May you and I live each day of this life to the glory of God. In response to the fact that he has been infinitely patient with us, in His mercy, and as we understand that mercy we find in God's patience, we should be reminded that he's called us to be a pure people.
And with verse 10, we see that, while God is impatient and it seems as though the end of history will never come, when it does come it's going to be sudden, and we grasp this idea relatively well, I think, particularly during our celebration of the Christmas season, because on January 1st Christmas feels a long ways away, doesn't it? And the next thing you know is the second Sunday in Advent. Here we sit and you also have that feeling with your celebrations of Christmas. It feels like it'll never come. But the next thing you know the wrapping papers flying around the room and everybody's looking at each other like is this it? And the next thing you know is January 1st and you're saying Christmas is a long ways away and the coming of the Son of man will be even more unexpected than our lack of preparedness and the quickness of Christmas coming. We're told that it'll come like a thief, and the point here is that thieves don't announce their coming. It's sort of a prerequisite for being a thief, because if you declare yourself those you are planning to steal from, they're ready to stop you. Thieves come unexpectedly. That's why Peter uses this and his point is that you will think that the coming of the Son of man is slow and then, without warning, it'll be there.
And notice the rather violent language we get from Peter is he describes this day, the state that is unexpected, that will come suddenly. The heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up, they will be dissolved, and this is really a terrifying idea. Don't get me wrong. It sounds cool. It would make a great album cover for some band, right. But it's a terrifying idea because the idea of these things being burned up is extreme.
But perhaps the fiercest thing in this language is that the earth and all the work done in it will be exposed. Peter lets us know that the evil of the world will be made known. It isn't just the evil that's obvious, the evil that's out in the open. All the works are exposed and, as a result, peter asks an essential question Since all of this is going to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be? And there's two elements to this, aren't there? First, if all your works are going to be exposed, then we ought to desire to live holy lives, because we want to be faithful to the call that God's put in our lives, to live in holiness. But there's also a second thing to consider here If everything is going to be dissolved, what are we going to value? So there is an inherent anti-materialism and consumerism message for us in Advent, isn't there? If Christ is going to come and he is, then the things of God matter more than anything. We should have an eternal perspective and, as I mentioned last week, we should be pursuing holiness and the things of God instead of those things that will end up in a landfill and one day dissolved by fire. As I just said, this is an interesting perspective.
During Advent, we are ramping up for Christmas, and the world around us is pushing us to pursue that stuff that will dissolve. And then the passages that we read here in December push us in the other direction, don't they? It's almost as if the Gospel's message is contradictory to the message of the world. What are we going to value? Are we going to value the things that matter or the things that will dissolve? And so, as we move to our final point, we're reminded of the promise of God, and therefore the message of the Christian faith isn't just one of judgment and the impending incineration of everything that we know.
The promise of God, as we know, goes all the way back to the Garden, and that promise tells us that, in Christ, all things will one day be set to right Because of His work to save a people for Himself. We have the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, a restoration of the creation from the death that entered it through the sin of our first parents. Now, so far, we've seen the patience of God and the purity that God calls us to, and as we close up today, we consider this promise that we have more deeply. We are waiting for something. We're waiting for the new heavens and the new earth. The purpose of judgment is not to dissolve everything and then you and I become ethereal but floaty, immaterial creatures, floating out there somewhere. That's not the promise. We're waiting for the restoration of creation. We not only anticipate, but we confess the resurrection of the body. Our hope is the restoration of the creation and a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Ever since our expulsion from the presence of God in the garden, creation has grown and it's longed for its restoration. But it isn't just the earth that groans. We groan, we desire the restoration of all things as we look at the world and we acknowledge, as we look at the world, that something isn't right here. The world is broken. We see this and you and I desire that justice would be done. We desire that righteousness would dwell. We feel this tension and we wait for these things. We have an anticipation of this bake deep down into us, but yet we become impatient and in our impatience we become complacent. Essentially, we fall asleep. We become complacent, we fail to wait in expectation, being diligent, to be found in Him. But this time of year does something really helpful for us. We're called to consider these things and we're reminded of the coming of the Lord, jesus Christ.
Waiting for the celebration of Christmas should cause us to remember that we are also waiting for His second advent as well. As I mentioned before, the coming of Jesus is good news, not only because we have a confidence that justice will be served, but because it points us to the patience of God. As we wait for the return of Christ, we remember that the judgment that you and I deserve for our sin and our rebellion against the Holy God was paid for in His first coming. He suffered by living in our flesh and doing it without sin. He satisfied the wrath of God in that very same flesh on the cross. He defeated death when he rose bodily from the grave, ensuring the resurrection of those who are united to Him by faith. And now, in this moment, he is ascended in our flesh. He is at the Father's right hand interceding for us until His enemies are made of footstool for His feet and while you and I, we go frustrated with the state of the world at times, and we can also lament our personal struggles with sin and we can ask why doesn't Jesus just return and end all of this?
When we have those thoughts, we can remember what Peter told us today that he was patient with us and in his sovereignty he will return to judge the living and the dead in his time. That's the sure promise of Scripture and we can hold to that. But we can trust that his patience is about his mercy. His patience is about his love for his people, and so it's good news that he tarries, because he has not left us to watch the skies and do nothing. Just as after the ascension, the disciples didn't stand and stare at the sky, they went out spreading the message of the kingdom.
So you and I have a task to do. We proclaim his death, his resurrection and his ascension that others might hear and believe. We do good work for our ascended king and we believe. We believe that he is doing something good and that his mercy is amazing. We do good work for him and this morning we get an opportunity to witness arguably the most important thing that we're called to do this morning. As the people of God, we're called to be fruitful and to multiply, and we remember that God is not just a God to us. He promises to be a God to us and to our children, and so this morning we welcome Ali into the visible church.
As a part of that good work that you and I are called to do, we're reminded of the faithfulness and patience of God.
So may we be diligent in discipling our covenant children. May we be a people who are seen to value the things of God, the things that matter, over the things of the world that will dissolve. May we be seen as Christ's faithful servants. May we be seen that we are waiting for him, diligent to be found without spot or blemish, and may we be seen as a people who are at peace. Amen, let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God. We thank you so much for the gift of your word that, as we see the difficulties and the sin and the pain of the world, we can be reminded that you are patient and you are merciful, that we do have a sure promise of Christ's return, that you are tearing for our benefit, for the benefit of your people, and so may we daily be reminded of the type of people that we ought to be People at peace and people seeking to do the good work that you have set before us. We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
