Waiting for His promise

Go ahead and open up your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 3. I think we'll call this chapter today, Waiting for the Promise. And I feel like this whole letter, we're kind of caught in the middle of a thought, but this whole letter is building up to, I think, verse 13. And I want to read that first that says, but according to his promise, we are waiting for the new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. And I have really enjoyed this study this week because I just need to be honest with you and say that like waiting for the return of Jesus and the new heavens and the new earth isn't always the first thing on my mind every morning when I wake up. And so I love meeting it in scripture because it forces it to the front and it forces it to be something that I do think about. And so I hope that that'll stick with me for a little while now after studying this chapter. But let's just start reading in verse 1. He says, this is now the second letter that I'm writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. Knowing this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing following their own sinful desires. Let's pray after that. Lord, we do ask one more time that you open up our hearts and our minds, speak to us even if we've studied this, Lord, in some new way this morning to show us a greater revelation of you, your love for us, and our coming kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I hope that we also have been stirred up as we've studied these two books, stirred up in our minds. That's been a constant theme to be stirred up in our minds. I love it. Like 1 and 2 Peter has been a mental workout for us, maybe more than emotional, but the point is always to build up our spirits, right? Whether our minds or emotions are engaged, we want our spirits to be growing and to be worked up. And as we approach this final stretch, we're being reminded of what we already know in the Word. If someone has studied, as he said, the predictions of the Old Testament or the predictions of the holy prophets, the prophetic insights, and then, of course, the Word taught by the apostles, we already know what will happen in and to this world. So we're being reminded about those things. But we're also being reminded that the people that don't obey the Word, and that's just not meaning sinners, that means those who don't agree with the Word of God, they don't believe in Jesus, they don't see it this way. And we learn in here that the last days, there will be scoffers. And so we want to identify what does last days mean. When I was a young Christian, I thought the last days was the 70s, because that's when Jesus was supposed to come back, right? And we had Keith Green, last day's newsletter. It's like, this is the last days. And then when I found out, like in the early 80s, that the last days was from when Jesus ascended to heaven until when he's coming back, I was a little disappointed. I'm like, that whole thing, like Peter was in the last days too? I thought I had a corner on it. But that is true. The last days is everything from when Jesus went to heaven until he comes back again. But I think it is fair to say we're in the last days of the last days. But Peter tells us that the last days will be characterized by scoffers. And a scoffer is one who doesn't believe. It's one who is filled with unbelief. And what will they say in verse four? They will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God. And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. So we've got some propositions of scoffers here, unbelievers. Not believing, and I identified three things that I pulled out of this lesson. First of all, not believing, a scoffer will not believe that Jesus is returning to earth and won't believe in a coming judgment. A scoffer will not believe or deliberately overlook the fact that our earth was created by God, by the word of God. And a scoffer will also not believe or deliberately overlook the fact that God actually deluged the world once already, judged the world once with water. Those are sort of what I call the scoffer party platform things. Those are things that will need to be overlooked or will need to be avoided. And there's a motivation behind that. It's not merely an intellectual problem. The motivation Peter gives to us in the ESV, he says because they follow their own sinful desires. The New King James says they walk according to their own lusts. NASB says they follow after their own lusts. You see, scoffers really establish themselves from a moral perspective, not an intellectual problem. And that tells us it's because of this moral standpoint of wanting to walk in the way that they want to walk into. So I want to kind of analyze this just a little bit. When we say that if a person wants to follow their own sinful desires, they will need to deliberately shelve evidence of a creator God that has moral obligations that he desires for them to walk in. But on the other hand, if a person chooses to believe in the creator God who created them, spoke the heavens and earth into creation and whom they are accountable to, then they will likely search through the scriptures of the holy prophets and the apostles to find out more about what God is like, what his expectations are, and what is going to happen. So it's all a matter of adjustments in life. If you choose to follow your own way in life and want to do what you want, you've got to adjust your theology. If you choose to embrace the theology we've been given, the understanding of God as a creator with moral obligations that he asks us to cooperate with, then we search and we adjust ourselves. Then we say, oh, I must adjust to accommodate that. I feel like that's a little bit of what Peter is teaching here. We either adjust our theology or we adjust our life. As humans, we either choose to do what we want to do or we choose to do what God desires for us to do. Doing what God desires for us to do requires a sense of humility that we've been studying about, right? We have to understand who we are and that we need to walk in a sense of humility. So if we believe now that Jesus is poised to return to this earth, if you believe that, we're probably going to ask ourselves some questions like how will I feel when that happens? Am I going to be happy to meet him or am I going to feel guilty? Is it going to be a happy thing? Will I be found in the category of Noah and Lot like we talked about? We've talked about the fact that Peter, James, and John, that trio, they were together with Jesus the way I see it almost 24-7, except when Jesus was going off to pray to his father. Those three were there all the time, heard so much, listened to so much. So John, when he wrote his first letter in 1 John 2.28, this is how he said it. He goes, now little children, he says, abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and may not shrink back from him in shame at his coming. I just like the words that he used to put that together. So if we expect Jesus to be coming back, we will continually be making adjustments in our life because we won't want to shrink back in shame. But again, I'm still making contrast, if like the scoffer, the unbeliever, if we choose to follow our own sinful desires, those are Peter's words, then we must also make adjustments and convince ourselves that there is not a creator God. Convince ourselves that there aren't really moral obligations and that there's not a coming judgment. So there's some big choices to be made. And in our study guide, we talked about Romans chapter 1, starting with verse 18. I'm just going to read a little snippet of 18 and 21. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. That's what we're talking about. You have to suppress the truth if you're not going to believe in Jesus returning. And their foolish hearts were darkened. So let's keep reading on in verse 7. Peter says, by the same word, which is a link back to verse 5 when he said the heaven and earth was formed by the word of God. Here he says, by the same word, the heaven and earth that now exist. After we've already had the first judgment, the great flood, now the heaven and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly once again. Just like last week we studied the destruction of the ungodly in the days of Noah and then also Sodom and Gomorrah. He says, but do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. So what is God's goal in being patient, in waiting? It is repentance. It is salvation for everyone that believes, for those that he created, those that he loves. It's why he is waiting. It's why the delay, it's why the last days is so much longer than the 70s. It's been 2,000 years. There's that question in your study guide that asks, so if God had came back, if Jesus had come back five years ago, would you have been found in him? How about ten years ago? How about, you know, and so we get a sense of, if we if we place ourselves on the timeline, we get a sense of how awesome his patience is. We also get a sense of hastening the day of the Lord, looking around us and saying, so if it's in two years, look at all these people in my life that need to be found in Christ. But still these verses speak of fire, or excuse me, speak of the surety of judgment with fire, just like there was a judgment with water, and the surety of God's promise. Let's talk about the judgment first. You only save the best for last, right? Peter's the only apostle that actually speaks of the heavens and earth going up in fire, although it's found other places in the Old Testament. Isaiah 66 says, behold, the Lord will come in fire and his chariots like a whirlwind to render his anger and fury. Malachi 4.1 says, for behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. So we are to remember that by the same word that God created, he will also destroy. But we're not to overlook the promise, and that promise is of a new heaven and a new earth, praise God, because he doesn't want any to perish, but all to reach repentance, and so that is the delay. The scoffers use God's patience as proof that it's all hooey, that Jesus isn't coming back, but God reckons time differently than we do. It's his own timing, and God is patient. James, also part of that trio, he wrote in the fifth chapter of his epistle. I love this, and I think I want to read it because I think it really has relevance to this. The context is the coming of the Lord. He says, be patient until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. It is that phrase that I really loved in there, establish your hearts. It is so poetic. He could say, be ready. He could say, be waiting or something, but I love that. Establish your hearts. It's really good, but he's talking about how the farmer waits. He waits for the crop, and you know God is like a farmer. In fact, Jesus said in John 15, you know, I am the vine, you are the branches. My father is the gardener that tends this, waiting for the fruit, waiting for everything to come in. He's waiting. God is waiting for the harvest that he desires. Our job is to wait for him in expectation. So that phrase there, establishing your hearts. Am I establishing my heart for the day of the Lord? What does that mean? What does that look like? I'm gonna let you guys talk about this and offer up some suggestions. How does it relate to my money? How does it relate to my time? How does it relate to my ambitions? How does it relate to my free time? Establishing our hearts for the day of the Lord. That's why I told you I really like this chapter, because it brings into my life the Word that kind of stirs up these things and forces me now to look at my life through the lens of the Word and say, how am I establishing my life for the day of the Lord? Well, we know from Scripture that the day of the Lord comes unexpectedly. It's talked like a thief, and so I want to use Jesus's words first, because Peter was always listening to Jesus. He was always listening to what he said, and then you see it come out in his letters. You see many, many echoes of things that Jesus said. So first I'll say what Jesus said, then we'll get back to Peter. But in Matthew 24, Jesus was teaching his disciples, and he goes,

So those are the things that Peter heard Jesus say. Now here's how it came out in his letter. We're at verse 10. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. I always used to say, maybe you've said this too, it's all gonna burn. It's all gonna burn. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be? In lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. So what sort of people ought we to be? Well there's some answers right in here. In verse 11 he says you're to be holy, and we've learned a little bit of that through our entire study of walking in hope, holiness, and humility. We've talked about what it means to be holy. In verse 11 he says you are to be godly. I like to think of being godly as worshiping well. Describes a person whose life is devoted to pleasing God, and we sure want to be counted among the godly or among the righteous. Remember last week we studied Noah and Lot over here that were saved. God knows how to rescue the godly, and if you feel like you're closer to Lot than Noah, that's okay. You're still in the boundaries, but we want to be found among those who are godly. In verse 12 he says hastening the coming of the day of God. We talked about that a little bit, like working with God to build up his kingdom, bring in the whole harvest, and that merely means doing what God already gave you to do. He planned things for you to do. You don't have to suddenly become Greg Laurie and become an evangelist. He gave Greg that ministry. What good works has he given you to do for us to engage in and be like passionate about to hasten the coming of the day of the Lord? And then to wait patiently in verse 13 or 12 I guess we're at, but according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. And so the promise has been made that life isn't always going to be like this. Right now we've used these words throughout our study. We're exiles. We are strangers. We are sojourners on this world that God created that he deluged once with water and will destroy with fire. This isn't our permanent home. We're strangers here. But when the new heaven and new earth comes we have a permanent home with a sense of belonging. So it won't always be like this. I guess I've gotten the knack in the last few years or so to try to use that phrase as comfort to people. I think I started doing it because of my husband's allergies and so I would get in the habit of saying, you won't always feel like this. The sun may come up tomorrow, you know, or whatever. It won't always be like this. That's what I always say. If somebody has a fever, one of my kids has a fever, you won't always have a fever. It won't always be like this, you know. It's gonna get better. Just hang on. But you know that's a good thing for us to encourage each other with. It won't always be like this. Your broken body, it won't always be like this. The broken relationships, it won't always be like this. The loss living on earth with someone that you love tethered to heaven, separated, but keeping on living here, it won't always be like this. Just the difficulty of life and the toil and the, you know, the working through, it won't always be like this. This should be our phrase for the next couple weeks. When you see somebody on Sunday church, just say, good morning. It won't always be like this. But it's a great comfort and we don't think about it often enough. We don't think about where we're heading. The new heaven, the new earth. You know, it's going to be amazing. Next verse, therefore beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found in him without spot or blemish and at peace. And that's probably the biggest question, best question we can always ask ourselves. Am I at peace with God? I think that there's two aspects of this in here, and that is our positional righteousness. Like we know that once we're born again, like we are now without spot or blemish. We are at peace with God because now we're being seen through the lens of Jesus. But yet, do you go through days where you feel filmy? You feel like there's a film, and you say to yourself, I know I'm saved, I know I'm born again, I know God sees me as spotless, but why do I feel somehow less than clean? Why do I feel filmy? Well, it's because we gather up the dust from the earth, our own sins. I might be born again, and yet you should have heard my mind grumbling yesterday, you know, or whatever. You guys can all relate to that. And we kind of accumulate a sense of uncleanness. And so when I read that, I want to say, oh, perfect, I'm without spot, blemish, and at peace. And then when I look inward and say, am I really at peace? Like if Jesus was coming down the hallway, would I go, yay? Or would I say, hang on a minute? You know, sometimes we'd say, wait, just hang on a minute. And you know, here's an example. David did that. David was found in God. David loved God. David believed in God. But yet he had that bad episode with Bathsheba. And when he needed to get that film of his life cleansed before the Lord, in Psalm 51, we read all the words that he said and asked the Lord to purify him. He said things like, have mercy on me, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly, cleanse me from my sin, purge me with hyssop, wash me and I'll be whiter than snow, create in me a clean heart. And so it's good for us to ponder that too and say, yeah, we need that. We have sin in our life. We have things that happen to us that we willingly walk in. And we need to run to God quickly for that cleansing. And just like David say, wash me new today. I know I'm saved. I know I'm in you. I just come to you now. I need you. I confess my sins to you. I know you forgive them, but would you wash me? It's like taking a shower and you step out of the shower and then you go, Jesus, this would be a really good time for you to come back because I'm feeling great. I'm all clean and fresh, you know, but that should be a daily experience or however often we need it so that we have that assurance. It's back to like what John said so that we, you know, don't shrink back so that we have confidence when we see him. And then back to Peter here, verse 15, and count the patience of the Lord as salvation. Just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him as he does in all his letters when he speaks to them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you're not carried away with the air of lawless people and lose your own stability. Okay, stop just a minute, hit the pause button there. He goes, you beloved, take care. And this is the fourth time in this chapter that he addresses the believers as beloved. Like that's something that like you like pay attention to what I'm saying here because I care so much about you and listen to this. And so I want to just go over those in way of summary and then hit this last one. The first one in verse one and two, he says, beloved, be mindful, engage your mind, engage your thinking. This is critical for you at this point to be thinking. So be mindful. In verse eight, he says, beloved, don't overlook the truth that you have been given. Don't be ignorant. In verse 14, he says, beloved, be diligent. Make sure that you're found in him, covered with the blood of the lamb at peace with God. And now this last one, he says, and beloved, take care, he says, that you're not carried away with the error of the lawless people. Okay, we talked about the lawless, the scoffers, the unbelievers. They have adjusted their view of the world, their theology of God, because they wanted to walk in their own sinful desires and it's like oil and water. You can't be looking forward to the coming of Jesus and want to walk the way you want to walk. It doesn't mix. So we are filled, we are filled with a world of lawless people that have rejected great parts of the truth of God. And Peter tells us, beloved, take care that they're not influencing you. Take care. Use your mind. Use what you understand. Take care. Be diligent. Be warned. In the last days, scoffers will come. Are you going to move to an understanding of their position or are you going to hold fast to what you've been taught by the holy prophets and the apostles? Does that make sense? Okay. But he says, lastly, I love this, this is a great ending, great ending, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity, amen. And I hope that we can say that as we've done this nine-week study that we've grown in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. It's been a great study. But my guess is that as we're sitting in here studying, there's not nearly as much growing going on as when we go back out into some aspect of life and then we have to put that into action. That's where the growing happens. So it's great that we study and collect the information, but we've got to use it and put it into action. So I just want to close with a quote from Warren Wearsby that he says exactly that. He says, growing in grace often means experiencing trials and even suffering. We never really experience the grace of God until we're at the end of our own resources. The lessons learned in the school of grace are always costly lessons, but they're worth it. And we are all in the school of grace. Think about that. Our trials, our sufferings, they help us to put into practice the things that God is stirring up into our hearts. Warren Wearsby. So that concludes our study of both 1 and 2 Peter. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for everything that you've shown us. And we thank you, Lord God, that your Holy Spirit is with us to teach us, to guide us, to make this useful in our lives. And we do pray, Lord God, that you would enable us to grow in grace. Lord, we don't want to just grow in Bible knowledge, we want to grow in the knowledge of you. We want to be found in you. We want to grow up in you, Lord God. And that is a work of your spirit. So we ask that you would connect with our spirits as we come to the end of this study, Lord, and continue to help us just grow. When we see a trial, Lord, help us see, how are we to grow through this? How are we to apply God's grace in this situation and put into use the things that you have taught us? And Lord, we do look forward to your coming. We do welcome your coming. Show us, Lord, how to hasten the day of your coming so that we can be united with you and live in that place where we are no longer strangers, but we are your children and just abiding in the joy of your presence. We pray these things in Jesus' name, Lord, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.