The End - [2 Peter 3:14-18]

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According to scientists, what do you do to make waiting easier?
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I thought, well, we all like to follow the science, so how do you do that? How do you make waiting easier?
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Well, one scientist said turn on some music because they have realized that if you're put on hold on the phone, you will wait 20 % longer if there's music playing in the background.
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How do you wait? Well, some people say bring a friend because that's good stress relief. Others say take a deep breath because scientifically, it lowers the amount of oxygen in the blood and kicks off your relaxation response.
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Others say, well, remember that the wait feels longer than it is.
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Psychological studies usually say that people overestimate the time they spend waiting. Other people say, well, just pay attention to something else but the wait.
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The last bit of wisdom I received from the scientists, I don't know how scientific this is, but it's imagine the experience you're about to have when you get to the front of that DMV line,
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RMV line. Is it RMV here or DMV? All right. Well, you know what I was talking about.
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Some good wisdom. But what do we do while we're waiting for the Lord's return? Is there anything we're supposed to do?
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Just wait, lay back, and let God? Well, if you take your Bibles and turn to 2 Peter chapter 3, that is the question that we're going to answer today from the
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Word of God. What is the strategy for waiting for the Lord Jesus' return?
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Jesus had said that he'll come back and we are waiting for his return. The history of the world was its creation followed by the fall, then the redemption found in Christ Jesus, and we're waiting for the consummation.
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We're waiting for the end day when Jesus will return. And a lot of people want to run their mouths and say,
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Jesus, he wasn't God. He didn't walk on water. He was just a good teacher. He's just a good moral example. But he's not
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God in the flesh and he's certainly not going to come back to judge. People want to condemn judgment because they don't want to be judged.
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And so we've been going through the book of 2 Peter. And if you're new to the church or visiting, we take a book of the Bible, we just go chapter by chapter, verse by verse, so that we can see everything that God would have for us.
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And so today, in one sense, it's kind of a sad day for me because we're finishing 2 Peter.
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This is the 13th message in 2 Peter. They're all online if you'd like to listen to them.
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And I have an advantage. I'm kind of one up on you in one sense because you graciously pay my bills so that I could study.
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And if my average study for a sermon is about 20 hours times 13 messages, I've been able to study 2
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Peter for over 260 hours. And when you do something like that, what happens?
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You begin loving the book and you love the God of the book. And you think, oh, maybe I have a new desert island book that if I have to bring one book of the
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Bible to that desert island, I'm going to bring 2 Peter. One sense it's kind of sad how people treat 2
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Peter because they think it's only against false teachers. And people kind of get tired of false teachers because they're everywhere.
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They're on every channel, it seems. They're on every magazine rack. They're like, I don't want to really study false teachers anymore.
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But that's not what this book is really about. It is about the person and work of the Lord Jesus.
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If Peter had a motto, it would be Paul's motto, him we proclaim. He starts off at the very beginning in chapter 1, he ends in chapter 3, and everywhere in between, it is
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Jesus Christ, this risen Savior, who's going to come back. Matter of fact, you can see in the first two verses of 2
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Peter chapter 1 for a little review, it's all about the Lord Jesus, and it continues through this entire book of 2
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Peter, this letter. Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, that is
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Jesus, he is truly man, and Christ, he is Messiah, he is truly deity, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our
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God and Savior, calling Jesus God and Savior. And you have received, dear
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Christian, this faith of equal standing to the very apostle Peter.
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And then what does he say? Verse 2, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our
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Lord. Lots of times I just see those words, grace and peace, and I think, well, that's what they said. Hello, goodbye, salutations, greetings.
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But let's give an emphasis before we get into our section today. Based on what you've done this week, based on what
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I've done this week, what do you think the words of God would be to you as a judge?
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I think of Adam and Eve and how they sinned, and they began to hide, and they began to cover up themselves with fig leaves, and they knew they were not righteous.
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And here's this God of the universe, this God that creates and judges, and based on our performance and our works, not loving
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God like we should this week, not loving neighbor. What do you think the two words of God would be to you for this week?
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What do you think they'd be? Try harder. That was bad.
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Can you imagine, because of the work of Christ Jesus, the two words for Christians every single day and every single worship service is this, grace to you and peace.
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I hope that makes you happy. I hope that makes you thrilled. I've merited God's displeasure, but grace is demerited favor, and he gives me grace freely as a
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Christian. I love that. That makes me excited to think that, you know what, a God who would treat me like that makes me want to obey and honor as a father in heaven.
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And so everything about this book centers on the person and work of the Lord Jesus. It's like this good book could be summarized by Thomas when
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Thomas saw Jesus, my Lord and my what? My God. It could be summarized by Paul in Colossians 2, for in Christ, all the fullness of deity lives or dwells in bodily form.
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And over and over and over, Peter's not going to let you forget. God is a savior. He's a savior.
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J. Wilbur Chapman wrote a song in thankful response to God who is a
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God of grace and peace. Hallelujah, what a savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Saving, helping, keeping, loving, he is what?
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With me to the end. And so in spite of the chaos of the false teachers, in spite of the world, in spite of everything else, our focus is on the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And so every time we come to a book that's about the end times, we need to remind ourselves it's not about date setting.
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It's not about current events. It's not about reading the newspaper. Remember newspapers? Like eight -track tapes, 16 -millimeter film,
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VHS, beta, right? All these things. Every time I look at the news online,
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I don't want to be thinking, you know what, what are the signs? That's not the way you think about end times.
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End times is all about one person and one person only. If it's the book of Revelation, it's a revealing of Jesus. If it's the book of 2
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Peter, it's about Jesus is going to come back. The Nicene Creed, he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead.
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The Apostles' Creed, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. The Athanasius' Creed, from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
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At whose coming all men must rise with their bodies and are to render an account of their deeds.
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No wonder the false teachers don't want that to be true. If you don't have a mediator, if you don't have an advocate, if you don't have the right man on your side, your striving is going to be losing.
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He's coming for the first time as Savior, and that's exactly what he did. The second time though, he's coming to judge.
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The first time, he's born in a manger and he comes to pay the penalty for sinners.
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Rides on a donkey, the Romans crucify him. But the second time,
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Jesus comes. He's coming to rule, to reign. He's coming as the King of kings and the
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Lord of lords and he will judge every person's sins unless they've been judged on Christ Jesus.
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In the 60s, Time Magazine said that the only event that could command a larger headline than Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, what's bigger news than that?
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And Time Magazine even said it would be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Robert Frost said, some say the world will end in fire, some say ice.
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T .S. Eliot, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but as a whimper.
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But 2 Peter is going to remind every one of us that as Revelation 1 says, behold, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him.
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Even so, amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come.
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Well, today, we come to chapter 3 verses 14 through 18 for our final paragraph, for our final set of instructions from the
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Holy Spirit through the mouth and the pen of Peter. And what you're going to see there is you're going to see four laws, four imperatives.
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In the original language, they are very easily identified as imperatives. What do we do when we wait for the
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Lord Jesus? I think my father used to say, you whistle while you work. Do you ever whistle while you wait?
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What do I do? Jesus is going to come back. What do I do? I mean, the false teachers are going to say, he's not coming back, therefore, live it up.
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And that's not live it up like enjoy your grandkids in a sunset. No, live it up in terms of flesh and paganism and godless desires.
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Go for it because there's no judge, so what are you doing? Quite opposite to the false teachers,
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Peter is going to give us four exhortations for us to do in response to the
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Lord's delay. I know what you might be thinking, well, you know, is law good?
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Is the law good? Are commands good? Well, of course, they're good. If they're from God, they show his character.
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But what laws do is they remind us that we didn't keep the laws before,
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Jesus then kept them for us. And then now we keep laws not to earn our salvation. Jesus already did.
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He kept the law. But we want to keep the law now because we want to honor God, because the laws guide us and the laws norm our lives.
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I read of Spurgeon when he said, another class of ministers have preached the precepts or the law and little else.
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We want these men as we want the others. They are all useful and act as antidotes to each other.
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But their ministries are not complete. Spurgeon says, if you only give the congregation law, your job isn't done.
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Spurgeon. If you hear preaching about duty and command, it's very proper. But if it be the one sole theme of teaching, it becomes very legal.
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And after a while, the true gospel, which has the power to make us keep the precept, gets flung into the background and the precept is not being kept at all.
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Do, do, do only generally ends in nothing being done. That's why if you go to church and it's just one more list of all these things to do, pretty soon you're like, well, why bother?
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Because I can't even do what I'm supposed to do. So I become frustrated. But if you look at second
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Peter and if the pastor is attempting to be faithful, you see what the Lord Jesus has done for you.
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You recognize that you deserve to go to hell and you get to go to heaven. And Jesus is on the cross suffering for all my sins.
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And it's like those three hours, all of hell's torments, are combined, are condensed into three hours and dumped out on Jesus when it should have been dumped out on me and out of sheer love, out of sheer mercy and grace.
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He loved me and saved me and has adopted me and has united me with Christ. And I am guaranteed the hope of heaven and my sins are all forgiven as far as the east is from the west.
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Then if you tell me, you know what, in light of that, would you do these things? And then I say, what? Nah. No, I say, of course, because if you've so loved me, that's my motivation to obey.
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What's the motivation to obey? Not these commands. He's already given us motivation in chapters 1 and 2 and 3 of who the
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Lord Jesus is and what he's done. You ought to test me every single week and you ought to test
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Peter, as it were, to find out if you think, you know what, I wonder if the pastor's for me or against me.
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I wonder if he wants me to succeed or not. T. David Gordon said, do hearers get the impression that the minister is for them, eager to see the rich blessing of a gracious God or against them?
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Is the pastor eager to put them in their place, scold them, reprimand them, and punish them?
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Is it his desire to see them reconciled, blessed by a pardoning God? Does the sermon press the hearer to consider the hopelessness of his condition apart from Christ and the utter competence of Christ to rescue the penitent sinner?
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Peter, by the way, was for his congregation. Peter wanted his readers to excel by the grace of God.
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Peter wasn't scolding. Peter wasn't saying, you know what, this is kind of sola bootstrapsa, where you have to come and do things on your own.
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No, no, this is all about who God is. And so because Jesus is who he is, the great shepherd, what do
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I do while I'm waiting for him to come back? And he gives us four commands found in verses 14 through 18.
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All four are in the plural, by the way, so it's like they're written to all the people that would read it.
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It would be given, as it were, to a congregation. They're very pastoral. If you notice in verse 14, therefore, beloved, he's not scolding.
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He's not against them. He wants them to do well. He wants them to respond to the grace of God and obey
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God out of gratitude and not as some kind of slavish person. And in verse 14, the first word we see there is what we call technically in homiletics, landing the sermon plane.
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What's the Latin of that? I don't know. Peter's got this letter, and now he's going to land the plane.
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You know, lots of pastors, you think, okay, he's about ready to end, and they just kind of go back up again.
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I do that, I'm sure. Thank you for putting up with it. But I don't like it when I do it. How is it that we always see in others things that we don't like when we can't see it as easily in ourselves?
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That's a different sermon. Peter's going to land the plane. False teachers are wrong.
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Their bad theology, their heterodoxy leads to heteropraxy, bad living. And our orthodoxy, our right theology of Jesus, the
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God -man, who said he's going to come back, and he's faithful and true, well, then we want to live a life commensurate with that.
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I know when my dad, at Northwestern Bell, we lived in Omaha, and he would sometimes, during strikes, go down to Oklahoma and to Tulsa, and then
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Mom would say, on about a Friday, she'd say, you know, Dad's coming back later tonight. But that was
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Dad the judge, because this large, 6 '4", 240 -pound German man with, like, snake tattoos on his forearm, he was pre -MMA, but he would have excelled in MMA, I'm certain.
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Like, oh, I'm scared Dad's coming back. Well, this is not that. This is, beloved, your father's coming back.
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Remember what your father has done for you. Remember who he is. Remember how he's treated you. Remember his name and his honor and how great he is.
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Your dad's coming back. So I want you to live a life that would honor such a great father.
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And so he lands a plane with these final four exhortations. You ask, what's the therefore, therefore, verse 14?
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It just ties it right back to verse 13. But according to his promise, unlike those false teachers, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
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As Christians, we're not just looking for the destruction of this world, where the fire comes as a flood of fire and wipes everything out.
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No, no, we're looking for something positively as well. There is going to be a flood of fire. But we're looking for something else too.
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And that is the new heavens and the new earth. That's what we're looking for. Isaiah 65,
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God said, I will create new heavens and a new earth. And the former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
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As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me, so will your name and descendants endure.
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The word of God is prophetic. It's more sure. First chapter of 2 Peter, verse 16, he's going to come back, the
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Lord Jesus. And we know he's going to make a new earth. He's going to revamp the earth. He's going to restore the earth.
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It's going to be one of righteousness. How then do we live? And we're waiting for these things.
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Verse 14, since you are waiting for these, what are the these? We're waiting for these new heavens.
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We're waiting for this new earth. It's going to happen. We're waiting. What do we do while we wait?
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Law number one, command number one. And they're all from the text. The sermon is from the passage.
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Number one, be diligent. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent.
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There we go. That's the imperative, to be found in him without spot or blemish and at peace. So if you're a young kid and you're trying to think about, all right, what's diligent and everything else,
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I don't usually give a lot of Greek words, although the New Testament is written in Greek, but this one I will because I like it.
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And I think it kind of lends a little oomph to this so you understand what it is. The Greek word for to be diligent is spumadzo.
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I just kind of like to say that. I did not say spumoni, some kind of Italian rich ice cream or something.
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It's spudadzo. And it means to be energetic. It means to put things into it. Like the equivalent for an
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English word, I might say verve. It sounds almost like what I'm supposed to be doing. Spudadzo.
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And if this was kind of a crazier church, I'd say, look to the person to your left and say spudadzo, but you're at the wrong church for that.
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Why don't they do with those churches? You know, look to the person to your right, your wife, and say, I'm a worthless, low -down sinner, except by the grace of God.
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They don't usually do that. Make every effort.
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This isn't because your father's gonna kick you out if you don't. This isn't to get into heaven.
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The effort to get into heaven has been made by the perfect one, the Lord Jesus. But the response to that, while we're waiting, is to be diligent, making every effort.
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It's not lay back and let God, it's not coasting, because we're gonna be found by Him, not as a judge like the false teachers are to be found by Him.
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Verse 10, here's how the false teachers are to be found. Here's how the unbelievers will be found.
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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 found, literally, or exposed.
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Their works are going to be exposed, and they'll pay for those works, those sinful works. Our works are also going to be found, but we don't have a judge anymore.
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We have a Father, and so we'd like to be found, not by the judge, because that'll never happen for Christians, but found by our
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Father, being active and doing things rightly, particularly in your holy life.
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To be found by Him without spot or blemish. Do you see it there in verse 14?
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How are we to be found? Like the false teachers who had blots and blemishes, and there were like black clouds full of sin?
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No, this is language, if you think about it just for a second. Let's see, what language in the Bible is without spot and blemish?
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Oh yeah, sacrifices. You bring the sacrifice, and you don't bring a three -legged cow to be sacrificed.
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You don't bring a bull that's blind. You bring a sacrifice that is spotless and having no blemishes.
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I always remember the guy that said, you know, Lord, if you'll just give me some cattle, I'll offer half of them to you.
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And this cow had two calves, and he said, I'm gonna offer the one to you, Lord, when it gets older, and it'll be yours, and I'll give it to the ministry at the local church.
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And a couple of years into it, the cow, one of the calves died, and the guy prayed,
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Lord, I'm just so sorry. The cow that I was gonna dedicate to the church died. It's like that kind of thing.
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That's why I don't tell jokes at Bethlehem Bible Church. Once every 10 years, and then I'm gone. That's it.
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Spotless and not like the unbelievers who are telling you just live it up. It doesn't matter.
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Free grace people, antinomian, you're justified by faith alone. It doesn't matter if you live a holy life or not.
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That's how it comes in modern parlance today. I'm gonna stand before God. It's not gonna be as judge, but that should influence me.
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That should make me think, oh yeah, do you know what? I wanna do the right thing. The best animals are offered to the triune
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God. And I would like to have my life, Romans 12, a living, what? Sacrifice to the
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Lord. Did you know this language is not just used of sacrifices? It's used in 1
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Peter 1, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with precious things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or what?
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Spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake.
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Don't act like false teachers. Be Christ -like while you are waiting. That's what he's after.
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You're going to be found. And by the way, it's interesting. It says at the very end, and be found at peace.
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That has befuddled many commentators because at peace could be several things.
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Number one, do you have peace with God? You were at war with God, and now we've been justified by faith alone. Romans 1, we have peace with God.
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No more hostility. Well, it's not that because the readers already have the righteousness of Christ and faith.
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There's another kind of peace, and it's more of subjective peace. It's the peace that passes all understanding. It's the peace that says,
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I feel something subjectively. I don't think that's what he's after at all either. But what is he after?
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At peace. Well, while we're waiting for the Lord to return, do you think it ever could be possible that maybe two people at church might get in an argument?
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Maybe two people at church might see something, not eye to eye, causing some kind of problem in a local church, both waiting for the
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Lord, both been redeemed, both be found by them arguing and not at peace.
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I think he's writing to the people, and he's saying, here's what we wanna do. We wanna be diligent in our holy life.
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We wanna be diligent in being holy with other people too. I'm not against law.
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I'll give you law right now. If you have anything against anyone at this church, it is your duty to either forgive them and go on like it never existed, or to go to that person and say, such and such happened.
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This is how I see it. How do you see it? And I'd like to make reconciliation. Right? That's a law.
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You are to do that. But because of everything the Lord has done for you, not only are we to be diligent, but number two found in verse 15 and 16,
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I'll just use the words of Peter. We're diligent. Number two, we count patience of God as salvation.
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Count, dear congregation, the patience of our Lord as salvation. Let's read verses 15 and 16.
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And count the patience of our 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 in them of these matters.
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There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist or torque to their own destruction as they do the other
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Scriptures. Now remember what was going on earlier in the chapter. Look at verse nine.
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The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise. As some false teachers and those who follow those false teachers count slowness.
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He's slacking off. He's not going to do this, but the Lord is instead patient toward you, dear believers, not wishing that any should perish.
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He's waiting for every person that the son has died for to come into faith, but that all should reach repentance.
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They think that the Lord's patience is He doesn't have the ability. He doesn't have the power.
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He's forgot about it. He's too busy doing something else. How should we think of God's delay?
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I mean, it's not just been 100 years, not 500 years, not a thousand years. It's been almost 2000 years since Jesus says,
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I'm going to return. How do you measure that? How do you calculate that mentally?
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So he says, while you're waiting, here's how you think about it. You count the patience of our Lord. He's certainly patient.
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Remember two weeks ago, if you were saved 10 days ago, aren't you glad Jesus didn't come back 11 days ago?
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I was saved 31 years ago. I'm glad he didn't come back 32 years ago because he would have been coming as a judge, an executioner.
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And so we realize as it seems like he's slow in our mind, cause it's been 2000 years.
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Well, God's on a different timetable anyway, a day, a thousand years. He doesn't matter to him because he has his program.
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He has his decree. He has his purpose. And the way we should look at things, see he's waiting for all those believers to believe.
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And when the last person decreed to believe, believes he's back. So how do we count his patience?
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We count it as a salvation. That's exactly what he's saying. We're waiting for the Lord to come back.
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We know the joy of salvation. We know. Can you remember that first time when you thought to yourself, I can't believe it.
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I think something's happened to me. I don't think this is my parents' faith anymore.
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I don't think this is somebody else's faith anymore. It's not Jesus died on the cross.
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Jesus died for me. He died for me. He rose for me. He's my personal savior.
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He's my shepherd. He's my captain. He's my prophet, my priest, and my king. He is my personal savior by his own sheer sovereign grace alone.
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Were you happy when you recognized that? Were you excited? I hope you were.
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I mean, now it's been 30 years and we're very, we let the excitement go to the new
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Christians and we're old and stayed and we just go, okay, fine, whatever. They'll grow out of it.
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I don't want to grow out of it. I get to go to heaven. If you knew me and what
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I've done, you would not let me be your pastor. I'm not joking. If I knew you and what you've thought and done,
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I wouldn't want to pastor you. Let's be honest.
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And by the way, you get to pick me. I don't get to pick you. You just walk in. I have to minister to you. That's not right.
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And that God is still saving people. Let's make it as very, make it as personal as possible. Do you have a spouse or child or parent, friend who's not a
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Christian? You want Jesus to come back as their judge? I mean, we want him to come back, yes.
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But do you want him to come back to give them what they've earned? And that is eternal destruction for spitting in the face of a
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God who loved them. Do you want that for them? So while you're waiting and while you're anxious and while it would be great, think about if you've got a physical sickness or there's issues going on in your life.
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The world's crazy. You're like, if the Lord would only come back. That's good to think about, eagerly anticipating his return.
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But the way we think while we're waiting is, God is still saving. And I remember the glory that the triune
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God gets when he saves and as he saves. And I think I can wait a little bit more.
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You think you can wait a little bit more? Yes, the answer is yes. We count the patience of our
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Lord as salvation. You say, well, you know what? That's kind of Peter's deal.
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And Peter was kind of idiosyncratic. And Peter, what they call Peter, the man with a foot -shaped mouth.
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Maybe this is just kind of Peter's thing. It's not.
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Do you know what? Paul wrote about the same thing. And that's what it says right here. Just as our beloved brother,
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Paul, by the way, pretty big of Peter, he has been rebuked by Paul to his face in Galatians chapter two.
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And now they are at peace. Peter knew a little bit about being rebuked for something. And now he calls
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Paul, that beloved brother, Paul. The word brother means
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I'm from the same womb. We've been in the same womb together. And spiritually, you get the idea.
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Paul talks about the same thing, God's patience for salvation. Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, not
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Paul's wisdom that he came up with, not Paul's wisdom that he extracted based on how he was trained by different rabbis.
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Certainly Paul had used his mind, but the wisdom had not come from the inside. He didn't make up things as he goes.
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Well, this is Paul's mind. This is Paul's thing. No, no, it was wisdom what? Given him as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters, that is scriptural matters.
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But more specifically in matters of the soon return of Christ and holy living commensurate with your calling. There are some things in them,
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Paul's letters that are hard to understand. And everyone said, if Peter had a hard time understanding some things, but by the way, there are lots of things in scripture that Paul wrote that aren't hard to understand.
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Jesus is the eternal son. Jesus is coming back. Jesus walked on water.
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Jesus cast out demons. Jesus healed the blind man. Jesus forgave the sins of Zacchaeus.
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Jesus rose from the tomb. You're saved by grace through faith, that not of yourselves.
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None of those are hard to understand. And by the way, if somebody ever says to you antagonistically, well, that's just your own interpretation.
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Well, then I just say to them, well, you know, I'm happy to be corrected by grace you've been saved through faith. What's your interpretation?
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Because the words mean what the words mean. It's easy. So tell me you don't wanna believe because you've got an immoral lifestyle.
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I'll at least give you kudos for being honest, but try to hide behind, that's your own interpretation.
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Well, how about this for an interpretation? Jesus is coming back to judge you. You need a savior, friend.
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Some things are hard to understand. And so what do people that are godly do with hard sayings of Paul?
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Well, they say things like this. They're still true. They say things like this.
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This difficult passage isn't difficult in God's mind. I'm finite, God's infinite.
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It shouldn't shock me that I can't understand everything. I mean, all of scripture is God's accommodating word.
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Calvin said when God talks in scripture, it's like a dad or a mom talking baby talk to their infant.
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The triune God who put this planet together by saying planet and set it up in nowhere, and it just hangs in nothing.
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Oh, I can't really figure out everything he's doing. Yeah, to use that Latin phrase, duh.
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That's from R .C. Sproul. You have to throw in a little Latin every once in a while. And secondly,
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I'm sinful. Even as a Christian, my mind's been tainted by the fall. And therefore, some things are hard to understand.
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They're not hard for God to understand. They're here for my study. I wanna be diligent to show that I'm a workman, not approved,
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I mean, I'm approved, not ashamed. I wanna study and do that. And so if there's something hard in scripture, then you see what the unbelievers do with it, the false teachers do with it.
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Hmm, baptism for dead, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. We'll torque that, we'll twist that.
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And no matter what the rest of all the Bible says, it says you're saved by the work and person of the Lord Jesus and you receive it by faith alone.
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We'll say, you know what, gotta baptize people for the dead. You've gotta do this, you've gotta do that. Show me a false teacher and I'll show you someone who takes a passage that's not clear and they torque it.
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They twist it. I don't know why these days, but I've been watching a lot of mixed martial arts.
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And one of the things I notice, you can tell based on my ears are still in good shape that I only watch it.
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I watch how they torque the neck. I watch how they put them in this leg lock, this 50 -50 thing and they're twisting and they're resting.
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And they're, same word where we get tortured, torquing. That's the word here.
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It's like they take the scripture by the neck and just try to twist it off.
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If you hear people talk like that about difficult passages in Paul's doctrine and they're not just under them and humbly saying, you know what,
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God has knowledge, I have knowledge. They're not the same knowledges. I have a secondary knowledge that he reveals to me.
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I can't understand the mind of God, but I can trust him. But what I do know is Jesus is my savior and he's died for my sins and I can trust my entire soul to him.
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And there are some things maybe I should study more, but I'm not gonna torque it. That's a sign of a real teacher, especially when they torque it so they can live ungodly lives.
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I'm gonna take this passage and I'm gonna make it so I can do whatever I want and sleep at night. The Damocles sword of conscience won't be over my head any longer if I can just say, well, the
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Bible says it. I've got a verse. Listen, any fool can take a
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Bible verse out of context. And every foolish false teacher does that exact same thing.
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Ever notice that, false teachers? Do you think Arius came along and said, Jesus isn't the eternally begotten son and he's a created son.
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He's not the eternal son. What did Arius use? Bible.
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They quote the Bible. See, I'm gonna be very careful. Paul was given by the inspiring power of the spirit of God to write scripture just like Peter.
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When Paul speaks in scripture, he speaks authoritatively. And he speaks just like Peter does because while Paul and Peter are human authors, there's an author behind the authors, is there not?
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The divine author. And he's going to say the same thing. It should not surprise us that from Genesis that we'll hear about tonight to Revelation, there's one grand central theme by one divine author.
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And even though some things are hard to understand and even though ignorant, what's the text say? And unstable, twisted to their own destruction as they do the other, we're still going to trust it.
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Misinterpretation of the Bible is always sin, but it is sinfulness of sin that says, you know what? We're going to use the
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Bible for our own immoral living. And I've heard people say today, you know what?
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I'm just gonna leave my husband because God wants me happy. I'm gonna do this because the
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Bible says I'm to be full of joy or whatever. It's just crazy. Well, we have to keep going. I know what you're saying,
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Mike, land the plane. Okay, number three. Remember the second two or three points, the last few are faster than the first two.
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Number three, what do we do while we're waiting? We're children of the living God. We're to be diligent, we're to count patience as salvation.
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Number three, right from verse 17, you therefore beloved knowing this beforehand, and here comes the command, take care that you're not carried away with the air of lawless people and lose your own stability.
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Guard yourself, take care. Don't just say, well, you know what?
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Life is too hard while I wait. I just think I'll just float down the river instead of swimming upstream.
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Be diligent, count patience, and now take care. We don't want to be carried away with the air of lawless people.
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We're people under law as a guide, not to get to heaven. Jesus kept the law for us, but these lawless people say, it doesn't matter what you do, you're forgiven.
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This really works out well. What did one old philosopher say? You know, this is a greatest arrangement in all the world.
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God loves to forgive sins and I love to commit them. It's a great arrangement. Don't get caught up in that.
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Even though you might want to, you're like, I'm getting end times fatigue.
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I think I'm getting some end times syndrome. Why don't you go to the doctor sometime and say, do you have anything that you can prescribe to me for my end times syndrome?
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I wonder what they'll give you. I think they'll just give you anything. It's easy. I've got end times fatigue, but take care, hang in there.
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You know this already. You think I was being kind of funny with the whole medical thing. In one sense, yes, but on the other sense, you know this is where we get the word prognosis.
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If you have a prognosis, then you kind of know what to do. Well, your cholesterol is high,
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I ought to eat oatmeal. You have to do these things. I have to count my calories.
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I have to be careful. Triglycerides are high. I have to do something about it. If you're not careful, these people are gonna try to sweep you away.
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We're gonna prepare you for what's ahead so you can correct yourself. Take care, be on your guard.
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I'm warning you, says Peter, because what's going to happen is, it says, carried away with the air of lawless people and lose your own, doesn't say salvation.
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You can't lose your salvation because you didn't earn it. That's guaranteed by God, the triune God. But you could lose your stability.
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You start watching these people. By the way, I personally know people that they fill their minds full of all kinds of TV stuff and all kinds of horrible books.
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And it's just, you know, right on down the line with TBN and Joe Osteen and Joyce Meyer and Stephen Furtick.
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I mean, the list could go on and on and on. And they're like, well, I really believe the right stuff, but I kind of like them.
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No wonder your stability is lost. No wonder you're not as strong as you could be.
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You need to stop that. You need to stop watching those foolish people that torque the scripture.
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You go, well, they make me feel good. Well, I don't doubt that they do, but I want to be told the truth.
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And it is important that we think about holiness and not happiness, because if you're holy, you will end up being happy.
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Don't get caught up by these people and lose your own stability. This is like Barnabas in Galatians 2.
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Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. False teaching is contagious. We don't cuddle up to false teaching.
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This whole book is not cuddle up to it, get to know it. They're really nice people. No, you're going to get the stiff arm.
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And then lastly, number four, the fourth command in light of who you are, knowing that Jesus is going to come back, not to judge you, but to rescue you ultimately, is grow, grow.
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There it is, verse 18. How do you prepare a sermon and an epistle? It's simple. Just find the outline that's already there in the text, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We had a guy here named John DeBryan. Remember, he was down on the
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Cape and he had a radio show for years called what? Song Time. And I'd always remember
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John DeBryan would always say, you're either going to grow in grace or you're going to groan in disgrace.
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That's exactly right. There are some people that know that and I'm refraining from making any centenarian comments.
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Is that a word? Those that are over 100. I want you to grow in the grace and knowledge.
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Okay. So, you know, okay, the Lord's going to come back and I think to myself, my holy life is important.
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What's also important is, I think I'm going to wait a little bit because I sure would like those loved ones to be saved.
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I need to make sure to guard myself because they're going to play to my greed, right? It's like a lottery ticket. Come in here and get rich.
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They know how to get things from you and it's either from greed or fear or loose living. And now here positively,
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I want you to grow in grace. This is so good. I want you to grow in the grace and knowledge.
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Now, growing in knowledge is easy. We study books. We say, oh, systematic theology,
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Louis Burkhoff. Institutes of the Christian religion, John Calvin. The book of Galatians by Martin Luther.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones. And you know, we just go, okay, we're understanding. We're growing in knowledge. We want to know more about him.
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Maybe you could think to yourself when you maybe were dating your future spouse. And I just remember,
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I wanted to know everything about Kim. I want to know all about her and her background, what she'd like, what she didn't like, what she, every little detail.
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I want to just know. Well, how much more here to know in knowledge? But if you think about it for a second, how do you grow in grace?
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It's kind of odd, isn't it? Grow in the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus.
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Certainly calling him God there, Savior, Lord, the Messiah. How do I grow in the grace of the
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Lord Jesus? Well, here's what one writer said. And I think it's going to really open everything up for you.
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It did me. To experience his favor is something which
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I am increasingly conscience of. And am increasingly conscience of the favor and mercy and the goodness of God to me.
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In other words, I begin to say to myself, as I look at scripture, oh, I am now more aware than I was before about how
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God loved me and gave his life for me. I think too often it's this morbid introspection that we all have and people are like, examine yourselves.
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Here's Lloyd -Jones. I must never start upon this process of self -examination without reminding myself at the beginning, in the middle and the end of the cardinal doctrine of justification by faith alone.
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If I start upon the process of self -examination without reminding myself that I'm justified by faith only, there can be but one result of my self -examination.
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And that is that I shall feel that I am not a Christian at all. If you examine yourselves outside of reminding yourself who you are in Christ, you will say to yourself, if you're honest,
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I'm not a Christian. You'll despair. If you're dishonest, you'll say, well, I do those things self -righteously.
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There's only one way, Jones goes on to say, of examining ourselves. And it is to start by reminding ourselves that we are saved solely by the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
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And that if we move heaven and earth or ascend into the heavens or go down to the depths, we can never make ourselves righteous before God.
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Nothing can save you and me, but the fact that Christ died on the cross for us, there is our salvation.
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I start with that. I then examine myself and find things that condemn me. I find failure and unworthiness and so on.
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But if I've started with the doctrine of justification by faith, all the things that I've discovered, all the blemishes will drive me back more to Christ.
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Did you hear that? But if I've not started with him and with his death upon the cross to make atonement,
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I shall discover that will drive me to despair and to morbidity and to introspection and a sense of hopelessness.
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Growing in grace is that awareness that we have of just how great our
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God is. Knowledge is the easy part. And then how does he end?
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How do you end such a book? Be warm, be filled to him.
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By the way, this is one of the few Christological doxologies in all of scripture. By the way,
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God says, I am God and there is no other and I will give my glory to who? No one else.
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Who gets glory here? Well, because there's the God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Spirit. We have one triune
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God. One God, three persons. I could maybe convict you by saying this.
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If I say the word God, what goes through your mind? It should be for all of us. One God, God, the
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Father, God, the Son, God, the Spirit. That is the God with whom we have to do. And here,
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Peter gives praise to the Son. And of course, when you give praise to the
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Son, the Father receives the glory, the Spirit gets the glory. And here we see to him be glory, both now and to the day of eternity.
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Amen. I mean, the Father said of the Son, this is my beloved Son in whom
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I'm well pleased. And when you say, I give God the glory, I want my life to be an offering as a glory to God, the
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Father, you're agreeing with the Father. You say, well, how do I give God glory if He's already all glorious?
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Good question. God is intrinsically full of glory. And when we recognize that in Him, that's how we give
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Him glory. We don't add to His glory. We don't give Him extra glory. We just recognize to Him be the glory.
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To Him be the glory forever and ever. What a great doxology. What a goal for our life.
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What good words to end with. Grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Paul does the same thing.
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Peter does it here. He just can't help himself. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. There is nothing wrong when
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I watch people on TV and there are fans in the stands freaking out for their team.
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And they are just going, I wanna say going gonzo, is that a word?
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Just ballistic on their team. You know, I meet a lot of men and sometimes
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I'll stand next to guys and, you know, we'll try to sing. And I always wanted Luke to be a man who sung even though he might not have a great voice.
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The Abendroths, we sing. Whatever voice God has given us, we sing. Abendroths stand in the front row to sing for lots of reasons.
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We sing. And I can go to a football game with a buddy and they are just so exuberant, so excited, so enthusiastic, so happy.
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They're high -fiving each other. They're giving people other fives. They're doing all kinds of things. You're not allowed to do that anymore in our society.
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Even on the football field. And then it's like,
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I can barely get them to say one word with enthusiasm about the Lord Jesus. They might talk about doctrine.
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I love sola fide. They might say, oh, I love the doctrine of regeneration, inspiration.
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I love end times. But for Peter and for us, it's about Jesus.
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It's about who Jesus is and what He's done. Where are those that exult in and praise in and adore and worship?
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And to Him be the glory both now and forevermore. We know how to do it for sports.
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We know how to walk into that labor and delivery room and see that new granddaughter, our grandson, and you just cannot stop yourself.
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Joy and love and expression and tears. And you just think we are made in a certain way to respond to God's revelation, to God's goodness, to God's kindness.
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You're built to praise. You're going to praise someone. And for Peter, before he gets his head cut off, he's got one more sentence to utter and may it be our sentence.
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To Him be the glory both now and forever. Father, would you, by your
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Spirit's power, make our lives a sacrifice and an offering to glorify the
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Lord Jesus as we preach the gospel to friends, love neighbors, and honor you.
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We do want your Son to come back quickly, but we have loved ones that need to be saved.