How to Wait for the Lord's Return

Second Peter chapter 3.
On this Ascension Sunday, it's appropriate that we celebrate his Ascension, his physical visible Ascension before the apostles as he went to sit the Father's right hand where he now rules and reigns until his return, all Christians throughout history, through the seven ecumenical creeds of the early church of professed faith in Jesus's return, but the question that you and I often ask, especially your children children will sometimes ask you.
Is if we say we believe in Jesus' return, why is he taking so long?
It's a question you've asked.
It's a question I've asked.
It's a question many of musical artists in fact have asked as we'll see today.
And I wonder if you would be willing and able to stand with me as we read from 2nd Peter chapter 3.
I'll read from verse 1 down to verse 13.
Men and women have died to have the Greek translated into English, the Hebrew, the Aramaic testament translated into English and so please don't take it for granted that we read the Bible so easily as modern Americans and our mother tongue.
So give your attention to it.
It was written to you in love.
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved.
In both of the them, I am 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.
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 the creation.
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water.
through water by the word of God.
And that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day it has a thousand years and a thousand years is 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.
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.
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, but according to his promise, we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but God's word stands forever.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God, you may be seated.
Please, Father, would you open our hearts, our ears to give as much attention to listening to the sermon as I have to give and sharing it.
I pray that you would change our hearts even on the spot.
Those who doubt, who have questions, who have grown cynical or even nihilistic, you might show them the hope of the gospel that they might see the beauty of your death on the cross for us.
You took on injustice so that you could ensure justice will be met out in the end.
And so, Lord, would you give us ears to hear.
We pray in Jesus name.
Amen.
This is one of the hardest passages in Greek in the New Testament.
If you're in seminary or some of you are studying online for seminary, you know that it is messy.
It almost feels as though it's like some artist is writing this Peter is writing this book and he is just dreaming of vast questions.
These scoffers, they bring the third of the objections in second Peter.
The third The first objection was the apostles, they made up that stuff.
That's in chapter one.
The second objection is, listen, you can grace covers everything.
You can live however you want.
That's chapter two.
Third objection in second Peter is that well, listen, you say that Jesus is coming again.
Well, where is he?
You've heard that objection.
I heard that objection.
When I was about to move to to Oklahoma, when we still lived up in the Northeast, I remember when we bought tickets for me and Lauren to go to see Oh, the Holy Prophet Bono at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
Bono is the lead singer for some of you who of you too.
Yes, and um I may have a a little um great affection and euphoria for you too.
A great affection for you too that I have to repent of on occasion because I love their music.
I was so excited to take my bride to welcome her into the holy of holies of you too and Bono broke his back.
So they delayed the concert for a year.
So we had moved to Oklahoma and in 2011 I flew back with one of my best friends from my childhood Corey and we went to Lincoln Financial Field and we watched Bono and Edge and Adam Clayton and Larry Mullan do their thing and it was amazing this concert.
If you ever seen you too you see that there's a point in which Bono it stops kind of being a concert and it kind of turns philosophy.
It kind of turns like asking big questions and one of the lingering questions that are always asked at these YouTube concerts were always look at all these global events.
Where is there any hope for bringing redemption in midst of the mess?
And that question is posed to us here by second Peter.
And Peter wants to remind us of four things.
I've given you the blanks so you can just focus on listening, you can take notes if you want to.
But he calls us in verses 1 and 2 to be a remembering church.
He calls us in verses 3 to 7 to be a discerning church, knowing.
He calls us in verses 8 to 12 to be a holy church to lead lives of repentance.
And he calls us in verse 13 to be a hopeful church.
A church that is full of hope as we hasten and we await the day of the Lord.
And I wonder quite frankly if that's true of Trinity.
I pray that it is.
Let's dive in and let's expose ourselves to the word to see if it changes us.
First, a remembering church verses 1 and 2.
How many teachers do we have in here?
People who work in in teaching?
I see a couple hands there.
There's a couple of days, there's a couple of days in the year where where the kids get to stay home and you you get to stay.
You get to stay because you get to do professional training of some sort, right?
Every industry usually has continuing education.
Usually in October and January, the teachers at Rejoice or Towasso or you know any of the private schools around the metro area, they will train.
And training is important for professionals and you know what's also important for it's also important for Christians.
And coming into worship every week is kind of like training.
It is training.
And one of the chief things that the Old Testament says that we are to train in is the art of remembering.
Remember when in Genesis chapter 28 when Jacob had the the dream of the angels ascending and descending the stairway to heaven.
Do you remember what he did?
But the pillar that was under his neck as a pillow, the next day he set that pillar up.
He had it called it a Jordan Stone.
in Genesis chapter 28:18.
And he said, the Lord This is the Lord's house.
Later on in second Samuel chapter or first Samuel chapter seven, remember Samuel sets up what he calls he names the stones.
He calls them Ebonizers because the Lord had delivered Israel from the Philistines.
He set up stones of remembrance.
You see all of these weird things in the Old Testament.
They're setting up stones.
If you've ever been hiking, you see on the mountain sometimes that people will stack stones on top of each other.
Those are little Ebenezer's to remind them that they were once there if they ascend that peak again, they'll be able to find their stone.
And Joshua after they crossed the Jordan River, what is the first thing they did?
They said, we've got to remember this.
And they set up stones in order to remember.
And it's not just in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, it's also in the prophets.
Isaiah 51, he says, "I am he who comforts you.
Who are you to fear mortal men, the sons of men which are like grass?" And have you forgotten the Lord, your maker?" Isaiah 51:12 and 13.
Or Psalm 103, the whole Psalm is about remembering.
He says, "Forget And if you're a if you're a board member of an organization, you know what this is like.
If you're a leader, certainly elders in this church, we know what this is like.
It's easy to say, "Well, these are our core values." This is the mission of our organization.
And then if you don't keep remembering, there is something very real called mission creep.
And And it happens in the church, and it happens in your heart.
For Trinity, we've always been dead set on showing that grace changes everything.
By resting in worship, growing in community, and rediscovering your calling, whether it's butcher, baker, candlestick maker, minister, whatever it happens to be, wherever you are, we have to remind ourselves of this truth and that you live lives out of profound gratitude for the grace that God has given to you, knowing that he in the end we are not we don't live cyclical lives.
It is linear.
Jesus is going to finish what he promised.
Hallelujah.
Remembering is not just an intellectual exercise when you think well remember okay well intellect I got to remember.
You know how it's like There's so many examples in your life when you will do something and you will say to yourself, "I will never do that again." Or from now on I will do this.
And you know how often it is you forget those very things.
What the Old Testament means by remembering and what Peter is drawing from here is he is trying to help us understand that to remember is more than intellect.
It is a kind of controlling consciousness.
It is the operating system of your life.
It is consistently remembering the grand story of why you exist.
Putting yourself not in the context of your just unique span of life, but placing yourself as we do in worship under the story of scripture, knowing that we live between the time of Pentecost and the time of his return.
And that we remind ourselves of this great story again and again and again.
And one of the things that the Bible says is a major component of sin is our forgetfulness, our controlling consciousness.
We are controlled by a different story and so we must remember the dislocation of the heart.
And so when we fear, we have forgotten Jesus's victory when we face criticism and it just destroys us.
We have forgotten that in Christ, we are accepted because he went to the cross to make all those things possible.
And of course, those are hard to believe at the time.
That's why you have to keep remembering.
And you have to continually allow yourself to be refreshed because there are as James Taylor says, "There are a cross or Charles Taylor, sorry, I'm thinking about uh concerts.
Charles Taylor, the great Canadian philosopher.
There are all kinds of cross-currents that attempt to distract us and to get us off of the gospel.
And so, isn't it interesting that right after Peter in chapter one lays out all the beautiful qualities in verses eight and nine of second Peter chapter one of what a Christian should look like.
He says, "But having forgotten." And then in second Peter chapter 1:12, he says, "I want to always remind you." And then at 13, to stir you up by a way of reminder.
And then verse 16, "When we made known to you." He's reminding them.
And then in verse 19 of chapter 1, "You will do well to pay attention." And then in verse 20, "Knowing this and then in chapter 3, he picks up on that idea and he says, "I'm trying to stir you you up by sincere mind in Greek, it's a play off of a phrase Plato is used.
It was a catch phrase of the day.
I'm trying to stir you up so that you are honest about your ability to pay attention.
I'm trying to stir you up by way of reminder that you should again verse two, remember the predictions, verse three, knowing, verse eight, don't overlook this one fact.
I mean it's as though Peter is trying to say, "Hello, will you be a remembering church?" Our ability to grow through perseverance or growing perseverance through persecution is dependent upon our ability to remember.
Because what is waiting for the Lord's return but a kind of slow and chronic persecution, perseverance, though certainly momentarily and light, no doubt about it.
But it kind and it eats at you.
And unless you remember, unless you remember, you will begin to think like these shoppers that maybe he's not really coming again.
Peter says, not only should you remember, but he tells you what to remember.
He says, "Look, he says, I want you to remember the predictions, verse two, of the holy prophets.
These are I mean of the Old Testament fathers, of the fathers.
This is the Old Testament fathers, the patriarchs that he wants you to remember.
And the the commands of the apostles.
The Old Testament prophets promised that Jesus has come, one day will come so that one day our sins will be remembered no more.
When God made a new covenant with Jeremiah, you remember in Jeremiah 31:34, he says, "I will remember your sins no more." And the author of Hebrews in chapter 8:12 and chapter 10:17, quotes Jeremiah 31 and says, "You have had your sins remembered no more." Amen?
That is good news.
How is that possible?
How could we believe the words of the Old Testament, prophets, the fathers?
Well, the answer of course is the cross.
Because on the cross, Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Do you know what that means?
It means that Jesus was forgotten so that you would never be.
Your savior was abandoned, forgotten on the cross.
The sky turned dark so that you would always be Remembered by the Father through the work of the Son.
And so we are called to be people who remember because we trust and value and see the beauty of what Jesus has done for us.
Then he says the commandments of Jesus through the apostles.
This takes us back to the very end of chapter 1 and verses 18 and 19, right?
No prophecy of scripture, some of you know this verse.
Is ever written by man's own interpretation, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
So Paul's first I mean Peter's first point is you need to be a remembering church.
Remember.
Secondly, you need to be a discerning church verses 5 to 7.
For they deliberately overlook this fact.
He says rather verse 3 knowing this first of all knowing this first of all that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
Scoffers will come with scoffing, they will follow their own epithumia, their own over desires, good desires that have become idolatrous towards something besides God and therefore sinful.
He wants you to be aware that there will be scoffers.
Scoffers is the same word used for scoffers that were used of the soldiers toward Jesus in Luke chapter 23, same word used in Hebrews chapter 11 where they were mocked and whipped.
He says of the saints who faced persecution.
We want to be aware of the scoffers who follow their own sinful desires.
And we dealt back with that in chapter two, last week's sermon and the one before that that Pastor Nathan preached.
And their real objection here is that God doesn't seem to intervene.
This is where the Greek gets really tricky.
They're saying, listen, where is the promise of this coming?
God doesn't ever seem to be intervening at all in the works of man.
And so in verse 5, Peter says, "Well, no creation shows the opposite.
They deliberately overlook this fact." This is his retort.
Look at the scriptures with me.
But the heavens existed long ago and the Earth was formed out of water, through water, by the word of God.
Do you remember Genesis chapter 2, the spirit of God is hovering over the waters.
And he spoke.
This is a reference back to creation.
And then he says it is by his word and his power where not only was creation caused to be out of nothing, but also God judged the world world with the same elements of water and word in the flood.
Genesis 6:9 Oh, God intervenes.
He created the world.
You're even asking the question that shows you God intervenes.
Number two, the flood proves that God intervenes with judgment.
That's verse six and then verse seven, he upholds justice.
He says in verse seven, "But by the same word the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction for the ungodly.
He might have said they'll be judged again by water, but he can't say that because he promised Noah he never judged the world by water.
So now it's by fire.
And the Greek there is it's by fire that means to expose the truth.
So that everything will be exposed.
Things are being kept.
Oh, the Lord intervenes, Peter is trying to say.
And therefore you need to be a discerning church.
You need to be have an ear that knows the God gospel and knows Orthodox Christianity so well that you can identify the counterfeit.
And you can hear it when you're beginning to doubt the element, the core elements of what it means to be a believer.
And certainly we are not deists.
We believe that God intervenes and thank goodness he does, but he loves you with a love that is indescribable in any language much less English.
And he comes to you and he reminds you that he wants you to remember what he's done and he wants you to be a discerning church.
Thirdly, he said I want you to be a holy church.
Why the delay?
Look at verse 8.
But don't overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day.
Why the delay?
First of all, because you're loved, beloved.
He wants you to recognize how loved you are.
Not only are you loved, second The reason why Peter shows us that he's delayed is because it's not because he forgot.
He quotes Psalm 90:4 here.
Psalm 90:4 contrasts the the eternality of God with the short lifespan of humans.
And second Peter 3:8 contrasts the eternality of God's patience with the impatience of human expectations.
He's sitting up a contrast in this verse.
Do you see it?
And he's pulling in this verse from Psalm, Psalm 90:4 to illustrate it.
So, you are loved.
That's why he has delayed.
He wants you to know it.
You're beloved.
Number two, it's not because he has forgotten his promise.
He stands outside of time and views time in a totally different way than you and I do.
I'd love to talk about that more some other time.
Let's go for it.
It's beautiful to imagine God standing outside of time and yet upholding all things by the word of his power.
Three, the reason why he's delayed because he is patient towards you.
Toward you all in Greek, it's an accusative plural, which means he's patient towards all of you.
Why is he patient towards you?
Because here's the secret.
He wants you to come to repentance.
Some of us will say, "Well, Lord Jesus, would you just come right now?
Please someday come right now." And we all want to say that that's how the Bible ends.
Come Lord Jesus, come.
Yes, come, Father, even before this sermon ends, please.
And yet we also know that in a very real way there are things that you have hidden.
And that you're even hiding this morning that he wants you to be able to admit "Lord, I walk in repentance and faith in this area of my life.
Would you protect me from the addictions, from the lust, from the tongue, from the greed?
Would you, Lord, would you take my life and let it be holy only all to thee?" He's delayed, but Peter says because he is patient towards you.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, but he is patient towards you, not one team, not wishing that any of you should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
His love for you is so great.
It is like a parent who longs for his child to choose what is beautiful and what is good.
And he will let you make stupid decisions because he has a far greater affection, namely the maximization of his own glory.
And he will glorify himself and he invites you into that story of his glory by walking in faith and repentance.
Do you see it?
A remembering church, a discerning church, a holy church.
He is not saying here that the that the earth is just going to burn up, that everything is going to disappear.
He's saying that it's going to be exposed.
It's a metaphor in Greek that he's using to say Everything will be exposed.
We know that there is a new heavens and a new earth.
We know this from Isaiah 65 and 66 and Revelation 21 and 22.
We know it even here as it's intimated at the very end in verse 13.
There is a new heavens and a new earth.
The earth does not just get annihilated and destroyed.
It is remade.
It is made beautiful.
But everything's sinful.
Everything's unrighteous is burned and it is exposed and it is judged.
And oh my friends, we are covered in the blood of Jesus.
We have freedom therefore because of his record for us.
Do not need to hold anything back from the father because he knows you.
Your father knows you.
He already knows what you're trying to hide.
Bring it into the light.
He's delaying his return so that we can bring it into the light and let them light and anesthetize.
Let it cleanse.
Let it help us grow.
That's why we have community groups.
We want people to walk alongside you because it's great as impressive as many of you are, you can't not do life by yourself.
We have to remember be discerning, be a holy church.
He gives an illustration in verse 10 like a thief.
About 10 years before this, Paul wrote with the same metaphor in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 5:2 do, but how Jesus will come like a thief in the night.
It is any moment.
Jesus says, he can come at any moment.
Matthew 24:20 uh 42.
Would you see the pillar of his love and patience for you?
Would you walk in repentance even as you come to the table this morning?
There was a uh an old story you may have heard me tell this before about a about a flight And the story is the man who was in the house as it was flooding, he went on he went outside and there was a guy who came by on a Jeep and he said, "Hey, get in, get in, it's going to flood." And the guy says, "No, no, no, no, God's going to save me.
God's going to save me." You've heard the story.
And then he he waits in the house and it gets up and and there's a boat that comes by and the guy in the boat says, "Hey, get in the boat.
There's a flood and you're going to die.
Get in the boat." And he goes, "No, no, no.
God's going to save me.
God's going to save me." And then he comes up on the roof and the helicopter comes by and drops a rope and says grab the rope.
We're trying to save you.
And he was, "No, God's going to save me.
God's going to save me." And he drowns.
And he stands before the Lord and he says, "Lord, why didn't you save me?" And he says, "Well, buddy, I sent you a Jeep, a boat, and a helicopter." And in a very real way, he sent you this church.
to preach the gospel.
And to give me and Mark and Nathan the elders of this church an opportunity to preach the gospel that you might walk in repentance and not harden your heart.
And he's given you this table so that you physically have to walk to the table for those of you who are able to walk up here and take the elements as a visible reminder that Jesus is spiritually present in this place by his spirit and he intends to change you through ordinary means of grace like preached the preached word and the table of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he's calling you and begging you and yearning and I don't know how to say it any more deeply, but would you walk in repentance and would you just throw your hands open and say Lord nothing in my hands I bring simply to your cross I cling.
Naked come to thee for dress helpless look to thee for grace foul I to the fountain fly wash me savior or I die.
And if it's true that God is indeed going to come, he will return.
And if we must be remembering and a discerning and a holy church, it means also that we must be a hopeful church because look at verse 13.
It says, "But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Friends, we are waiting.
Prostekaio in Greek.
We are looking forward to it.
We are on the tip of our toes.
We have it marked on our calendar.
We have it with a magnet on our fridge.
Lord, the Lord is going to come and so therefore let us be remembering and discerning a holy walking in repentance.
Notice that Peter said it is a walking in repentance, it is a mark of your holiness.
And a hopeful kind of church.
And if we are going to be the kind of church that people around a was in Tulsa are impressed by, it's not going to be because you're good, righteous people.
It's going to be because you're humble people.
You're hopeful people.
You walk in repentance.
You don't always have the right answers because the questions will always change go to us.
But we stand before the Lord and we say, "Oh Lord, we long to not listen to the talk of scoffers, but we long to submit the whole of our life to you." And the good news for you and for me means that if God is going to be the judge, and he's the only one who deserves to be the judge, and only he's the one who's righteous enough to be the judge.
He's the one who forgives.
He forgave us in Christ.
How can we not have postures of forgiveness toward those who wrong us, if we've been wronged.
Only God deserves to be the judge because only he's wise.
He knows what others are responsible for, you don't.
He knows what they know.
We don't know what that person really has coming.
And so it's good news because it means that you don't have to try to exert yourself and your own judgment toward others.
We are off the hook.
Those who have wronged you will either be forgiven through true repentance or God will give them what is just.
And so we don't have to exert ourselves to do that.
That is God's job.
Hallelujah.
So that you too concert, you may remember the way that Bono ends all these concerts.
As he invites the whole congregation to sing Psalm 40.
I waited patiently for the Lord, he inclined and heard my cry.
He lifted me up out of the pit, out of the my reclaim, and I will sing.
And ever since the early 80s, they stumbled upon this Psalm and they just put it to music.
And the irony is they invite people to ask these huge large questions about how do we turn the world to right in this concert by these four guys in their band called U2 and then they end and they probably just sing.
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In the whole crowd just yells to sing this song.
As you come to the table today, we say we sing a new song.
Because we are remembering, we are discerning, we are a holy and we are a hopeful church, not because of your righteousness, but because the righteousness of your savior who went to the cross and rose again for you and ascended.
as our king.
That's right.
Father, would you protect us as the people from forgetting what you've done for us?
As stoppers tempt us to believe that you aren't coming again, would you remind us that we are to be discerning?
That what you say is true in your word, help us to believe it, to lean into it.
God, help us to lead lives of holiness, not taking advantage of your grace.
It proves that we don't really understand grace in the first place, sir.
What it costs you in giving up of your son.
Jesus, thank you that because of your ascension to the Father's right hand on this ascension Sunday, we can have hope because of your promise, we are awaiting the new heavens and the new earth.
Made this story Be our controlling consciousness this week as you remember and always we pray in Jesus name.

Sermon transcript is computer generated.