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Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to day one of our last look,
last week of 2 Peter chapter 3. This short book goes by really fast, but wow, it
has a lot of important truths for our lives. We've been looking through this
book at the ingredients, three ingredients, to what I've called a fall-free
faith.

How do you keep on keeping on in the Christian life? What do you have to have in
your life that keeps you faithful in God's faithfulness? Well, the three keys
are, first, you look inward, not outward.

You look at what God wants to do in your character instead of what's happening
in your circumstances. If you look at your circumstances, you're not going to
make it because they go up and down, but God's faithfulness in what he wants to
do in your character is going to go on and on. The second thing you look at is
you look at God's word and not man's word.

God's teaching has been leading us to a fall since the Garden of Eden, so you
always listen to God's word and not what some human being has to say. This week
we're going to take a look together at the fact that you look forward and not
backward. You look forward to what God wants to do.

This third chapter, Peter starts it by saying in verse 1, "This is my second
letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I've tried to stimulate your
wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. " Peter says here he wants to
stimulate your wholesome thinking. As important as wholesome foods might be, and
they are important, wholesome thinking is even more important because it has to
do with who you are.

It has to do with who you're going to be all the way into eternity. He talks in
these verses about how we're to have wholesome thinking about the future. He
says very simply in this chapter that wholesome thinking, healthy thinking about
the future includes two truths, the truth number one that scoffers will come and
the truth number two that Jesus will come.

Let's look at the first truth first, the more negative one in some ways, but
also in some ways the one that's more encouraging to us because it helps us to
realize the truth about this world. Scaffers will come, he says. In verses 2 to
7, Peter writes, "I want you to remember what the Holy Prophet said long ago and
what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.

Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days, scoffers will come
mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, 'What happened
to the promise that Jesus is coming again? '" Before the time of our ancestors,
everything has remained the same since the world was first created.

They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command
and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water and
then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by
the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They
are being kept for the day of judgment when ungodly people will be destroyed.

So Peter writes here and he says, "Here's the simple truth, this world is not
going to last. It's not meant to. There's a new heaven and new earth that's
going to last forever.

This world where there is evil, where there is sin, where there is selfishness,
it's not going to last. " But he says scoffers will make fun of that. Now people
who make fun of God's plan for the world, people who make fun of Jesus' second
coming, that's who he's talking about here.

And they are people who see this earth as a very material place. As a place
that's their playground, as a place that's for their selfishness. They don't see
it as spiritual at all because they're not connected at all with the creator,
the one who made this world.

So they scoff. And it's common. It's common to make fun of what you don't
understand so they make fun of it.

It's even more common to scoff at what scares you. And of course they're scared
of the future because they have no confidence in it. They have no faith in God
who can give us, who's the only one who can give us confidence in the future.

So they will come. Jesus said scoffers will certainly come. So do not let them
make you think that you can't trust the truth.

Now he says their motivation is not wisdom. They don't have some special wisdom
from God to say these things. And it's not even concern for you or for other
people.

He says here their motivation is evil desire. Jesus said following their own
evil desire they will do this. That is the simple formula for ruining your life.

Just follow your own evil desire. Just do what you want. The formula for living
the best life is to do what God wants, to do God's will.

As Peter talks about these scoffers he points to their two main arguments and
they're not much of an argument at all. He says the first argument is well what
hasn't happened won't happen. That's their argument.

Where is the coming that he promised? It hasn't happened yet so certainly it
won't happen. Well you can think of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of
things in this world that hadn't happened yet that eventually did happen.

Even things that we have invented that were not invented before and God is much
greater than our inventions. So it's a foolish argument but it's an emotional
argument that many people tie into. And then the philosophical argument they
have is what hasn't happened cannot happen.

The argument that it's always been this way from the beginning and Peter says
that's no argument at all. It's not true at all he says. If you look back from
the very beginning things have changed from the very beginning.

God has been at work in this world and the world has not been the same from the
beginning nor will it be the same at the end. Two answers that Peter has to
these two main arguments. The first answer is God's promise can be trusted.

Where is this coming that he promised? You can trust God's promise a lot more
than their scoffing. We're going to talk about this tomorrow a little bit more.

God is not late. He doesn't wear a watch. He doesn't own a calendar.

God is outside of time. He is greater than time. A day is a thousand years and a
thousand years is a day.

He's never in a hurry. He is never late. God is not slow.

He is patient. He is patient for the salvation of everyone he's calling to come
to him. And time equals opportunity.

So he says God's promise can be trusted. That's why you shouldn't listen to the
scoffers. We'll talk about that a little more tomorrow.

And then he says God's creation can be changed. God is at work dynamically in
his creation. Don't forget he says there was a creation before there was a
creation there was nothing and so God brought everything out of nothing.

Things have changed. Don't forget he said there was a flood and all of that
creation was destroyed so that God could begin again. He says they deliberately
forget the obvious truth of that flood.

Now by the way the flood is an illustration here of God's principles of divine
judgment. God's judgment is never arbitrary. You can see that in the flood.

You're going to see that in the final judgment. God always warns of his
judgment. You saw that in the flood and we're seeing that even now through the
New Testament as God warns towards the end of time.

God always grants time for repentance. We're going to talk about that in these
verses and God always keeps his word. You could see that in the flood and these
same principles you can see as we look forward to the second coming of Christ.

And so Peter says do not let yourself get focused on these scoffers. Their
arguments don't hold up because they're arguments that are based on wanting the
world to be something different than it is. It's not their world.

It's God's world and I am extremely glad that that's true. This is not the
scoffer's world. This is your father's world and that's why you can have a sense
of confidence in this world.

That's why you can have a sense of hope no matter what happens in your
circumstances or in the circumstances of this world because we are looking
forward to God's promise. In a prayer for just these next few moments, let's
just talk to him and look forward with him. Our father, we thank you that you
not only created this world, you made every one of us, but you are looking
forward to creating a new heaven and earth where we will live with you for all
eternity.

And whatever people say in this world, whatever circumstances happen in this
world, we are confident in your promise because you've always kept your promise.
Our circumstances don't always work out like we think they're going to, but your
promise is always kept. And so right now in this moment, we look forward with
hope to your promise.

Let that be our hope. Let that be our confidence. Let that be the rock that we
stand on.

We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Join us tomorrow. We're going to look more
deeply at the patience of God.