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(upbeat music) - Welcome back for day three of our Look Through Second Peter,
chapter three. Yesterday, we began to look at one of the most important
character qualities you need for living a forward-looking life, a hopeful life.
You need the quality of patience.

And we talked yesterday about the need to wait for the Lord instead of simply
waiting for the answer. Today, we're going to talk about two other keys to looking
forward with patience in your life. As you wait for whatever God has you to wait
for, but most specifically in this part of Second Peter, as you and I wait
together for Jesus to come again.

First, you wait for the Lord. Second, don't wait alone. Do not wait alone,
because you are not alone.

There's a huge difference between waiting alone and waiting in a crowd of people
that you know are with you. It's the difference between loneliness and
fellowship. It's the difference between you get stuck in an airport somewhere
because of weather and you're all alone.

And you have to be stuck there for six hours. It's a pretty lonely experience.
But let's say you're in a group of 50 people and you're stuck there for six
hours.

It's an entirely different experience because you have fellowship. Now, it's not
enough just to be in a crowd, obviously. There are some crowds you'd rather not
be with.

It has to be the right crowd. So let me introduce you to two crowds that can
encourage you during a time of waiting. First, the crowd of all those people of
faith in the Bible, all those people that had to wait.

They can inspire your faith during a time of waiting. If you look through the
scripture from A to Z, people had to wait. Abraham, who waited for a son named
Isaac, all the way to Zechariah, who waited for a son named John, John the
Baptist.

They both waited until they were old men before their first child was born. From
first to last in the Bible, people waited, from Genesis to Revelation, from Noah
in Genesis, waiting over 100 years for the flood to come, to John in the book of
Revelation, waiting on the island of Patmos, thinking he was about to die and
then God gave him the Revelation. You look at the scriptures and the list of
people who waited is amazing.

Paul and Nehemiah and Daniel and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Joseph and
Mary and Peter and Joseph, another Joseph, David and Elijah and Ezra and Isaiah
and Aaron and Adam and Esther and Ruth and Hannah and Hosea and Gideon and John
the Baptist and Sarah and Leah and Martha and Lazarus and Joshua and Samuel and
Caleb and Naaman and Naomi. And don't forget Job. That's just a short list of
those who waited in the Bible.

You do not wait alone. The fact that you're having to wait for something, that
we're having to wait for Jesus to come again does not mean that something is
wrong with your faith. It is not that God does not hear your prayers.

Waiting is a part of the life of every great person of faith who's ever lived.
Every great person of faith in the scriptures. You are not the first to wait and
you're not alone in your waiting.

It's not like God is picking on you, making you wait. The Bible is simply full
of stories of those who waited. As we said, Abraham who waited 25 years for his
son, Noah who waited 100 years for a flood, the people of Israel who waited 400
years to be set free from Egypt.

And how long did the world wait for Jesus to come again once the promise had
been made thousands of years? You wait in a crowd and one of those crowds is all
those people of faith in the scriptures. But you also wait in another crowd.

The second crowd you wait in is the church, the church of Jesus Christ. Peter
writes these words about waiting to the church and this church of fellow
believers was to encourage each other in their waiting. The church of fellow
believers around you is to encourage you in your waiting.

You are not alone. One thing I've had to learn in my life is that God did not
design me to live my faith as an individual. One of the great American values is
that of individualism and there are some strengths to it but there's a lot of
weaknesses to it as well.

It certainly is a weakness if you think you have to live your faith
individually. You're not meant or made to live your faith all by yourself. I'll
never forget one time on a prayer retreat by myself up in the mountains talking
about a struggle of faith I was going through and God silently in my mind
encouraged me, you gotta share that struggle with other people.

Not just with me, you gotta share it with the church so you don't wait alone.
And he put this phrase in my mind, the waiting you're going through, it can be a
lonely experience of failure or it can be a shared experience of trust. You get
to choose.

Who are you going to share it with? Who are you going to share it with? One of the
great scriptures about this crowd that we wait in is Hebrews chapter 12 which
talks about being surrounded by those who have waited with faith, encouraging us
on.

So you are not alone. You wait on the Lord and you don't wait alone. And then
there's a third thing to remember that will strengthen your waiting.

Third thing to remember is God waits for you. God waits for you. Let me read 2
Peter 3.

9 that we read earlier in the new century version. The Lord is not slow in doing
what he promised the way some people understand slowness. But God is being
patient with you.

He does not want anyone to be lost but he wants all people to change their
hearts and lives. You want to strengthen your waiting, your wait ability and say
these words in your mind. God is patient with me.

God is patient with me. I think God's patience is one of his most incredible
qualities. He watches me make the same mistakes again and again and again and he
still encourages me to grow.

He watches me repeat the same sins and he patiently forgives me and keeps
working, keeps working to change me. You want to strengthen your wait ability?
Then say in your mind right now these words.

God is patient with me. God is patient with me. So as you look at your life
right now, the circumstances that you're facing, the patience of God we need in
our daily circumstances.

So you look at a business deal that you want to go through and it's not going
through. And you feel like God is somehow ignoring the situation, the
circumstance. He is not, he knows everything that's going on.

But your timetable is not his timetable. One of the keys actually to
understanding that is saying in your mind God is patient with me so I can
certainly be patient as I wait for him to act. This is true in business.

It's true in your family. As you wait for a circumstance, as you wait for a
person to change in your family, one of the hardest things to wait for is for a
person to change. It can be heartbreaking because God does not force that change
in their lives.

He waits until they make that choice. He's working for that change but he waits
until they make that choice. So as you look at that person you're hoping your
praying will change and as maybe now you're getting a little frustrated that
they're not changing fast enough.

Maybe you're frustrated with them that they're not listening to God, they're not
getting with the program. Maybe you're frustrated with God that he's not
listening to you. He's not getting with the program.

In your mind you say these words, God is patient with me. So I can certainly be
patient as God is working with them. And then in the very subject that Peter is
talking to us about here, you look at the fact that we stay in this world
waiting for Jesus to come again.

And we want it to be any day because in that day that he comes again we're going to
be in his glory for all eternity and yet we also want more people to repent. And
you think about the truth, the fact that you had to repent, that there came a
day when you had to say to Jesus Christ I want to begin to live the life that you
have for me. I personally am thrilled that Jesus waited until at least 1972
before he came again because 1972 is when I became a follower of Christ.

What if Jesus had come in 1971? So when you recognize that truth that God's
working in the hearts of people, even living in this evil world, the struggles
of this world, you say in your mind God is patient with me. So I can certainly
be patient for him to work in the lives of other people to bring them to him,
bring them to faith, bring them to repentance.

Now God's work of patience is so that more people have the time to come to this
place of repentance. So as we pray today, let's pray along with God's desire for
that. And in your heart just say God, here's the name of one person I know that
you're patiently working with right now.

They haven't come to repentance yet but I know you're working in their life.
Just bring their name to your mind. Maybe it's a neighbor, somebody in your
family, somebody at your school, your work.

And just say God, thank you that you're going to keep working. Thank you that you
won't give up on them. Thank you that you're patient with them just like you're
patient with me.

And in your patient work, I pray that you bring this person to repentance. And
Lord, in your patient work in my life, I pray that you keep reminding me that I
can trust in you, not just look for the answer. That I can wait in a crowd of
people who are also waiting, not feel like I'm alone.

And then I can remember that because you've been patient with me, you're
obviously going to be patient with others. So I put that trust in you right now, in
Jesus' name, amen. Join us tomorrow, we're going to see Peter talking about the
hope that we are patiently waiting for.