2 Peter 3:14

Sermon Style Sheet

Write that down in your formation Journal

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Sermon Text

Sermon Text: Scripture

Call to Worship

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Psalm 145:1–2 CSB

1 I exalt you, my God the King, and bless your name forever and ever. 2 I will bless you every day; I will praise your name forever and ever.

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Passage:

Formation Journal Page Number: 5:43- 6:39 7:15- 8:00

2 Peter 3:14–18 CSB

14 Therefore, dear friends, while you wait for these things, make every effort to be found without spot or blemish in his sight, at peace. 15 Also, regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. 16 He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them. The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures. 17 Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stable position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

Opening Illustration:

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You had in russia - we have one job Three figure - worth over a million

As a christian you have one job - grow in grace and knowledge of Christ. That’s the focus. The focus is not better behavior. The focus is not on being happy. The focus is on growing in grace and knowledge of Christ, and everything else flows out of that. And so that’s what we are going to really be focused on today- looking at the one job, don’t get bored and start doodling on paintings, gorw in Christ. Your relationship with God.

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Getting into the Sermon

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He is summariziing the teaching of the book.

2 Peter 3:14 CSB

14 Therefore, dear friends, while you wait for these things, make every effort to be found without spot or blemish in his sight, at peace.

And this is what he is talking - we said this with 1 peter - but here’s the point God wants to make you beautiful by making you holy. Holiness is important. Living without spot or blemish. That’s what he wants.

Remember, he has been warning people that false teachers are going to come and they are going to say that the way we live doesn’t matter. They deny the reality of God’s judgement. So he is saying, it does matter.

But we do need to have that in mind. Ok we do. It is possible to live this way. That we are without blemish and also at peace.

Peace comes through repentance. which means giving up your secret life

we don’t have peace because we have a secret life (school vs church) (work and then come home you are something else) Outwardly you live one way inwardly you eaten up with envy and greed.

SO what he is talking about, is a whole life. A life that inward and the outward match. You are one.

Now of course, you can’t live out perfectly which is why we have repentance.

It’s not that hard. You are reconciled to God. You can’t be reconciled without it.

Prayer of confession each week - just like Rafael says

Ok but here’s the deal - this isn’t the primary job though. It is important but your primary job is to grow in grace and knowledge of Christ and from that you will have the strength to live this way.

2 Peter 3:15–16 CSB

15 Also, regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. 16 He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them. The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.

We talked about this last week. Some people who are here would have been lost if Jesus came back last year.

God isn’t lazy he is merciful.

But let’s flip that, there are people right now, that you know, in your circle of influence than would be lost if Jesus came back today. But with ever day he waits, it gives us more time to to be strategic about sharing our faith and live for God.

Every day God waits, gives us more time to be strategic about reaching out to the lost. invite someone to church - testimony or jesus got me through story

God is working out his plan, we participate in it.

But here’s the deal, evangelism is important. You should do it, but it isn’t your primary job. Your primary job is to grow in grace and knowledge and evangelism will then flow out of that.

2 Peter 3:17 CSB

17 Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stable position.

Be on your guard - The enemy is trying to destroy you. He wants you lead astray. He wants you to sink your faith, he wants you marginalized.

How are you going to stand firm?

2 Peter 3:18 CSB

18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

So instead of falling from our stable position, he wants us to grow in the grace and knowledge. He wants us to grow.

This is the job. Grow in grace and knowledge - here’s what this means, The most important thing as a christian is a vibrant relationship with God. It’s not tasks. The tasks are important but they flow out of the vibrant relationship with God.

Knowledge - your getting to know the bible the word, because it’s what God spoke. Growing in experiencing a relationship with God - you get to know him

Grow in grace- not that you get more saved, or that you get more grace, its’ that the grace you have is applied to your life in a greater way so that you become more like Jesus.

It’s relationship grounded in truth.

It’s not a too do list.

There’s a few things we need to address first.

Underlying assumptions are the unspoken foundations of what we believe.

First, there is theology of how we grow. Which is Sanctification. What does this mean?

We often think of our christian life as a checklist that we can never fulfill.

There are two major wrong ways to think about your christian life.

Both of them center on this. The idea that you are a failure.

The most pervasive underlying assumption is that you are a failure

So many people live like the christian life is impossible. You can never be good enough. You need to keep on trying and trying and trying but you are supposed to try with the knowledge that nothing is going to please God. You are never good enough. You are always a disappointment and essentially a lot of people, a lot Christians live beleiving they are spiritual losers.

Right there’s even some, where the focus is so strongly on your motivations that nothing can be right. There is some line of thinking that right behavior with an unhappy heart is just as bad as wrong behavior with happy heart.

So for example, if you are trying to overcome a pornogaphy addiction. you resist. You don’t do it. There’s some, that would say, well, but your heart wasn’t filled with joy for God, so you still sinned.

but I don’t believe that - God is more generous in his opinion of you then you think. He is. He knows our weakness and so our efforts please him. There is sin, of course, but not all sin is equally bad.

The larger catechism uses the phrase - “All transgressions of the law of God are not equally heinous” reminds me of Bill and Teds.

There’s others, that say that God any time you mess up, God is equally upset with you. So for example, let’s say you are fighting gossip, and you used gossip every day. And then now, then you go three months without gossiping but you go out with your friends, you fall back into it.

And you say, gosh, I haven’t changed at all. I haven’t grown at all.

This view sees God as an exacting task master who can never be pleased with your behavior or your growth.

And so you feel like a failure and the question becomes, what time of failure are you. There’s two types.

First lie - is that you are the unloved step child. There’s people who feel like the unloved step child. God the Father is just angry you are there. Jesus brought you into the family but the Father, can’t stand you. Some of you feel that, or you struggle with that. God is always angry.

You are not the unloved step-child you are the beloved son or daughter.

But there is a second way to live as a failure, that’s as the lovable rogue - The lovable rogue sees themself as a screwup who is loved by God. And in some ways that’s better. At least know God loves you. But your self conception, the way you see yourself, is still as a loser. you still think you’re a screwup. You still you are a failure.

And so when it comes to growing in Christ, you say, well, I can’t. Some of you are tired just hearing that thought. I can’t. I’m the unloved stepchild forced upon the father. Or I’m the lovable rogue who can never get it right.

But that’s not what Peter says about you. Look at what he says - he says you can be spotless. You can be at peace. You can please God.

You are living through the power of the spirit, living through your union with Christ

His assumption is that Christians are in a stable position! - that you are not in a bad position, but that you are in a stable position and he doesn’t want you to fall.

Listen, every struggles with sin, but the vast majority of you are doing ok. A lot of you are doing great. You are growing and excited about God. That’s exciting. You are excelling.

Some of you, are stil in the game and you feel like a loser, but Peter says, you are on stable ground. My guess is you are doing better in the christian life than you think.

I’m a christian optimist - I think Peter was too.

You are not a failure that i want you to get your act together - you are someone who is doing well but I want to see thrive. And if you are thriving- then I hope you catch this, and your like, yeah, let’s help other thrive.

So the problem with the loser mentality isn’t just that you are discouraged and don’t have joy, that’s a problem but it isn’t the biggest the problem.

The biggest problem is this, losers give up. Losers stay weak. Losers don’t grow.

Christian, you are not a loser. That’s not what you are. You have access to a power beyond your belief. You can get access to realtionship with God that will bring you significant peace. You have the ability to overcome sin to live in victory. To be spotless and without blemish. Not perfectly but heading in the right direction.

But it isn’t because all people have a certain inner strength. It isn’t getting a hold of the power of positive thinking. That’s garbage. Sorry, think poissitivly but that’s not the power.

Here’s the power, Gospel we become new.

We have Christ’s ___righeousenss_______ but we also have Christ’s ___power___!

We have the Spirit indwelling in us, giving us power. You are different than a lost person. You are a different species than an unbeliever because you have the Holy Spirit. That’s the power that you have.

You have that. And that power unites you to Christ. A famous theologian, John Calvin, says that our union with Christ is so significant that everything that Christ is entitled to you are entitled to. So if Christ deserves heaven, and he does, then you deserve heaven. If Christ can have victory over sin, and he obviously does, then so can you.

If Christ is spiritually significant, then so are you. Not because all peoplea are that way but because you are something new and different. You are a new creation.

Do you think about that? It’s important to know that because of what I’m about to talk about.

You need to know that growing in Christ, sanctification, is growing in your connection to the Holy Spirit that you already have and that is already pulsating in you with unspeakable power. You deepen your relationship with Christ accessing more of the power of your union in you ability to overcome sin.

So we grow in God, not through accomplishing tasks. Not through giving up, but by growing in that connection.

And God gave us tools to grow in that connection - to grow in grace, which is what Peter is talking about.

call the means of grace.

Remember, in theology means refers to methods. The means of grace are the methods of growing in grace, growing our relationship with Christ.

Means of grace

is a daily relationship with him. But the main thing I want to talk about is a quiet time. Sometimes, they are called other things but I want you to have a quiet time.

I want you to have a quiet time. That’s important to me because I want you to grow in your relationship with Christ.

Here’s the deal, the way I will measure success at Mercy Hill isn’t through the attendance, it isn’t through the budget. Obviously we need to grow in people and giving to become self sustaining but that isn’t my vision.

The measure of success in Mercy Hill is the Christians we produce. My measure of success for Mercy Hill is going to be not in the size of the attendance or budget but in the christians we produce. Are we producing people with a vibrant relationship with God.

I’ll tell you that’s the most important thing to me. When I talk about dreaming about your greatness or praying for your greatness, that’s what I am talking about.

I want you to have a vibrant relationship with God. That’s what’s important to me. And one of the major steps for that is the quiet time.

This is important to understand it through the lens of relationship growth because otherwise when I talk about quiet times, it is just viewed as a task that I need to do. A box I need to check.

I don’t want you to have a completed checklist I want you to have a vibrant relationship.

So one of the key’s to developing a deeper relationship with God, a vibrant relationship with God is through your quiet times and we’ve given everyone a few tools for that, so let me go over them real quick.

First, is the worksheet how to have a quiet time, It is really about planning your quiet time. If we don’t plan ahead, we are going to let the busyiness of life get in the way. So if you are struggling with your quiet times, take this home and work through these steps. Look at the attached weekly calendar and find 5 days where you can set aside a 30 minute block of time for this.

Prepare in advance, get the coffee ready, choose the chair you will sit in, if you need your spouse to help with the kids, plan together. You may have to be flexible, but it’s just a plan.

Then there is the Formation journal. You can use the app if you don’t have one or you can grab one in the back. It walks you through SOAP. Where you look at a passage and say what sticks out to me? What is God teaching me? How do I apply it?

Now it can be hard, so we have the cheat sheet. THis is on the app but I gave you this week’s. Here is what it has.

grow in grace and knowledge of our lord and savior that is your job!

Ok, so then there are a few objections I want to address here. The first is about time. I don’t have time. Most of the time, we can find the time if we organize.

However, there are season where that may not be true. You may be morning to night.

Amber’s pregnagncy.

The enemies lie - if it can’t be done right, it is dishonoring to God. That’s a lie. Get the Bible app and listen to it while your drive. Read it in the bathroom. Whatever it takes. You are in a season, it will get better. Then you will grow deeper.

He is sympathetic to your weakness

The next objection is this: reading my bible is drudgery. I don’t get anything out of it. Well, we have tools. But here is where the problem mostly exists. Anytime you are getting to know someone it is awkward at first.

Push through that. And you will start to learn in new and powerful ways.

Finally, people say - I can’t understand it. I’m not smart enough. Everyone here has a detailed knowledge of something. Could be work - asbestos abatement. Could be a hobby - cards, video game worlds, stock market, tv shows. Downton abbey.

All of that proves something - you have what it takes.

Listen, here’s what Peter is telling you - when it comes to Christ you are not a loser. You are not a failure. You can do so much more than you think. You are a new creation and you are united with Christ, so draw on that spiritual power and grow in your relationship with God.

And as you do, you will then overflow. You will have strength to overcome sin. You will be able to live spotless - not perfectly spotless, but in a way that pleases God. You will be able to share your faith. You will be able disciple people.

Everything we want to accomplish outside of the church, all the outreach, all the care, all the impact, starts in you. And it will only be accomplished as you grow deeper in your vibrant relationship with God. You are the fountain that the spirit flows into and out of into the community.

Mercy Hill, listen, you are not a failure. You know what you are- you know what I see, what God see’s when he looks at you - You are a city on a hill. You are light to our community. You are the fountain that the Holy Spirit flows into and then out of, pouring out into the community as your relationship with God deepens and you grow in accessing the power of the Holy Spirit!

So let’s do that together!

Lord’s Supper:

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

Benediction:

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.