II. Peter 3:1-7 "Stiring Up the Church"

Introduction

A. When will Christ return? For some of us it couldn’t be soon enough. For others we hope it is in the distant future.

Depending on your perspective and position in life you may want it to come soon or much later.

When I was a young teenager I wanted to experience life and the older I get I am more in love with the idea of being with Jesus and the sooner He comes the better.

But Scripture tells us that the believer, regardless of their life experience should keep looking to the Lord and trusting in His purpose and plan.

And while doing that we are to stay focused on living out faithful lives before God in full anticipation of the coming of Christ.

This was the Apostolic Objective that Peter had for the Christians of the dispersion as we see in verses 1-2. Look back at your text:

I. The Apostolic Objective (1-2).

A. The Apostle Peter wanted to stir up the sincerity of their minds by reminding them (1). He wants all pretense to be remove and to be awakened to two things.

First he calls them to remember the predictions of the Old Testament prophets (2a).

This is a call to remember what the Old Testament taught regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ.

If you know the Old Testament you can easily see the prophetic fulfillment of Jesus Christ in His death, burial and resurrection.

Seeing the fulfilled prophecy in the life of Christ is a great encouragement to us in our day because we can already see partial fulfillment having come to pass that we can expect with certainty that what is not yet fulfilled is definitely going to happen.

The second thing he wants them to remember is the commandments of Christ revealed through the Apostles (2b.).

If Christ is the Messiah of God as revealed in the incarnation then it stands to reason that His commands are absolutely trustworthy.

Those commands are revealed by His commissioned Apostles.

The Christian faith is built upon the revelation of the Prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New Testament.

Ephesians 2:20 reminds us that the Church is a Spiritual house built upon the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets with Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone of that foundation.

Everything is measured out in revelation according to Him and His sovereign will as revealed in the Scriptures.

It should be of little surprise to us that the New Jerusalem mentioned in Revelation 21 has 12 foundations each with an Apostle”s name inscribed on it.

The symbolism is rich and it serves to connect the dots between the New Testament Apostolic witness and that city of the New Jerusalem in our eternal home.

If you are discouraged today Christian, I want to remind you that this world is not our home we are just passing through as we live for the purposes of God.

And Jesus Christ is the supreme sovereign over the Nations of the world. But this world system has a low view of the Christian Perspective. Look at verses 3-7

II. The Christian Perspective (3-7).

A. The Christian Perspective will be met with opposition in the last days. Know this “first of all” Scoffers will come (3-4).

Expect this to happen there will be those who will belittle your faith and your biblical worldview as you strive to live the Christian life (3).

They will mock your faith and belittle it because they are driven in their logic by their own sinful desires. Their worldview will be shaped by their desire for their sin.

They are not born again they see the world totally different than you and I do. Your Christian faith is foolishness to them.

They are not informed by the Scriptures and guided by the Holy Spirit in their thinking.

Peter gives us an example of their scoffing in verse 4: “Where is the promise of His coming?”

Life continues on and He never comes and the implied mockery is that the Christian faith is a ridiculous sham and a wasted life.

Makes total sense to them because they measure their worldview by their own sinful pleasures.

B. But Scoffers have a problem and it is a deliberate overlooking of profound truths (5-7).

They overlook the whole account of the Noahic Flood which he references in verse 5-6.

That flood was the universal reconstruction of the original creation and the means by which humanity, except for Noah and his family, was wiped out upon the earth by the judgement of God. (God has never killed a good person. They only time that happened was when Christ took our sin on himself).

Where would you learn about Noah’s Flood? From an Old Testament Prophet by the name of Moses who wrote a book called Genesis.

You would only know that if you remember the Old Testament prophets. God declared He was going to judge the wickedness of the earth and He did (Dinosaur National Monument).

They also do not connect the dots to the implications of the future judgement that is spoken of in the Old and New Testaments (7).

Peter’s logic is laid out in 2 Peter 2: 4-12. If God punished the wicked in the Old Testament Then He knows how to punish the wicked on the day of judgement.

It is amazing to me that we too often attempt to hide the very thing from scoffers that they want to ignore. The truth that there is a day of judgement coming.

If judgement is nothing to worry about I submit to you that Christianity in general makes little difference other than serving to be nothing more than a moral guide.

The blood atonement of Christ on behalf of sinners makes means nothing if all that Christianity is, is a moral guide for clean living.

III.Conclusion

A. Unbeliever I am not here to proclaim to you today moralism or three steps to the better you.

I am here to proclaim to you today the good news of Jesus Christ. The only means of salvation from the coming wrath and an invitation into a relationship with God through His finished work on the Cross.

You may even be a scoffer but the reality is that you will never be able to circumvent the Judgement seat of a Holy God.

But God sent His own Son into the world to die in the place of sinners to be our savior and pay our penalty for us. God made payment in our place on our behalf.

It may sound ridiculous to those who are driven by the desires of sin and who know nothing of God’s word but to God it is the good news of salvation. Believe the gospel.

Christian I made reference to 2 Peter 2 :4-12 earlier, that passage talks about the reality of God’s judgement but it also makes reference to the reality of God’s mercy and grace to the righteous.

Those who have had the work of Christ applied to their lives. This table reminds us of this very thing this morning.

I Corinthians 11:27-31 calls us to examine ourselves before the Lord. And we are told in that chapter that we do this in remembrance of Christ.

One might say that this table stirs us up to remember biblical truths about the gospel even as we confess our sin and know that He is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us of our unrighteousness.

May the gospel truly stir us up in preparation today.

Let’s pray!