Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 29, 2017 | Route 66 - 2 Peter

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January 29, 2017 | Route 66 - 2 Peter · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy it while it lasts.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, Melody lost her mother on Friday afternoon.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: That's what people say when uh they lose a loved one.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: But of course, she didn't lose her mother at all.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: She knows exactly where she is.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Starting at about 1.30 Friday afternoon when it became clear that Janet Janet Smith's homegoing was imminent.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: We uh her her two daughters, Melody and Cindy, gathered around the bed and her grandchildren, and we sang her favorite hymns and quoted verses and prayed.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: And about three hours later, about 4:30, 435 to be exact, she took her last breath and into his hands.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: We commended, we committed, we entrusted her spirit, and then we comforted uh each other through tears and sang Amazing Grace, especially that final stanza, about 10,000 years.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: And Melody and Cindy will drive up to Topeka this uh afternoon evening.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: So um but I share that because I know that uh more than one of you has gone through something like that just in um uh one of you has gone through that about five days ago, in fact, with your mother and others just in the last month or so.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: So um we spent a lot of time in the ICU uh at Dallas Presbyterian Hospital, second floor, one floor below where 24 years ago Melody's father passed away.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: And um, but we were not allowed, as you are not allowed in ICU, we're not allowed into the room unless we uh put on a gown and gloves, because this world is uh has germs in it, this world is uh has infections in it, this world is a dangerous place, and and so um so you have to be careful.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: And the great apostle Peter says something like that in the 61 verses that we call 2 Peter, and I want to direct you to that book this morning if you have a Bible, if you have a cell phone.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series called Route 66 if you're visiting, and um take a next book of the Bible each week, and this week it's the book of 2 Peter, uh, whose title I have, I would say would be something like Grow Ull Fall Flat.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: But uh the Apostle Peter would say that the world is a dangerous place.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: The world is full of germs, full of infections.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: But he would say they the danger, the germs and the infections, the viruses, are ideas.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: They're messages, they are words that are spoken by some of the people that you and I trust the most, by teachers, preachers, and professors.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: But some of those ideas are toxic and they're dangerous and they're pernicious.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: And and so in this book, Peter makes a big deal uh out of the fact he would say there are deadly whispers or viruses around us.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, he doesn't use these words, but as I thought about it uh down at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas's week, I thought, you know, basically you could say that there are progressive preachers, toxic teachers, and pernicious professors who Peter uh would be referring to if he was writing today, who, and yes, that is Professor Snape, uh, who who um who spout ideas which are which can be viruses and which can kill.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to, I'll show you what he says about it in his book.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: But if you ask the question, do we have toxic leaders today?
4:09
SPEAKER_00: You'd have to say yeah.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: In in church and in the academic community, of course we do.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: There's there's something on uh the web called Professor Watch List, which which is always astounded at what certain professors at universities in America will teach and will say.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: And and and you can find, you know, you can find loads of evidence.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: I'll just let's show you a couple.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh one article entitled Biased Professors Target Christianity, a psychology prophet University of California, in uh in his recent Introduction to Psychology class, states Christians are more dangerous than radical Islamists.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: A poll was a survey was taken of professors in America at over 700 schools, over 1,200 professors.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: It was taken by a Jewish agency trying to find out if there was anti-Semitism, and to its surprise and happiness, found out that only 3% of college and university professors uh seem to show bias, anti-Semitic bias, but 53% of the half of them freely admitted that they have a prejudice against evangelicals.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: And more specifically, uh you can find all these websites, a professor at Emory University, Professor Philosophy.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: If you are white, you are racist.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: There's a college Christian group that lists for incoming freshmen, Christian freshmen, watch out.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: So be prepared to hear any of these.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is a myth.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Paul's letters contradict Jesus' message of love.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: The male gender is responsible for the world's problems.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I think I agree with that one.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Number four, current translations of the Bible are not accurate.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: You need to be prepared to hear that at college.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: There are no absolute truths.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is full of inaccuracies and inconsistencies.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Tolerance means accepting all lifestyles as valid.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Human beings were not created by God.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Christians are responsible for the earth's pollution.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Must be all those cigarettes we smoke.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: But um, but so uh uh it's in the at least in the academic community, there are deadly whispers around us even today.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, when Peter speaks of it, and in the middle of his book, he his book is brilliantly arranged where he's got the solutions on either side, and he has the problem right in the middle, chapter two, of three chapters.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: What he says in chapter two is uh he starts it off by saying, beware false teachers among you who secretly introduce destructive heresies.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: That's chapter two, verse one.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: So watch out, uh you'll see you'll hear heresy.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: In verse three, he he isolates the motive of the of the of the toxic teachers in his day.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Greed.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: They're looking for success, they're looking for fame, they're looking for money, and they will exploit you with false words.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: In verse 10 of this chapter, they're they they're full of lust, they they had love to defiling passion, despise authority, verse 13.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: They revel in their deceptions.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: They entice unsteady souls.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: And then my response is: can we stop putting these people on a pedestal on TV, you know, treating them as people that we, you know, that are, you know, that we should interview for magazines and so forth.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18, for they mouth empty, boastful words, and by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, uh, uh, and we're tempted to say of college students, but it's all age.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: They entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: So the danger is lethal, and the appeal oftentimes is to lust or desire.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: So one of the things Peter says in his day is that there are deadly whispers around us, and the first of the two deadly whispers, or shall we say, infections, that that toxic teachers are spilling in his day is pamper yourself, indulge your urge.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: There are no, you know, moral, you know, there's no moral standards.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you ask the question, does this still apply 2,000 years later?
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Are there talks, are there teachers, professors, and past preachers who would ever say anything like this?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is, of course, yes.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: I was uh asked a few months ago to help teach a class for a week.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh my son asked me, they were actually using this book.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: They were using excerpts from this book.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: This book had been uh uh recommended to him.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: It's used as a textbook uh by uh a Missouri University that has a Christian name associated with it.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: It's in Washburn's League.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: And one of the uh one of a kid who goes to our church here when he's in town is a freshman there this year.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: And this is the book they're using in in first year there.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: It's a morals class and so virtuous class.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Books written by a famous guy named Peter Gomes.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't heard of him, he's passed away recently, but he was a professor of Christian morality at Harvard University, professor of Christian morality at Harvard, and rated one of the top ten preachers in America, Baptist preacher, uh, at Memorial Church in Boston.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote a book.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: He came out of the closet himself shortly after writing this book.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: The book is called The Good Book.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: It was his most famous book, Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: And in this book, and this is the chapter my son asked me to help him teach, uh, you know, students this week, he says the Bible, and I quote, is silent on the subject of abortion.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And then in this chapter he's also dealing with homosexuality.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: And he said the Bible says very little on the subject of homosexuality, and what it says pertains only to the cultural context of the biblical world.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Paul's, what Paul says about it simply cannot be applied.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: So basically, progressive preachers, toxic teachers, pernicious professors would say, you know, whatever it is that you choose to do, whether it's abortion, whether it's premarital sex, whether it's homosexuality, whether it's gay marriage, whether it's whatever, you know, feel free because there are no absolute standards.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: But Peter goes on 2,000 years ago to say, you know, there the other deadly whisper that I want to alert you to is not just the urge, the desires thing.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: It's forget Christ, he's not coming back.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: And Peter dips into that in chapter 3 when he says that know this, last days mockers will come, following after their own lusts, and saying, quote, Where's the promise of his coming?
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Ever since the fathers fell asleep, everything continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, is anybody saying that today?
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, those words in 2 Peter 3 sound eerily uh close to what's on the Freedom from Religion Foundation website.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Freedom from Religion Foundation puts up, this is one of the billboards that they've put up around the country, uh, still here.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Let's make this world better.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Christ hasn't come back.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: And um, and on the website, I read to you, Christians who believe Jesus is coming back, just keep moving the deadline back another few decades when it looks like their fairy tale won't come true.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: They're quick to tell you he's coming back in their lifetime, and they'll never admit it was all just a lie.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: At least we have no problem stating the obvious truth.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Jesus ain't coming back.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: It's up to us to make this world a better place.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: So there are folks today, sort of authority figures.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of songs, by the way, hit songs the last five, ten years, entitled Jesus Ain't Coming Back.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: And on NPR, some years back, on All Things Considered, I quote Andre Kodrescu, the evaporation of four million people who believe in this whatever would leave the world a better place, he said.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, his numbers are wrong.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: There's 140 million people in America who actually believe that Jesus is coming back and over 400 million around the world.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: But then when asked to apologize, he came on and said, I apologize for the four-letter word, but not for what I said.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Definitely can hear authority figures uh who would say something like this today.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to know that I don't, I think it's we have to be careful not to throw everything out.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: I love higher education, I love academia.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I absolutely do.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: I I love, and of course I love church.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: So, and I like NPR.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy listening to all things considered.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: But so, but it's just important to realize that amidst the cashews that you'll find at these places, there is poison oak and poison ive.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: And some people don't know how to distinguish them.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: I I made the mistake of putting something on my Facebook page about four or five years ago, and a cousin of mine who teaches science at a university in this country, I have a cousin, and he wrote me and he said, Wow, so none of us are any good.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: I said, I was just quoting one guy.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: But but you have to realize, you know, a lot of it is good, and and you don't want to come across like some narrow-minded fundamentalist who thinks that all college professors and all preachers are bad.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, even if you go online and you type in progressive preachers, you'll find that there are thousands of preachers in America who are proud to be called progressive preachers, and when polled about what they believe, it becomes very clear that 80% or more of them believe that God did not create the world, that man was not create, was man is not naturally sinful, but he's naturally good.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: And therefore we don't need anybody to come to the earth to save us like Jesus.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: We save ourselves.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: And the way we save ourselves is primarily in two ways: social justice and environmentalism.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: And when asked, what religion do you most admire?
14:04
SPEAKER_00: It's not Christianity.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: By 85% of the most admire Buddhism.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: It's Eastern religions, but especially Buddhism.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: So there definitely are progressive preachers, and I won't tell you the name of the church in town, but somebody came up to me uh after last service and said, wow, I was just over at a certain church this last week in town, uh, at which the theme was, and he told me, and it was exactly what I'm talking about.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: But again, this is just a short caution.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Let's be loving and be understanding, and if you're like me, love higher education.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: But just remember, this book is warning you that there is infection, there are viruses, and there are toxic leaders.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: It was Oxford University Press that published the book just 10 years ago, The Allure of Toxic Leaders.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: And it was not written by a Christian, it was written by Jean Lippmann Bloom.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: And what she says is she's trying to explain why toxic leaders, and she probably would include Trump in this, I, you know, this book's written 10 years ago.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: So um, so she's not some, you know, right-wing fundamentalist Republican, but but she usually says there's such a desperate father need today.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: And she says, basically, there is a God need, and she says, and so so when a leader, a teacher, or professor comes along and they say something a little shocking, but they say it with great authority, and they say it smoothly and well, then there's this great allure, and they they create quite a pied piper following the allure of toxic leaves.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: So that's what Peter is speaking of.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: He says, there are deadly whispers around us.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: There's the pamper yourself, indulge your urge, the lust thing, and then there's the forget Christ, he's not coming back.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: And both of those are common even today.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: So what is the um what's the vaccine?
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Or what does he say to do about it?
15:54
SPEAKER_00: And he's very clear about what he says we ought to do about it.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: He says, you know what?
15:59
SPEAKER_00: If you if that child of yours, that loved one of yours, or you, if you go off, if you get succored by this, it's because you never grew.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: It's because it's because you're like the little boy who fell out of bed in the morning, and when his mother came and said, What happened?
16:15
SPEAKER_00: He said, I guess I stayed too close to where I got in.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: You know.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's what happens to some Christians.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: They stay too close to where they got in and they never grow.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: And Peter's point is that if you will grow and become strong and mature, then you won't be a sucker for this.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: His theme verses, the last two verses of the book, you therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men, and fall from your own steadfastness, but what?
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory both now and forever.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this book is in a beautiful scholars call it a chiastic pattern, where the beginning of the book and the end of the book are the same and so forth.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, the book starts the same way.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: 2 Peter 1, 2, may God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow, grow in your knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: So, ladies and gentlemen, we do it together.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Let's read it together, 2 Peter.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Say that again with me.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Turn to the person next to you and say, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Grow in grace.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: And if you grow, you will find that you are stronger and you can resist.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: See, because this is the Christian life.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Peter says in his first book, he says, When you were born again, we trusted Christ as your Savior.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: What happened is the Holy Spirit put a seed inside of you.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: It's like a seed, and that seed germinated.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: You were born again by the seed implanted, which is the word of God.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: And God intends for that seed to grow and not to stop growing, but to keep growing more and more and more, and not never to stop.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, it just starts off small, and as Psalm 1 says, that you become like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that is the rivers of the word, and you become this beautiful tree.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: And the large you get, the stronger you get, the more you can resist heat, the more you can resist bad weather, the more you can resist virus, the more you can resist anything.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: But you have to grow.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Remember, right after you trusted Christ as your Savior, how you grew.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could hardly help it.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: You're so excited.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was inside you.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you finally had an answer to, you know, to what you'd been looking for all your life.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: You understood sort of the end from the beginning, and you thought, wow, you know, there is a future.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's heaven, and there's an yeah, I this is why I'm so helpless, because I'm weak, I'm a sinner, I'm frail.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: But he knows my frame.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: He remembers that I'm dust, that the grass withers, flowers fail.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: But his word stands forever.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm trusting in his word.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm believing that by faith, just all I exercise, faith, but he's saving me.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: And you're so excited that you open the Bible and you read it.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Remember when you did that?
19:24
SPEAKER_00: And when you prayed and you liked to pray and you bubbled over with it, and so you told people about it?
19:30
SPEAKER_00: I remember those first days, those first weeks, those first months?
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Maybe those first years, you were a believer and how you grew, and then, but then things happened.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Then, like Jesus says in his parable, then came the heat.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Then there was difficulty in your life.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: There was pain, there was suffering, there was trouble, then the sun beat down, and all of a sudden it's sort of, you crouched over and you stopped growing so much.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, and then there were stones in your path, and there were other things, and then there was the lure of lust, those winds of lust and passion and desire for money or other things, and so you they sort of distracted you.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: And so, for whatever reason, you know, you you sort of stopped growing.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just you realize, you know, how far you had to go that that this Christian life was.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were like that boy who went to kindergarten the first day, and his mother heard him saying, kindergarten, and after kindergarten, I'll go to first grade, and after first grade, and I'll go to second grade, and after second grade, then and I'll go to third grade.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: And then he looked at his mother and said, I sure got a long way to go.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And and that's true of school, and it's also true of the Christian life, and you can feel, oh, I'll never get there, and so you sort of give up.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: I'll never become like Jesus Christ, I'll never be full of love, I'll never be like my grandmother or whoever.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: And so you stop growing.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: It's so sad that you stop growing.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is if you stop growing, it's usually connected with the fact that you stop looking for the return of Christ.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: And you've stopped adding virtue to your life.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: So here's the growth food that Peter gives us.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: He says, listen, there's two things you need to do if you want to keep growing.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: I hope, and Peter's old now as he's writing, and he's still wanting to grow.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: And remember, his message is okay, grow up or you'll fall flat.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: How do you grow?
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Grow by clinging to his great promises.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: And he gives two promises, which correspond, by the way, to the two viruses that the false teachers are spitting out.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Number one, false teachers are saying, indulge your urges.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Peter says, Listen, listen to what Christ is saying.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, You can share my life right now.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: This is chapter one.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: You can share the life of Christ.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: You can grow up if you'll if you'll let Christ live his life through.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, let me read to you these verses.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Second Peter 1 3.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Through eight, some of the most sublime verses in the whole Bible.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: I've got that whole section of my Bible, like, you know, yellow that it's so beautiful.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Nothing like this in the whole Bible.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: His divine power, Peter says, has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so when you trusted Christ as your Savior, you know, you understood, you knew something.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: You knew He died from me, and therefore you trusted Him as your Savior, right?
22:34
SPEAKER_00: That knowledge propelled you.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and He you were born again.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And but the problem is what a lot of people think is okay, he was like Santa Claus.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: He came down the chimney and he gave me the gift of eternal life, so now I've got heaven, but that's all he cares about, and he went back to heaven.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And we tend to think, some of us, that that's what becoming a Christian is like.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: That's the Alpha and the Omega.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: We get to go to heaven, we've got eternal life.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Hooray! And maybe we got forgiveness of sins.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: But you know what happened?
23:04
SPEAKER_00: When you trusted Christ as your Savior, he gave you something else.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: He gave you a gift of everything you need for a godly life.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 4.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Because of his glory and goodness, excellence, he's given us great and precious promises, the promises that enable you to share his divine nature.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Just as Jesus shares his Father's divine nature, you can share his divine nature.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: You can live the life of Christ and escape the world's corruption caused by those human desires that some people are saying, well, just indulge those.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: As C.
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SPEAKER_00: S.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Lewis says in mere Christianity, some people's view of how to handle the wind of temptation is simply to lay down, you know, and let it win.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And then Peter says in verses 5 through 8, really beautiful.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this poetry.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: So he says, giving all diligence or making every effort, since he's given you these gifts, add to that faith, that saving faith, add virtue, moral goodness, it says in some translations, since that's what you did.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: You became a Christian, and then you thought, I need to become more helpful, I need to become a better person, I need to become good, and you were, and you are, and you have, and add to your virtue or moral goodness what?
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Knowledge.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: So you went in a Bible study, joined, and started learning about God and started learning what was right and wrong.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: And then to add to your knowledge, temperance, it sounds like you're not going to drink as much, but the word is actually self-control.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Oh dear.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Now, Peter did not live in America.
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SPEAKER_00: America, self-control in the Western world, with all of the channels we've got, and with all of the options we've got at the store, and with all of the things that we can look at, that we can taste, that we can see, that we can buy, all of the jobs here that you know we can get in temptation to greed.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Wow, this is where, right, we all fall off the train here.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: This is a struggle for all of us in the Western world.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: I sometimes pray, God, give me more self-discipline.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: And then God says, I gave it to you.
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SPEAKER_00: It's salvation, haven't you?
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Ever read for 2 Peter 1?
25:16
SPEAKER_00: No.
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SPEAKER_00: He says, Because he says, This is a gift I gave you.
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SPEAKER_00: This is part of the life of Christ that I want you to put on, but it's going to take diligence.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and add to your self-control patience.
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SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: And add to your patience godliness and to your God.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Now we move up, up the ladder, up the stair step to godliness.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And these are the traits that God loves to see among us.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Brotherly love or brotherly kindness.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for all of you who just in the last 24, 48 hours since Melody's mother passed away, have texted us or sent us sweet messages of comfort.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: That's brotherly kindness.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: And to your brotherly kindness, love.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: That's at the top of the heap.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: For if, notice this, if these things be in you and abound, they make you neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: You just keep continuing like that tree to grow.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know you have a little trouble with that first line to making every effort or being diligent.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll share with you, you know, one football coach.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: I steal this from a football coach, who says to a team, five things that require zero talent.
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SPEAKER_00: Diligence.
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SPEAKER_00: Effort.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Energy.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Passion.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Attitude.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: And Peter says, you know, you need to use a little bit of effort.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: A little bit of diligence.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Energy, passion, attitude.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: And you say, but hold on, are you are you saying to me that I can live the life of Christ by diligence?
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Effort, energy, passion, attitude.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Of course I'm not.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
26:59
SPEAKER_00: You have to do something.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: God works that in you.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't live, but Christ lives in me.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: But you know what you gotta do?
27:07
SPEAKER_00: You gotta walk over to your prayer chair, right?
27:11
SPEAKER_00: You gotta open the Bible to read it.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that takes a lot of diligence, doesn't it?
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of effort.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: You gotta come to church or small group when you don't feel like it.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: So you have to do something and then let God do it.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: That's why he says here, make every effort.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Do you really care?
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Do you care about living the life of Christ?
27:35
SPEAKER_00: He'll live that life through you.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: But he won't live it against you.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: But if you let him live it, then you can climb that ladder, those ladder of spiritual virtues.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: How do you grow?
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, number one, you cling to that promise, you can share my life right now.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: Number two, he says, you will see my return soon.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: You know how how those how those toxic teachers are always telling us, they're laughing at the idea that Jesus is ever coming back?
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SPEAKER_00: Come on.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is that some of the some of the sweet kids or immature Christians who listen to that and start doubting it and stop longing for the return of Christ, they stay too close to the edge of the bed.
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SPEAKER_00: They never grow.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: They become suckers for the allure of toxic teachers.
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SPEAKER_00: Instead, you and I need to grow up and look for the return of Christ.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: He puts it this way in chapter three: look for and earnestly desire the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens, meaning the universe, will be destroyed by burning, the elements will melt with intense heat, but according to his promise, we're looking for a new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: So that's this book.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: It's 61 verses.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: I've just torn it apart and put it back together.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: There are pernicious professors, there are toxic teachers, and there are sadly progressive preachers whose words are like viruses.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: They'll kill you.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: Their whispers are deadly.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Those ideas are like germs, which will just which will kill you.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do about it?
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, you need to grow.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: You need to be at a place where that really won't affect you.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: You need to not stay immature.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, you need to grow up and become strong and mature.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, how do you do that?
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, you cling to his great and precious promises.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: Number one promise that you can live, I can live the very life of Christ.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Number two, that I can look for the return of Christ.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: That he's coming soon.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: And when Christ shall come with voice of acclamation, joy shall fill my heart.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Then I will bow in humble adoration and proclaim, my God, how great thou art.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: It's the story, maybe my favorite story of childhood, the story of Robin Hood, the story you all know.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: In the background of that book, someone who really doesn't appear until the last page is King Richard the Lionheart.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: We call him King Richard the Lionhearted, but but he was the king of England, but he was outside of the country.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: And who knew when he was going to come back?
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And he had, and on the throne he had put his brother, Prince John, who was an evil and a greedy and a self-centered man, Prince John, who was helped by his lackey, the sheriff of Nottingham, and they took it out on poor people and they oppressed poor people.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: And it was just the country was a mess.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: England was a mess.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: And then here came this hero, Robin Hood.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: What a great guy.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: He was a great archer.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: And then he would waylay these people who were wealthy and evil, these bishops, and take their stuff, and then he would distribute it among the poor.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that Robin Hood was on the run.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: There was a price put on his head.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: He and his men were marked for death, and so they always had to be hunting and so forth.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: And the people just moaned, they longed for the return of Richard.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: And always Robin Hood would comfort them and he'd say, He's coming back, he's coming back, he's coming back, hold on.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: And then when they have finally pretty much given up.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: And when it looks as though uh Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham will have all power, he comes back.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: King Richard the Lionheart comes back.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And he kicks his brother off the throne, does away with the sheriff, and there he is at the end, with his arm around, with his arm around none other than Robin Hood.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's what's going to happen to us.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: But you need to be like Robin Hood.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: You need to be going, he's coming back.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking for it.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: You show me a person, you show me a person who's longing, desiring, making an effort to live the life of Christ, and who has a desire for Christ to come back.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: I'll show you a person who won't be succored by the toxic teachers or the progressive preachers or the pernicious professors.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: They won't be.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: But you show me, you show me a Christian who stopped wanting even to live the life of Christ and who never thinks about or longs for the return of Christ.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: And I'll show you an immature Christian who's going to get suckered by the latest, coolest, smoothest talk show host, or preacher, or professor.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: So I want to give you a chance to meditate on this and to pray a prayer to the Lord, saying, Lord, I want to grow again.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: I want to move off the dime.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: I've been stuck for a while.
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SPEAKER_00: I want to, I want to hang, I want to live the life of Christ.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Will you live that life through me?
32:52
SPEAKER_00: I long for your coming.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you a time to sort of pray that.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do that by showing you a video.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: And the video has has special meaning to me.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: I went to college.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh I had a hard time in our country.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: It was during the Vietnam War, and even at Wheaton College, where I went, um co-eds burning their bras, and there was a lot of rebellion and um sexual revolution.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: And uh and we had a we had a we had a we had a president there his name is uh Hudson Taylor Armitaging.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: Hudson Taylor Army.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And he was tall, absolutely brilliant, you know, Harvard, all that stuff, you know, and he'd written books and and he was he was stiff, it was hard to talk to him, you know, because he was scary.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's a good friend of Billy Graham and all the famous people in the world.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: And um but he was really kind.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: And I vividly remember time and again as there was a rebellion, and he'd come on stage in chapel, whatever, and he'd call the rebel up, and he'd cry, and he'd hug him, and so forth, and and and uh it was astounding, his spirit.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: And he sort of introduced us uh to a song, which was his favorite song, and and it became our theme song of Week and College.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: And it went like this it was a it was a song about wanting to live the life of Christ.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: It went, May the mind of Christ my savior live in me from day to day by his power, by his love and power controlling all I do and say.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: One of my fellow students on campus then was uh Hudson Armanding's son, Taylor.
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SPEAKER_00: Taylor wasn't brilliant like his father, he's just a nice relaxed guy.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: Taylor played the guitar.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: He was a really good, he was a good musician, and he loved playing this song.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: And so I was obviously, but I was surprised recently uh when I suddenly saw on the web that Taylor has a son named Jake.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And Jake apparently loves this song because the grandson of my president, the son of my uh friend Taylor Armiting, uh, plays this song in a quiet and worshipful way, which I think will allow you in the next three minutes to repeat these words as he sings them, to pray them to the Lord, to say to the Lord, Lord, I want to grow, Lord, I want to live the life of Christ.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Listen and then I'll close.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: May the mind of Christ my Savior live in me from day to day by his blood and God control me.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: In my life from God to last God's bath.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Bow your head with me.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: It is uh full of infection and needs Christ figures to shine out like lights in this world, and we would be those people we would tell you that we are willing to grow again, and we would like to live the life of Christ as we long to see him return.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.