Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 24, 2017 | Living At The End Of Time - Get Dressed For The Party

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September 24, 2017 | Living At The End Of Time - Get Dressed For The Party · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh my, I love that.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: That's uh thanks to our tech team.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: That's uh uh our new bumper video advertising a sermon series.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I ought to preach on that.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: So uh when they came up with that, I said, okay, if I have to, I'll preach on living at the end of time.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: No, uh, and by the way, thank you for making it today.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: I I wasn't sure any of us would be here after all, or or maybe we're not really here, as you know.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Planet X crashed into the earth yesterday, and and so um none of us are really here if you're not familiar with this.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Some of you maybe, how many of you are completely unaware that we're not here this morning, that a planet you didn't realize?
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, so uh a guy named David Meade, who's CNN, is just thrilled this morning to announce that he's a Christian, uh, who said something stupid.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: So he wrote a book called Planet X about a planet that was gonna crash into the earth, that somehow, if you combine the pyramids with something he found in Revelation and with his own imagination, that on September the 23rd, which is yesterday, a planet would crash into the earth and then it got revised to it pass really close and whatever, it would be the end of the world, okay?
1:13
SPEAKER_00: And so it didn't happen.
1:16
unknown: Darn it.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh no.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Really, come on.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Now I think a couple of things about this.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: This is not part of my sermon.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: This is not going to go in the newspaper, better not.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: So, one thing I think about this is oh, come on, give me a break.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: I really don't like it when people do stupid stuff that reflects badly on Christ or Christianity, and of course, this morning it does, as everybody's advertising that this is the way Christians are.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: They pick dates and so forth.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing I think is that if I was God, sorry, I just told you this is wacko, but if I was God and some schmuck down on earth predicted a date, I would go to my calendar right away and mark that off as a possible option for returning to the earth because I wouldn't be about to share my glory with some schmuck.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't want to come down and have everybody turning to a guy named David and going, You called it, you're so cool.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so that's what I think.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was reminded of uh, you know, the guy who owned 2,000 billboards across America, Harold Camping, a Bible teacher, and and and seven years or six years ago splashed on them.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Judgment Day is coming May 21, 2011, and underneath the Bible guarantees it, which of course it didn't.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: And anyway, that's what I think about that, except that now I'm talking about living at the end of time, right?
2:32
SPEAKER_00: And are we living at the end of time?
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's about 10, maybe I'll give them to you sometime during this series, about 10 signs that the Bible gives us about how to know, you know, when you're living at the end of time and so forth.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: And and uh, but two of them are really interesting to me right now.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: One is that there will be a surge in natural disasters.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 24 lists them as earthquakes, famines, and so forth.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: And there will be a also be a surge in in moral disasters, wars and rumors of wars.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Philosophers divide all kinds of evil into two evils, natural evil and moral evil.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: Natural evils consist of things that they like to call acts of God, which is kind of negative.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, cancer, stuff like that.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: And and, you know, you you don't have to have kept your eyes open very wide to realize that this last month where there's been a surge in this sort of stuff.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
3:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's there was Hurricane Harvey in the early part of September, which absolutely first hurricane in 12 years since Katrina that it actually uh touched land in America, and boy did it ever.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: It it messed up the Houston area.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: 82 people uh died, uh, thousands out of homes and so forth.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, just a week or so later, came Hurricane Irma, and that touched down in Florida.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: And now instead of 82, you have 102 people who died and super devastation.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: And and while this is happening, you have this last month, in fact, in the last 15 days, you have major earthquakes, the largest earthquake in over a century in Mexico, 15 days ago, 8.1 in the Richter scale.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: And then a second earthquake just this last week, 7.1 on the Richter scale, but much worse because it included Mexico City.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: And as of this morning, five days after that earthquake, you have over 300 people who have died.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: And then, because you probably didn't get up and look at the news this morning, there are uh two or two more earthquakes in Mexico yesterday.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: 6.1 in the Richter scale and so forth.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Talking about natural disasters, but while all this is going on, you have the greatest uh flooding in an area of the world where it always seems to be flooding, Southeast Asia.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: You have half of the country of Nepal underwater.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Nepal.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: You think of the Himalayas, you think of Mount Everest, half of the country underwater, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, 40 million, 45 million people homeless and so forth this last the last six weeks or so.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Over 1,200 people have died.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: This is a picture from uh major city in India, where everything is just underwater.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, those are the natural evils.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Then you get to moral evils, murder, theft, hate, rape, war, things like that.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean, have we had a surge in moral evil?
5:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I mean, look over there at North Korea at this crazy young, young dictator, Kim Jong-un, who keeps on saber rattling against the United States, threatening that he's gonna send over a rocket with a nuclear missile.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, the fact of the matter is he can't do that yet, don't be scared.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: But by the end of Trump's first term or only term or whatever, it's he's gonna be able to in the next few years.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, just day before yesterday, he got all upset because he didn't like something Trump said at the United Nations last week.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: And so, day before yesterday, September the 22nd, he made a national speech in North Korea, and his last sentence was, I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: dotred with fire.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, sir.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And of course, everybody goes, You're crazy, except for the New York Times.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: They think he's brilliant.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: No.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh, and then you have Iran.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: You have Iran who, as you know, we made an agreement with Iran just a year or so ago that said we trust them, they're not making missiles and so forth.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: On the very day, by the way, of course, that that that went through, Iran decided to make fun of us and shoot uh uh uh a missile up in the air.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh that happened to be labeled, by the way, that written on it, Israel must be wiped out.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: And now they've tested several missiles emblazoned with that same threat to Israel.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And speaking about day before yesterday, two days ago, they had a military parade in Tehran in which they paraded a new ballistic missile, which is capable of reaching Israel 2,000 miles.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Now listen, if they did that and they shot that at Israel, you don't have to know much of the Bible to know that the God who loves Israel and will protect them would have returned the moment that that missile struck Israel or while it was in the air.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: And then and then forgetting them and go to ISIS with their trail of terror across the globe.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And you say, well, they're being pushed back in their home territory.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: They're in Syria and north of Syria.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: And yes, they are, but have you noticed that this year they seem to have moved their locus of operations to none other than Europe, where they're averaging nearly one major terrorist attack in Europe this year.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Five of them in England.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: In England, four in London, one north in Manchester.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: So uh we definitely are living in a time when there's a surge in natural and in moral evil.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: We are, I think, primarily for other reasons than I'm not maiming this morning, I think we're living at the end of time, or at least we should act that way.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, I turned to the one book in the Bible, which I think clearly, though it's in what's called a remote part of the New Testament and is often ignored, the little book of 2 Peter, only three chapters long, a book which tells us how to live at the end of time.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: And my message this morning comes from the first 11 verses of chapter 1 of 2 Peter.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, you'll want to grab it.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And if you have a pencil or pen, you'll be marking some stuff.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: If you're using your uh cell phone, uh don't write on it with your pen or pencil, it won't work.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: And uh whatever.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: But dress for the party is my tithe.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Now let's go through it.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have to go through these 11 verses pretty quickly.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: The first two verses go like this: Simeon Peter or Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: The word to notice there is the word servant.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't use it, he doesn't use this word for slave in 1 Peter, but he wants you to know something here that he's like you.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he may be an apostle, but he's also a slave of Jesus Christ.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: And then he says to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: Really?
9:22
SPEAKER_00: My faith, my Christianity is on equal standing with yours?
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he says.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Equal standing.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Why?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: By the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Because you have accessed the righteousness of God through his son Jesus, your faith is on equal standing with the faith of Andy Stanley, Chuck Swindahl, Billy Graham, and the Apostle Peter.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: And in those days, the Greeks gave each other the greeting chorus or grace at the beginning of their letters, but in the New Testament, you'll find the word peace, the word which comes from the Old Testament greeting, shalom, translated in the Greek Irene to peace.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: So they combined the New Testament and the Old Testament greetings, and they always said, May grace and peace in the knowledge of God.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: The reason I've marked that, and the reason you should mark that, is this the key word in this book.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: It's hard for you to go a few verses in this book without reading that word knowledge, and I want you to know right up front that that has nothing to do with your IQ, has nothing to do with how many books you've read or how many verses you've memorized.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: It has to do with your heart knowledge, your knowing Jesus Christ personally and living with him and knowing him as you would know a friend or a lover.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Now let's get to the main part of this that I want to share with you, the dress for the party part.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the most beautiful texts in the whole Bible, and I'm gonna prove it to you.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: It begins this way, verses three and four.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: His divine power has given us, get this, everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Now you won't read anything else quite like that in the entire Bible.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: It's almost a shocking statement.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Think for a moment with me about that day when you came to Mount Calvary, when you looked up at the cross and you saw the Lord Jesus Christ as if for the first time, because the Holy Spirit was tweaking you, and you suddenly realized that your own efforts, your own works would never get you into God's perfect heaven, that you desperately needed that man and what he was doing for you.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And so you trusted in him rather than yourself, and placing your trust in him, you became a Christian.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, God could have done something.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: He could have come down and he could have handed you the gift of eternal life, shaken your hand, and gone back up to heaven.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people, by the way, have this Santa Claus theology, sort of like God, like Santa Claus, when you trusted him, came down the chimney.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: He said, Nice job, way to go, shook your hand, and then left, and left you on your own.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Said, listen, all I wanted was to populate heaven.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm thrilled you're gonna be there.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Now do your best.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: This verse says, Nada.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: That what happened is that God cares about how you live so much that he gave you an incredible gift at the moment you gained that saving knowledge of Jesus Christ at that moment.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: He gave you everything you need for life and godliness.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Is that important?
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Of course it's important.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Because you've talked to friends, some of the same people perhaps who've come to see me and they've asked you to pray.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: They've said, you know, I'm really still struggling with forgiving my sister or forgiving my brother.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm still struggling with the with that with pornography.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm still struggling with this whole issue at work of uh, you know, the fact that I wasn't given the position that I feel like I was due.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm still struggling with greed.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm struggling with the fact that I keep messing up my family by spending money that I don't have or making us move to a different part of the country because we'll get$3,000 more a year or something.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: And would you pray with me about that?
13:21
SPEAKER_00: And you say, just a second, we prayed about this five years ago, right?
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we prayed about this 10 years ago, right?
13:26
SPEAKER_00: We prayed about this 15 years ago, right?
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, the Saint Peter stands in there, he says, Listen, love you, brother, love you, sister, but but do you realize that this is not something you need to keep praying about, nor should you?
13:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, would you quit fighting the cobwebs and just kill the spider?
13:45
SPEAKER_00: Because God has given you everything already that you need for life and for godliness.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: The moment you came to a saving knowledge of his son.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: And then he did something else.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Through these gifts, he gave us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you might, one, participate in the divine nature.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: That means you might become like Jesus.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: And negatively you might escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: You might overcome those addictions which keep you down, which lock you in to those worldly desires.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, I love, by the way, a sort of a less academic translation.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: The New Living Translation puts it this way: By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: We have received this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: I can't get over the incredible statement here that when I became a Christian, God gave me everything I need for life and godliness.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: You've watched Extreme Home Makeover, any of you?
15:02
SPEAKER_00: I love, you know, a great show.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: And so they completely make over a home, and then they drive this huge truck up, and you have what's called the reveal.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: And so they have the family across the street, and then they drive the truck away, and then that moment when the family sees their new home is such a cool moment.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: And they're so excited because at that moment they feel as though they've received everything they'll ever need in the way of a home.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Everything that they'll ever need to put a roof over their house and to provide for the family and to enjoy their life in their home.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: And that's what 2 Peter 1:3 is.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: It's the reveal.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Did you realize Peter drives the truck out of the way, that God's given you everything you need for living a godly life?
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, can I just share with you the way I think of this?
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Nobody else thinks of this this way, at least not that I've read.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: But the way I think of this is that God gave us a home, but especially he gave us a wardrobe.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: When we trusted him, he gave us a wardrobe of fine clothes.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: He gave us everything we need for living a godly life so that I can go to that wardrobe any morning and I put on the clothes that his clothes that I'm supposed to wear that day, the clothes that reflect the character of Jesus.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: I just need to put them on.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Now that's, I'll show you where I get that in the text a little bit later, but that's the way I'm thinking of it.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And then he not only provided us everything we need, he made a second gift to us, a second provision because of his glory and excellence.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: He's given us great and precious promises.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Really?
16:53
SPEAKER_00: There are promises he's given us.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: You say, what promises are those?
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, that includes the Holy Spirit who enables you to become more like Christ, share the divine nature, and escape those addictions that you have.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: I tend to think of this as that God has given us a treasure chest, sort of, full of everything we need for life and godliness.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And a significant part of that treasure chest are those promises.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: Now the question is, what are those promises?
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Are those all the promises in the Bible?
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Some people will say that, but that that won't work.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: That won't work because if you ask Peter, what are you thinking of when you say promises?
17:32
SPEAKER_00: All you have to do is read this book and you know that he's talking about one promise, and particularly, he's talking about the prophetic promises of the blessed return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: You won't find the word promise in this book, apart from that.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: For example, 2 Peter 3.4.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: They will say, where is the promise of his coming?
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Or 2 Peter 3.9.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: The Lord isn't being slow about his what?
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Promise, as some people think.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want anybody to go to hell.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: He wants everybody to repent.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, in keeping with his what?
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And if you say to me, so what?
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, promise, when Peter thinks about promise, he's thinking about the promise of the return of Christ.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: If you say, what difference does that make?
18:27
SPEAKER_00: I say that's a big what.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: The point is this that to maintain a holy life in this world of lusts or desires we live in, you must grip the prophetic promises of God's word.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Mainly, you must grip the blessed hope of Jesus' return.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: If instead, like the servant in Jesus parable, Matthew 24, parable of the talents, you say, My master delays his coming, then you'll slip like he did into immorality.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: You say, Really?
19:02
SPEAKER_00: I will?
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Why would I slip into immorality just because I'm not gripping the promise of the second coming?
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, the text here says, well, these are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: The promises you see are the motivation, the motivation for you to get up in the morning and go over to that spiritual wardrobe and put on the clothes that God has given you.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: And putting on those clothes enables you to share the divine nature, become more like Jesus Christ, and overcome those addictions, those corruptions, those lusts that the world swirls around you.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: So that's God's side, verses three and four.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: And now comes your side, a list that you're probably familiar with.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: It's just beautiful, one of the most beautiful lists in the New Testament.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: He says, for this very reason, what reason?
19:57
SPEAKER_00: The reason, because God's given you everything you need, plus the promises to motivate you to use it.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness and goodness with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with endurance and endurance with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Now I'll confess to you that the wardrobe thing is mine alone.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Most pastors at this point, or teachers at this point, will talk to you either about like building blocks or they'll talk to you about a ladder that you climb.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: They'll say, you know, faith is the bottom brick, and you need to add to that virtue, and then add, and they walk their way through the seven knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: That didn't do anything for me.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a great builder, and I certainly don't build every day.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Then others say, well, this is sort of Peter's ladder, and what you need to do is you need to climb the ladder.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: You start off with saving faith, and you move up to goodness or virtue, and then knowledge, self-control, and on and all the way up to love.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: I think, okay, I like climbing ladders, but I don't climb ladders every day.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: But one thing I do do every day is I get up in the morning and I go to my closet.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Every single day I put on clothes.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Happen to have, I think today I have seven pairs of pieces of clothing on, the same number as those lists.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, you can sit there and I'm gonna lose you.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be counting how many pieces of clothing you have on.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: But there are seven pieces of clothing that are focused on here.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: That's our wardrobe.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: So add to your faith virtue, and then put on knowledge, self control, and so forth.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: So that you're dressed appropriately.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: So that you're dressed for the party.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Melody and I weep every week that Downton Abbey's done.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: You don't really, but you.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things we really liked about that show was the period costumes.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, weren't those cool?
22:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just loved it.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: We'd sit there, and I mean, it's I never thought I would even care about that.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: But it's really cool to see what Lord and Lady Grantham were wearing and others.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: And this this passage to me is all about dressing appropriately.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Dressing appropriately in such a way that you're living the life of Jesus Christ.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, you'll notice he says, make every effort to add to your faith virtue to virtue, knowledge to knowledge, self-control to self-control, endurance to endurance, God, godless, brother kindness, love.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: He says, make every effort.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: You know why?
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm sorry.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: There's something you have to do.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't beam you into godliness.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't suddenly zap your way into becoming Christ like you have to make an effort here.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: You have to care about it.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: You have to go to your closet.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: You say, well, what do each of these things mean?
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, I've done word studies on them, and I won't take you through them, but I will tell you what I've come up with.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Each of these seven.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: When he says virtue, a rate, this is the word which has to do with living with moral integrity.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Do you have that piece of clothing on today?
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Can you say you're living in moral integrity?
23:21
SPEAKER_00: I hope so.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Knowledge is not IQ, it's not knowing the 66 books of the Bible.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: It's knowledge here is the word used with the Greeks for the knowledge of how to make wise, shrewd decisions in life when it comes to, I was just talking with a woman who, a wonderful woman, who rejected a White House offer to serve as a national representative over all education in America.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: She made the shrewd decision, the wise decision not to make that, not to do that, but to stay here in Topeka instead of going, that was a tough decision.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: That was, however, the correct decision as she was explaining it.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: But how do you make wise decisions in life as to what movies to go to, what to drink, how to act, how to deal with conflict, how to handle problems in your family.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: That's knowledge.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Then comes self-control.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: What does self-control mean?
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, it means self-control.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: It means delaying gratification.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Then comes fourth, endurance.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just hanging on to the end of a swim meet.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: It really has to do with hanging in there in your Christian commitment, hanging in there with Jesus.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Then comes godliness.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: And godliness here is not some sort of super piety.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: It has to do here with worshiping God reverently.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: It means that when you were sitting here worshiping as as they were leading us this morning, it means that when you approach God, you approach God with a sense of humility, a sense of awe.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: You're so awestruck that perhaps even tears start from your eyes.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you have one hand up, maybe you have two hands up, maybe you have no hands up, but that's really your heart attitude.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Do you worship God reverently with awe?
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Next to last comes brotherly kindness, the word in Greek Philadelphia, where they are always so kind, as you know up there.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: But it means caring for your family.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, here in Greek, among the Greeks, it meant caring for your daddy and your mommy and your brothers and sisters.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Here it means caring for your Christian family, so that when you hear that someone that you're gonna be living with forever and eternity, a brother or a sister, even if you don't know them well, is suffering either because of financial straits or health problems, you care about that and you do something about that.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: And finally, agape, finally, love, not a feeling.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Not a feeling, an action, pursuing the best for others.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: These are the pieces of clothing that you need to put on and you need to put on every day.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: And as you look through that, I'm sure you see a couple that you're wearing already.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: You're pretty good at.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: If you're wondering which one of these, you need to maybe make every effort on a little bit more, ask your wife, ask your husband, ask someone in your family.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: They then they'll tell you immediately before you even finish the question.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, if these qualities, notice, next verse, are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: That's verse eight.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: Are increasing, that's interesting.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't fit my metaphor.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: How can a shirt increase or a pair of pants or a belt?
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh so you say, so so what's the big deal with them increasing?
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's a big what.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: And increasing means two things.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: It means the Christian life is a process.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: It's not a crisis.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: It's not uh something that happens in one moment.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: You don't get helicoptered to godliness by by learning to speak in tongues.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: You don't get helicoptered to godliness by by somehow finishing seminary or whatever.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: You climb to it, you make every effort.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: It's a gradual process, and therefore, number two, no matter how good you are in any of these virtues, there's always room to improve.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Keep getting dressed for the party.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: And if if these qualities are yours and increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful, he says.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: In the true, there's our word again, knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Really?
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Christians can be, true Christians can be useless, can be unfruitful.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Duh, yeah, they can, can't they?
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Just like in the New Testament, there's lots of illustrations of this, just like a fruitless tree, just like a thorn-choked seed in that parable Jesus told, like a barren field, like faith without works.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: Christians can be barren, Christians can be unproductive, Christians can be unfruitful.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: The wonderful Calvinist of the last century, Martin Lloyd Jones, the British preacher, put it this way: there is no doubt about their being Christian.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: That is something that we have to go on repeating because there are some who just have such false and unscriptural notions of the Christian that they will hold that a person who can be described as Peter describes these people is not really Christian at all.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: There's a false idea of a Christian held by many as one always walking on the mountaintop.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: These people are Christians.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: But they aren't happy.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: They are ineffective.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Do you know any Christians like this?
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Their lives do not seem to lead to anything, and they are not helpful to other people.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but they are not very productive.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Their faith does not fill them with joy and with certainty.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: They are barren and unfruitful, ineffective in helping others, not growing in the knowledge of the Lord.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: In fact, though they are definitely Christian, they seem to have very little to show for it.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: And Peter goes on to talk about these unproductive, character-deficient Christians in this way.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: He says the person who lacks these things is blind and short-sighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual blindness in the present causes them not to see the wonderful gift that God has given them of everything they need to overcome their addictions and become like Christ.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: They're short.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: How can you be both blind and short-sighted?
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can in this verse.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: They have uh the Greek word is myopia.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: It's actually in this verse, spiritual myopia, because they're short-sighted.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Why aren't they short-sighted?
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Because their vision is always caught in the here and now, in the present, and their minds are occupied with the pleasures of this world, and they never look to the future, to these promises which God has given us to drive us to the wardrobe to put on these qualities.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And they have spiritual amnesia.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: They've forgotten the cleansing from their past sins.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: Tony Evans uses this as a as a proof text.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: For Christians, you've lost the assurance of their salvation and don't really believe that they're Christians anymore.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: And he says, that's it.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: They've forgotten the cleansing from their past sins.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: They've so wandered away from that moment of faith, they've forgotten God's grace to them.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: They've lost their assurance.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: At the minimum, whether Tony's right or wrong, and sorry, Tony, he's a friend.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: But at the very minimum, what this is talking about is that is that they've forgotten the amazing grace of God that showered down upon me when the moment I became a Christian.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Because if you are focused, if you are remembering how amazing it is that God saved you, I mean, really, you will care so deeply about becoming more like Christ and overcoming your addictions and improving your character.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: And finally, the passage ends verses 10 and 11.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort, he says, to confirm your calling and election.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: For if you do these things in verses 3 through 9, you'll never stumble and you'll receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: There's your make every effort again.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: And then what does he mean by confirm your calling and election?
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Or make it sure as people will look at this and go, oh, okay, you're not really a Christian unless you're living this life.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: Turning the whole passage on its here.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: No, this is not confirming it to yourself.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: This is testifying or certifying it before others.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Like the translation, another translation says, work hard to prove that you really are among those whom God has called and chosen.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: Do these things and you'll never fall away.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus said, they'll know you're Christians by your love.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: They'll know you are my disciples if you love one another.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: And then the last line: get this.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: A rich welcome.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: There will be rich welcomes and there will be pauper's welcomes.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: When I see this grand entrance, I don't know about you, but I think about some of the grand entrances in literature.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: I think about, ladies and gentlemen, Lord and Lady Grantham, and they come down the stairs and they're dressed impeccably.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: Or Cinderella making her grand entrance dressed as she is, or we're in the 67th book of the Bible.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: Aragorn and Arwen making their grand entrance in Lord of the Rings.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, these grand entrances.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it be great to have a grand entrance into the party?
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Because you're dressed for the party.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: You're not dressed in rags, spiritual rags.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: You're dressed in the clothes that he gave you and put in your wardrobe.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Michael Green, the wonderful professor, a British professor, puts it this way in his commentary in 2 Peter: the Christian who has allowed the Lord to influence his conduct will have abundant entrance into the heavenly city and be welcomed like a triumphant athlete, victorious in the games.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: What a privilege.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: And as you walk into the Lord's, he comes back and you walk through the gates and you walk and you and then your name is called and you walk up to him and he says to you, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, and everybody is cheering.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: You'll be saying to him, hold it.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: You gave me all that I'm wearing.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: You gave me these clothes.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, you gave me the motivation to go put them on when I didn't feel like it.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: You gave me the wonderful promises that you're going to return, and I could hardly wait.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: And you'll say, Yes, but you made every effort.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but you cared.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: There were other people who didn't care.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: And you cared.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: And you'll be so happy that at that moment he is pleased with you.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: I've talked often about my parents.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: I had a dad and mom who were just rare, unique.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: My sister Ruth, who lives here in Topeka, will tell you the same thing.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: We were two out of 12 children.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: We lived about halfway between the city of Portland and Mount Hood, lived on a small farm.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: My dad and mom gave us a lot of things, but one thing they gave us is they gave us everything that we ever needed for intelligence.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Everything that we needed for a life of academic success.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: Everything we needed for good grades.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: They packed the house with books.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Then they took out TV, no TV, so that on rainy days we'd have nothing else to do but read.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: And we couldn't play in the summertime any day until we'd done our workbook.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: And through constant repetition at the supper table, and later, you know, they're always quizzing us and always helping us.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: I had everything that I needed for a life of intelligence and academic excellence, but I didn't use it.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: The teachers in elementary school would write on my grade cards.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: I have one of them still.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Roland, that was my name back then, my middle name.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: Roland just doesn't seem to be motivated.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: And for some reason I wasn't.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say the importance, so I got really poor grades in junior high.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: I got average grades in high school.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Got maybe slightly less than average grades at week in college.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: I just wasn't motivated.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: All of that changed one afternoon.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: I was 21, and I was preparing to go down to Dallas Theological Seminary to get a master's degree.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Didn't know what else to do.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: I thought I had to do that.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: I was kind of excited about it, and my dad came to me.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: You need to understand that I grew up in a time a little different than today.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: A time when dads and moms didn't necessarily follow their children around.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: They didn't go to swim meets very often, didn't go to wrestling matches, they didn't hug you all the time.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: At least the fathers didn't, mother did.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't tell you they were proud of you, you know, and so forth.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: I lived in that day, and we live in a day, a much better day today.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: I love, always loved going to those events, and I love going to my grandchildren.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, but back then it was different.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you need to understand that not and not think poorly of my dad and mom because I don't.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: But my father came to me this afternoon, he says, you know, uh son, we didn't we didn't come to your college graduation.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: He said, Yeah.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: Said, uh, you know, it was in Illinois, and and you know how your mom and I never travel together out outside of Oregon.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I said, I understand that.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: You have a farm, you have to milk the cows and goats in the morning at the night, and and twelve children, and you know, I'm the oldest son, so you need to have somebody home.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: He said, I I just I just want to tell you that if you if you go through these four years and you graduate with a master's degree from Dallas Seminary, I will do all I can for for both of you.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Both my both your mom and I will come to your graduation.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Now it seems probably silly to a lot of you.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: You think, well, duh, big deal.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: But that was a huge, huge deal back then.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Big deal to me.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: So I got into Dallas Seminary and it wasn't easy.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: I stayed up all night many times studying and didn't have any money.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: I was on food stamps part of the time, so I had to work a lot in order just to survive, and it was, it wasn't, it wasn't easy.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: But there were many, many times where I felt like giving up, and you may think this is silly, but many times in which I thought of graduation day.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: I thought of a day when my parents would both be there.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget the graduation weekend.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: They were staying up north, about an hour north of Dallas, so I hadn't seen them and dressed in the robes like everybody else, and walking in, and I saw them and I got to give them a quick hug.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: Went down and sat there and I thought, they're really here.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: This is just amazing.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: And then during the ceremony, to my surprise, it was just amazing.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: My name got called to receive a special academic award.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: I had worked hard for four years, I had I had achieved academically, and I can remember just being so happy because I had this, I know I had disappointed my father.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: I know I disappointed them over the years at times.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: I know I hadn't lived up the way you know I should.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: But now finally, you know, those those years of work down the seminary, those were worth it.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: And and afterwards, I could hardly wait to see them.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: And my dad came up, he did what he never ever did.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: He put his arms around me and he said, he said, your mother and I are very proud of you.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: No, it seems really small.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: But at that moment I thought uh I would go through those four years all over again in a moment to hear that again.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: It was so precious to me.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: And yet, if you think of the day when you step into heaven and your name is called, and you walk up to the Lord Jesus Christ and he looks at what you're wearing, and you're wearing the clothes that he put in your closet, you're dressed, you won't be dressed in these earthly clothes, you'll be dressed in your spiritual wardrobe, whatever it is, either spiritual rags or the or the fine clothes that he's given to you.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And he looks at you and he says, Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Enter into the joy of your Lord.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: You will at that moment go have go through the whole thing again, just for this.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: And listen, there are there are a lot of Christians.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest about it.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of Christians who really don't care that much.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: They don't care about becoming more like Christ, they don't care about escaping the corruption that's in the world by lust.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: They really don't care about the promises.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: They're not thinking forward to the return of Christ.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: It's not that big a deal to them now.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you that on that day, on that day, when our minds are unclouded by the corruptions of the world, when our hearts finally see things the way that they see things in heaven, at that moment we would do anything, we would give anything to hear him say, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: Anything.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: That privilege will be reserved for those who have cared, for those who allowed the promise of his return to motivate them to go over to that wardrobe in the morning and put on those clothes and live like Jesus Christ as best we can now.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: And thank him every day that he gave us everything that we needed for a life of godliness, plus the promises that motivate us to put those clothes on.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for sending your son to not just save us but give us such a gift.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: That we need not labor to be set by our besetting sins with no chance of becoming like Jesus.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: We can live uh clear-eyed, seeing the future, motivated, not stumbling and falling because uh we're blind or spiritually short-sighted.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: For that provision, we're so we're just we're so grateful and we long for the day when we get to see you and hear you say, Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Amen.