14 How the Second Coming Should Change Your Life Today (2 Peter 3:10–18)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for joining me today for the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is the podcast where we explain not only what scripture means, but how we figure it out. This is the 14th and final talk in our series on the book of 2 Peter. We will be looking at chapter 3, verses 10 to 18 today. As always, you can find the lecture notes for today's talk on the link below this podcast, and you can also go to wednesdayintheword.com slash 2 Peter 14. Thanks so much for listening. The focus of the section we're going to be looking at today is on the end of the age and the return of Christ and what that tells us about how we should live now. You'll recall that Peter has been eager to encourage his readers to remember the words of the prophets and the apostles, particularly the words concerning the return of Jesus, the end of the age, and the coming judgment. He has warned that mockers are coming who will scoff at their belief that Jesus will return. The mockers are going to say, look, if he was going to come back by now, he would have. Life is just going to go on as normal day after day. And in chapter three, Peter has responded to the mockers three ways. First, he said life does not always go on the same way day after day. We've seen God intervene with cosmic change twice before, once at creation itself and once at the flood. And both those changes came about because of the word of God, so if God says the destruction of the earth is coming, it's going to come. Second, God does not measure time the way we measure time. The fact that Jesus has not come back yet means nothing because God's view of time is vastly different than ours, as he says, one day is like a thousand years to him, and a thousand years is like one day. He is not limited by a day, nor is he hampered by a thousand years. God is perfectly content to implement his plan over thousands of years if that suits his purpose. And then third, Peter argued that God's delay is not a black mark on his name, rather, God's delay is an act of mercy. It is to our benefit that Jesus has not yet returned because we have time to repent and find life. We're picking up in chapter three verse ten, and this is a continuation of his response to the mockers, and he will transition into a summary of the book. So three ten says, But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Now first thing we have to ask is what's the day of the Lord? That's an expression we see in the Old Testament prophets. And we have similar expressions today. We say things like At last my day has come, or every dog has his day. And what we mean by that is when my day comes, things are finally going to go my way. My interests will be met, my needs will be met, and everything will fall into place to suit me. That's when my day comes. When we say something like every dog has his day, we mean everyone will eventually have a time when things go their way. Things will go the way that you want them to go. Well, similarly, when the day of the Lord comes, it is a day when things will perfectly reflect the purposes and plans of the Lord. The day of the Lord is the day when the Lord steps into history and puts everything right. He makes it perfectly suit his values and his holy character. Now, don't take my analogy with our modern expressions too far. No day is out of the Lord's control. There is a sense in which every day is the day of the Lord, because there is never a day in which his plans or his purposes are thwarted. Rather, I think what's going on here is at the fall, God has given us a kind of limited independence. In our rebellion, we are not the people he created us to be. We are not living as we ought to live, and we are not living as we would live if we were holy and continued to share his holy character. This is all part of the plan and the story of redemption, but it is not ultimately how God wants things to be. The fall was a tragedy with horrible consequences, and one day God is going to put it right. From our human vantage point, we think that we're independent, we can do whatever we want, and we'll get away with it, and we think we're free and independent, and somehow we won't reap what we're sowing. But we're wrong in our delusions of complete independence. The day of the Lord is coming, and on that day God will put all things right, completely conquer sin and death, and free his people completely from the power and presence of sin. That's the day when God steps forward for everyone to see and says, Okay, now it's my turn, I'm putting things right. Now we need to be careful when we're studying the Old Testament prophets because they do use this phrase the day of the Lord, but they are not always referring to the final judgment day that is still in our future. Sometimes they're referring to a day in our past when God intervened in a specific historical situation either to rescue his people or deliver his people or discipline them. So the Old Testament prophets might refer to the Babylonian conquest of Israel as a day of the Lord, or they might refer to the end of the exile as the day of the Lord, because these were events where God stepped decisively into history and set things on the course that he wanted to suit his purposes. So in the Old Testament, when we see this phrase the day of the Lord, sometimes it refers to a day in our past when God acted decisively in history to set things to his plan, and sometimes it refers forward to the final judgment that is still coming. The New Testament authors, on the other hand, use this phrase exclusively to refer to final judgment. Now that's a little controversial. Some people see certain instances differently, but my best guess at this point is they when they use this phrase the day of the Lord, they are referring to the final judgment. The particular phrase the day of the Lord is not used very often in the New Testament. Really, it appears only a handful of times, but there are several synonyms that come up. So the New Testament authors will talk about simply the day or that day, or the day of God, or the great day, or the great day of God, the great day of God's wrath, the day of Christ, the day of our Lord Jesus, the day of redemption, the day of wrath and revelation, and the last day. So all of those I think are synonyms for this same idea, and they all refer forward to the second coming of Jesus and the day of judgment. Peter associates various ideas with this day of the Lord. He says it is the day when we enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He tells us it's the day when Christ will come again, and that it is the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly. He says it is the day when God brings both redemption to his people and judgment on the rest of mankind. Now in three ten, Peter tells us that the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and this is an idea Peter got directly from the teaching of Jesus. In Matthew twenty four, in what's known as the Olivet Discourse, Jesus says this. This is Matthew twenty four verses forty two through forty four. Jesus is speaking. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Now the essence of a thief in the night is that you never expect him. We don't make appointments with thieves. We don't predict when they will strike, we have no idea when they're coming. That's the nature of their business. Their business depends on the element of surprise. It is always a shock when we discover that we've been robbed. If somehow we could know that a thief was coming, we would prepare and we would prevent the attack. So if we knew, for instance, he was coming next year, we could say, Great, that's in the future. I don't have to worry about it now. When it gets closer, then I'll get a big guard dog or something, but for now I'm safe. But the point of the analogy is we don't know when the thief is coming, so we cannot put off planning for his attack. Since we don't know when he's coming, we have to be prepared all the time. So we lock our doors at night, we install motion lights, we hide our valuables and lock safes, and we get that big guard dog now. If you don't want a thief to steal all your stuff, then you have to be prepared at all times. I think that's the point Jesus is making in Matthew. We don't know when he's coming back, so we have to live now as if he is coming at any moment of any day. In Matthew 24, 44, he says we have to be ready. So let's think about what does it mean to be ready? Part of what it means to be one of God's people is that the fundamental longing of our hearts is that he will forgive us and accept us when he comes. We want to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. We do not want to hear, who are you? I never knew you. Because that's the longing of our heart, we don't say, Oh, I don't think he's coming back this year, so I don't have to think about all that holiness or godliness stuff. I'll just put that off. I'll deal with that later. For now, I'll just ignore everything scripture tells me and live to my sinful heart's content because hey, you know, it's going to be a while before he gets back. That's not what we say because we want to find a place in his kingdom. We want to find life, we want to be forgiven and accepted. And he has told us how to do that. The way to find life, the way to find a place in his kingdom is to trust that God will forgive us because of the blood of Jesus Christ and to strive to live as one of his disciples. We put our trust in him and we continue to trust him. And so to be ready is to remain faithful, to live a life of faith as a disciple of Jesus. And there is a sense in which every day of our lives we face that question. We subtly face the issue, do I still want to follow Jesus or not? What am I counting on? Who am I counting on? Where do I think I'm going to find life and fulfillment? How am I going to deal with the challenges of today? Will I deal with them as a person of faith who trusts in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Or will I deal with them as a rebel sinner who has to look out for number one? I think then to be ready means it doesn't matter when he comes back, because when he comes back, he will find us striving to live lives as his faithful followers. If Jesus came back right this minute, he would find us living lives of faith. If he comes back in ten years, he would find us living lives of faith. And if he comes back in a thousand years, he would find that we lived faithfully until the day of our death. I think that's what Jesus means by being ready. He's coming like a thief, and if you want to be prepared, you have to live every day as if this is the day he's going to return. Paul also borrows this language from Jesus and he says something very similar. This is first Thessalonians, I'm going to read chapter five verses one through eight. Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you, for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief, for you are all children of the light, children of the day, we are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober, for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. Now you'll notice that Paul uses the same phrase that Peter does, the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and Paul adds like a thief in the night. Paul says believers are not going to be caught unaware by the day of the Lord, not because they know exactly what day it's going to be, but because they are awake and alert. They are not asleep. As he says, they are always intent on putting on faith, hope, and love. They are committed to a lifestyle of faith, to believing the gospel and setting their hope on the gospel and striving to live their lives loving God and their neighbors. So whenever Jesus returns, they're going to be ready. That's the same point Peter's making. Remember, this is still part of Peter's response to the mockers. The mockers are saying, Where's the promise of his coming? And Peter says, Don't you get it? He's going to come like a thief. You think he isn't coming, but just like a thief, he's going to strike at a time when you don't expect him. And this has strong implications for how we live now, and that I think is the main point he's making. We could think about the day when Jesus returns in two ways. We can think of it as the end of all things, the end of this age, the end of this present heavens and earth, or we can think about it as the beginning of something new, the beginning of the next age. And so far Peter has been speaking of it mostly as the end of the age. Remember back in three seven he said But by the same word the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. So fire will destroy the present heavens and the earth along with the ungodly, and then in three hundred ten he continues this theme of fire. Let me read three hundred ten again and down to three hundred fourteen. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace. Now this is one of those spots where it's difficult to judge whether Peter means to be literal or metaphorical, or maybe a little bit metaphorical, or maybe a lot metaphorical. Fire is frequently used in the Bible as a metaphor for complete destruction, because fire is something that consumes what it touches and reduces everything it touches to ashes. So it's an apt metaphor for destruction, particularly total destruction. And in 310, Peter could just be drawing on that metaphor, that image of final eternal destruction, or he could literally mean that fire is coming with a roar and the heavens and earths will melt and so forth. I tend to think this is more metaphorical and that Peter does not mean to tell us the actual physical means God will use to destroy the heavens and the earth, but scholars debate that. In either case, whether he intends to be very metaphorical or intends to be very literal, we can see that he is talking about a total destruction. And I think in many ways these verses begin his summary. They are the summary defining statement of the message of 2 Peter. Since 311 says all things are going to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be? That's the fundamental question he has been dealing with throughout this letter. What sort of people ought you to be? As he has spelled out in this chapter, the destruction of the present heavens and earth has two big results. As he pointed out in three seven, it is a day of judgment for those who have rebelled against God, and as he says in three thirteen, it is the day of redemption for those who have trusted in the promises of the gospel. For those who have turned away from God and pursued ungodliness, the destruction of this world will be their destruction as well. But for the people of God, the end of the world leads to a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells and Christ reigns. The end of this present world presents us with two truths that ought to inspire us to reflect on how we should live now because of where we want to end up. Peter has given us both a warning and an encouragement. From the beginning of this letter, he has said the goal of the gospel is to give us life and godliness. We deserve destruction, we deserve judgment, but God in his mercy and grace has provided a way for us to escape destruction through the cross of Jesus Christ. We are corrupted by sin, but those who embrace the gospel will have their sins forgiven and their characters changed to be holy as God Himself is holy. The gospel promises both forgiveness for sin and the release from our sinfulness, and he has been making that point throughout this letter. Also throughout the letter, he has said that those who do not repent will find judgment and destruction on that day. For those who trust God, the end of the world is the end of sin and death, and for those who reject God, the end of the world is the end of everything. And both sides of that coin should inspire us to repent and follow God. The warning and the encouragement should inspire us to be people who see godliness as the great hope and fulfillment of our lives. We want to become people who know that turning away from God is turning away from life. When the world ends, I don't want to go with it. Instead, I want to enter into the new heavens and the earth where righteousness dwells. That has implications for how we live today. And we're back to our thief in the night analogy. We are to live as repentant sinners. We are far from perfect, but we are committed to following God and seeking life and godliness. That's not a hypothetical issue. This is not a philosophical or theological debate about what is the best way to live your life. It's not curious speculation about the meaning of it all. This, as Peter has presented it, is a question of eternal life and eternal death. It is profoundly important that we answer this question right. As Peter has been saying, there are only two roads, and you can only go down one of the roads. It is a choice you must make now because one day it will be too late. I think Peter has probably drawn the idea of a new heavens and a new earth, at least in part from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah sixty five seventeen says, For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. And then later in sixty six twenty two, he says, For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. Now it's difficult to tell when an old testament prophet is speaking this. Literally, and when he is speaking metaphorically, I may be wrong about Isaiah, but I think these references do refer to the literal physical new age that is coming. Isaiah tells us the new heavens and the new earth are so new that all the former things will be forgotten and remembered no more. And he says the new heavens and the new earth are lasting and enduring, they will remain before the Lord, and God tells Israel that they are going to endure the way the new heavens and the new earth will endure. That putting away of the old and enduring eternally is the way Peter sees the new heavens and the new earth. He associates the new heavens and the new earth with the establishment of the eternal kingdom of Christ. So the new heavens and the new earth are the place where righteousness dwells. This is what the kingdom of God has always been about. The Old Testament prophets talk about the day when God is going to reign over his people through the Messiah, and that reign is going to put an end to death and evil and futility and corruption. Righteousness will prevail, sin will be gone, everything in creation will be a perfect reflection of the holy character of God, and it will be the time when the reign of Christ is fully and finally realized. The new heavens and the new earth are the coming of the kingdom of Christ, where sin and death are defeated, righteousness reigns, and God dwells with his people. That's what the Old Testament prophets promised, that's what Jesus talked about, and that's what Peter is talking about in this letter. And the language he uses ought to remind us of Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Think about that. Everything we know, everything we see, everything we learn and decipher, it all came about by the Word of God. Everything we have ever experienced is all part of the heavens and the earth that God created. And what Peter is telling us here is that God is going to wipe out this creation and make a new one. Everything we have ever known, everything we've ever made or seen or thought or experienced is going to be destroyed and something new is going to take its place. Something as profound as Genesis 1 1 is going to happen again, a new creation, a new beginning, and this time it will not be a fallen world where sin and death reign. It will be a world where righteousness and holiness reign. I'd like to highlight a word that Peter uses three times in this section. It's a little easier to see in the New American Standard Translation, and that is this phrase looking for. This is not looking for in the sense of searching or seeking something lost. This is looking for in the sense of expecting or anticipating, eagerly looking forward to something. This is Second Peter three verses twelve through fourteen, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, the elements will melt with intense heat. But according to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found in him in peace, spotless and blameless. We are looking for God to fulfill his promises. We are looking for and hastening the coming day of the Lord. We are waiting expectantly for Christ to return and fulfill his promises. We are eagerly anticipating the day in which God will finish what he started. There's a very real sense in which the Christian life is a life of hopeful expectancy. And we make our decisions now about what we value, what we're going to pursue, what our lives are going to be about based on what we're looking forward to. We make our decisions now based on what we expect the future to bring. There's a very real sense in which our eyes are meant to be on the horizon. Just like a sailor, we keep our eyes on the horizon to help us navigate the waters we're in now. We are looking to where we are going so that we know how to steer the boat today. And that's the point Peter's making. Let me read fifteen to eighteen again, I'm switching back to the English Standard Version. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him. As he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters, there's some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do other scriptures. You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. We talked in the last podcast about three fifteen and the reference to Paul, and I'm not going to repeat that here, but you can find that discussion in last week's podcast. It's interesting to note what Peter says about Paul here. You may recall that Paul opposed Peter to his face once in Antioch, as Paul tells us in Galatians, and yet here Peter is very complimentary of Paul. Peter calls Paul our beloved brother. He says Paul has been given wisdom. He says some of the things in Paul's letters are hard to understand, a comment I find highly ironic given the interpretive challenges of Peter's second chapter. And Peter says the ignorant and the unstable distort Paul's words to their destruction, just like the rest of Scripture. So it really does sound like Peter is suggesting that Paul's letters should be counted among the scripture, and that is a whole debate we won't get into about what exactly does Peter mean to say. I will tell you briefly, critics sometimes use Peter's statement here to argue that Peter did not write this letter. They argue that the collection of documents that we think of as the New Testament wasn't put together until a very long time later, and Peter couldn't possibly have known that Paul's letters would be collected as scripture, so therefore he couldn't have written this letter. I don't find that argument convincing. I think that Peter did write this letter. It is true that the New Testament authors don't talk about what to do with their letters. We don't have a command that says collect them up and put them into a New Testament. And it is also true that collecting the letters into the New Testament didn't happen until much later, and later believers decided which letters should be included, which ones faithfully represented the apostolic teaching, and which ones didn't. But what we do see in the New Testament documents is a very strong emphasis and insistence that the apostles are divinely empowered representatives of Jesus. The apostles claim that authority for themselves in every one of their letters. The later church didn't make up apostolic authority. We see it from the day Jesus ascended. We have seen Peter himself say, Listen to me because I am an eyewitness to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. We see him say, I've been called and charged and given authority to speak for Jesus, and we've seen him equate the authority of being an apostle with the authority of being an Old Testament prophet. The Old Testament prophets were speaking a message that God gave them, and the apostles say we are speaking a message that Jesus gave us just like they were. That's the nature of their authority. That's certainly true of Paul as well as Peter, and Peter is recognizing Paul has apostolic authority too. So given what the apostles say about themselves as authoritative spokesmen for Jesus, it would be surprising to me if they never considered the fact that their letters would wind up as scripture just like the writings of the Old Testament prophets, because they claim to have the same kind of authority, and they see a unity between their message and the message of the Old Testament. Given all that, Peter's statement doesn't raise any eyebrows for me. It's very consistent with the view of apostolic authority we've seen him write in this letter. Especially since he told us that his earthly life is almost over and that he is writing this letter as a legacy to remind believers about what is true and what they need to hold on to. Given that, it's hard to imagine that he is not picturing this letter as ending up with the rest of the scripture. He tells us he's an apostle, he has a unique, God-given authority, he's writing it down, his message is unified with the Old Testament prophets. How could that not be part of Scripture? And I think here he says Paul has the same authority. Okay, but back to the main point here. In the context of Peter's overall argument, his reference to Paul is mostly about those who distort Paul's words. And we talked about last week how he's probably referring to what Paul wrote in Romans 2, and I'm not going to repeat all that here. But you can see that Peter has circled back to his main point concerning the false teachers. The false teachers are distorting the gospel, they claim to be fellow believers, but they're preaching a false message that encourages pursuing greedy self indulgence rather than pursuing life and godliness, and Peter has been warning about that from the very beginning. Look at seventeen and eighteen again. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. One last time as he closes this letter, Peter warns not to be deceived by false teachers. And he is warning them in advance. He says in three seventeen, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard, take care. Well, how do they know beforehand? Because they've just read this letter. Peter has just told them false teachers are coming who will twist and distort the words of the apostles, and he says, Be alert, take care, don't be taken in by them. 317 and 18 then summarize Peter's purpose in writing this letter. His readers are facing a choice. Will they pursue the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as taught by the apostles? Or will they be led astray by the error of lawless people? There's going to be pressures. There are going to be mockers and scoffers. I think there are mockers and scoffers among the people as Peter wrote this, and they are still here to this day. There will always be people who claim to follow Jesus, but then teach something other than what Jesus taught. They're going to always be people who offer an attractive kind of religion that is in reality the way to destruction. And we will always see people preaching and teaching a kind of seductive false faith, and Peter saying, Don't be taken in by it. And notice how he emphasizes the role of Christ in all this. He says, Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is our Savior rescuing us from sin and death, and he is our Lord and Master commanding us to love God and each other. The false teachers can't be true disciples of Jesus because they reject both these ideas, both these roles. Jesus is not their Lord, as evidenced by their lifestyle, and he's not their savior, as also evidenced by their lifestyle, because they aren't pursuing a life of godliness. They're pursuing, as Peter has said throughout this letter, a kind of greedy, self-indulgent sensuality. They don't want to be rescued from sin, they don't want a savior, and they refuse to submit to what Jesus said is true and right and good, so they don't want a Lord. They have rejected Jesus as both Lord and Savior. And as Savior, Jesus is worthy of glory because He is the solution to all our problems. Without Him we have nothing. Without Him we have no hope, no forgiveness, and no future. Everything we long for finds its fulfillment in the work He accomplished on our behalf. He alone is worthy, and we will only become worthy because of what He has done. So the glory is His. So to close, let me summarize the three main themes I think we've seen in this letter of Second Peter. First, Peter strongly emphasizes our future hope and the return of Christ. We will not have the right perspective on our daily lives and the challenges we face today unless we have an eye on our future hope. We have to know where we're going and how we're going to get there to understand what is important today and therefore what choices I should strive to make. The Bible is not a set of rules and regulations about do this and don't do that. It's not a set of how-to tips and tricks to teach us to be good people or to be better people at being holy. It is this firm grounding in understanding what my real problem is, sin and guilt, and how I have any hope of solving it, the cross of Christ. The rest falls into place after that. So we have to understand that this world will end one day and be replaced with a new creation. And the most important thing we can learn now is how to become part of that new creation. Because Christ is going to return and establish his kingdom. One day God is going to turn to him and say, It's time, bring my children home. And the question for us is, do we want to be part of it or not? The wisdom of our current course is judged by where we end up. It's not how we feel, it's not how we look, it's not how well off we are, how easy life is. The most important question is where is your course taking you? Are you living wisely or are you living foolishly? That's why it's so important that we understand our future hope. The destiny of those who rebel against God is destruction, and the destiny of those who trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is that they will find life. It's important to know which path you're on because you want to be on the right path. Second, our future hope is not just about living forever, it involves moral transformation. It's not just that we will get a ticket to the new heavens and the new earth, it is that we will be rescued and redeemed from sin and death. We will be finally fully freed from sin and corruption and futility and be made holy and worthy as God is holy and worthy. Since that's our hope, that ought to be the goal and the longing of our hearts now, the thing we strive for, the thing we set our minds and our hope on. And Peter speaks of this at several points throughout the letter. He says Jesus taught us everything we need to know to obtain life and godliness. He said it is by means of the promises that we will become partakers of the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world, and so forth. The point of the gospel is not merely that we escape physical death, but that we escape sin and moral corruption. And then third, our future hope shapes how we live today. Since we hope to be rescued and we long to be freed from sin, we repent of it now and strive to love God and our neighbors now. It's true we're longing for godliness in the future, but that means we value it and pursue it today. And Peter gave us the famous list in chapter one. We pursue those things on that list now, those virtues we talked about in chapter one, because they are a natural implication of our hope. Our hope is not just to live forever like this, but to be holy like God is holy, to be made free from sin and corruption. And that hope of moral transformation changes my life today. Yes, I'm a sinner now, but my hope is righteousness, so I can't be indifferent to righteousness today. Peter knows that every day we are going to be challenged in this hope, that many people are going to come and deceive and distort the gospel for their own gain and their own profit, and he is warning us do not be taken in by them. There are people out there who will lead you to your doom, and you need to stay focused on the true gospel and your hope. The gospel is all about the problem of sin. When a church tends to lose its way, historically speaking, usually the first doctrine to go is the doctrine of sin. We start minimizing it. We're not really sinful, we're just broken. We just need a little tweaking and fixing, and then it starts down this slippery slope to a false gospel. And Peter's been warning against that. We need to be forgiven for our sins so that we can find life, and we need to be rescued from our sinfulness so that we can find godliness. That's what God has promised to do for us through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It's interesting to me that Peter has not given much moral instruction in this letter. He assumes that people know generally what it means to be morally excellent. We know what moral excellence looks like even if we can't achieve it. He assumes that everyone knows what's wrong with greed and self-indulgence, sensuality, and there are plenty of other passages in Scripture that address those kinds of questions and help us figure out what it looks like to follow God, but Peter has not given us much of that. His concern is to remind his readers that the Christian hope is primarily a hope for moral restoration. Sin has nothing to offer us, even if it seems attractive now. He's not a perfectionist thinking that believers are no longer going to struggle with sin. Notice what he contrasts. He's not contrasting perfect people with people who are trying their best but messing up. He is contrasting repentant sinners and false teachers. He is contrasting sinners who repent with false teachers who are unwilling to admit that they need to repent. They are unwilling to admit that sin is a problem and that problem needs to be solved, and they want to indulge themselves and have put together some kind of religious system that gives them permission to indulge. Yet for Peter, faith includes this vision of freedom from sin and sharing God's moral character. It includes what Jesus talked about as hungering and thirsting after righteousness. It is that hunger and thirst that shapes the choices I make today and how I live my life now. Yes, we all are still going to sin, but we have this vision that there is something better. A life of faith follows that vision. Honesty, repentance, confession, all that kind of hope and longing leads us in the direction of pursuing holiness. When we recognize that what we truly need is forgiveness and freedom from sin, that changes the way we look at our lives now and what we want out of them. We want ultimately to live in the kingdom of God and we want to be like Jesus when we get there. That's our hope, and one day it will become real. I'm Chris Anata, and you've been listening to the Wednesday and the Word podcast. Thank you so much for joining me for this series on Second Peter. I hope it has been time well spent for you. I would love to hear what you've learned. You can email me through the website, wednesdayintheword.com. To close this series, I want to offer you a song by Reggie Coates from his album Intimacy. You can find his music on heartfeltmusic.org and I encourage you to do so. Speaker 1: This song is called My Prayer for You're the United States.