Remember Who God Is - Pastor Tom Loghry
In 2 Peter 3:1-9, Peter reminds readers of who God is and the promise that He has given us of His return, encouraging us to hold to that promise in spite of those who don’t believe.
Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you into wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. Above all, you must understand that in the last days, scoffers will come scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, where is this coming He promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation. But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word, the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word, the present heavens and the earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends. With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. That was from 2 Peter 3, verses one through nine.
I think in many marriages there are two types of spouses, There's the spouse who is early to everything, and then there's the spouse who is always running late. And I must confess that I am the spouse that runs late. Being married to Sara at least makes us on time to things. James knows this, since I'm the one who usually drops him off and picks him up from school. And it's not unusual for a dad to be one of the last ones to roll through. Sometimes he'll remark, where were you? Or something like that. But I haven't ever heard him say with any seriousness, I didn't think you were going to pick me up. I might run late, but I'm at least reliably late. He knows his dad won't leave him stranded.
In chapter 3 of 2 Peter, Peter wants to prepare Christians for the mockery they're going to face. He knows there's going to be people who will mock us, who will say that Jesus has left us stranded. He said that he was going to come back, and yet here we are 2,000 years on. Peter urges his readers to remember who their God is. That unlike me, he's not running late, but that in the same way he will come through. God's promise is firm. So as we look at chapter 3, Peter starts out by noting to his readers that this is his second letter to them and this would seem pretty intuitive to us because we open up the Bible and we have first Peter and we have second Peter. However, commentators are not certain that this prior letter, this first letter that Peter's referring to is necessarily first Peter. It's possible he had written some other letters, we don't know that, but it could very well be first Peter and he says that the purpose in this letter and in the first letter that he wrote was to encourage the believers towards wholesome thinking, that they would have wholesome thinking. Now that's kind of a strange phrase, and it's a little bit of a difficult Greek word to translate but the meaning there is basically he wants them to have a full complete pure understanding that hasn't been spoiled by the philosophies and outlooks of this world. He wants them to have a gospel sort of mindset. And you might remember as we came into 2 Peter in the first chapter, he talked about how his goal was to refresh their memory. And from 2 Peter 1 verse 13 he says, I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body. And specifically what Peter wants Christians to remember here is the words that they've received from the holy prophets and the words of Jesus that they've received. through the apostles. It's interesting, last week I talked about the parallels between Jude and 2 Peter and Jude also has this sort of exhortation as well in Jude 1:17-18 he says, but dear friends remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold and then in verse 18 he says something that gets right to the point that Peter's driving towards here which is he says they said to you in the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires. So Jude's warning them, reminding them about how it was foretold that the believers were going to be facing people who were going to scoff, basically make fun of their faith, try to poke holes in it. And Peter's getting to the same point as well as he's reminding them to remember the words that they've heard, telling them that they were going to face scoffers of this sort and specifically what Peter wants to address here is the remarks that are pertaining to the return of Christ. Peter says in verse four that these scoffers will say where is this coming he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.
Now unless you share the Christian worldview, the possibility of Christ returning might not seem so terrible. Because it's been very common in human history for human beings to kind of have this sort of pagan understanding that, okay, people die and then they fleet off to a spirit world. And, you know, they hash that out in different ways. The Egyptians have their own way of looking at that, the Greeks. People across the world have always had this idea of, well you die and then you go to like a spirit world and you live there. The thing is, that's not the Christian world view. When you go throughout the Old Testament, when the prophets are speaking about death, when David's talking about death, they don't view death as something where you get to go have basically a second lease on life. It's a pretty dark, silent place. And some would characterize it as a state of sleep, of unconsciousness, but in any case it's no real life to speak of. And this is not the sort of life that is promised us in Christ.
And this is why the reformer John Calvin has this sort of response to this remark. He says, It was a dangerous scoff when they insinuated a doubt as to the last resurrection. For when that is taken away, there is no gospel any longer. The power of Christ is brought to nothing. The whole of religion is gone.. Then Satan aims directly at the throat of the Church when he destroys faith in the coming of Christ. For why did Christ die and rise again, except that he may some time gather to himself the redeemed from death and give them eternal life? All religion is wholly subverted, except faith in the resurrection remains firm and immovable. Hence on this point Satan assails us most fiercely.
The reason why John Calvin says that this is a ploy of the devil is because if we look to anything else other than resurrection hope, then we're looking to some hope outside of Christ. If we're looking for some afterlife that's apart from Christ, then what we're looking at is just hoping in our own nature as human beings, supposing that we are immortal by nature. But when we look at the New Testament, it's made absolutely clear that there is no hope for us unless Jesus returns and the dead are raised.
This is implicit in Paul's encouragement to the Thessalonians in 1st Thessalonians 4. Some of them were getting kind of despondent because some of their brothers and sisters were dying. And at that time they thought, well maybe Jesus will come back in our lifetime. Just as all of us wonder, maybe Jesus will come back in my lifetime. But some of their brothers and sisters had died and they're like, geez, there's no hope for them. But this is what Paul says. He says, brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him." Notice there what Paul says is that those who do not have this faith in Jesus, this faith of this resurrection to come, really truly have no hope. There's nothing for them to hope for. But the believers have something to hope for because they know Jesus will return, He will raise the dead, and they will enter into eternal life. They won't face judgment, they won't be destroyed, but they will enter into eternal life. So really, everything on the Christian faith really turns on this. If there is no resurrection, then the Gospel really isn't good news. It's kind of a story that is missing the forever after to it. Because what we see in Christ's return is true and complete redemption. You know, as you come and put your faith in Christ, Jesus has transformed your life. You're not the person that you used to be. But you still know you're messed up, and you know this world is messed up. And so there's still something to come. And that's what Jesus is bringing, the full and complete restoration of this earth and of us who believe.
Now there are particular consequences to forgetting about Christ's resurrection. And Christians are vulnerable to this. They're vulnerable to this temptation to forget about the second coming of Christ in our future resurrection. One of those consequences is hedonism. Now that's a fancy word. What does hedonism mean? Hedonism means giving yourself over to pleasure, pursuing pleasure as your greatest end in life. Paul kind of characterizes this in 1 Corinthians 15, 32. He's talking about the resurrection hope. And he says, if the dead are not raised, if there is no resurrection, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. That's the anthem of hedonists. Let's eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Let's party hardy because there is no tomorrow. And there are people who live like that. And it covers a whole spectrum. Maybe they give their lives over to pursuing worthless things, pursuing material goods. And they live a respectable life, but it's just all about collecting and accumulating things that are just going to rot and rust, things that they can't take with them because they're going to die. And on the other hand, you have people that are living really the same sort of hedonistic life, but are maybe giving themselves over to drugs, other fleshly pleasures, and just saying, well, this is all I've got, and I'm just going to go out with a bang sort of thing. That's one of the consequences of forgetting the coming of Christ, of having no real hope beyond this current span of time. There's another consequence, and it's broader, it goes beyond just the mere individual. It's that people will tend to be given over to, I guess what I would call, kind of, dystopian versions of human existence. And I'll put some flesh on those bones there. So dystopian means like a really messed up, kind of disillusioned, terrible version of human existence. And we all are familiar with kind of those sorts of situations in society. You think about the Nazis and Hitler. You think about communist Russia. When people have no hope beyond this current life, this current age, they will look for strong men and dictators to give them hope, to bring them utopia, to try to give them the eternity that their heart longs for. And so when people lose faith in Christ, when they do not have that hope, they will exchange their religion for politics. And I want to tell you right now that's happening in this country.
People are exchanging their religion for politics. Politics is becoming the religion of this country. It's going to have devastating effects upon us as a society. People will be given over to racial wars, making their racial identity, their ethnic identity, the sum of everything, putting all their hope in that. People will be given over to pursuing all kinds of fantastic, grotesque, technical solutions, technological solutions to human existence. Maybe some of you have plugged into following some of this stuff with artificial intelligence. People talking about, well, when you die we can upload you to a server and we'll have an artificial intelligent version of you that will just live on forever. It's kind of creepy. These are the kind of solutions that the world comes up with. But they are no real hope. They offer no real satisfaction for what our heart truly longs for, which is life restored.
Now again, Peter has kind of already offered kind of a pre-emptive counter to this scoffing because he's called on the believers to remember the words of the holy prophets, the words from Jesus and his apostles, words telling them to watch out for these scoffers, but also words which indicate to them that their hope should be firmly fixed in Jesus Christ and this promised redemption which is to come.
Peter speaks of this early on in the life of the church. In the book of Acts we have an early history of the church. In Acts 3, Peter and John were on their way up to the temple and they healed a man who was lame. And it attracted a crowd. And so Peter gives this sermon within the precincts of the temple. And I'll read a few of the verses here because we're going to return to this passage a couple of times. In Acts 3 verses 19 we’ll read up through 21, he says, Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah who has been appointed for you, even Jesus. Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. Notice there, he's referring to the prophets now here in 2 Peter, he's saying remember what the holy prophets said. And what he's telling his audience here in Acts is that heaven is going to receive Jesus for a time. Jesus died, rose from the dead, he ascended to heaven. But there is a time coming when he will return to restore everything. And this explicitly is what the prophets talked about, that day on which God would restore everything.
That's what we're looking forward to. Is Christ’s return when everything is going to be restored? And I already talked about how our solutions come up short, but it's worth emphasizing is we cannot restore this world. We cannot restore the human heart. Only Jesus can do that. And I thought kind of a vivid illustration of this is there's this, it's a probably Renaissance or medieval painting called the Echae Homo.
You can go to that slide, guys.
There's the first painting. It's a picture of Jesus, Echae homo means Behold the Man. Beautiful painting, but at some point, there were some people that said, hey, it could be kind of brushed up, fill in the white spots and stuff. And so they said, okay, let's make, okay, let's restore it. And that's what they came up with. Which some people have called Echae mono, which is Behold the Monkey, because that's what it, it does not look like Jesus.
But I think that's kind of just an illustration of just how far short human beings come in our restoration efforts. Now, that's just painting and artwork. And we come up short in those kind of just mundane sorts of things. Well, how about the eternal things? How about the very substance of this earth? How about our own human nature? How could we possibly restore that ourselves? We need a divine intervention. And God has performed that intervention through Jesus Christ, and He's going to bring it to completion at His return.
Now these scoffers, they know all of this, they know all of this, but they continue to scoff away saying, well when's your Jesus going to show up? He's not here yet. Now strikingly, Peter says that these people are deliberately forgetting who God is and what he has done. So turning to verses 5 through 9, he says that they deliberately forget what God has done in the past. Now, I think there's a reason for this. The reason why they're deliberately forgetting it because they don't want God to show up. They don't want to ever be held accountable. They're very content with the world as it is, life apart from God.
But while they might deliberately forget, that doesn't change the reality that God's Word is sure. And what Peter goes back to is to the very foundations of creation, of how God created this world by His mere Word. And then he goes and turns and talks about water, which seems a little funny, but when you go to Genesis, it talks about how the earth was originally covered with water. And so from the water, God brought forth everything that we see and we know. Ironically, a few chapters further into Genesis, you have that world destroyed by those same waters. And that was the word of judgment that God brought upon human beings at that time, because all their thoughts were wicked and only Noah and his family were counted as those who were found righteous among them now I want to take a short kind of aside here because probably some of you here you've thought about the flood before and you say you know well is that something that actually really happened and it absolutely did really happen the flood is a historical fact.
There is debate among commentators about what is the Bible trying to communicate as far as the parameters, the extent, and that covers a whole spectrum. On the one hand, you have a long-standing opinion that it covered the entire globe wiping out everything. On the other hand, you have those that say it was regional, it was catastrophic to the people in those areas, but it was divine judgment brought upon them. And then you have views all in between there. And I've looked at all of them. I've looked at all those positions and it makes your head spin because I see all the strengths and weaknesses for all of them. I just want to say to those of you who struggle on questions like this that it's okay to struggle. It's okay to wrestle with what did happen back then in terms of the science, the nature on the ground. And I think as Christians we need to be willing to welcome questions and being willing to tolerate some disagreement on questions like this. Because we have to affirm that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. But we don't have to insist that we are perfect interpreters. And we also have to recognize that while science is great, science is not perfect. One week they release, coffee will extend your life by 10 years, and then next week they'll say, no, it's gonna shorten your life. Science changes, and so you don't wanna just base everything on, well, what are the scientists saying? Because that's changing. And so we have to come to the text with humility and being able to tolerate a certain degree of mystery because our faith is not based on the particular details of the flood or any other, some of these other things that happen throughout scripture. Our basis for the faith is Jesus Christ. He's the cornerstone of the faith. If you believe that he was born of a virgin, died, rose from the dead, and that he's coming again, that's the basis of our faith. And when that's your foundation, you can have an open mind about all these sorts of things. And I just want to add just a word of warning against, I think there's a certain tendency for us to make our faith depend upon our understanding. This is the reality. You are setting yourself up to stumble if your faith depends on your ability to understand. You are setting yourself up to stumble if your faith depends on your ability to understand. Here's why I say this, because there's going to come points in scripture when you read something, you're going to be like, I don't understand this. And there might be really great explanations about what you're reading, and still at the end of the day, you don't understand it. And it's something that you're just going to have to take by faith. There's going to be things that happen in your life where you ask God, why? Why did that happen? And you won't have any sort of ability to understand, because it just doesn't make sense. And if your faith is based on your ability to understand everything, you will stumble in that moment.
And this gets really down to the root of the problem because the human problem has never been a lack of understanding. The human problem has always been a lack of trust. And this goes back to Adam and Eve. God said, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent came along and basically said, God's trying to keep you down. God doesn't want you to be as powerful as him.and they're like, gee, I don't understand why God wouldn't let us eat of the tree, basically. That's what they're thinking. This seems pretty good. And they stopped trusting God. We need to trust God in the things that we don't understand because as he says in Isaiah 55, 9, his ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts higher than our thoughts. We can trust. And in that trust, we are able to grow in knowledge, coming from things from a position of faith, seeking, understanding. Now, this whole kind of aside here is relevant to what we're talking about here in 2 Peter because there's this question about why Jesus hasn't come back yet. It doesn't seem to make sense. Why wait so long? Now, all of us here should be grateful that it's taken so long because none of us would exist if Jesus came back much earlier. So we should be grateful, but we can still ask why. And we might not understand. But Peter offers some explanation here. But before he gets to that, he first, you know, just continues his thought here. He says, God, by His word, brought the world into existence. He flooded the world and brought judgment upon it. In the same way, in the end, he will bring judgment again upon this world by his word. Except instead of water, it will be fire. The same word that creates can destroy. And God will destroy the ungodly. That is made utterly clear, Old Testament, New Testament. It matches Peter's testimony in his sermon back on the Temple Mount in Acts 3. We go back to that passage.
In verses 22-23, he says, for Moses said the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me, he's talking about Jesus here, from among your own people. You must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people. You go back to the Old Testament, Malachi 4.1 the prophet reports saying surely the day is coming and it will burn like a furnace all the arrogant and every evil doer will be stubble and the day that is coming will set them on fire says the Lord Almighty not a root or branch will be left to them that's why we say the wicked are going to be destroyed root and branch there's not going to be anything left because Jesus is coming to restore and so there's two options either you either come to Jesus, you put your faith in Him, and you're made into the person that you're supposed to be, or you're among those who remain in their rebellion, and so you're removed from existence. Because God is going to be all in all. There is not going to be any evil left in the cosmos. Only righteousness will dwell.
Paul speaks about this justice in 2 Thessalonians 1 verses 6 through 10. He says, God is just. He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven and blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction. So that means a destruction that you're not coming back from. It's done. Over with. And shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. On the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you because you have believed our testimony to you.
So that's what Peter says, God's word is sure. So when he says that Christ is going to return, that this judgment is to come, you can take to the bank. This is going to happen. He has something more though to say to the scoffers. And of course, he's really talking to the believers here. He's using the scoffers as a foil just to prepare the believers here. In preparing the believers he basically has two things he wants them to consider is one get some perspective. He basically goes and points out the fact that what might seem long to a human being is not long to God at all, and he alludes to this passage in Psalm 90:2-4 where it says, before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the whole world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn people back to dust, saying, return to dust, you mortals. A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
What the psalmist is saying, what Peter is saying is that our notion of what a long time is, is not God's notion of a long time. A thousand years to God is just like a day. It's nothing. And so when we think about Christ's return, you know, it's been two thousand years on, we could have quite a long ways to go. If you just take a conservative estimate of how old the world is, how long human beings have been existent, you know before Jesus that was about four thousand years so you could say well if Jesus was going to come smack dab in the middle you'd have two thousand more years to go from where where we are today. Now I'm not making any predictions here I mean Christians don't do that.
But what I am saying is, what seems long isn't long from God's perspective. It's just enough time to accomplish what He's setting out to accomplish.
The other thing that he says they need to understand is that God is delaying Christ's return as an act of mercy. In verse 9 he says, instead, he's patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. And what this is really showing us again is the heart of God. I just read you a bunch of passages where it's saying God is going to destroy the wicked and stuff. Some people when they hear that, they're just like, gee, I don't like the sound of that kind of God. What we have to understand is that God does not take joy in that destruction. He takes joy in justice. God loves justice, but he does not take joy in the loss of those people.
In Ezekiel 18 verses 23 and 32, God says, do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord. Repent and live.
In 1 Timothy 2 verses 1 through 6 the Apostle Paul says, I urge then first of all that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.
So God wants everyone to repent. He wants them to live. He doesn't want them to die. The only reason why destruction is a real possibility is because the only way to repent and live is if you turn to the only mediator we have, Jesus Christ. If you're saying, nah, I don't need Jesus. I got this. I'm going to try to restore my life and just stand on my own two feet before God. You're not gonna have a foot to stand on. Because God is just, and on our own standing, we cannot justify ourselves.
But God does desire that all would be justified by turning to Jesus Christ. And so when we ask the question, when will Jesus come? We don't have a precise chronological date, but we do have a purpose. Once a certain purpose is fulfilled is when Jesus will come. And Jesus tells us what this purpose is. In Matthew 24:14 he says, this gospel of the kingdom, will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come.
It's once the gospel is reached to all people, then the end will come. Now I've had some fun reading some Advent Christians from the past and some of them figured, well by the year 1900 we will have reached everybody so Jesus is coming back around that time. And there's been others that have thought along those lines as well. It's like, okay, once we've set a foot on every continent and every country then we will have reached everyone. That's kind of a naïve understanding of reaching the world though. Because every country is diverse and full of all sorts of people. And we also have to think about people existing across time. There's people who don't exist anymore but existed in the past, but who yet heard the gospel. And there's probably people groups that will exist in the future even, who are yet to hear the gospel. So we don't know when that work is complete, but that's when Jesus will return, when that work is complete, when everyone has heard the Gospel, who needs to hear the Gospel, once it's gone out to everyone.
Peter back in that sermon in Acts 3 talks about how Jesus' return awaits our repentance. He says, Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah who has been appointed for you, even Jesus. It's really easy to skip over that, but notice how he links together, you repent, the Messiah comes. Now it's not as though we can speed up the return of Jesus, but that's the condition, is repentance. The fullness of repentance that God is desiring, that's when Jesus comes.
And we are employed in that task. Beyond just our own personal repentance and putting faith in Christ, we are employed in that task of bringing the gospel to all nations and to our neighbors. There's plenty of people to reach with the gospel in our community here. We don't have to go overseas to do that. And so what God is calling us to do is to be faithful and pressing into that. We don't worry about when, God knows when. We just worry about the task that He's given us, which is to bring the Gospel to all people. And so as it relates to that question of why the delay, why is Jesus taking so long to return, we can now view that in a totally different way, because now we see that every second He gives us is a gift of mercy. It's a gift of mercy for the people that you love in your life who do not have faith in Christ. For all those people we don't know but who are beloved by God across the face of this earth, it's an act of grace and mercy that Christ has not yet returned.
And so this is kind of the paradox that we live in as Christians. You know, as John closes out his testimony of his revelation in Revelation 22, he writes that the church says, come Lord Jesus. And that is the cry. That's my cry. I've prayed many times, come Lord Jesus. But at the same time, I can also just as rightly say, thank you, Jesus, that you have not yet returned. Because there are still people who need to hear.
Your outlook on your life is shaped by your understanding of who God is. And so if God just set this world spinning into motion and walked away, and that was that, then we really have nothing to hope for beyond what we can carve out for ourselves in the few years we have on this planet. If Jesus is not coming back, then we will live, and we will die, and that will be that. Now, some people try to live life on those terms, finding more highs than lows, leaving some sort of legacy. They try to convince themselves that they'll leave some sort of lasting impression, some lasting mark. But here's the uncomfortable truth. The uncomfortable truth is that we will be forgotten by mankind. For a little while, we will be remembered, maybe especially if we live to see our great grandkids. But beyond that, we will be like the rest of humanity, a name and a date on a stone. If we worked hard, maybe some accomplishment in a record book. But you, the living, breathing you, will not be known.
In the end, the scientists say that the result is the same, that this world will end in fire. And of course, then there will truly be nothing left. But we are not forgotten by God. God does not forget you. God will bring fiery destruction upon this world just as he brought creation into being, but in the meantime he has offered us redemption. God sent his son to this world so that we could be saved from destruction, so that we could live another day and not pass away into oblivion. We can see this only partly now. We see glimpses of eternity in each other's lives, in our own lives. But in the future, complete material, bodily, and spiritual restoration awaits those who will have faith and trust Jesus.
For now, we do continue to die, and our world remains fractured. And there are people around us who will say, this is all we got. Play the hand you're dealt. They'll say that the return of Jesus is nothing more than a fantastic dream.
Do not heed their lies.
Do not follow them by selling your soul to pleasure or to politicians because you have forgotten your messiah. Remember Jesus. He will remember you. Let's pray.
Dear Father.
We come before you together, to confess that it is so easy for us to forget. It's so easy for us to get our eyes off of looking forward to Christ's return and instead living by that philosophy of eating and drinking for tomorrow we die.
Father, as much as we've been given over to that, help us repent. Father, help us live every day under the reality that Jesus is returning, and that he's bringing full restoration with him. Help us to live out of that reality, Father. And help us ward off those who would try to squelch our hope.
Father, help us to be a light in the darkness as people around us in our society are giving themselves over to pleasures and to destructive powers and government and all kinds of fears, Father. Because they want to be saved that way, Father. Help us to be a light, saying you don't need to do that. Don't destroy yourself like that.
Help us to point others to Jesus, Father, so that they may receive that mercy that You're offering while we wait. And Father, we do pray, Come Lord Jesus, because we do look forward to His return. But Father, we do thank You for every second more that You give us to reach others with the Gospel. We pray, Father, that as a church, and individually father that we would be faithful in sharing this good news with others. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon that I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Rd in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we continue our series through 1st and 2nd Peter. It's our joy to welcome you into our community.
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)