Immanuel Sermon Audio
Grow Up (2 Peter 3:14-18)
Take your Bible out. Find the book of 2 Peter, way at the end of your Bible. 2 Peter, last chapter, last verses. There is an outline, if you'd like to follow along. I hope this morning that you appreciate the irony of a sermon series entitled "Grow Up," as I'm surrounded by a fort and children's decorations. That's fitting. We're talking about how to strive for maturity in our faith, maturity in Jesus Christ, not being content to be infants in our faith, but how can we grow up? What do we need to do to grow up? So we're going to look in just a few minutes at 2 Peter 3 and we're going to read 14 to 18. This is really not debatable and so I'm just going to assert it as if it's true because it is true. Our culture celebrates immaturity. You live in a time and a place where immaturity is celebrated on lots of different levels. People just don't want to grow up. People don't want to mature. I have a family member and I was on Facebook yesterday and she posted a picture of a book. This is fitting for her. The book was entitled "How to Make People Think You're a Better Person Without Actually Changing Anything in Your Life." She said, "I'm really excited to read this book," and I thought, "That's you. I think you wrote the book. Immaturity. Women are guilty of this, but I'll just be honest with you. Men are the main offenders and the main problem. Lots of sociologists have studied this and again, this is really not even debatable, but where you live and when you live, the American male has refused to move on from adolescence. That's just sort of the world we live in. Let me just give you a couple of examples. I had a giant list. Read some fascinating articles and studies this last week. Let me just give you a couple of examples. In 1957, there were 27 Westerns on Primetime TV. Not all of TV, and I know there wasn't as much TV in 1957, but 1957, 27 Westerns in Primetime TV, all of them celebrated in some way, shape, or form responsible manliness. They upheld that, chivalry and being brave and courageous in doing what's right. Then I started thinking, "How many TV shows are there on Primetime TV right now where the hero of the TV show is a man?" Maybe a few cop shows you could think of in most of the shows that are on Primetime network TV today, the men are idiots. If they're not idiots and they are manly, they're criminals. It's not celebrated like it used to be. It's not just 1957 in the Westerns. It's also Disney. Any of you guys own Disney movies? I own about 400 Disney movies. I own a lot. I have paid my dues with Disney. We watch Disney movies, so I'm not telling you to go home and throw yours out because I'm not going to throw mine out. When you watch a Disney movie, especially the ones that I have, the children, the youth, the young people are always smart, bright, courageous, intelligent, and the grown-ups are cowardly, stupid, at best, evil at worst, pretty consistently. You look at that, watching the movie, and you say, "Who do I want to be like? Do I want to be like the afraid, cowardly, cruel, unjust adult, or do I want to be like the child?" Who's the hero of the story? You see this idea celebrating youth, celebrating immaturity. Hollywood, forget TV. Just watch commercials. I know a lot of you Tivo or DVR or whatever, and so you can skip the commercials, but if you watch commercials, I challenge you for one day. Just watch all the commercials and count up how many commercials have a man that is respectable, honest, brave, intelligent. Most of the men and commercials are idiots. You say, "Well, that's just real life. They're reflecting real life. Maybe so." And that's the whole problem. Not enough of us out there. Here's kind of a funny example. I'm going to put a picture of Tiger Woods up, and I'm not really picking on Tiger Woods, but some of you may remember a few years ago, 2009, his personal life just kind of exploded publicly for everybody to see. None of us would want that to happen to us, but it happened to him, and it was really, really bad. And sort of the heat of people giving him a hard time about all the nonsense that he had been wrapped up in. Tiger Woods' agent released a press statement, a comment to the press. This is what his agent said, "Give the kid a break. Give the kid a break." You know how old he was in 2009? 33. Since when is 33 a kid? But that's what we sort of operate on. That's what we sort of encounter. This is just long, prolonged, never-ending period of adolescence that just drags on and on and on. My generation, I am partly proud and partly embarrassed to say, invented adult summer camp. Right? Corey's talking about youth summer camp. You say, "I used to love going to summer camp when I was in high school." Well, my generation loved it so much that we are still going, and you can go to adult summer camp and you can shoot bows and arrows and do the rivalry and swim in the pool and take a hike and do all that sort of stuff. We don't want to grow up. We invented adult dodgeball leagues. We don't want to grow up. A lot of you say, "Well, dodgeball, that's what you played on the playground when you were little. That's what we played, and we like playing it so much. We're still playing it." Just a bunch of children. Cartoons. For adults. You realize how silly that would be to the first people who watched cartoons? Just say, "You mean there's an entire TV show, a series that's cartoons? Kids don't watch it. It's just for adults. Yeah. Why do we do that? We don't want to grow up." One sociologist I read this week put it like this, and I like this. "In the United States, adolescence is no longer a life stage. It's a lifestyle." That's kind of where we live. If you live in a culture that celebrates adolescence and immaturity and you're a Christian and you go to church in that culture, you know that probably in not a positive way our churches have been impacted by this fascination with immaturity and adolescence. You have a lot of Christians that just don't want to grow up, and it looks differently in different people's lives. It takes a lot of forms, but you have a lot of people who would say, "You know what? Back way back then, I made a decision to follow Jesus. I prayed a prayer. I signed a card or I did something, and then here it's been five years later, ten years later, fifteen years later. You know, I still really don't know much about the Bible, and I still don't feel all that close to God, and I don't know that I've ever shared my faith with anybody, and you look at them and you say, "You've had five, ten, fifteen years to grow up. What happened?" We didn't grow up. And so in this series, we're talking about what does it look like for us to grow up? One passage we're not going to look at, you can jot it down. James 1, 2, 4 says, "The goal for a Christian," James 1, 2, 4. "The goal for every Christian is to be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." That's a pretty high standard. Jesus wants us to be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. And so we're looking at passages that tell us to grow up, and then we're digging into those passages to say, "What do we need to do? How do we need to think? What do we need to change to grow up in our faith?" And so our passage this morning, you're looking at 2 Peter, chapter 3, we're about to read it, but let me just point out two really obvious things that you need to be aware of. Peter 3, 14 to 18 are the last verses in 2 Peter. That means we're jumping in at the very tell end of a letter that Peter wrote, and we're skipping everything that came before it. And again, at the point of being obvious, 2 Peter is called 2 Peter because right before it, there's a first Peter. We're skipping all the first Peter. We're skipping almost all of 2 Peter, and we're coming to the end. What you ought to do is go back and read all that Peter had to say. Just start at 1 Peter. Neither of these books are long books. They're both short letters. You can just read right through them. You can get the idea of what Peter is talking about. Know this. 2 Peter 3, 14 to 18 is a pretty good summary of everything that Peter just talked about. Is Peter just sort of putting the icing on the cake at the end of his exhortations to believers? And so look with me in your Bible, or you can follow along on the screen. This is the Word of God telling us to grow up from 2 Peter 3 beginning in verse 14. Therefore beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord is 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 the other scriptures. 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. There's our word. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. This is the Word of God. Really simple. Our goal this morning is not to take apart every word and phrase that Peter has in these few verses, but just to ask and answer one simple question. According to 2 Peter 3, what do we need to do to grow up as followers of Jesus Christ? And I want you to see three very simple, but for me, very convicting truths. Here's the first one. Number one, if you want to grow up, you need to pursue holiness in your life. Pursue holiness. Chase after holiness. Holiness describing obedience to God. Love for God. Passion for God. That's something that you're going to have to chase. Look at verse 14, he says, be diligent. Be diligent to be found by him, by God, without spot or blemish. That phrase, without spot or blemish, it's used in the Old Testament to describe the sacrifices that God's people could bring. You couldn't bring the crippled lamb. You couldn't bring the blind lamb. You couldn't bring the three-legged lamb. You had to bring one without blemish or spot. One that was perfect. One that was holy. And Peter says, that's what you want to strive for. Holiness. How many of us honestly say, that's what I am striving and chasing. You say, well, I'm trying not to cuss. Well, I'm trying not to get mad at the guy next to me while I'm driving across town and he cuts me off. Great. You're trying not to do certain things, but are you chasing holiness? And Peter knows because he's not stupid. Peter knows that that takes intentionality. It's not just going to happen on its own. That's why he says, be diligent to do this. Don't just sit back and wait for it to happen. I shared a quote with you two weeks ago from D.A. Carson. He said, no one drifts towards holiness. You will never drift to holiness. Peter says, you're going to have to be diligent. And you're going to have to pursue this if you want to grow up. Now, let's ask one question. We need to pursue holiness. Why? Why does it matter? Why is it such a big deal to Peter that we pursue holiness if we're going to grow up in our faith? Can I tell you why a lot of people pursue holiness? A lot of people, a lot of church-going people say, I'm going to pursue holiness so that I can be good enough to get into heaven someday. I'm going to try to be so good that when I stand before God and he weighs my life on the scales, there's going to be enough holiness to sort of tip the scales in my favor and I get to go in someday. That is the farthest thing from Peter's mind that could ever be said. In fact, that's the exact opposite of what Peter's been talking about in first and second. Peter says this. This is on your outline. We pursue holiness because we are pursuing God who is holy. And so you fill that blank in. We're pursuing holiness because we pursue God who is holy. You hold your spot. You flip back to first Peter. You look at chapter 1, verse 15 and 16. I like Peter. Peter was slow to get things sometimes. Sometimes he needed to hear it more than once. So do I. And so he says it twice for people like me. First Peter 1, 15. As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. You see the motivation? You should be holy in your conduct. Why? Because God's holy. He says it again in verse 16. Verse Peter 1, 16. Since it is written, now he's quoting the Old Testament. You shall be holy. Why? So you can get into heaven someday? Not what he says. So the scales will tip in your favor on the day of judgment? That's not what he says. You shall be holy, God says, quoting the Old Testament because I am holy. We pursue God first. And if you pursue God, you will pursue holiness. A lot of you have tried to pursue holiness without pursuing God. You've tried moral reformation. You've tried to quit this and quit that and start this and start that. And God has not been part of that equation. And you have turned into a frustrated mess because you say, I just can't seem to make any progress. Of course you can't. Peter never intends us to pursue holiness just for holiness sake. He wants you to pursue God. And when you do that, you also pursue holiness. Why? Because God is holy. If you're pursuing Him, then you are pursuing holiness. If you say today, honestly, I have no desire to pursue holiness. Some of you may say that. If you were really honest, you may say, I have no desire to change the things of my life that I need to change. I have no desire to try to change those things. What I would say to you flipping this on its head is you have no desire for God, period. None. And you need to pray about that. And you need to ask God to break you about that. You need to ask God to change your way of thinking and to change your heart. Peter says, we need to pursue holiness and we do that number one. We pursue it because God is holy. Here's a second reason. We pursue holiness because we're preparing for eternity. We're preparing for eternity. Look at the first words in our passage, 2 Peter 3, 14. The first word is the word therefore. And when you're reading in the Bible and you see the word therefore, you stop and you ask yourself what? What's it therefore? That means you need to back up to figure out why it's there. So therefore, what's it therefore? Will you back up in your read chapter 3, which you're going to do this afternoon? And you read chapter 3 and you say, oh, chapter 3, that's about heaven. That's about Jesus coming back. That's about us spending eternity with Him. And then He says, therefore, in light of Jesus coming back in heaven and eternity and all that, you're waiting for these. You read it just at verse 14, you say, these what? What are you waiting for? You're waiting for these things for Jesus to come back for heaven, for eternity with Him. Because you're waiting for these things, be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish and at peace. The logic is really simple. The logic is Jesus is coming back for His people. If you're one of His people, you're going to spend eternity with Him in heaven. It's going to be awesome. That means now you need to get ready. Pursue holiness. The twisted logic that a lot of people like to develop is, Jesus is coming back. So I better straighten my life up and pursue holiness so I can get into heaven when He comes back. That's not what Peter says. You've got to understand the therefore and He's saying, Jesus is coming back. His people will be with Him forever. He's going to be amazing, therefore you pursue holiness now. Here's the thing about holiness. This is not on your outline. This one's just for free. Holiness is the real test. It's sort of where the rubber meets the road, right? What we're doing this morning is easy. You come in here, you sing a song, you fill the blanks out on the outline, you shake hands when Corey tells you to shake hands, you smile at everybody, easy. The real test is when you leave this place, are you pursuing holiness? That's the test for you as a Christian. That's the real test for you and your family. And that's the real test for us as a church. People say, well, how's your church doing? Pastors like to ask this stupid question all the time. Are you growing? Really what they want to know is do you have more people than me? Are you bigger than us? Who's more important? Me or you? Forget about are you growing? That's not a good test. There's plenty of growing churches in the United States that are lousy churches. Say, well, what you're calendar like? You guys busy this summer? You got a lot of stuff going on? You're busy? You got a lot of programs, a lot of ministries? It's not a good sign of how your church is doing. You want to really evaluate your church and how you're doing. Say this, are we more holy this year in 2015 than we were in 2014 as a church family? In my family, in me as an individual. Again, you're not doing it so you can go to heaven someday. You're doing it because you're going to heaven someday. You're doing it because you're chasing God who is holy. So number one, if you want to grow up, you have to be diligent about holiness. Secondly, you got to be rooted in scripture. You got to be rooted in scripture. And I'm going to give you a couple of reasons. And we'll work through these quickly and then I'll tell you something that's funny and sad at the same time. Rooted in scripture. Three reasons. Number one, the scriptures help us grow because they are God's Word. I just read a book this last week called From the Mouth of God. It's a book about the Bible and I love the title. The Bible is From the Mouth of God. This is God speaking to you. You don't have to wonder what is God saying to me. You don't have to look for signs in the clouds or in your tea at lunch. You just say, what does the Bible say? This is God speaking to me. You can go back and look at 2 Peter 2, 20 and 21. Peter says, men wrote this book as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit of God. What they wrote was at the same time their words and also God's Word. And so it helps us grow because it's God's Word. Number two, this includes the books of the Old Testament and the New Testament. And I'm going to come back to that. That may seem obvious, but you can look at 2 Peter 3, 15 to 16. The logic is really inescapable. What Peter is saying is, look, there's a guy named Paul. Some of you have heard of him. He wrote some letters. And there's some things in Paul's letters that are hard to understand. In fact, Peter admits some people twist Paul's letters around to say things that he never wanted them to say. But he says, that's okay because people do that to the other scriptures. The other writings. The other, the Greek word is "graphé", the Old Testament. And he's comparing the two and he's basically saying Paul's letters are scripture and the Old Testament writings are scripture. And there are some things in them that are hard to understand. And there are some things in them that people twist around to say what they want it to say. But he's talking here about the Old Testament and Paul's writing is a New Testament and he's putting it all together and he's saying this is what you need to be grounded in. The Old Testament and the New Testament. Now you say, that's so obvious, duh. I've got it right in front of me. There's no questions about that. Well, just hold on and it may not be as obvious as you think. Number three, being rooted in the scriptures is different than twisting the scriptures. And again, Peter says, some people twist Paul's writings just like they do the other scriptures. The idea here is that they come to this book with their mind already made up about what they want to believe and then they look for something here to validate what they believe. Instead of coming to this book and listening to what it says and then changing the things that they believe if they need to do that. And Peter warns us, it's pretty serious. He says those who twist God's words, those who come to it with preconceived ideas and just try to make it fit what they want it to say. Their end is what? Destruction. That means what you think it means. Damnation. It doesn't end well for those people. If you're going to grow up, you need God's Word. You need the Bible. Now you say, that's all very obvious. I forgot to bring my phone up here. Last night I was doing what you're not supposed to do and I was looking at Facebook before you go to bed. And Facebook thought I would want to see this ad and so they put it on my phone and I took a picture of it. This is a church in Odessa advertisement they had this weekend. I'm not going to tell you the church. I know you want to know. Join us this Sunday at 10.30 as we experience the joy of the Oscar winning music from Frozen. We're going to explore the life teaching themes from these songs and we encourage the whole family to be what God has created you to be. So bring your family to 10.30. Then to have a nice picture of Olaf. Olaf is on the ad so that gets your attention and they say this summer we're talking about and Olaf is right there smiling at you. Imagining life's possibilities, desiring true community, letting go of what holds us back, love that can make a difference, et cetera, et cetera. So this church is saying, come on a Sunday morning. We're going to watch some Frozen. I don't know if they're going to sing the songs but it sounds like the songs are going to be part of the service. Then we're going to teach you some life lessons from these songs. It's going to be great. Your kids will love it. Fantastic. You're building on sand. You're taking a movie and you're saying, let's find some things in this movie and then let's come to the Bible and pull out a few things that support what we want it to say and call it a Sunday morning worship service. Peter would vomit in his mouth. Peter says you have lost your mind. You need to be rooted and grounded and built on the foundation of the Scripture. The Old Testament and the New Testament. Let's make it plain for those who are confused. Not the canon of Disney but the canon of Scripture. That's your foundation. That means, here we go, okay, you're all with me, stupid church. I can't stand those people do things like that. So embarrassing and bearish men on Odessa. That means you've got to read it. You have to. You say, well, I come listen to you talk about it. It's not enough. You say, well, I'm in Ron Heinzley's Sunday school class. Do you know what kind of teacher he is? I sit in there every week. Ron's a great teacher. It's not enough. It's not enough. You have to read it. What does Peter say? This is God's word to you. You don't have to come to me and Ron and let us sort of wring out our pathetic sponge and you get the drippings. The ocean is wide open. Jump in for yourself. Read it. And Peter says in here you're going to have to be diligent about these things. That means you need a plan. If you don't have a plan, I promise you you're not going to read the Bible. I promise you, I promise you, I promise you. You've got to have a plan. I don't care what your plan is. You can start in Genesis and go to Revelation. You can pick Psalms, Proverbs, one proverb a day. There's a million ways you can jump into the ocean, but you just got to jump in and you've got to read it. If you don't, that's fine, but you're not going to grow up. It's very, very simple. Say, "I don't like to read. I don't care." You say, "I'm really busy. So am I." You say, "Well, I daydream or I don't..." You have to. There is no option if you want to grow up, you have to read it. Here's one simple plan. If you don't have a plan, maybe you could try this plan. There's something called the one-year Bible. I don't care if you like the ESV, the N.L.T., the N.I.V., the King James. They want to make money that put it in every translation for you. So you pick your favorite translation and you crack this thing open and it says January 1. Here's what you read. January 2. Here's what you read. 3, 4, 5. All the way through, you read it the whole year, every day of the year, and if you're like me, you can check it off each day and feel a little bit better about it. You like checking things off your list. You check it off. You do it for a whole year. You read all the Old Testament, all the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs twice. It's pretty simple. It's not rocket science. It takes diligence to do it. And Peter says, you need to build roots here in God's Word in the Bible. That means yes, come listen to Bible preaching. Yes, go to Ron's class and listen to Bible teaching, but you have got to read God's Word. So you got to pursue holiness. You got to read God's Word, rooted in Scripture. Number three, you have to grow in grace and knowledge, grace and knowledge. I was surprised this week when I got to the last couple of verses of our passage, especially verse 18. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to Him be the glory both now to the day of eternity, amen. Lots of debate about how to break this verse down. What does it mean? What's He talking about? I think what Peter is saying is, if you are ever going to grow up to maturity in Christ, you have to start with basic knowledge in receiving God's grace. And if you don't start there, you can chase reading the Bible and try to be holy all you want, but you're going to miss it. There's some things that you've got to know, and there's something that you've got to receive. And I think that's what Peter's talking about when he's talking about growing in grace and knowledge. You've got to start somewhere. Here's a few things that you need to know if you're going to grow up. Number one, you need to know that God is holy. Not just holy, the Bible says He is holy, holy, holy. And the Bible says, bad news, you're not. You're a sinner, just like me. Your heart is broken. You showed up on this scene, a sinner, estranged from God, separated from God. And the grace of God, despite your sin, reached out to you through Jesus Christ. The Bible says that while we were still sinners, God sent Jesus, and He sent Him to die our death on the cross. He lived a perfect life. He had no sin to die for, and when He died, He died for your sin and for my sin. And Jesus is very clear. Paul agrees with Him. Peter agrees with Him. What you need to do now is two simple things. Repent of your sin, turn away from it, confess it to sin, acknowledge it for what it is, and put your faith in Jesus Christ. Repent and believe. Believe that what Jesus did, He did for you. That's where you begin in knowledge and grace. You've got to know those things. You've got to understand them intellectually, and then you've got to receive them as God's grace comes into your life. Some of you have tried to grow up spiritually without starting there, knowing the truth about Jesus and accepting that into your life. And maybe you're not there today, but if you've ever tried to grow up spiritually without receiving grace and knowing the truth about Jesus, you turn into a bitter, angry, critical, judgmental Pharisee. And that's a miserable place to be. Some of the harshest things that Jesus had to say to anybody He said to the Pharisees. And Peter was there to hear all of it. And Peter saying, look, I want you to grow up. You need to pursue holiness. You've got to be grounded in Scripture. But here's where you start. This is the baseline. You've got to have knowledge in grace, and you've got to grow in that. You have to know the truth about Jesus. You have to know the truth about God. You have to know the truth about yourself. You have to understand what Jesus is calling you to, and you have to receive God's grace into your life. Some of you have never done that. Some of you have. Some of you say, you know, I need to be more diligent in pursuing holiness, or I need to be more grounded in Scripture. But some of you say, I don't have the grace and the knowledge part down. I don't know Jesus Christ. I've never began a relationship with Him. Today would be a great day to start growing up. And it begins with knowing the truth about Jesus, receiving His grace, committing yourself to be diligent in pursuing holiness and being grounded in His Word. Let me pray for you. Father, we love you. We're grateful for the Bible. We believe that it's true. We believe that it's your Word. Father, when we read it, it convicts us. It corrects us. It shapes us. Father, it encourages us, strengthens us. And Father, my prayer is that as we've looked at your Word, and what Peter wrote to the church, that we would experience those things this morning, correction, conviction, strengthening, encouragement, shaping and molding. Father, we always want to come to Scripture to hear what you have to say. And we always want to come humbly, willing to change what we think, what we believe, even how we feel. Father, I pray for those who are in the room who have never accepted your grace and never repented of their sins entrusted in Jesus. Father, and I pray that this morning you would change their heart. We pray that you would save them, and that they would begin to grow. Father, I pray for those who are here, who have a genuine relationship with Jesus. I pray for myself and Father, our prayer is that you would show us and strengthen us for the task of being diligent in pursuing you, that we would be committed to your Word, that it would be a little rock underneath our feet. Father, as we worship, we sing to you. We acknowledge you as our Creator, as our Savior, as our Sustainer, as everything. Be honored as we worship. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Stand up.