“Born thy people to deliver/ born a child, and yet a king/ Born to reign in us forever/ now thy gracious kingdom bring.” Come Thou Long Expected Jesus is a good Advent song – a glance back at the first coming of Jesus but also a straining ahead to the second coming.Next week we’ll begin as 3-part series on Christmas, 1st Advent sermons. This morning is our third and final week in 2 Peter 3 which looks ahead to the 2nd Advent. In this last chapter of his second canonical letter, the Apostle Peter reminds his readers about the long-predicted day of the Lord when Christ returns – a time of judgment, destruction of the ungodly, a great burning of the heaven and earth. And then, in the wake of that destruction, the new heavens and new earth, of which Peter characterizes with just one phrase: where righteousness dwells.
How should a Christian live in view of the coming day of God? V. 11: Since all these things will be set on fire and dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness. V. 14: Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace…
I want to set this idea of the Day of the Lord into the bigger picture. This Day of the Lord stuff can suggest that God is scary and threatening and ill-tempered. Well, God is scary as any judge who has the power and prerogative to assign you a certain future is scary…and scarier still because at that day God will assign eternal destinies. And we should feel threatened by a God who predicts a coming destruction who already in the past has sent a huge and destructive flood on the earth. 2 Peter 3 isn’t mere saber-rattling.
But in presenting God as One to be feared, I don’t want you to perceive that God is ill-tempered in judgment. He will not destroy the ungodly because he is petty, petulant, a cross Karen who is annoyed that people aren’t following his arbitrary rules.
No. As I quoted last week: All that is not God is death. And no one knows this as well as God. God always bears in mind that He is the Creator, the Life-Giver. He sees this: when any person says ‘no’ to Him, or rather doesn’t say ‘yes’ to him, by that ungodliness that person is barring himself/herself from the source of life; even without realizing it, is choosing death.
And doesn’t just choose death for himself, but becomes a dealer in death. A death merchant. You’re either reconciled to God through Jesus and becoming an instrument of righteousness or you are ultimately becoming an instrument of unrighteousness leading to death. There is no neutral position.
Here’s how Paul puts it, in Romans 6
How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life…We know that our old man was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin…So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness…Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who once were slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.
In this extended passage Paul is proposing…two. Two categories of people: those baptized into Christ and those who aren’t in Christ. And then two objective qualities of those persons: alive to God or enslaved to sin. And then two ultimate outcomes: righteousness or death.
There’s no third, neutral position where lives, for instance, Jordan Peterson, Troy Aikman, the Dalai Lama. Here’s why: All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…we have all failed miserably at our function of imaging God. We had one job, as the saying goes, and if we’ve failed and are failing so spectacularly at that, the consequence of failing is dismantling, destruction. And that’s even if we’re chock full of insights, or a good ol’ boy, or mysteriously religious. These are all beside the main point, which is imaging God.
Let me expand on that “one job” as human beings: In our speech, our marriages, our dating, our work, our priorities, our thinking, our eating and drinking, we are to image God. People and angels look at us and think: Oh yeah, I see the wisdom of God being applied to every hour and every problem. God- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is supposed to be reflected in our bodily life. The way we talk with and love our wife in word and deed, the way wives are subject to their husbands, the way we face disappointment, the way we speak and even think about our co-workers – oh yeah: I see the Trinity in all their warm interaction with each other reflected.
Humans are not meant to be just generally nice, but reflect God the Father, Son, and Spirit. This is a great position humans have among all that is created. It is what lends them a unique dignity, makes them more valuable than dogs or galaxies. Yet what have we done with this great honor? We’ve failed to acknowledge God, trust him, love him. In his place we’ve erected other gods to whom we give our attention, our service. We’ve become workers of greed, workers of dishonesty, working for self. In our relationships we’re thin-skinned, prone to bitterness, cold, cruel. God is not only not-seen; he’s positively hidden. Instead of revealing God we’ve covered him.
I heard a great analogy last week. We’ve been given this great honor as image bearers and used it destructively. Like being given money to build a homeless shelter and using it to start a human trafficking network. (David Wood)
There’s only one repair. Only those connected to the Man Jesus Christ – the one true image bearer – are by His Spirit on our way to being fully restored to our image bearing function. Anyone NOT connected to Jesus – NOT crucified with him and NOT raised with him – no matter how insightful and well-meaning he is, is still part of the failed human project headed up by Adam. Outside of God’s will. Technically, ungodly. There is no life apart from Jesus Christ.
Back to 2 Peter 3, when the word of God sets in motion the great final judgment, it is merely the culmination of a truth that has all the time been operative: John 3: 18 – Whoever does not believe in Jesus is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God – – the true image bearing son of the Father.
God will not allow humanity to keep failing at their one job…and partly this is out of affection for the non-human creation. Because when humans fail at imaging God, they fail at ruling the creation in God’s behalf…and the creation suffers. Dies. Merchants of death, as we said. And also, as one generation of humanity resists the will of God and fails at glorifying him and incurs further judgment, they make returning to God that much harder for the subsequent generations…the way back to Life more confusing.
In a way, God is stepping in to destroy… out of mercy. But then there’s this: He hasn’t yet judged, because, as we read last week: The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (3:9)
The God who made the earth, whose hands formed the stars, the creator of purple and algebra and metals and jaguars and veins and soaring hawks – has so loved us that He’s given His Son. And now he keeps sending the Spirit to us, to you, to all who are dysfunctional at their one job and says, don’t choose destruction, but come to Jesus and be saved from failure, saved out of the destruction for failing at your one job. You’ll be repaired! I have so much good lined up for you. Come to that banquet, freely. I’m restoring all things, and my wish is that you are part of that restoration. In fact, that you stand at the head of it and be a part of bringing it about!
So…Repent!
What is repentance?
“Repent” isn’t always used in the Scripture for the response to God that is salvation, but nevertheless repentance is always part of every sincere response to God. Our passage helps us to understand the force of the word repentance by adding the word the ESV translated “reach.” God wants all to reach repentance.
The Greek word for reach is the word choreo, from whence we get our word for choreography. You know what choreography is from America’s Got Talent or watching the Nutcracker – a sequence of steps or movements.
What this word emphasizes, an idea which actually is already in the word ‘repent,’ is that turning to God isn’t accidental but is a deliberate choice. A turning away from whatever you had been doing, and a turning to God. Even if what you we’re doing was being a prophetic voice for good a la Jordan Peterson, or being a good ol’ boy, like Troy Aikman, or representing religion, like the Dalai Lama. Turning to God, the Father of Jesus Christ.
You don’t just find yourself doing the steps in a dance choreography. And you don’t find yourself have repented without your noticing it. Deciding to turn to God might happen over a long period of time, but it is never accidental.
No, a person who is right with God is a person who has consciously, intentionally turned to God; and not just who has had a general religious or moral awakening, but who has believed Jesus and therefore come to the Father of Jesus Christ.
What does that look like? We have a nice illustration in Luke 19: 1-10. Zacchaeus begins the day as an interested spectator. But after Jesus speaks to Him, invites Himself over, Zacchaeus is no longer just a spectator.
He doesn’t set out again on his former way, tossing out a few spiritual platitudes. He stands and speaks and identifies himself as the servant of the Lord. What he says demonstrates that he is on board with the program of Jesus, that he is ready to abandon those ways of life that he realizes don’t agree with Jesus, that this change is heartfelt.
Zacchaeus reached repentance. And Jesus says, salvation has arrived at this place. That’s what I’m talking about. This guy is verily the son of Abraham – a restored image bearer who believes God and trusts him with his life; not tepidly, not mechanically, but in his bones, in his wallet.
A question for you today is, have you repented? Not, have you started attending church services, or have you grown up in a Christian home? But have you heard the invitation of Jesus and then turned and faced him, stood up and deliberately, self-consciously, sincerely, officially, publicly declared that you are for him? Left behind the shadowy world, the vague world of platitudes. And now, ready to learn the Jesus way.
Of course, we’re told what that repentance would look like initially: “Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Repent and be baptized was the first Christian sermon’s application.
But repentance isn’t a one-time happening. Martin Luther was a 16th century monk who was dismayed at corruption within the church. In October of 1517 he nailed onto a church building door a document entitled “95 Theses.” 95 sentences upon which all Christians should agree. Well, here’s the first sentence: When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.
The entire life of believers is one of repentance. The life with God begins in repentance and continues in repentance. A life of holiness and godliness is that which has reached repentance…and remained there. Or we could put it this way: realizing we’ve failed at being an image bearer of God and thus re-learning how to bear God’s image. Or, how to be a human! A life of repentance: a lifetime of re-learning how to be human.
A life of repentance is a life of examination and change.
A life of repentance features a willingness to say “I was wrong.” Or, I’m sorry.”
A life of repentance isn’t set by convention or instinct but by the Word.
A life of repentance is a life striving for virtue.
A life of repentance isn’t antithetical to a life of peace. In fact, it requires it.
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