Sermon Tone Analysis

Whose version of the story are you going to believe?

Mom making up stories about you when you were little

Wife making up stories about you when you sleep

Issue- whose authority is to be believed?

This is the heart of the issue in 2 Peter

Ταύτην ἤδη, ἀγαπητοί, δευτέραν °ὑμῖν γράφω ἐπιστολὴν

This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you,

ἐν αἷς διεγείρω* ⸀ὑμῶν

in which I am stirring up (prest, act, ind- used of stirring someone from sleep, or of stirring up the sea by means of a storm-

ἐν ὑπομνήσει τὴν εἰλικρινῆ διάνοιαν*

your sincere mind by way of reminder

Repeated theme of the letter:

This is so important to Peter that these believers be put in remembrance of these things.

What things?

Remember to be mindful of the WORDS spoken before by the holy prophets (OT), and the WORDS / COMMANDMENTS of the apostles, which are a record of the WORDS / COMMANDMENTS of the Lord and Savior.

In other words- Wake UP FROM SLEEPING!

Remember to be mindful of the WORD OF GOD! What does Peter really want of these believers?

He wants them to trust the Word of God over and above any other authority.

Let the Word of God be your foremost, sole, primary, ultimate authority.

Be mindful of the words- to recall information from memory, remember, recollect, remind oneself

What does this imply about our knowledge of the Word of God? Recall information from memory, how well should we know the Word of God?

Issue at hand is authority- and the subject is nothing less than one’s entire worldview.

What is the idea of a worldview?

A world view or worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge and point of view.

Peter is going to argue against the worldview of these false teachers.

His goal is to encourage believers to accept the authority of Scripture, to orient your worldview based off of the words spoken by the Holy Prophets and the word of Jesus Christ recorded by his apostles.

This battle of worldviews focuses on one key idea- that is the coming of the Day of the Lord.

So Peter is imploring these NT church believers to maintain a biblical worldview concerning the coming Day of the Lord.

This is so critical, so important for us as believers.

We must operate every moment of our lives based on a biblical worldview of the coming Day of the Lord.

Why should we accept the biblical certainty of the coming Day of the Lord?

Peter gives us several reasons why this truth should be certain in our lives.

I. Scripture warns us that there will be mockers in the last days (v.

3a)

3 τοῦτο πρῶτον γινώσκοντες

Knowing this first of all

ὅτι ἐλεύσονται

that scoffers/mockers will come

ἐπʼ* ♦⸀ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν

in the last days

⸂ἐν ἐμπαιγμονῇ⸃ ἐμπαῖκται

with their mocking

This is one of the primary weapons employed by those who do not hold to the absolute authority of Sculpture.

They will mock you, they will ridicule you, they will attempt to make you seem foolish.

You don’t really believe that do you?

You don’t really believe that God spoke the world into existence in 6 literal days do you?

You don’t really believe in a world wide flood, David and Goliath, Daniel in the lion’s den?

These are silly fables- they will claim.

They mock.

This is just one more item added to the list.

You don’t really believe that Jesus is coming back do you?

Illustration: Working at FedEx- employee’s argument against George W. Bush- “He doesn’t even believe in evolution.”

So- don’t deny the certainty of Jesus’ return and of the coming Day of the Lord just because there are people who will mock you.

Scripture warned us ahead of time that this would happen.

II.

The walk of the false teachers is based on sinful desires (v.

3b)

κατὰ τὰς ⸄ἰδίας ἐπιθυμίας αὐτῶν⸅ πορευόμενοι

walking according to their own sinful desires

Whether or not they will admit it, sinful desire is the real reason that false teachers deny the second coming.

All these false teachers wanted to do was live their lives according to their own desires.

They wanted to fulfill their own passions.

They deny Christ’s return because they hate the thought of divine retribution.

Hold down the truth in unrighteousness, suppress the truth in unrightoueness

They fool themselves into believing a lie so that they can carry out any kind of lustful pleasure without any fear of future punishment.

We need to be really careful here as believers that we are not doing the same kind of thing in other areas of Scripture.

I don’t think there is anyone in this room that would deny the second coming of Christ (sometimes we live willfully ignorant of it, but we do not deny it).

But there are other areas in our lives that are not so easy.

It is easy to submit to Scripture in the areas of our life that we agree with.

But, what about the areas of our lives where Scripture seems to contradict?

It is the areas in our lives that we don’t want to submit that we get ourselves into the most trouble.

It is in these areas that it is the easiest to become mockers of Scripture.

How do we do that?

We can do the same thing we can wrest or twist the Scriptures to mean whatever we want them to mean.

We are most likely to do this in areas in our lives where we do not want to submit, we do not want to change.

Often this is the areas that are “gray” areas.

Standards in our lives based on Scriptural principles rather than direct commands.

What is the difference between a command and a standard?

Example- smoking.

What should I allow myself to watch, listen do, wear, eat, drink?

Where should I hang out, with whom should I hang out?

Should I be in every church service?

(Illustration of closer to God in the woods).

The list could go on and on.

You probably know another person in your life who professes to be a believer who has drastically different standards on issues than you do- marriage and sexuality, feminism, theistic evolution, abortion, homosexuality, etc...

I think here in 2 Peter 3 we find one VERY important test.

An important test to see if we are really applying Scripture correctly to our lives or if we are wresting it or twisting it to make it possible to live the way we want to live.

What is it?

Why did the false teachers deny the certainty of Jesus’ coming?

So that they could walk after their own lusts.

Here is where we need to check ourselves.

We must ask, “Does my interpretation of Scripture enable me to walk after my own lusts?”

Is my view of Scripture honest and accurate or am I interpreting Scripture in such a way because I want to be able to do what I want to do?

If you are living your life according to a “principle” of Scripture and that principle enables you to walk after the flesh, that should cause us to seriously reconsider our understanding and application of Scripture.

Contrast:

Does my understanding and application of Scriptural principles cause me to live a holy life?

Does it cause me to become more godly?

Does in cause me to become spotless and blameless?

We need to do some honest evaluation of every area of our lives to ensure that we are putting ourselves under the actual authority of Scripture rather than twisting it so that we can walk after our own lusts.

That begs the question: what do the lusts of our flesh look like?

Adultery, fornication (sexual immorality), uncleaness, lasciviousness (sensuality), idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance (strife, discord, contention), emulations (jealousy), wrath (outbursts of anger), strife (selfish ambition), seditions (dissension), heresies (factions), envy, murder, drunkenness, revelings (carousing)- AND SUCH LIKE!

What does that mean?

This is not an exhaustive list.

This is only a sampling of the works of the flesh.

Anything that is like this list is also of the flesh!

Well, how will we know if it is?

Go back to the beginning of v. 19- “Now the works of the flesh are MANIFEST (EVIDENT, OBVIOUS)” It is obvious.

To a believer the works of the flesh should stick out like a sore thumb.