Peace Through Patience

Scott

Let Earth Receive Her King • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

2 Peter 3:8–15

Patience

Peace

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The absence of peace in the lives of most people is directly connected to their lack of patients.

I know this to be true becuase…Well... I resemble the remark. I find that when I am at my most frantic and my most frustrated I am more often than not trying to push an agenda that I need to allow God to take care of.

I have told you before that when I was 39 years old I had a minor heart attack. I was even more over weight than I am now, not as active as I am now and I was living on good old local Southeast Kansas fried food.

This along with an out of balance work life finally caught up with me. Even on my way to a hospital in KC in the back of an ambulance while they were putting morphine into my veins to stop the pain my mind was focused on all the things that were not going to get done if I was not their to push the church forward. We were growing and seeing incredible movement I I just knew that me not being there was going to stifle the momentum.

Then in the days after the heart attack I found myself contemplating the shortness of life. I realized for the first time in my life that I only had a short amount of time on earth to accomplish what I thought God wanted me to so I had to hurry and get better so I could continue to push forward.

I did that…I got better we continued to grow I added some exercise in my life and for a little while anyway I tried to eat a little better... and I continued to push through…we planted churches, we continued to grow we merged with another church, and we renovated a building, and we opened a coffee shop.

Even as I retell the story I feel a sense of accomplishment and some of you may be thinking wow that is fantastic…and it was but:

Then it happened....I hit another wall…I did not have another heart attack but I did find myself in a pretty dark place. I was tired and no one knew it, I was a bit paranoid or worried that there were people that wanted to see us fail.

Probably most of all I was afraid that if I stopped being successful people would think I was a fraud. I found myself irritated and uninspired but I was still moving forward because I had convinced myself that I only had so much time to get everything done and if I didn’t do it myself no one else would.

I was impatient, and without peace even though I was what others saw as successful.

I had no idea that my impatience was destroying my peace.

We all seem to be rushing into the future as if arriving early adds more value or more time to our lives. When in fact we may be sacrificing more than we will ever get back.

I think part of the reason there is so much strife now in not only about real disagreements about politics and health facts but about our desire to get everything we have convinced ourselves we need to before out lives are over.

Our impatience may in fact be costing our world and ourselves as individuals our peace.

If we are going to experience peace in this in-between time we must start embracing a patient peace instead of a fast paced Chaos.

The Chaos of our lives is in direct opposition to the peace we crave.

The recipients of 2 Peter are in this in-between time too, the right now and the not yet...but it is more surprising for them because they expected Christ’s return to come more quickly.

In fact, they aren’t sure why it hasn’t happened yet, and in their confusion they begin to question what is causing the delay. Is it their fault? What are they supposed to do while they wait? Peter gives them an answer to these questions:

LIVE IN PEACE .

To live in peace is...as we will see is synonymous with living patiently.

2 Peter 3:8-15 NLT

8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.

11 Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, 12 looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. 13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.

14 And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.

15 And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him—

I want to point out a few of things from this passage.

First is that God is playing the Long game so that everyone has a chance to repent. Peter is reminding the people that God’s will is that every man women and child be saved.

Second is that even though this is true God will eventually fulfill the promise to return again because the nature of God is to be faithful and true.

Third is that even though God is going to return the growth of God’s Church still depends on God.

If these things are true and if we believe that the Bible is in fact true our response during times like these needs to be rooted in Trust in Gods Love, trust in God’s timing and Trust in God’s Nature.

This passage is one of promise and hope not fear and dread. Yet many of us especially right now are living in dread when we should be living in patient expectation.

Christ is going to return. It’s a promise. We don’t know when, but we know it will happen. We are to live as citizens of the coming kingdom of God now.

That means to live in patient hope not hurried turmoil. We will not be able to have peace if we embrace the many conspiracies that often arise.

Isaiah 8:11-12 NLT

11 The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does. He said, 12 “Don’t call everything a conspiracy, like they do, and don’t live in dread of what frightens them.

Conspiracy takes attention away from the work the Jesus has already done by ushering in the kingdom of God to earth through Jesus birth.

In fact it sets ups a mindset that the world is out to get us. It sets up a thought that the kingdom of God can be defeated.

We are not in a battle for the survival of the kingdom of God. We are not in a battle for religious freedom…we are in a spiritual battle for the souls of our neighbors, and the world.

We aren’t called to passively wait for his return but to actively live as though the kingdom has already been fulfilled by living holy and peaceful lives in this world.

I know we just finished several weeks of talking about Holiness but that is exactly what Peter is calling us to do.

Patiently Peaceful people of God are busy with worship, compassion, growing spiritually and growing others spiritually, and reaching the world around us with hope and confidence in the power of Emanuel God with us.

When we live this way as a people a funny thing happens…others are drawn to us not me but us.

That is the real church growth strategy. Before we can see people drawn to our community of faith we must in fact be a people not focused on the things that this world is focused on.

We must not loss sight of the sacred while living in a secular world. I am not saying we do not care about those things but we cannot we must not allow anything that would take away our peace to dominate our lives.

“the church’s growth is it’s life in “the way of Christ,” distinctive and hopeful. Christians, were growing in numbers because they were distinct from the “unjust”—living patiently in relation to their neighbors and enemies, doing good to them, and waiting for them to come to faith.”

― Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire

Be different post different, in relation to the rest of the world, be patient, do good, and embrace those that come wanting to know the not so secret of your peace.

My return from sabbatical

Actively living kingdom principles leads to opportunities to invite those in need of repentance to find Peace.

One of the ways you can practice this idea this week to engage in Holy Procrastination. Don’t laugh…I am not saying to put off a chore, studying for a test or a work project. I am asking you to take a look at something in your life that is causing more turmoil than peace.

A strained relationship, An aggressive political attitude, A problem at work…etc...

Then instead of trying to find a solution or instead of arguing the merits of your solutions take it to God and do nothing.

One of the best ways to practice Patent peace is by taking the time to gather at the table.

When we gather we do so understanding that all the work that had to be done for the salvation of the world has already been done…So when we gather we do so in order to rest in Peace celebrating the promise of second advent.