My name is Michael and I'm the lead pastor of Christ the King Church. And I assure you there is a plan to repair the air conditioner. It's been about three or four weeks of the parts are ordered and we're just waiting on the company to install the new unit. And I don't have an ETA on that, but it is not today.

Today we will enjoy God's grace in a warmer room than usual. We're doing a series on 2 Peter and we're getting close to the end. We're in the final chapter 3, and next week will be the last sermon in this series. And I told you last week we'll go into the book of Psalms for a little bit.

Six weeks or so. And then Malachi, I have a correction of that. Steve Di Iorio has agreed to preach a two-week series in the book of Joshua. So that'll be the, yes that's early June. He's not here to enjoy that. Woo. But if you'd like to come back to the 11, you can enjoy he can enjoy that then whenever he's here.

I really looking forward to that. He's preached it before at the church that in New Jersey where they're from, so we can look forward to that. We're here at the end of second Peter. He'd. Turns his attention to the end times and theologians call this eschatology. It's the study of the end times.

What will the end of the world be like? And biblical eschatology is always ethical. It is never merely given to us for the sake of curiosity, but eschatology tells us how to live. Because God wants us to have some urgency and motivation to obey and be faithful in light of the end that he is bringing into the world.

So that is that is the big idea for eschatology. And today we'll get into some of the nuts and bolts of the, what the end will be like, but I want to keep this in view that eschatology is for the sake of ethics. It is to teach us and motivate us to obey God. So, there's three points, three movements.

I want to take us through today. The first one is the patience of God. The question being, why hasn't Jesus returned yet? Why is there a delay in his return? That's one. Number two, the return of Christ. So, whenever Jesus does finally return, what will that be like? Will all the earth be destroyed, or will it all be renewed somehow?

And the third point is the ethics of eschatology. How should we then live in light of God's patience, delaying the return, but the return that is coming for sure. So, let's dig in. We're in 2 Peter chapter 3, 2 Peter chapter 3, and we're going to hit verses 8 to 13. So, let's just read the first two to start.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 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. So, we'll start here talking about the patience of God.

So, he says here in verse 8 that a day, one day, is as, so it's not literally a thousand years, but it is as though it is similar to a thousand years. And a thousand years as one day. So, Peter's recalling language from Psalm 90, and in Psalm 90, this it gives the same idea. So, Psalm 90 verse four says, for a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.

And what he's talking about God's perception of time, which more accurately we should say, there is no such thing. There is no such thing as time to God in the fact that God does not have to wait for one moment to pass in order to get to the next moment. God is the creator of time.

God transcends time. He is not bound to time the way we are. God created us to live in time. So, our experience of life is as a succession of moments, right? So, we live in this moment now. And the moment that will be here a minute from now, we have to wait for that moment to get here and we have to get through this moment to get to the next one.

So, time is a succession of moments and that, that is the way God created us. It's a, we're bound to this. God is not bound by time. Time does not constrain him. He is the Lord over it. He is sovereign over it. He created it for our benefit as a way to govern our lives. So, time means nothing to God in the sense that it would constrain him or it's, he's not bound to it in that sense.

Time is irrelevant to God. I'll read you a couple of quotes here. One is from Herman Bavinck. Herman Bavinck. I believe he was alive about a hundred years ago. He said, God is not eternally static. Neither inert nor immobile. Indeed, God is present in every moment of time. God pervades time and every moment of time with his eternity.

Here's another quote. This is from Chilton who wrote this is more I don't know, 40, 30 years ago, something like that. David Chilton said, history is not simply a matter of the past causing the future. That's how we think of it. Cause and effect. What I do now affects what will happen later.

So, we think of the past causing the future. It is also true that the future causes the past. And then he goes on to quote R. J. Rushdoony. R. J. Rushdoony explains, the movement of time, according to the Bible, is from eternity since it is created by God and moves out of and in terms of His eternal decree.

Because time is predestined and it's because it's beginning, and end are already established. Time does not develop in evolutionary fashion from past to present to future. Instead, it unfolds from future to present to past. A simple illustration might help us understand this. I'm still quoting here. Let us say someone finds you packing a sack lunch on a warm Saturday morning and asks the reason for it.

You answer, because I'm going to have a picnic at the park today. What has happened? In a sense, the future the planned picnic has determined the past because you wanted a picnic at the park. You then planned a lunch. Logically, the picnic preceded and caused the making of the lunch, even though it followed it chronologically.

That, it can be a brain bender, but he's speaking of God having fixed a day, appointed a day. where he will return to judge the world. The Bible promises this. And because of that, we know that future reality, God stands over and transcends time, that future reality that is fixed, then dictates things that happened prior to it.

So, there are things now that will. That will propel us toward in our experience of time, propel us toward God's predetermined outcome, which is the return of Christ. When he'll judge, this is important because eternity is where we're all headed. We're all headed towards eternity. That's from our experience and perception.

We're all headed to this eternal state and in this eternal state. There will be the righteous and the wicked. There will be this perfect separation of the righteous will be in God's presence where righteousness dwells. And then the wicked will be cast into the other darkness in the lake of fire for torment.

And that is the eternal destiny. And right now, we're mixed. Things are evil and good or mixed together in people and our, even our own lives where we're these things are blended together, but God will one day bring a separation of the two. So, whenever Christ returns, then the opportunity to be saved will be over.

On that day, there will be no more repentance and faith for salvation on the day that Christ returns. That is when the final judgment will come for anybody for everyone according to their faith or lack thereof. So that's, what's at stake. And because that's what's at stake, God is not in a hurry to get there.

God is not in a hurry to get there, to usher in his day of judgment. And there's a good reason for this, and the reason is, he wants to give us more time for more souls to repent. So that's what verse 9 says. Verse 9 says the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness. That's our perception of time.

He's saying the Lord is not slow the way you feel it, the way you experience it. The Lord is patient toward you. Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. So, Peter, he tells us, this is how we should perceive time from a divine eternal perspective, there are different ways of reckoning time.

What seems like slowness to us. Patience, in our experience, should be regarded as patience with God. Now God himself isn't limited by time. He doesn't think man, I wish they would hurry up so I could return. That's not how God experiences time. We experience it that way. So, whenever we experience something that seems like slowness.

God, what are you doing? Why are you taking so long? Come on, God, we've got things. I need this to happen. Whenever we experience slowness, that is not how God experiences it. What God is experiences, what Peter says is patience. And that's an ethical category, not a temporal category, right? So, slowness is a fact of just.

How fast something happens. Some things are faster, some things are slower. And fast or slow is relative to other things moving, that, moving at their own speed. Patience is a deliberate choice. Patience is an ethical category that imposes upon time to say there's an experience of time Maybe if you want something to happen according to a certain schedule, but the, but then if it happens too quickly, something bad might happen.

And so, in that case, patience is in order because there's something more important than the schedule. The most important thing is whatever you're waiting on needs to happen. And so, it's okay for time to take longer because there's something more important than how fast it happens. Americans, typically we're pretty impatient people.

We value efficiency, but God is gloriously inefficient. God is not governed by efficiency. So, then the question here that we're dealing with is, why does God allow so much time to pass? Between the first and second comings of Christ. So, if you were here last week, if you were called, there were the scoffers.

The scoffers that said where is God? Where is the promise of his coming? He's not here yet. Peter is now answering that question. He's not slow. He's not slow. He's patient. God is patient because he will allow a great amount of time to elapse between the first and second comings in order to give maximal opportunities for people to be saved.

So, from God's perspective, more opportunities for repentance and salvation is more important than speed. God cares about the salvation of souls more than he cares about things happening on a schedule that we would prefer and yanking us out of here because life is hard in a fallen world. God's Hey, y'all going to be all right.

You're going to be fine. Whenever we get to eternity, so chill and endure whatever hardships you have now, because there are some people that we don't want them to die and spend eternity in hell and torment. We want to give maximal opportunity for salvation to take place for them to repent. So, we counted as slow, man, this has taken forever.

I wish Jesus would just come back already. There's some days when I'm like, Lord, how long? Just come back. And God is like, Nope, this is a day of grace. There's, you think it's slow, I think it's patient because you can endure a little hardship in order to allow for another day of opportunity for people to repent.

So, the apparent delay of Jesus return in terms of time leads to an increase. There will be more souls in heaven in the last day because of God's patience. And so that means every day. That the return of Jesus does not happen is a day of grace. Every day is a grace, a day of grace for unbelievers to repent and come to Christ.

Okay, let's look at the next three verses, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt away as they burn?

But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. So now we're shifting to the return of Christ when he says but the day of the Lord will come like a thief. That means it'll be sudden. Whenever Jesus comes, you're not going to be expecting it necessarily.

So, it'll be a sudden thing. And whenever Jesus does return, God's patience will be at an end and time will run out. And then everyone, whether saved or unsaved, will enter into eternity. And whenever Christ does return, he tells us that there's going to be a couple of things that'll happen. The old world will pass away and the new world will arrive.

Amen. Amen. The old world will pass away. We'll talk about that. And then the new world will arrive. Now, remember Peter's point is ethical. Like he's telling us these things to drive at an ethical point. How should we live in light of this reality? So, let's talk about now what will that be like? We'll get to the ethical part at the end, but what will it be like?

And so, he says, the old world will pass away, the new world will come. Let's talk about the old world passing away. Verse 10 tells us a few things. It'll come suddenly. We already covered that, but there are three particular things that he describes. Number one is the heavens will pass away with a roar.

So, it'd be sudden, but it'd also be very notice, noticeable, obvious, right? It's going to be loud. You'll hear it. Number two, the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved so that the heavens will pass away. The heavenly bodies which could be there's debate about what the heavenly bodies refers to.

It could be like planets, stars, that sort of thing, or it could mean spirits, spiritual beings. And there's some Greek stuff going on there that would indicate that. But that's another possibility. Number three, the earth and the works that are done on it. So those are three things that will happen with the old world passing away.

Whenever Jesus talks about the heavens and the earth passing away, he uses the same language. So, Matthew chapter 24 verse 35, he contrasts the temporal nature of the world. This present world with the eternal nature of his word. So, Matthew 24 35, he says, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

So, he makes a contrast there. His word is eternal. So whenever in this last part here, but the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. That means that there's lots of hidden things. Lots of hidden agendas, spiritual forces, lots of things that are active, that, that are influencing the world as we experience it in the way we know it.

And on this day, all of those things will be exposed. They'll come to light. We'll be able to see things differently. And there will be a lot of aha kind of moments whenever we are able to just reflect on our experience on this earth and be like, oh, that was what was going on there. That was what's happened.

That's who shot JFK or whatever you think. We're going to find out a whole lot of things, a whole lot of secrets are going to be exposed because the works that are done on the earth will be exposed and the way he describes it here. Is that the destruction will be complete in total. Everything will be burned up and consumed in the fire of God's judgment.

So that's the first thing that will happen at the return of Christ. The old world will pass away. The second thing he describes here is that this new world will arrive. Okay. The new world will arrive. So, verse 13, he says, according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth. In which righteousness dwells.

So, this new heavens and a new earth is going to be a place of righteousness. So, God's perfect peace, God's the holiness of God, it'll be like the entire planet will be like the most holy place in the temple in Jerusalem. And in the Old Testament times, the place of God's perfect holiness, the blinding glory of God will be manifest in the entire planet the way we've never experienced anything like it.

So, the language of new heavens and new earth is common biblical language. It's found in a couple of places in the Bible pointed out to you. One of them is Isaiah. So, this is Old Testament before the time of Christ. And at the end of the book of Isaiah 65 and 66, the chapters is it's describing this eternal reality that we're, that still awaits God's faithful people.

And God says, for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. And the former things, that's the older, shall not be remembered or come into mind. I'm really curious about that phrase, incidentally. I wonder, will we just not remember it at all? Will there be some day when we'll just the memory of sin will be completely gone?

Or will it be some other kind of, some other kind of experience of this? I'm, I don't know exactly what, how to take that, but I'm, it's a fascinating thing to think about. Here's another one. Now, this is Revelation 21 verse 1, which is. Using the language of Isaiah, and Peter's using the same language, now, the last book of the Bible, whenever we're talking about the end of all things, whenever Christ returns in Revelation 21, John says, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven, the old world, and the first earth, the old world, had passed away, and the sea was no more. So, the eternal state is not going to be like disembodied Christians, disembodied souls End Just spirits floating around and apparitions here and there. That's not the way it is.

We're not going to be floating around on clouds with nothing to do. It will be a new heavens and a new earth. Way that, you and your grandma might talk about heaven, I can't wait to go to heaven someday. That's a colloquial, just a, just a simple way of speaking of eternity and that's fine.

But if you want to be more precise in the way you say it, like what we await actually is for a new heavens and a new earth, because when we're in eternity, you'll still have a body. You'll still be physical, but it will be physical like Jesus's resurrection body. It'll be a physical state that is embodied, but perfected and glorified in an earth that is perfected and glorified.

So the eternal state will be here on a physical earth. Now there, that introduces some questions and I want to take a couple minutes to work out, a little bit of a dilemma here. The question is what is the relationship between the old world and the world to come? Peter talks about it one way, but then other passage of the Bible speak about it in a way that seems to be a little different and we want to account for what the whole counsel of God says.

And so, another way to state the question is what degree of continuity will there be between the world as we experience it now and the world as we experience it in the future and what will be the discontinuity? How will it be the same in eternity and how will it be different in eternity? I ask the question because so far what we've read here in 2 Peter 3, it sounds like the present world will be completely annihilated.

You've got the language of the, the heavenly things being melted away and burning up and this, it sounds like it's completely destroyed. And it's just going to be this thing that God will open up his eternal recycle bin and just throw it in the trash. And then God's going to be like a brand-new planet, stars, whole new universe.

That's the way it sounds whenever we read 2 Peter 3 casually. Completely destroyed and replaced with a completely new world. But there are other scriptures that teach something that sounds a little different. There's some symmetry in these other scriptures. It sounds like it's not so much Cast it away and it's gone forever, but it's more like a, it's refined by fire, but it still remains, and it is renewed the same earth, but it is renewed.

So those are two options. And I want to work through these two options and give you my thoughts, here in a moment. So, I'll show you, this is Romans chapter eight, which is probably the place that a lot of people go to for this, the second perspective I'm talking about. So, Paul says this. For the creation, he's talking about the old world, that's where we are now.

The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility. So, the old world, what we experience now, there is a futility about it. You ever, spend a day at work in the hot sun, only at the end of the day whatever you're working on just falls apart?

It's like you're pouring concrete in a sidewalk, and then you're done, alright, it's perfect, and then a dog runs through and just like paw prints all through that's futility. We experience all kinds of futility, and some experiences of futility are much more tragic. And that is part of a broken world, a world that is fractured and corrupted by sin.

The stain of sin is still here. So, it's subjected to futility, not because we want it, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, meaning like this was God's judgment upon the world, not the final judgment, but it is a judgment upon the world that he subjected this world to futility. In hope, so here's what we're looking for, here's what, we got the futility of this world, what is the hope?

In hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. So, this text sounds a little more it's not so much a burn it up and throw it away, maybe.

But more like a repairing a renovation, a renewal of this world. So, you have the first image, which is in second Peter, we've already covered this. The first image of second Peter, the old creation is going to burn. It sounds like it's going to be destroyed by fire and God's going to recreate this totally brand-new thing in its place.

Now if that's true, then that produces a certain kind of response, right? Because remember, it's not merely, oh, I wonder what's going to happen. What could be this? It could be that. If it's this, or if it's that, that might lead us to different ethical decisions that we would make in the way we live. So, if it's all going to burn, nothing that you do now will have any, will last at all, except for just your own inner piety, then it doesn't really matter so much what you do in the world.

Other than the spiritual benefit, but there's no benefit beyond that because all of the material world will just be thrown up and cast away and God will give us a whole brand-new planet to live on. So, the ethical decisions are different. Now the second image that I'm showing you from Romans, the old creation is not so much like a fireball that's going to be consumed, but rather it's like a pregnant woman.

She is pregnant. She's in the pains of childbirth. There is a difficulty, a pain, an agony that she's experiencing as she's waiting for the birth of new life. And so, the pain is a temporary thing that, that gives way to this new life that comes from her. And so, the first image is burn it up, throw it away.

The second image is like it's actually pregnant. And then this, the earth will give birth, will give way to some new life. Now, obviously the earth itself isn't pregnant, but the earth itself, it's a metaphor, metaphorical way of speaking of the sort of transformation or renovation that God will do.

Now, if that's the case, that produces a different kind of response. So, what if you say the world that I live in now, Cincinnati, my neighborhood, 333 Warner here, right here in Cincinnati. It's going to be like crumpled up someday and thrown in a trash can. Then how you treat your neighborhood doesn't really matter how you act in the world, as far as anything you might build, does it really matter?

But if you say, like this neighborhood, this city of Cincinnati there, there's some kind of renewed version that might carry over into the new world. Now, we're not promised an exact symmetry. We don't know what that might be. But if that is true, then would that lead us to make different ethical decisions?

Would that spur us on differently? So, you know, in the first image, Cincinnati is destroyed and burned up. And whenever Christ returns, the planet's torched and we get a brand-new planet. That would have been the second. image, Cincinnati, this town, the buildings, the neighborhood, everything we experience.

It's in bondage to corruption waiting to be set free. So, it might be like what would it look like for this town as we know it to be set free from bondage to corruption, for your neighborhood to be set free from bondage to corruption? And how might we just see the world and our place in this world differently?

And so, whenever Christ returns. What will happen is some kind of renovation, a transformation, a renewal. It'll be like a resurrection of sorts. And if that's the case, then this plot of ground that this building occupies may still be here for all eternity, but it'll be here in a different way than it is right now.

What does that, how does that change the way we see things?

Eschatology is ethical. We live now in light of what's to come. And so, given these two, two visions how do we reconcile them? How does 2 Peter and Romans fit together? Are they a contradiction? Of course not. It's the word of God. God doesn't contradict himself. How do we reconcile these two?

I'll tell you I don't have a strong opinion. I have a, like a 60 40 kind of opinion. Feel free to disagree with me. I could be dead wrong. But there is some debate about the way 2 Peter is written. Scholars will say like the Greek and second Peter is extraordinarily difficult. And so, the way that the language of burning and melting and dissolving may be literal, and that could be the right way to read it, but it may also be metaphorical because the Bible does use similar language and other parts of the Bible to speak of metaphorical realities.

So, option one, Peter is speaking literally. of a literal fire and a fiery destruction of the present universe. And so, if that's the case, then God will crumple it up, throw it in the trash, and build a new one. That's the way it reads on the surface. A different option is that the way 2 Peter reads is it's a metaphorical reading.

It's an apocalyptic language. That, that describes vividly the effects of God's judgment. Now if that's the case, then the new heavens and the new earth is still this heavens and this earth, but it is renewed. It is transformed. It is renovated in some way and is perfected. It is restored back to the state that it was when God first said, let there be light and created the earth so that it will be returned to this Edenic state in the garden of Eden.

The whole earth will be returned back to that state. And now God's okay. Don't screw this one up. Let's try it again. Of course, we wouldn't screw it up because we'll be sin-free and righteousness dwells there. But then we'll get a do over. But this time the do over is not just with Adam and Eve, but a whole planet filled with sin.

people that have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus and God dwells there in his midst and there will be this city coming down as the book of Revelation describes. It's this garden city kind of environment. Now you might, some of you might think we're supposed to read the Bible literally.

And I would say you read the Bible naturally. You read the Bible according to the way it is intended by the author. Sometimes that's literal. Sometimes the Bible will use language that the author intends you to take it metaphorically. For example, if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. I hope that's metaphorical.

I hope. There are some things we're meant to take metaphorically. And so, in this text, fire is a word that is often used in the Bible to refer to a cleansing or a disinfectant, a purifying agent. So, fire sometimes destroys things, you set wood on fire, and it'll burn up and it'll destroy it.

You'll just have a heap of ash, but fire also refines things. Like the refiner's fire, that's a biblical concept. Refiner's fire, you take precious metals, you heat it up in the fire, and as you heat it up, the impurities surface in the metal, and then that can be scraped off. And then over time, through this refiner's fire, the impurities are burned away.

And then you, what you're left with is a more pure, a more refined metal. Perhaps, Peter is using fire and dissolve and burn up in this kind of purifying way. Fire is a judgment, a symbol of judgment in scripture. John the Baptist said about Jesus, He said, I baptize you with water, but after me is coming one who is, I'm not worthy to untie his sandals.

And then he says, Jesus will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. None of you are, we're all Christians. Most of us I would imagine are Christians, but none of us have actually been baptized in a flaming fire. That would be against the law. We'd be in prison for doing that to people. So, we're, we haven't been baptized by that kind of fire, but the fire of trials, the fire of obedience, the fire of God burning the sin away in our lives.

We have been baptized by that kind of a fire and the Holy Spirit himself is presented in scripture as a flaming fire. We see this in the book of Exodus and the time in the wilderness wanderings, whenever the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, he appeared as a flame, tongues of fire.

So, fire is not just a flame. Sometimes a fire is a thing that is metaphorical.

I don't have a strong opinion on this. My view is 60 percent a lean metaphor, 40% but I, if somebody said, Michael, you're wrong and here's the versus why, I'd be like, okay, yeah, you're right. I'm not like dogmatic about this, but I lean in that direction because it helps me to harmonize what I see in other texts.

And I see it's a totally fair reading of scripture. It's a fair reading of 2 Peter that this is a good reading of it. And I think that it, there's a couple other reasons here. One, there's many of the Old Testament prophecies speak of the renewal of the earth, not the destruction of the earth.

The more common the more common teaching in the Bible about the end times, about the earth is more language of renewal than language of destruction. And the other reason is that Jesus's resurrection is held up in scripture as the pattern that will, that the whole cosmos will follow because it is all held together in Christ.

It is because of his death, burial, and resurrection that these things are possible in the first place. So, Jesus's body, Jesus wasn't cremated. His body wasn't annihilated and completely destroyed. His body was buried. And three days later, that same body was raised to new life scars and all. Now it's a perfected glorified body, but there is continuity.

Whatever this new body was like, he could pass through walls, it seemed, but whatever this new body was like, it was still, there was some continuity with his old body because he said, hey, put your finger in my hands and my side and the wounds. So, there's some aspects of the old body and some aspects and some of it was renewed.

So, there's continuity between the two. And if that is the pattern that all of the renewal of creation will follow, then it seems more like a renewal of renewal idea is more of a biblical, more accounts for the whole body's teach or the whole teaching of scripture. My Tom Schreiner and my Bible commentary, he says, God always seems to renew.

not destroy and recreate parts of his creation that are marred by sin. That was Tom Schreiner's conclusion in the commentary I read. And I agree with that. So, all of this discussion then is still driving at a simple question. What do we do? How do we live in light of that? What are the ethics of this eschatology?

I'll skip that quote. It's a long one. I've already said all that stuff. Um, verse 11 through 13. Let's look at this text again. He's talking about here in verse 13, we're waiting for a new heavens and a new earth. And what we're doing now is we're living in light of the end to come. So, starting right here, what sort of people ought you to be?

And then he gives us, there's four words that I want to highlight to you. There's two words that tell us how to live. And then there's two worlds that tell us how to live in that, how to live. You'll see what I mean. How do we live in lives of holiness and godliness? Those are the first two words, and then two more words.

Waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God. He says that we're supposed to live now in light of the end to come. Now, Paul says something similar in 17. You may be familiar with this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, which I hope that all of us here are in Christ. And if you're not, I would hope that you would believe in the gospel and be saved.

But if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. What does that mean? This language maybe should sound a little bit different to us now. He didn't say, if anyone is in Christ, he is saved, but you of course you are. But he doesn't say, if anyone is in Christ, he is saved. He said, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, meaning that your life right now is already some, in some way connected to and a part of the creation to come.

So, the new creation has already begun in the lives of his saints. Do you see that? If anyone's in Christ, he has a new creation. So, you're already there, but we're not all the way there. But the earth, the pregnancy of the earth has already started to bear children. And that's us as Christians.

We've, we are part of this new creation. Now, whenever Jesus returns, whatever happens, we'll be a part of it. And we'll be rescued from the full judgment, but we are already part of this new thing. The old has passed away and the new has come. Same language. The heavens and earth will pass away, the new heavens and new earth will come.

Same thing here. You, the old you, has passed away. So, you, the part of you that was part of the old heavens and the old earth, that's passed away. That, the burning and the fire and all the dissolving and melting away and that sort of thing, all that's already happened because Christ bore that judgment on your behalf at the cross.

So, Jesus has undergone a sort of judgment that will be visited upon the whole earth at his return. So that's already happened, and you have already experienced that in Christ because of faith. And then whenever Jesus was raised again from the dead, the new you was raised with him because of your faith in Jesus.

So, the old you died by faith, the new you was raised by faith, therefore you are already part of this new creation. Now you don't have your glorified body yet, there's still a lot of things that'll happen. There's still sanctification to happen in your life. But you're already there in terms of your position in Christ.

So, because of this. Spiritually, this has happened. The eschaton, which is, it's what the scholars call the eternal state. They call it the eschaton because they have to have a fancy word to say everything. The eschaton has already begun in your life. And so now in the power of the spirit, we live our lives because the spirit of God, the righteousness of God dwells within us.

We are the place. You are the temple. We as the church are the temple of God and the Holy Spirit and his righteousness already dwells within us. So that's already begun. So, our job then is to live now in light of the eschaton, in light of the future that is coming. So, we are already citizens of this heavenly eternal reality, and we live now according to the ethics of the kingdom, the ethics of the renewal that awaits us.

So back here at verse 13. We are waiting for the new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. So, righteousness then is the place of perfection. There's no sin there. Just imagine what that would be like. So, we can't even, we can't imagine what it would be like to live in a sin free world.

A world where there's no sin, no heartache, no pain, no suffering, no evil, no wickedness, no betrayal, no lies, no murder, no sexual immorality. We can't even begin to fathom a world where that would be the case. But we can taste it a bit if amongst our own community, it is more true of us than anywhere else within our church community.

We can be like, hey, let's spur one another on to be more like what we will be someday. So, the ethics of the eternity. Now we, by faith, we're already there positionally, at least we're already there. So, we just bring that back into our lives now. And whenever I say hi to Daniel Kemp after church, I'm like, I'm saying hi to My brother, that's with me for eternity, this man that I love, and I can love him the way the kingdom of God would require of me.

And I can do so empowered by the Holy spirit because righteousness dwells in me and righteousness dwells in Daniel. And together we can share something new and special as brothers in Christ. So, the eternal state, it, it brings things into our lives. Now Peter doesn't give us a lot of great detail about.

Specifically, what that means because it's already been covered in 1st Peter and 2nd Peter chapter 1 and 2. He's not going to go back and rewrite that. He's already covered that ground. Right now, he's just motivating us for the ethics that he's already described. But he does give us these two words that stand out.

Holiness and godliness. Those are two words that kind of, that's his summary way of saying here's how you live now. You love Jesus with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You obey God with all you have. You confess your sin. You fight sin. You mortify your sin. You endure suffering. You follow the 10 commandments.

You do good works. You follow the leading of the spirit. You share the gospel with other people, tell them about Christ and how they can be saved from the coming judgment of God. That's Jesus. We just live according to the ethics of eternity. But he also has these two other words and he's telling, so the first two words about how do we live, the other two words about more, how do we anticipate the future?

And it's weird because these two words are at odds with one another. We're patient and yet we're hastening. That it's we wait for it patiently yet urgently. How do you do that? It's like the whole hurry up and wait, the joke, it's like a hurry up and wait kind of statement that he makes here.

So, I'll. I'll just hit on this quickly as we wrap things up. It's two sides of the same coin. So, waiting for the end means that you be patient with people just as God is patient. And we're patient, not like we're tolerating a toothache. But we're patient because we're patient, hoping that they will respond the way God has indicated his heart and that's waiting, hoping that they will repent that God is not wanting any to perish, but people to repent.

So, we were patient with people, unbelievers, sinful people, whoever that are, we want them to find life in Jesus. So, we're patient and I've just think about what, aren't you glad that God was patient enough that he did not return the day before you ended up getting saved? I'm thankful for that because if Jesus came back the day before you got saved, that means you would be in the lake of fire now.

You would have been, you would be in torment, but God is patient because God didn't want you to perish. God wanted you to receive eternal life, which you have through faith in Jesus. And it was God's patience that gave you another day of grace. And that was the day happened to be the day that you believed we need to be the same kind of patient.

Yeah, we want Jesus to return. I want Jesus to return, but not such that my desire for Christ to return would lead to the eternal judgment of somebody that may otherwise have been saved. Now, I'm not getting into the sovereignty of God and that sort of thing. That's a sermon for a different day.

But in our experience of time, that's what we want. That's what he's talking about here. God's patience allowed another day of repentance. And so, we need to be patient in the same way. God is still in the business of saving souls. I have to remind myself of this a lot because I see wickedness in the world, and I can get discouraged.

Maybe you're like me. Maybe you get discouraged and I'm like, Lord, save us. God will save us in due time. But if he ain't coming today, that means today's the day to be patient. And today's the day of grace. Every day that we draw breath and have a life on this planet, that's a day of grace. And that's a day where we are called to be patient.

And that's another day of preaching the gospel to people. Telling somebody that, hey, God, he's coming back. So, we're patient. We're waiting. That's the patient part. And we're hastening. That's the urgent part. And it's a tension. We're told to be both patient and urgent. And to hold that tension, it does require it takes faith.

It takes trusting God and His sovereign ordering of the universe. Because this fallen world is full of suffering and sin and brokenness, pain, evil, deception, all those things. And even though God has sovereignly ordained the day of his return, Acts 7:31 says he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world.

So, the day is fixed. He will come on that day. Nevertheless, God chooses to involve us in his timing. I don't know how to work that out. Do the math sometime. But it's a tension. It's a tension that God has fixed a day and yet God involves us in the timing of that day's arrival. And so, he tells us to wait for it, but also hasten the day.

So, Jesus tells us to pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So, pray, God, come, please come quickly, Lord Jesus. That's it. That's in the book of Revelation. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Second Peter 3, 12, we are hastening the coming. So that means our lives, our prayers, our evangelism, our obedience, the way that we live now does have some effect.

It has a bearing on the timing of his return and can hasten it, of course, in a way that fits within God's sovereign plan. And so, we can trust God's sovereign plan while being patient in the delay, but also hastening the return. And we've got the faith in God that can enable us to live in that tension.

So just wrap it up here. What have we seen? God created a world where time matters, right? We experience it. God's not bound to it, but we are. Christ will return on a day he's appointed, and every day between now and then is a day of grace. What we experience now is a delay. We might count it as slowness, but God counts it as patience, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

And when he returns, then the patience will be over. The world will burn, metaphorically or literally, whichever you determine to be true. The world will burn in the fires of His judgment. And whichever your view, God demands of us that we live faithfully now until that day comes. And how do we live until that day comes?

We live lives of godliness and holiness. We obey God. We obey the Lord. Commit to the church. Share the gospel. Be faithful. Share the gospel. And we anticipate his return. We're patient because God is patient, but we're urgent because we can't wait to see the Lord. Amen. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your promise that you will come, that Christ will come, and Lord, I pray your kingdom come.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, but Lord, we do pray come quickly, Lord Jesus. And until you come, Lord, give us patience to wait. And to use that time wisely, to redeem the time, to make the most of every opportunity, to live with righteousness and holiness, and to do good works, and to share Christ with others.

Lord, help us. I pray, Father, that you will that you will strengthen us with patience even as we endure opposition. To your truth and to the Christian faith in this world help us lord to be faithful in the midst of all opposition Purify us now God. Thank you. We can't wait to see your face. Thank you what you did We ask you all these things in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit.

Amen