Patiently Anticipate the Second Coming of Jesus (2 Peter 3:1-13)

And, if you weren't here for that, take time to go online and listen to those two sermons. They're intense. And if you were here, you might do yourself a favor by going and listening to them again because there was a lot in chapter two. The fact that I only gave him two Sundays to do it all was that was, pretty intense for him to have to deal with that. And so I'm thankful about it. But second Peter starts out with [00:39:47] (28 seconds)  #ListenToSermons

Peter telling the the churches he's writing to, I'm gonna be dying, and I I need you to know something. I want you to keep growing in the Lord. I want you to maintain a hope, and the way you do that is by by growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. And so we encourage them, add to your faith. This is an exertion. That's an effort on the part of the believer. You might say, well, wait a minute. God's the one who grows us. Yes. You have a stewardship, however, [00:40:15] (30 seconds)  #GrowInGrace

to to allow the red flags of false teachings to pop up so that we guard ourselves to know the truth. Because when we're taken away from the truth, we begin to doubt things, we begin to act out in ways we shouldn't, and we begin to even doubt our salvation. But instead, Peter's telling us to engage in this. Keep adding to your faith virtue and virtue knowledge and knowledge, self control, all of those things. And if you do that, you will never falter. [00:41:55] (34 seconds)  #WatchForRedFlags

Not that you'll never sin but you're never going to become ineffectual for god and so there's an action to it and then it pointed out the signs of the false teachers. So, listen, maybe you didn't like the names he mentioned. I I I basically agreed with him but it's more than, listen, it's not gonna cut it to make a list of people. Here's all the ones you shouldn't listen to. Here's all the music groups you should avoid. It doesn't work. Here's what you gotta do. [00:42:29] (29 seconds)  #NotJustNameCalling

So if you see me flying around in my private jet this week or my Lincoln Continental? Probably, I wouldn't buy a Lincoln Continental. It'd probably be a Silverado, but I think that should be a red flag for you. If I ever come up here wearing skinny jeans, don't you think that should be a red flag? These false teachers were being seriously enriched from their from their false teachings. It's a red flag, you guys. Watch it, mark it. [00:44:15] (34 seconds)  #WealthAndImageRedFlags

Caught up in sensuality, sexual drives, passions, getting caught in sin, but the church overlooks it because he's eloquent or he's good looking or he's he's the face of the church, so we can't challenge him or we can't challenge her or people that are deceptive, chronic liars, that would be a red flag. These are kind of summaries of of things that would help us to say, maybe we shouldn't be reading their books. Maybe we shouldn't be listening to them. Not people that are perfect. There's no preacher out there that's perfect, but look for the red flags. [00:44:50] (40 seconds)  #CharacterMatters

Peter's beginning to to regroup and focus again on the Christians and tell the Christians to be encouraged. And so he's pointing out some things about the the coming of Christ that he wants them to reengage with. He wants them to be encouraged. He wants to stir them up about this doctrine that Jesus is coming again. We call it the second coming of Jesus Christ. [00:45:32] (30 seconds)  #StirUpEncouragement

Now, don't confuse that with the rapture. I believe in the rapture that the Christians are gonna be taken before the tribulation, but the the second coming is when Jesus comes and puts his feet on the ground and establishes his kingdom. The rapture and the second coming are not the same. One is going up. The other is a coming down. I believe that one day Jesus is going to establish his kingdom. [00:46:02] (28 seconds)  #RaptureNotSecondComing