Deo Gloria
Sermon for December 6, 2020
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: 2 Peter 3:8-14
Theme: The Day Will Come!
- Don’t procrastinate.
- Be prepared.
Only 19 more days! Do you realize that: only 19 more days till Christmas? It kind of hit me this past Thursday when I looked at the calendar and noticed that Christmas Eve was only three weeks away. Three weeks? You’re kidding, right? We still have so many things to do. We still have gifts to buy and presents to wrap. We still have decorations to put up and cookies to bake. We still have Christmas cards to write and send. Same thing true of you? I guess we had better get on the stick, because like it or not, Christmas is coming.
This morning in the verses of our text the apostle Peter tells us about another day that is coming, a day that is even more important than Christmas, the last day, the day this world of ours will come to an end and be destroyed, the day we all will have stand before God and be judged. As much as we want to be prepared for Christmas, it is infinitely more important that we be prepared for that day, that we not procrastinate and put off those important spiritual matters we always meant to get around to. You and I need to be prepared for the day of the Lord, because like it or not, that day will come.
Jack was scrambling, frantically skimming through books, frantically typing away at his computer, desperately trying to finish the history paper that was due the next day. Oh no, Jack had had plenty of time. He had known about that paper for a couple of months already, since the beginning of the quarter. But you see Jack is a procrastinator. He likes to put things off to the last minute. He says he works better under pressure. And that may be true in some cases, but not in this one. The words just didn’t seem to flow that night. The ideas just seemed to be all jumbled up in his head. And they came out that way on his paper too. Oh yes, Jack did manage to finish and turned in his paper on time, but the professor was not impressed. He got an “F.”
People not only like to procrastinate when it comes to writing research papers or studying for an important test. They also like to procrastinate when it comes to spiritual matters and their relationship with God. “Hey, what’s the rush? I’ve still got plenty of time. The world isn’t going to come to an end any time soon.” Some, in fact, believe that it will never come to an end, that our world is sort of like the Energizer Bunny, that it will just keep on going and going and going.
Peter predicted that there would be people like that. In the first part of ch. 3 he writes:
First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” (vv. 3+4)
Such people are badly mistaken, however. Things have not always been going on in a constant, uninterrupted fashion ever since the beginning. As Peter points out in the following verses, there was a huge interruption at the time of the flood. The world at that time was destroyed by water. The inhabitants of the world perished suddenly and unexpectedly. Only Noah and his family and the animals that were with him on the ark survived. Do you really think that something like that could never happen again?
Peter makes it clear in our text that it will, that this world of ours will be destroyed again, not by water, but by fire: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare”(v. 10).
So why do people procrastinate? Why do they think that things will just keep going on the way they have been, that the world will never come to an end? I suppose it’s because it’s been such a long time. It has been almost 2,000 years now, hasn’t it? 2,000 years since Jesus foretold the end of the world and promised that he would come again. Do you think he forgot? Do you think he got busy with other things and completely forgot about the promise he made to come back, and that’s why he’s taking so long? No. To us it may seem like a long time, but not to God. God doesn’t look at time the way we do. God is timeless. God is eternal. With him a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. We tend to measure everything by hours and days and months and years. Our lives tend to be governed by time; but not God. What are hours and days and years to someone who has existed throughout the endless ages of eternity? Time is not what’s important to God. Something else is: souls, people’s souls.
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”(v. 9). That’s why Jesus is waiting, why he hasn’t come back and brought this world of ours to an end: he wants more people to be saved. He wants to give people more time, more time to hear his Word, more time to repent of their sins, more time to come to faith in him as their Lord and Savior so that they might not perish, but might be saved.
Does that mean, then, that we can take our sweet time, that we can continue putting off those important spiritual matters, that we can dilly, dally around because we’ve got all the time in the world? No. While God is patient, Peter reminds us that one day his patience will come to an end. “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare”(v. 10).
Do you know when a thief will come? Do you know when a thief will try to break into your home and ransack your house? Of course not. That’s why you have take precautionary measures ahead of time to prevent him from breaking in. That’s why you have to lock and bolt your doors before you go to bed. That’s why you have to set up that security system before you leave on vacation. It doesn’t do any good after the thief has come. By then it’s too late.
If you and I wait until the last day to get serious about God and our relationship with God, it’ll be too late. The time for repentance will be over. The time for judgment will have come. As St. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians, ch. 1:
This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord.(vv. 7-9)
Procrastinate? Now is not the time to procrastinate. Now is the time to be prepared, because the day will come.
How do we do that, though? How do we prepare ourselves for the last day, the day our Lord will return? Peter addresses this issue in v. 14: “So, then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.” Spotless? Blameless? Who of us is spotless? Who of us is blameless? Who of us can say that we have never soiled ourselves with unclean thoughts or dirty language? Who of us can say that we have never broken God’s commandments—never lied, never cheated, never talked back to our parents, never cursed or swore, never said anything bad about anyone else? Who of can say that? I mean, honestly. Who of us can honestly say that we have never sinned, that we are blameless in God’s sight? No one. We all have sinned. We all are guilty in God’s sight. And that’s exactly what the Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”(Ro. 3:23).
But that’s not all the Bible says. Did you know that passage has a second part, that it doesn’t end where I ended it? Yes, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus”(v. 24). Justified—what does justified mean? Justify is a courtroom term, a term that means “to declare not guilty.” When the judge examines the evidence and finds that you are innocent, he justifies you. He declares you to be “not guilty.” “…and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Do you understand what Paul is saying? God has justified us. He has declared us to be “not guilty.” Why? Because we are innocent, because we never did anything wrong? Hardly. Because of his grace, because of his undeserved love.
But how could he do that? If you and I are really guilty and God just lets us off the hook and declares us to be not guilty, then he’s a corrupt judge, an unjust judge, hardly worthy of our honor and respect. Before you jump to the wrong conclusion, you need to get to the end of the sentence. “…through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” You see, someone did pay the penalty for our crimes, someone did suffer the punishment we deserved. That someone was God’s own Son, Jesus Christ. He took our place. Though we were guilty and deserved to be punished, he took our guilt and the punishment we deserved. He gave his life in payment for our sins. And on the basis of that, on the basis of what he did as our Savior, God has declared us to be “not guilty.” We are holy. We are blameless in God’s sight—all through Jesus Christ our Savior. And we are ready too. All those who trust in Jesus as their Savior are ready for the last day, when their Lord will return, for they have been found to be spotless and blameless and at peace with him, assuming of course they don’t lose their faith in the meantime.
Back when I was little, maybe 5 or 6 years old, my grandpa gave me a very special present: a silver dollar, a silver dollar from the year 1879. Over the years I’ve been very careful with that gift. I don’t leave it lying around the house. I don’t just toss it in a drawer with a bunch of other stuff. I keep it in a safe place because I don’t want to lose the gift he gave me.
God has given us a precious gift as well, the precious gift of faith. You and I want to be careful not to lose that precious gift. We can lose our faith through neglect, by not feeding and nourishing our faith, by failing to take time to hear his Word and receive his sacrament, by failing to make time in our busy lives to read God’s Word on our own, by failing to do those things that will keep our faith healthy and strong. That’s one way we can lose our faith.
We can also lose our faith by living a sinful life, by indulging in sin and immorality, by refusing to repent and turn away from sin. The Bible refers to that as grieving the Holy Spirit. The Bible refers to that as putting out the Spirit’s fire. By living a sinful and immoral lifestyle, you and I can grieve the Holy Spirit. We can make him sad that he ever took up residence in our hearts. By living a sinful and immoral lifestyle, you and I can put out the Spirit’s fire. We can extinguish the fire of faith that he has kindled in our hearts.
But why would we want to? Why would we even want to run the risk when eternity is hanging in the balance? No, as Peter says in v. 11, since we know there will be a day of reckoning, since we know this world of ours will be destroyed one day by fire and all people will have to stand before the judgment seat of God, we “ought to live holy and godly lives as [we] look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” Be careful the way you live. Do everything you can to avoid grieving the Holy Spirit and strive to live a godly life instead, that you may always be prepared for the day of the Lord.
19 days—only 19 more days until Christmas! How many more days until the coming of our Lord? I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean you should procrastinate. In fact, it only underscores the importance of being prepared, because like it or not, ready or not, that day will come. Amen.