Advent: Be Holy as You are Already Holy

So we're in our second week of Advent.

We had been going through the Book of Acts, and then when we hit Advent, we took a break from the Book of Acts, and now we're working our way through Advent using different scriptures that have been laid out before us through a historical scripture guide called the Lectionary.

So Advent is a season of waiting.

It's the four Sundays leading up to Christmas.

Now, when I was 15 years old, I can distinctly remember sitting outside of Hooper Gym in Lawrenceville, Georgia, where everybody had their basketball practices at.

Sitting out there waiting for my mom.

And of course, you knew what I was thinking.

I can't wait to get my license.

I mean, when you're 15 years old, you are counting the days.

You cannot wait for this to happen, for this freedom, because you're so tired of waiting everywhere, waiting on a ride, waiting for your mom, waiting for your older sister.

You're just waiting everywhere you go.

Then you get your license.

Can't wait to go to college.

Go to college.

And at a certain point, you can't wait, you can't wait to graduate.

I actually graduated early.

I couldn't wait so much.

And people sort of nod with approval, like, look at him.

That was one of the dumbest decisions I've ever made in my life was to graduate.

Don't graduate early.

Like, what was I think?

What was I in a hurry for?

I was in a hurry for more school.

Yeah, that was really smart.

And then eventually you can't wait to get married.

And then you get married, you have little kids, perhaps.

Not always, but sometimes.

And when you have little kids, you can't wait for that baby to get out of diapers.

And then that baby walks, and you're like, oh, I should have enjoyed the days when that baby didn't walk, and then the baby's walking, and you can't wait for that kid to take care of you can't wait for your child yesterday to take care of their own snowsuit and gloves.

I mean, that would be remarkable in my household to have my children be able to manage their snow gloves and their snowsuit and their snow boots on their own.

I can't wait for that day.

I can't wait for it.

And then they go to college, and you can't wait for, you can't wait for them to come home, right?

Maybe they get married, and you can't wait for them to bring grandkids over, to have grandkids in the world.

And you just keep, you keep going on and on not being able to wait.

Like you can't wait for retirement.

You can't wait for the illness to go away.

You can't wait for the romance to finally happen, or the romance that you had to come back to life, or for him or to her to finally actually love you like you think, or for the career to happen.

You can't wait.

Or maybe you're like me and you just keep waiting for life to get a little bit easier.

Or right?

Or maybe to handle stress a little bit better, or fear better, anxiety better, or friendships better.

You can't wait.

You just can't wait.

Like you can't wait.

And I mention all that because we're in the season of Advent.

And the season of Advent is a season of us waiting.

It's a season for a desire for what is to come, but it's not here yet.

And so our passage is more than St.

Peter writing, and he's writing to us comfort.

He's writing to us comfort about holiness.

There's a word for us.

We're going, oh, holiness.

And the reason why we kind of, whoa, holy, because most of the time when we hear that word, it's like, let's let the preacher make us feel guilty for a little bit, then we can go on with our lives.

Now Peter's not writing to make us feel guilty.

He's writing to comfort us and he's writing to inspire us.

He's asking, what does it mean to be holy when it seems most of our lives are in waiting?

During which we're not very holy, right?

At least not now.

So here's our text.

2 Peter 3, 8 and 9.

We'll reread this and kind of work our way through it, make a few points.

8 and 9.

But do not overlook this one fact.

Beloved.

So right away, he calls you beloved.

Peter does this over and over and over again.

While he's giving you challenges, he is giving you comfort.

Beloved, you are already this.

That's the starting point.

Don't overlook this one fact, beloved.

That with the Lord, one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is 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 point number one is this.

Pretty philosophical.

Yeah, think with me this morning.

God exists outside of time, yet we know God's presence and love inside of time.

I'm not into that.

Like that's too much.

That's too heavy for the morning.

It actually means a lot for you if you can work with me a little bit.

God exists outside of time, yet we know God's presence and love inside of time.

Peter's making both of these points in the same breath.

See, most of our disillusionment is thinking God is bound by time, only seeing things as we see things.

And Peter's point is God's not being slow.

Slow is not even really a thing with God because he's outside of time.

He's just patiently for you because he sees more.

He's for you and your life and your heart, even in the frustration of how you don't see how your life is working out and the complexity of this universe and other people's lives, you don't see that.

Of course you don't see that.

I don't see that.

God can see it.

And God's heart is for all of us to know life, for all of us to come to repentance, which is to say, I will turn from all the other ways I try to self-save.

I will turn from all of that, whether it be religion and church or whether it be secular stuff, I will turn from all of that and rest in God's grace alone in Jesus.

And he is patient toward us in that process.

Have you ever been in a dinner table?

And let's say there's a guy there named Bill.

Sorry if your name's Bill, I'm just picking a random name.

Say Bill is there, and Bill is telling you the story of his career, and he talks about how when he was at Harvard, he just mentioned that, slid that in real sly, like nobody was gonna notice.

He just mentioned it.

Well, he was at Harvard, get his MBA, he had all these great parties, and he had these great friends, and you're nodding along and thinking, okay, this isn't a bad story.

And then he and some friends created uh, you know, a tech startup, and then like right at the end of graduation, they found an investor, just like just the door opened.

It was amazing how all this the door opened, an investor, there was no waiting.

The tech startup just right away was hitting it.

It was doing great.

There was always money.

There was all I mean every time a challenge came, they always knew the idea.

There was no waiting.

Eventually, Amazon bought the company, because Amazon buys all the companies, and Bill's just ragingly successful.

The whole time, his sweet, beautiful wife sitting on there nodding along, and she's saying, you know, the whole time he was a family man and he made it home by 515, and you're sitting there and you're going, like, I it wasn't his success that's bothering you, but it's that he never had to wait.

By the end of the story, you're going, I don't like Bill.

Bill's arrogant.

Right?

He never had to wait.

He never had a challenge.

Bill's a punk.

Then there's another dinner party story.

I was at dinner this week.

It was a real story.

I was at a Christmas party, sitting next to a couple from Pakistan.

And maybe halfway through the dinner, I turned and I looked at him.

His name is Victor, and I said, Victor, tell me your life story.

And he said, Well, that's an interesting story.

That's going to take a while.

He's about my age.

He had moved from Pakistan to Dubai when he was in his 20s.

He had been a translator for missionaries in Pakistan and persecution built up against him, and eventually he had to run for his life.

He moves to Dubai when he's in his 20s.

While he's in Dubai, he meets his wife, they marry, they have some children.

They can't afford to stay in Dubai because in Dubai you pay if you're not like in the family tree of Dubai.

You pay to stay there, you pay per child.

He didn't have enough money, went hitting in the income levels, and so they have to move back to Pakistan.

They're back in Pakistan.

He's translating again for missionaries, and persecution builds back up.

And finally I say, hey, hey, you know, I'm trying to speed the story up a little bit.

I'm like, hey, well, how did you end up here?

Like we're sitting in Atlanta, Georgia, eating dinner.

How did you get here?

He's like, well, that that's good, that's an interesting story.

That's going to take a while.

And I'm like, hey, we're here.

Let's, you know, let's hear it.

Let's keep going.

And he says, well, like, you know, we filed for a visa, and it took four years of waiting.

That would feel like a thousand years.

Right?

That would be a thousand, that would be like you going to God, God, what's going on?

And God's going, you know what?

Like one day, thousand years to him, it's all the same.

But to you, to him, in that experience, every day feels like a thousand years.

Four years they wait, persecution's building up, all of a sudden they get this notice that they can come on a visa into the U.S., they get, they pack their suitcases, they get on a plane.

They know like a few people in the U.S.

They fly to New York, they get a train to Philadelphia because they know one person in Philadelphia.

They get to Philadelphia, they have nothing.

They find an apartment.

Amazingly, he finds a job, and just right after that, his wife comes to him and says, Hey, we can't stay here.

The Lord doesn't want us to stay here.

I think we're supposed to go to Atlanta.

And he's going, hold on a second.

Um, we waited for four years for a visa, and somehow we managed to fly to the other side of the world, and then we trained to a city we don't know anything about.

Somehow we got an apartment and I got a job, and now you're saying, you're saying that we need to move.

And she said, just reach out to whoever you know.

He has one contact in Atlanta.

He calls that contact, he says, Hey, um, I think we're supposed to come down there.

And the contest says, Okay, yeah, um, well, you could do like a plane or a car or a train to get here.

He says, Well, I can't afford any of those.

We don't have any money.

We have nothing.

And the pastor, there's a pastor he knew, and the pastor says, Well, let's just take a few days and then I'll call you back.

Three days later, the pastor calls back, and the pastor says, Hey, here's what we're gonna do.

I'm going to drive up there.

I will pick you and your family up, and then I will bring you back.

Twelve hours up, pick up your family, I barely know, and drive you back.

Now, I love Sam and Rachel.

I wouldn't even drive them to Arby's.

If it's out of the way, I really don't know if the roast beef sandwich is going to be enough to get me inspired.

This pastor drives 12 hours.

12 hours to get this family.

They come down here, they get an apartment, he doesn't have a job, has nothing.

And so I said, Well, what happened?

Well, that's an interesting story.

Do you have time?

Yes, I have time.

Let's, you know, let's speed this up.

What's going on?

Tell me the story.

And he keeps telling me the story.

And he says, Well, we get an apartment, we don't have any money.

We don't even have food for days.

I mean, you talk about waiting.

But the thing about it is the whole time he's talking, it's like you can see the compassion and the patience in this guy.

He goes every other day to this landscape company he could walk to, and he asks for a job, and every other day the boss says, No, you don't have any experience.

He goes for three weeks every other day.

And finally, the boss gives in and gives him a job.

He waited for three weeks for a job.

Six months later, he gets a job in a store, and then eventually, about that time, uh, the wife gets invited to a worship event next door to their apartment complex.

She's at the worship event, he's in the apartment.

In the middle of the worship event, he feels like he's supposed to go out of his house, down into the parking lot.

At the same time, a pastor inside the worship event feels like he's supposed to go out into the parking lot.

The two of them meet, and the pastor connects Victor and his family to some people who helped them get Social Security numbers, driver's license, a car, and a better job.

I'm going nuts.

I'm like, these are the most amazing people at the party.

A lot better than Bill, right?

And yet all of it felt like to them a thousand years.

And you felt that, right?

You're waiting on something?

Waiting on somebody, waiting on something to play out, and you're like, this feels like a thousand years.

This is painful.

Waiting on something inside of you to change?

It can feel like a thousand years.

But as we understand God is outside of time and yet we experience his presence, love inside of time, there's this surrender that comes in that deep, profound truth.

Point number two God is on a redemption movement in history and in you.

God is on a redemption movement in history and in you.

Verse 10.

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.

I thought about getting a megaphone and um like a sign like repent or you will die.

Um, not in favor of that.

We were at a game recently, and one guy was doing that, um, very mean, very mean spirit, not kind spirit, very mean spirit.

When you walk by and you're like, is that productive?

Yeah, you're going, like maybe, I don't know, but I'm thinking not, just personally.

The next guy, further up the sidewalk, he was just saying, um, I think all he was saying is he said, um, God loves you.

He had a southern, God loves you.

You are loved by God.

God loves you.

You are loved by that's all he was saying.

And Christian had looked at me, I was like, I like that.

That like that's the guy, that's the guy I want to stop and go, can you tell me, can you tell me more?

Will you tell me more about that?

So there's this phrase, the day of the Lord, this verse, this verse has been used so often to scare people.

Like, it's imagery, though.

It's imagery.

It's not used to scare people.

The truth of this, the truth of this is that there will be a future day where God makes all things right.

But beloved, there's nothing for you to be scared about here.

As my little girl's Bible says, God will make all the sad things untrue.

This is the good news of this verse, that there will be a day of the Lord.

We don't know when it'll be.

But stuff will get dissolved that doesn't matter, and all the sad stuff will become untrue.

And then Peter's train of thought it moves on.

And he goes, Okay, if this is true, if God is eternal and you are loved, and all of this will dissolve, and waiting is hard, what kind of person should you be?

When you're you're 14 years old, what kind of person should you be?

You're 40 years old, you're 80 years old, what kind of person should you be?

And then he goes into verses 11 through 15, 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 as they burn.

But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Therefore, beloved, again, therefore, beloved, remember who you are.

Beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace, and count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.

So point number three, your life should mirror, it should.

It should mirror to some degree that which you are already deemed.

Your life should mirror in some degree that which you are already deemed.

Peter doesn't say you will be without spot or blemish.

He says, strive to be without spot or blemish.

He says, you are beloved, you are waiting.

Now strive for a life where you in this world match, to some degree, match who you've already deemed to be.

See, religion and moralism is obey as to be accepted.

I will obey, I'll do enough, I'll be good enough, then I'll be accepted by God.

That's religion and moralism.

Christianity is you are accepted.

You are beloved.

Now obey.

The difference between those two is the difference between a life of merit and exhaustion, pride and despair, depending on how you think you're doing, or one of faith and freedom.

You've got to remember the guy who's writing this, Peter, he's perhaps one of the greatest fools of the New Testament.

I mean, this guy infamously denied Christ three times.

Jesus says to him, Hey, you're gonna deny me.

He's like, I'm not gonna deny you.

You know, it's like the kid, don't touch the stove, don't touch the stove, and he touches it three times, he touches it.

He has no loyalty, no honesty, no friendship.

And he was a weasel.

Peter was a weasel.

He had to be full of shame.

He had to be filled with those statements like, I'm never enough.

I'll never be enough.

You've got to imagine the days of this guy wondering, working out, will I ever not feel like a failure?

Will I ever work out of this failure?

Will I ever be any more?

Could anything ever happen out of me?

How can there be redemption of this for me?

How does he begin, how does Peter begin to understand himself as beloved to write a letter like this and have some sort of life that mirrors his belovedness?

Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century philosopher, he brings us the answer in his book, Works of Love.

Christ's love for Peter was so boundless that in loving Peter he accomplished loving the person one sees.

He did not say Peter must change first and become another man before I can love him again.

No, just the opposite.

He said, Peter is Peter, and I love him.

Love, if anything, will help him to become another man.

So, my brothers and sisters, may the love of Christ be so boundless to you that your heart rests and your life turns to honor him to some degree to that which you have already been deemed.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace and mercy to us, which we need when we start to think about holiness and godliness.

For we are not always that which you have called to be, we are not always that which we want to be.

Thank you that you love us as you see us, that Peter is Peter and you loved him, that Russ is Russ and you loved me, that we are who we are, and you love us, and it is that love that turns us.

We are so grateful.

That is the story, that it is a story of redemption and history and redemption in us.

God give us great trust as we wait.

For some of us waiting on things that seem like they'll never happen.

And it is so frustrating when our days feel like a thousand years when we rest back in the great truth that for you you are outside of time, and yet we know you inside of time.

Help us, help us to trust in you in Jesus' name.

Amen.