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JESUS: His Promises: “I will come back” 2 Peter 3:3-18 (John 14:3) Nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus promised “I will come back”. What has gone wrong that we have waited all these centuries and He still has not come back? Or has He already come and we somehow missed it? I have seen various explanations. “He came back when He rose from the dead.” “He came on the Day of Pentecost.” “He comes to each person when they become one of His followers.” “His coming was spiritual rather than physical, invisible rather than visible.” Yet none of those explanations fit what the Bible says about His return. Our main Bible reading this morning is from the book of 2 Peter. Peter, a follower of Jesus, writes this book about 35 years after Jesus died and rose again, 35 years after the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. And He is still anticipating the return of Jesus. So that eliminates the first 3 explanations we just looked at. Let’s read what the Holy Spirit inspires Peter to write shortly before he is killed for being a follower of Jesus. Read 2 Peter 3:3-18. I grew up going to church. And I can remember back then, 50 and 60 years ago when often we heard sermons about the return of Jesus. I remember our choir starting every Sunday night service with the same song for months – It was the theme of those Sunday night services: Marvelous message we bring, Glorious carol we sing, Wonderful words of the King: Jesus is coming again. Coming again; coming again; May be morning, may be May be evening and may be soon. Coming again; coming again; O what a wonderful day it will be, Jesus is coming again. Those words, and the anticipation of the soon return of Jesus did something for us. They provided a motivation to live differently than we would have if we were not anticipating the soon return of Jesus. Today we live 50 years nearer Jesus’ return than in my boyhood days, and yet in this church, and in most other churches, there is not the eager anticipation that there used to be for His return. And in the process, we have lost something of the motivation for holy living. And that’s what I want to speak to you about this morning. Some of you who are here today – perhaps you are not yet a follower of Jesus or a fairly new one, perhaps you are a younger person, perhaps you have come from a church that did not talk much about what the future holds – and this information about Jesus coming back again is new to you. Others of you have heard this so many times and for so long you hardly believe it any more. Peter begins this second letter of his telling his readers that he is going to remind them of things they already knew, but he was going to refresh their memories a bit. And that’s what I want to do for some of you as well today, in the hopes that a renewed awareness of Jesus’ return will motivate us to live the kind of lives He wants us to live. PRAY. Look with me at v.3. (read v.3-4). This term “last days” is used in the N.T. to refer to the whole time between Jesus’ ascension back into heaven following His crucifixion and His return to take His followers to heaven to be with Him. It’s not just referring to a few days in duration just prior to Jesus’ return. It’s a whole period of time. During this period of waiting for Jesus’ promise to be fulfilled, scoffers will come, the Bible says. “Mockers will come” it says in another translation. The Greek word that is used here means “to treat with contempt or ridicule.” It’s the same word that is used of the Jewish religious leaders’ treatment of Jesus after they arrested Him. They treated Him with contempt and ridicule. That’s the way some people will treat this teaching of Jesus’ return, Peter says. They will scoff; they will ridicule; they will mock; they will treat this whole teaching with contempt. And those who believe this teaching will sometimes be treated the same way. “So you believe Jesus is coming back, do you? You think He made you a promise? Well, He sure is slow in keeping His promise. If I promised you something and it took me over 2000 years to keep my promise, you might well start wondering if I had lied to you or something. He’s not coming back and you might just as well give up this pie in the sky thinking and join the real world.” “Where is this coming He promised?” The form of the question is such that it implies that the questioner believes the thing is a delusion. “Where is the God of judgment?” the unbelieving people asked in the Prophet Malachi’s day. “Where is your God?” the people repeatedly asked the Psalmist David. “Where is your father?” the unbelieving Jews asked Jesus. Where is this coming He promised? They knew there had been a promise, but they did not believe it. At the top of your bulletin today is the promise in Jesus own words: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. John 14:3. “I’m going to go away, but I’ll be back. That’s My promise to you.” When Jesus did go away, when He rose up from this earth into heaven, the disciples watched Him go, and then angels appeared and told them: “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” Acts And so these early Christians lived in anticipation of the fulfillment of that promise. They lived their lives looking forward to Jesus’ return, when He would take them to heaven to be with Him where He was. Philippians I Thessalonians Then in chapter 4, verses 15-18 According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. Jesus had promised that He would come back, and the early Christians understood that and eagerly anticipated His return. “But when?” That is the question that has been asked down through the ages. “We know He promised to return, but when?” Don’t forget Peter says in v.8. Don’t forget three things. The first one takes us back to v.5: “Don’t forget that God kept His promise to judge the world the first time.” The reference here is to the great flood in the days of Noah. Because of man’s wickedness, God brought judgment on the world of that day. But in mercy, He made a way to escape that judgment. You had to put your trust in the word of a man sent from God with a message: Noah. Only those in the ark would be saved. The door was open to anyone who would believe. But the vast majority did not, and died in the flood. The Old Testament is important to us as Christians. In it we see the character and nature of God. We see His faithfulness, His patience, but also His judgments. And the God of the Old Testament has not been superseded by a nicer God in the New Testament. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. When God’s warnings were not heeded in the days of Noah, people experienced judgment. And Peter is warning us, if we do not heed God’s warnings in our day, judgment will come to us as well. But these scoffers had forgotten that. Then in v.8: “Don’t forget that God’s timing is different than ours.” Don’t misunderstand what is being said here. Don’t miss the word “like”, or “as”. It does not say that one day is a thousand years. Yet there are those who make calculations as to when Jesus is coming back from this verse: “the six days of creation and the one day of rest. So it’s been 6000 years from creation, and now it’s time for Jesus to come back and bring His creation into rest.” And many have tried to calculate it down to the very day when Jesus will come back. Yet we don’t even know when to start counting. When did God create the heavens and the earth? All that’s being said here is that God looks at time differently than we do. A day or a thousand years, it’s all the same to Him. So we can’t calculate His timing on the basis of our timing. Psa. 90:4 says: For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night – a three-hour period. So don’t get hung up trying to calculate exactly when Jesus is coming back. Then in v. 9-10 he says: “Don’t forget that God keeps His promises in His time, not ours, but He does keep His promises”. God does not do things on our time schedule. I think every one of us has learned that at some point in our life. And if you haven’t, you will. God knows things we don’t know. He sees things we don’t see. He not only knows what is right, He also knows when is right. We want God to do something now. But God’s plan is to do it later. If we don’t understand this principle, if we forget that God keeps His promises in His time, not ours, we can get frustrated with God. We think He has lied to us, or failed us, or forgotten about us. Jesus is coming back! He promised He would, and He keeps His promises. I have made promises in life that I have not been able to keep. I thought I could when I made the promise, but later I found that it was beyond my ability. Other times I have failed to keep my promise because of neglect – I forgot to write it down, or forgot to keep track of time. Other times I have made a conscious choice not to do the thing I had promised. Jesus never does any of those. He has the ability to keep His promises; He never neglects His promises; He never goes back on His promises. He said He would return, and He will. IN LIGHT OF THAT FACT, HOW SHOULD WE BE LIVING? God is not just interested in what we know and what we believe, He is also deeply concerned about how we live. So look at what it says in v.11. The writers of the various books of the Bible were inspired by God as they wrote. He made sure they said the right things, that they made no mistakes, that they did not leave anything out. And the inspired writers of the N.T. over & over talk about what Peter just said here: anticipating Jesus’ return will motivate us to live different lives that we otherwise would. How should we live in light of Jesus’ anticipated return? Titus 2:11-13 calls Jesus’ return “the blessed hope”, and clearly says that hope is a motivation to live life differently than if we are not anticipating His return. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Saying “no” to ungodliness & worldly passions, living a self-controlled, upright and godly life in this present age is motivated not only by His grace, but also by our awareness that Jesus is coming back. Some of you believe that it is impossible for you to say “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions. You think the pull of the world is too strong. Some of you are not at all interested in saying “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions. You would rather accommodate yourself to the world than to be different from it. You live in the present with no thought of the future. The Bible says we are to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age. Godly living is not something we have to wait for until we get to heaven. Godly living is for today. Living a holy life is to be the lifestyle of every Christian as we wait for heaven. And here is one of the reasons: One of these days we will see Him, and we will stand before Him. What will that be like for you? In 1 John John continues: Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we shall be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. (3:2-3) Perhaps Jesus prediction that the love of most will grow cold prior to His return is related to the loss of anticipation of His return. Those who live with the blessed hope, who live with the anticipation of His soon appearance when we shall see Him as He is, deal with their worldly passions and the pull of ungodliness all around them. They endeavor to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age as they wait for that wonderful day when Jesus will return to take us to be with Him where He is. That anticipation is a powerful motivation. How are you living today? Are you ready for Jesus to come back? Are you living your life in anticipation of that great event when you will stand before Him face to face, or are you totally focused on this life? PRAY Invitation to come for prayer. |
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