Hurry Up and Wait! 2 Peter 3:8-15 Sunday 12/10/17 The Second Sunday in Advent
One of the most frustrating things I know is to travel on an airplane. What I hate about it is that you find yourself in a helpless cycle of Hurry Up and Wait. You know what I mean?
You must be at the airport an hour early and you have to wait to board your plane. You finally take off and are on your way. When you get to the next airport, you find out your connecting flight is leaving in 3 minutes and the gate is on the other side of the airport. You run as fast as you can, pulling your carry-on behind you, and when you get to the gate huffing and puffing with sweat running down you face, you find out that you are too late. And there you are again, waiting.
Well, you have an idea how frustrated the first Christians were waiting on Jesus to come back. Our scripture tells us that we should be waiting and hastening the coming of the day of God. Now I have thought about this, and I couldn’t’ see how our waiting could hurry-up the coming of God. It didn’t make sense! Is God in the Hurry up and wait business? Well He did allow man to invent the airplane!
But then I read in verse 8 &9 “Thus with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day.” All jokes aside, we are told, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance."
When I read that, I realized how wonderfully loving God really is. You see, the reason Jesus did not come back on the second day, or in a week, or in a year, is because he is being patient with us. He is giving us every opportunity to repent and be saved. I believe the world will not end until everyone God intends to save has repented. No matter how long it takes.
Last week I mentioned that we need to take seriously the Second Coming of Christ we need to capture the excitement they felt. Those first disciples, whom Peter tells to wait and hurry, thought that Jesus would come back in their life time. As a matter of fact, they started looking in the skies the day he ascended into heaven. And they knew that He would come back at any second. So, they took heed of the warnings of Christ and they began to prepare. They got their affairs in order, and they prepare their souls for Jesus. At first, they must have been the most Holy and Godly people on earth. You see, they did not want to be caught unprepared when he returned.
Our scripture states that, “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of God.” You see by our living holy and godly lives, we make the world a little better and those who are not saved will see our behavior and want to be saved, thus hurrying the Lord to come.
Let’s think about this for a moment, now if God somehow came to you and told you the world would end tomorrow, how would you change your life?
1. Call that brother you haven’t talked to in 10 years and ask him to forgive you? Forgive the ones who wronged
you?
2. Would try to think of every bad thing you have done and try to make it right. Down to the cupcake you
remember stealing in the third grade.
3. I don’t know about you, but I would be praying as hard as I could, asking God to forgive me for all the sins I
have committed against Him. I would be pouring out my heart to Jesus and try to commune with him and get
as close as I could to Him.
4. I would want to see all my children and relatives one more time and tell them how much I loved them. I
would be praying for all of us to make it to heaven.
5. Would you give away everything you owned? Or would you want to hold on to somethings.
6. Would you try to pay all your debts?
Friends, we so often live as if we will never die and that the world will never end. We tend to put God in the background of our lives and bring Him forward when we want, as though we are in control. The true Christian dedicates his life to what God wants and keeps him in forefront of his life. Not just 2 hours on Sunday and 2 hours on Wednesdays, but every hour.
So let us remember as our lesson teaches us today, 2 Peter 3:14 “Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.”
Friends, what would you do if God told you the world is going to end? He already has? 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.c
Get Ready now, while you still can!
