Don't Waste Your Waiting

Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek

February 14, 2016

Valentine’s Day Poem

I’m going to take a small detour before we get on with the sermon; it’s already on your minds, so it won’t be too out of place.Today is February 14 and thus Valentine’s Day. If you didn’t know that or you forgot, you’re welcome. A quick internet search will show that the origins of Valentine’s Day are murky but in one way or another it can be traced to Saint Valentine of Rome, a third-century Christian.1 In honor of the day, I’ve worn a pink tie.Also in honor of the day, tonight our small group begins a new study through the Old Testament book, The Song of Solomon, which has much to say about marriage and love. We didn’t plan it that way, but that’s how it worked out.Also, in honor of the day, I’ve written a poem. Several years ago, the first time I shared a poem in church (which seems to happen about once a year), I told another pastor (not here) that I was going to do it beforehand. And he said, “Yeah, like ‘Roses are red. Violets are blue’?” And I was like, “Ahh . . . yeah . . . and no.”Since then, I thought maybe one day I would try to spoof that poem a little and offer some pointers to something better. Well, with a Sunday that falls on Saint Valentine’s Day, I thought why not today. My poem, in a goofy, and I hope serious way, critiques the sappy view of love we have today as it encourages us to look to God’s love as a model of true love, whether we are single or married.The poem is called, Roses Are Red, A Tired Cliché. It goes like this,

Roses are red. Violets are blue.Sugar is sweet. And so are you.Are these our poems? “Violets are blue.Sugar is sweet”? I guess that’s true.Our poems are lame, in culture today.Romance is cheap, like pots of clay.We need much more—old truth made new.God sent his Son, a love rescue.Think how better, our poems could be,If from above, this love we’d see.The flame of the Lord flashes,Love neither quiet nor quaint.Its heat dashes and smashesThe sappy portraits we paint.Loves draws lines in wet cement.In the furnace of trials,Marriage vows harden and set.And love, though strained, still smiles.

Now of singles: in culture today,“Singles are weird,” so they say.Not in Scripture. Paul wanted more,Singles to serve, so love will soar.Jesus is real. Single was he.His church his bride, trust him and see.Roses are red. Violets are blue.Love more than sweet? God’s love for you.Faithful God stays, with love like glue.When Gospel meets, sinners like you.

That line about “the flame of the Lord” comes from another love poem. It comes from Song of Solomon chapter 8. The author writes,6 Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the Lord.
7 Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
he would be utterly despised.
I’m confident that Solomon’s poem is a better poem than mine. Mine sounded better in my head five days ago when it was only then a whisper. But my point, like Solomon’s, is real: love is not a tired cliché, nor something flimsy and wiggly. The love of God is sturdy and strong. It’s full of covenant keeping power. And it’s big enough to encompass a vision for romantic love between one man and one women in the covenant of marriage for a lifetime, and it’s big enough to encompass the love of God for singles and his wonderful purposes for them. Your marriage, ultimately, is not about you. Your singleness, ultimately, is not about you. Marriage and singleness, each—inside the purposes of God—are designed to display his strong and sturdy love to the world. This gives real meaning to your life and all of your relationships.Love is a central thing in the Bible. And it’s hard to imagine an area in our culture further from God’s design. But yet, as Paul once said, God is not far off (Act 17:27). God’s love is ready to burst upon us. So write some poems, weak as they might turn out, and pray that true love would reign. In fact, let’s pray for this now, and then I’ll preach a short sermon . . .

This morning is our last sermon in our series through the letters of 1 and 2 Peter.This week, we’ll finish 2 Peter by looking at Peter’s final words. It’s a passage about waiting and making the most of our time while we wait. If you have a Bible, please follow along with me as I read 2 Peter 3:14-18 (page 1168).

2 Peter 3:14-18

14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 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, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.This is God’s Word. Thanks be to God.

Introduction

Waiting is a normal part of life. We do it all of the time. We wait for 5 o’clock, quitting time. We wait in line at a Giant grocery story. I wait each morning with two of my children at the bus stop. Lately, we’ve been throwing snow balls while we wait.We wait for an app to download. We wait to get off the plane. We wait for a friend to response to our text message. We wait in the doctor’s office. Then we when are done waiting in the lobby, we wait in that second waiting room that doctors have. (They are sneaking, aren’t they?).We wait in line at Hershey Park. We wait for an insurance check to arrive. We wait for election results. We wait on our children all of the time (put on your shoes; please keep up; if you want dessert, just finish your food!)And speaking of children, often we wait for the pregnancy to be completed, we wait for children to get out of diapers, for when they can dress themselves, when they can tie their shoes!, for them to be at school, for them to drive, and then for them to get out of the home. Then we wait for them just to call or to visit on Christmas.Again, waiting is normal part of life, even specifically the Christian life. I’m not sure if you caught it, but our passage began with the statement, “Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting . . .” (v. 14).It can be hard to wait, can’t it? As the joke goes, we all want better patience, and we want it NOW!This week, Jason told me a story of one of his professors. Dr. Manetsch apparently had a car like many of us have, or have had: It was often breaking down. Dr. Manetsch knew this and would often keep stacks of books with him so he could make good use of his time while waiting to be picked up or towed. It’s a funny picture. You’re on I-83, and power cuts out, so you drift to the shoulder, and grab a book because you are going to be waiting.There’s something to this approach, this readiness, though. It’s something that Peter wants for us, as well. We are all tempted to waste our waiting. To be unproductive. We lose sight of the glory of the future that awaits Christians, so we live only in the here and now. If you’ve been coming for the last few weeks, you’ll remember that the false teachers—who Peter spent so much effort correcting—were indulging this view. The false teachers, were giving people permission to do what they deeply wanted to do, namely, live for the “now” without future consequences. This made them terrible at waiting; in fact they didn’t have to wait. In fact, they had to make heaven now because there wasn’t, so they taught, going to be a new heavens and new earth.But that is slavery. You look at people who, near the end of their lives do not have ‘forever with God’ to look forward to, and you’ll see them try to drink every ounce of pleasure they can get from this life because that’s all there is to drink. (It’s difficult enough for Christians to keep our eyes on Christ, let alone if we didn’t believe.)But Peter says in v. 13,

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

Peter doesn’t want us to waste our waiting. And so he gives us ways to do this. Let me show you three ways in the passage that he instructs us in how to not waste our waiting.While we wait, we must 1) Cling to the wisdom and unity of the Bible, 2), Avoid false teachers, and 3) Have the proper view of Jesus. Again, cling to the Bible, avoid false teachers, and have a proper view of Jesus. Let’s take these in order.

1. While we wait . . . Cling to the wisdom and unity of the Bible

First, while we wait for the new heavens and the new earth, Christians must cling to the wisdom and unity of the Bible.Let me show you verses where I see this. Let’s re-read vv. 15-16,

15 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, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Did you catch what Peter said about Paul? He said that the things I’ve been talking about in my letter, are the same things that Paul talks about “in all his letters.” We don’t know which letters of Paul that Peter was familiar with, but it must have been enough of them that he could say “all of his letters.”Peter is saying, “Yeah, this thing I’m talking about—about being holy as you wait for heaven and that God’s patience is what’s on display in his perceived slowness, not God’s inability (last week)—yeah, Paul writes about that, too. And he does it with the spirit of wisdom given to him.”That’s amazing. Think about this unity. I’ll say more about this in the second point when I talk about false teachers, but I’ll say this now: if we are to be productive while we wait for the kingdom of God, then we can’t be engaged in the silliness of pitting biblical authors against each other. There is no time for that! The same spirit inspired both of them.And now I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out something else to you. On the one hand, it’s a small thing, at least a small phrase, but it has huge, sweeping importance for how we understand the Bible to speak of itself.Let me show you again the phrase. It’s v. 16b,

There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Do you see it? Peter says that the false teachers twist Paul’s words, just like they do “the other Scriptures.” That’s hugely important, because I’ll tell you that that word, “Scriptures” is used 51 times in the NT and every time it refers to the authoritative Old Testament Scriptures, expect two places and in these two places the words of New Testament authors are put alongside the Old Testament Scriptures. In short, the word Scripture always refers to the authoritative OT, expect twice when it refers both to OT and NT. One of those places is here (and the other is 1 Timothy 5:18, where Paul puts Jesus’s words alongside an OT passage).2 What am I trying to show? I’m trying to show that Peter took Paul’s letters to be equal to the Old Testament Scriptures. Amazing. That’s why I’m saying, while we wait for the new heavens and the new earth, Christians must cling to the wisdom and unity of the Bible.Another amazing thing to point out: the beauty of Christian reconciliation. You might not see that in these verses right away. Let me show it to you.Did you know that this passage is one of the main reasons that some scholars doubt that Peter could have written this letter. Why would they say that? Well, Peter calls Paul a “beloved brother.” You say, “What does that matter?” Well, in another part of the Bible, Paul had to rebuke Peter in a very public way because he was drifting away from the Gospel (Galatians 2). And some scholars say that because of this rebuke and the supposed rift that it created, that it would be impossible for Peter and Paul’s relationship to have recovered. I confess, this is strange to me. Could Peter not say wonderful things about Jesus, because Jesus often rebuked Peter?But maybe they are right. Maybe reconciliation is impossible—apart from God. It would seem, however, that they didn’t drift apart; they were reconciled.Years ago, I was teaching a class on a controversial topic. For the most part, it went well. However, there was one point where I had to, gently at first, but then with much more force, rebuke someone who was being very offensive and very out of line. I had to do it. Gospel-love was at stake. So I did it.Well, I got a message a few days later that this guy wanted some office time to talk. So it was set up and he came in. I was dreading it. I had another pastor sit in the meeting with me just to be a witness of the meeting. But it was beautiful. He came and said, “I’m sorry. I was out of line.” It wasn’t about me being right or not, it was about this: while we are waiting of the new heaven’s and the new earth, we must be about reconciliation, or as the passage says, to be found “at peace.” And I feel bad for the scholars that don’t so know the power of the love of God that they have never tasted this possibility of reconciliation. I hope you know Christian reconciliation. And I hope that as it is needed, your purse it as God in Christ purses it with you.It’d love to talk about the phrase “some things in them that are hard to understand.” This, in a weird way, encourages me that Peter thought it was true of Paul’s writings. It doesn’t make me feel so bad when a sermon takes me 45 minutes of study for every 1 minute of preaching. I wish I could do this faster, I just don’t know how.Let’s use this phrase (“hard to understand”) as a transition into the next point to talk about false teachers. In the last two sermons, Jason and Ben gave lots of time to this, but let me mention more thing.

2. While we wait . . . Avoid false teachers

Point number two is this: while we wait for the new heavens and the new earth, Christians must avoid the error of the false teachers. Now the way we do this of course, is by doing point one: clinging to the wisdom and unity of the Bible, but let me re-read vv. 16b-17.

. . . There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.

Notice this: notice how contemporary the whole false teacher thing is. The false teachers were twisting the words of Paul (and thus twisting Scripture) so that a morally loose and judgment-free lifestyle would be acceptable. They took Paul’s words, twisted them, and then voilà: live however you want. Very, very contemporary (cf. an email conversation I had with one popular false teachers last summer who does exactly this).The point I want to add is this. As they sought pleasure, and got destruction. Notice what Peter says of them, “which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction.”This is very important. When you come to a hard passage what do you do? Peter says, “Don’t twist it to your own nearsighted gain; rather, labor over it and seek to interpret it in line with others Scriptures” even if it makes demands upon your life that are challenging.If you go for nearsighted pleasure, you get destruction. If you go for faithful exposition of the Scriptures and a desire to live in light of them, you get the pleasure of forever in the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells.I’m going to choose my words carefully, but what they did was a suicidal reading of the Bible. It cost them their lives—forever. I’ve officiated over a funeral of an actual suicide victim. It’s awful. Peter wants something better for his people. You can see that in v. 17. He says, “You therefore, beloved . . .” In other words, I’m not talking about them. I’m talking to you! I want better for you. Don’t waste your waiting with a self-defeating twisting of the Scriptures that will rob you of eternal joy! Take the long view of joy.Now, for one last point.

3. While we wait . . . Have the proper view of Jesus

Point number three is this: while we wait for the new heavens and the new earth, Christians must have the proper view of Jesus. We must think rightly about Jesus.Let me show you a few places this comes up.

15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation . . . 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Think about this: Peter just wrote a doxology—which is a lofty praise-filled statement—to Jesus. Think about that. Peter is Jewish and thus stridently monotheistic. You don’t give a man praise that would approximate worship, not even close. It would be treason. In the book of Acts there is a story of a man who wanted to worship at Peter’s feet, but Peter told him to get up, don’t do that. (Acts 10). The same thing once happened to Paul, and he responded the same way (Acts 14).Treason. Peter is committing treason to God, unless Jesus was also God, which he was and is and is to come.If we are not going to waste our waiting, then we must know that Jesus is God and he is “Savior and Lord.” And his patience means salvation. The reason he seems so slow, is not because he can’t come back now, but because he is working to see more people saved.

Conclusion

I’m going close with a beautiful paragraph in a commentary that I read.

So this is how one is to think about the long wait that the church has endured with respect to the [return of Jesus]. It is salvation, salvation for many of those whom Peter addresses who had recently come to repentance, and salvation for the millions of followers of Jesus who have lived throughout the ages, and the salvation for people around the world about whom our author is not even dimly aware, but whom we know have come to repentance and thus will not perish, people living from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Circle and from the east coast of China right around to the west coast of the United States. And especially in our age we remember the millions of believers in the global South since the average believer today is not Caucasian or Western but black or otherwise colored and probably living in the southern hemisphere, far beyond the worldview of our author. But this is what our Lord’s patience has meant: it has meant that salvation has reached them, and it has meant that salvation has reach us.3

And if salvation has not reached you, run to Jesus. His love is not far off.“To Jesus be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”Next week, we begin our series, “More People to Love.” But you don’t have to wait until next week to start living in light of that. Let’s pray…

1Here, for example.
2These sentiments show up in many commentaries and systematic theologies (cf., Grudem, Systematic Theology, 61).
3Peter H. Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, 297-8.