Music Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. This is part four of a message first preached on October 22nd, 2023.
It's part of a series on 2 Peter titled, Live as People Who Remember. To hear the whole message and other messages from this series, visit www.delightingrace.com. This is what Peter is calling us to end at peace. All that out of three words. A settled satisfaction.
Why? Because Jesus said in John 15, John 15, 11, these things I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. Do you think Jesus was just talking spiritual platitudes? Let me ask you again.
Do you think Jesus was just talking spiritual platitudes? Can you identify with this? I'm not saying that judgmentally. I'm speaking to me too. Are you preoccupied about the storm?
Are you preoccupied about the big dog barking at you behind the fence? Or are you secure in the arms of the one who has you in the grip of his grace? That's why even in the context of mourning there can be joy. Because I am loved and secure.
I'm cared for and secure. The psalmist writes of this in Psalm 37. I'm going to ask us to read it together responsibly.
Would you stand with me please? We're going to read 11 verses of Psalm 37 responsibly. I'll read the italics.
I think it goes from frame to frame. Fret not yourself because of evildoers. Be not envious of wrongdoers.
For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord.
Trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the new day. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way. Over the man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger and forsake wrath.
Fret not yourself. It ends, it tends only to evil. For the evildoer shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while the wicked will be no more.
Though he look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. Delight themselves in abundant peace. That is a great scripture and that was written a long time before Christ.
Same God. Okay, we're talking about the behavior of productively waiting and all of that was pursue Christ to become like him. You are holy and beloved, so become holy and beloved. Point number two, perceive and engage life circumstances through an accurate understanding of God's character and purpose. Say, Rich, that's an awful long sub-point.
Yes, it is. Perceive and engage life circumstances through an accurate understanding of God's character and purpose. An accurate understanding of God's character and purpose. In other words, take a transcendent approach to life and work.
A transcendent approach to life and work. You want to know what the difference is? I've used this illustration before, but it's like the difference between an eagle and a chicken. An eagle soars. Can you imagine the perspective of the eagle? What does a chicken do?
Struts on the ground. A chicken has a very earthbound perspective. A very earthbound perspective.
You and I, we need to take a transcendent approach to life and work. Look at it through God's eyes. Understand it through the light of his character and his purpose. Look at verse 15 with me. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation.
What is the patience of our Lord? He hasn't come yet. And a lot of people are saying God doesn't care. He's not going to intervene. Where is God anyway?
Everything's the same and even getting worse if you think. Where is God? This is why Peter is saying count the patience of our Lord as what? God's carrying out his mission. He still has a purpose to fulfill. So we need to perceive and engage life circumstances through an accurate understanding of God's character and purpose. His precious and very great promises that have granted us all things pertaining to life and godliness. This means two things for us. To perceive and engage life through an accurate understanding of God's character and purpose. First of all, requires a diligent study.
A diligent study. The patience of our Lord. Is that indifference? Is God indifferent?
Is he distant from us? And Peter here is saying that Paul said the same thing, right? And Paul wrote things and some of the things he said were hard to understand. And I'm guessing Peter is writing to these people who fled from Rome because of the great Roman fire in 64 AD. And now they're all scattered out through Asia Minor.
Peter is writing those people. They came from Rome. Who wrote a letter to Rome? The Roman church. Paul did. I bet they were confused about Romans 9, 10, and 11.
They said, that's hard stuff to understand. Peter writes this about 10 years later after the Roman letter was written from Paul. Romans 9, 10, and 11, there's difficult stuff in there. For example, Romans 9, 22 to 24, look at this.
He says, what if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. And you know exactly what he's talking about, don't you? All the Calvinists in here are saying, yeah, I do. No you don't.
You know why no you don't? Because look what he said in Romans 11, verse 33. Romans 11, 33, oh the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. God's ways are way above our ways. And Paul did his best, even under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to try to describe God's ways. Listen, you and I are not God, and his ways are way above ours. God is not indifferent.
He is not distant. He is carrying out his purpose, which is why we must study, diligently study, his word. Diligently study what God has revealed to us.
He's carrying out his word. If we're not diligently studying, we will become, like the writer of Hebrews says in 511, we've become dull of hearing. Do you know when you become dull of hearing? It's when you become comfortable and complacent.
You become dull of hearing. God is carrying out his purpose, and what is his purpose? It is leading people to himself. God's purpose is leading people to himself, which is why we are called to diligent study of God's character and purpose. And therefore, whatever we see going on, even the stuff we don't understand, God is carrying out his purpose of leading people to himself. And DJ mentioned that verse from John 10. I have other sheep. Jesus knows who every one of his sheep is.
They've not all come into the fold yet, and he's still calling them. He's still fulfilling his purpose. That's why we are called to a diligent study. And so the second point under perceive and engage life circumstances through an accurate understanding of God's character and purpose, accurate is why it requires our diligent study, but also it requires our humility.
This is the last point today. It requires our humility. Some people, what do they do? They take hard sayings, and they twist them, and they distort them, and they do it for self-promotion. They manipulate the meaning.
Twisting is the word that Peter uses here. They manipulate the meaning as if they have received some kind of enlightenment, and therefore they approach it with arrogance, and if you don't see it the way they see it, they come at you with all kinds of arrogance and say, well, you just don't understand the word of God, or you don't know God. Listen, when we're discussing and dialoguing family matters about theological frameworks, if I hear anyone in this congregation talking to someone else and saying, well, you believe that because you just don't understand God, I'm going to be on your case.
We need to give each other latitude to have varying perspectives on these issues. Because I've heard it before, and those people who champion the doctrines of grace often do so very ungraciously. Humility. There are those like the false teachers in the polemic that Peter rants against the false teachers. He says, no one understands. It's like people will say, you know, these men who believe that they have received enlightenment, no one understands the way I do, so let me help you. You've been listening to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. To hear this message and others, check out www.delightingrace.com. To discover how to live by grace, tune in with us on weekdays at 10 a.m.
