MidTree Church
The sermon audio of MidTree Church in Harris County, Ga. BEHOLD // BELIEVE // BECOME
MidTree Church
Spotless Faith: Peter's Final Challenge to Believers | Pastor Will Hawk | August 3rd, 2025
The paradox at the heart of Christian life can feel impossible to resolve: how can we strive diligently for holiness while simultaneously experiencing deep peace? In this final sermon on 2 Peter, we explore the apostle's parting wisdom to believers awaiting Christ's return and a world "in which righteousness dwells."
Peter challenges us with seemingly contradictory instructions: "Be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish and at peace." This tension between extreme effort and complete rest captures the unique essence of Christian spirituality. While acknowledging that some spiritual truths are "hard to understand," Peter warns against both abandoning Scripture as too difficult and manipulating it to fit our preconceptions.
The solution emerges in Peter's final charge: "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." Grace isn't simply a one-time gift but a dynamic reality we continuously grow into. As we mature spiritually, we discover how to pursue holiness while resting in Christ's finished work.
This message offers three practical applications: First, don't waste your waiting time – invest it wisely in eternal purposes. Second, embrace the paradox that while perfection remains beyond reach in this life, genuine transformation is guaranteed for true believers. Finally, find peace by becoming a better receiver of God's grace rather than striving to achieve it through your own efforts.
Unlike Buddha's reported final words—"strive without ceasing"—Christ's last declaration was "it is finished." Our spiritual journey isn't about endless effort but about learning to live from the victory already won for us. What would change if you truly believed God is keeping you while enabling you to participate in your own spiritual growth? How might this understanding transform your daily walk with Christ?
If you want to learn more about the MidTree story or connect with us, go to our website HERE or text us at 812-MID-TREE.
Good morning. Please turn in your Bibles to 2 Peter 3, 14-18. It's page 1019 in the Pew Bibles and follow along as I read God's Word. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish and at peace. 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, 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. 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, 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 the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2:Amen, thank you. Well, guys, we finish a book of the Bible this morning, which is always something worth celebrating, so praise God for that Also. Yeah, excited about who else is excited here? Also a couple of things I want to mention to you Out of curiosity. How many of you sit in just about the same space every Sunday? Just by show of hands, you've kind of got your space Out of curiosity. Who couldn't get their seat this morning because you got here a little later than you? I'm just curious, like you're not in trouble, yeah, who's like? I feel displaced this morning, so sometimes it's really good for us to be displaced. If I could give you an encouragement I think there is a beautiful thing about you having sort of like your spot I would encourage you, every couple of months, intentionally sit somewhere else, whether you show up late or on time or otherwise, just to meet folks in the church that you may not otherwise meet. Second question by show of hands, how many of you are usually first service people? By show of hands, okay, do we have any second service people that snuck in this morning? Okay, a couple of you.
Speaker 2:Now, all I want you to notice is the disparity between how many of you are normally first service and how many are normally second. There's not a lot of crossover. We get some in the summer, depending on how late your night was or if you're driving to or from the beach. So what we're gonna be doing next week I'm looking for a staffer. Here is one another Sunday next week. Yes, every now and then we try to do this where, much to your chagrin and just difficulty, I'm going to preach a little shorter next week and, quite easy, easy, I felt a clap coming on and I didn't need it. I'm going to preach a little shorter next week. We're going to finish about 10 or 15 minutes earlier than usual so that you guys can have time to fellowship, not only with folks who we do church with we can celebrate the birthday of our church as we finish year seven and begin year eight but we're also inviting folks who are typically second service folks to come a little early and we would love to have a half an hour where you just hang out. I think we're going to have cotton candy and popcorn and stuff like that, which it sounds early to me, but we own cotton candy and popcorn machines. This is like how it's going to go. I think we have something else. Josiah, is the icy girl pulling up, maybe. Yeah, okay, so we're going to be celebrating our birthday, but more than just celebrating our birthday, man, would I love for you to meet some folks that you do church with, that you may not even know, and so plan to stay a little later and hang out and meet some folks next week. It would be a blessing to me if you made that a priority, so please do. All right.
Speaker 2:So here we are. We're in 2 Peter. We are going to finish everything that you see on the screen. That is all that we have left in 2 Peter. About four or five verses left in the entirety of 2 Peter. Joanna already read it to us.
Speaker 2:What I want you to understand is, usually, when we work through a scripture, we kind of work through it like this, straight down. If you're following along in your own Bible, here's what you're going to notice. You're going to notice that we actually start in this sort of middle section and then we go up to A and we finish at C. It'll make sense why we do that, as we sort of begin working through the text. But I hate it when I'm trying to follow along with a pastor and I'm like wait a minute, didn't you already read that? Why are you going back? So I'm just giving you a heads up. We're going B, a, c as we sort of navigate this text this morning. And here is. I just said that and I'm going to read to you A, just don't settle in on it yet. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, what is Peter talking about? If you weren't here last week, there's no way for you to know, unless you know 2 Peter quite well.
Speaker 2:The way 2 Peter ended was this God is creating a world in which something dwells. Does anybody want to guess, or look one verse up from what I've shown you A world in which righteousness dwells. Now, a very clean way to define righteousness is just as God intended it. What is a righteous husband? It's a husband as God intended it. What's a righteous family? A family as God intended it. What's a righteous business? What's a righteous church? What's a righteous nation? It is as God intended it.
Speaker 2:So Peter's saying therefore, people whom I love, if you're looking in your Bibles above verse 14, many of you are going to have in italics, final words Peter is in prison, the end of his life is coming, and these are the last thing he wants to leave the Christians he so dearly loves with Beloved. Since you are waiting for a world as God intended it that's what he's saying. While you're longing for a world in which there isn't brokenness and war and famine and death and struggle and stress and depression and anxiety, while you're waiting for this, hey, christians, be diligent to be found by him, be found by God without spots or without blemish, and at peace. And I think, ironically, this is one of the hardest scriptures Peter wrote to us in his entire letter. The reason I say it's ironic is because in just a minute he says I have trouble understanding some of Paul's writing. Did you notice that If you go a little bit further in the text, you're going to see him say this Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.
Speaker 2:There are some things in them that are hard to understand. Peter's, like Paul's, kind of complicated guys, and I'm like Peter. Yeah, paul is sort of complicated, but so are you. And let me tell you why. You're a little complicated, peter. You just told me to be diligent to be found by God without a spot or a blemish. And then you said and be at peace. It's like, well, hang on. Flag on the field here. Time out for a minute.
Speaker 2:How am I supposed to be diligent, to be found by God? Not like pretty good, better than the person next to you, david Blanchard? What a beautiful call to worship. We're here to be little. We're not here to compare ourselves. How on earth am I supposed to like be serious, diligent, hardworking about nobody finding a spot or a blemish in me and be peaceful? To me, those are mutually exclusive things. If I am trying to like get rid of all the brokenness in me, it is not usually peace that I find. How can I possibly find peace while I'm diligently striving to be without blemish?
Speaker 2:Now, some of you are already answering this question. Some of you are like well, will I know some theology? And the word grace is an excellent thing to apply to this question right now. You're not wrong, but before you just, real quick, grab a theological statement, be careful of knowledge that comes without faith and you slam it on here. I want you to feel what Peter just said.
Speaker 2:What Peter just said was I want God to find you without a spot. I want him to find you without a blemish, which means here's the fruit of the spirit. How are you doing? Oh, spotless fruit. You just take a look. How's everybody doing in the love and joy this morning? Peace snuck in there, by the way. These are things that the Bible says you can never have too much of. Against such things there is no law. But it isn't just the fruit of the Spirit. What if, all of a sudden, I say how's your love game? How's that patience? You're resenting anybody right now Dealing with any boastful thoughts? Are you believing and hoping in all good things? Does your love to your spouse, to your children, to your co-workers, never end? I'm just telling you, when Will reads this without spot and blemish is not how he feels. But the Bible doesn't stop there. Bible's got lists, like my wife got lists Philippians 4.8.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you what your brain should be thinking about. Hey, believer, I only want you to think about what is true, just pure. That one will get you Lovely, commendable and excellent If it's worthy of praise. Think about that, but that's it. That's what I want you to think on. How's your spotless, blemishless self? And, as you can probably tell from the slide that I've built. There's a fourth, but there's not. But there is. This is Peter's list. We call it the list of virtues. Y'all remember this. Hey, if you're going to have faith, that's great, but add to it virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, affection for your brother. I'll just tell you, guys, we could keep adding scripture to this if we wanted to, but I don't think we have to.
Speaker 2:When you think of your home life, when you think of your work life, when you think of your play life this is not rhetorical. Please don't answer out loud. Who's feeling spotless right now? Who's feeling without blemish when we see these things? And yet that's exactly what Peter says, which is why I am so glad. The next thing he says is some things in the Bible are a little difficult to understand. Count the patience of our Lord as salvation. Aren't we glad that he is patient with us in the midst of our spots and our blemishes? Thomas, did you take the water with you or am I about? I do not want to drink your water. Yeah, but I don't know how do I know which one's yours? Did you drink out of this one? I just don't. I'll be honest with you. I don't trust drinking after you. I'll drink after some people I don't trust drinking after you. Okay, that isn't my tea.
Speaker 2:I don't know whose that is, count the patience of the Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul, who also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks to them in them of these matters. I cannot tell you how much I love this Bible verse. I don't know when it happens, when you feel like you're supposed to know what scripture means and like all things. Certainly, if you decide to go to seminary, people expect you to have the answers. If you become a youth pastor, at least the teenagers expect you to have the answers. The adults are like whatever, what do you know about life? But, thomas, tell them I'm wrong. I'm not wrong. It could be just whenever you stand up in front of somebody with a Bible. If you've ever led a Bible study or led a small group or something like that, do you know how freeing it is and I hope you feel this freedom for Peter to say the Bible sometimes is just difficult to understand. Peter could literally say I walked around with Jesus for three years. I listened to him teach, I watched people's faces as the light bulb was clicking and the Bible is just tough sometimes and one of the gifts that I think Peter gives us in this is the understanding that this is not only true. But it is good for you to know beforehand, because the ignorant and the unstable do something to Scripture that they ought not to do. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the errors that come from ignorant, unstable people who twist the word of God, of lawless people, because Peter doesn't want them to lose their own stability.
Speaker 2:All of us come to scripture with a little bit of a twisted thinking. There's no way for you not to. Your brain, your mind, your experiences, your world, your relationships are not spotless. They are not without blemish. The way that you look at or understand anything is somehow tainted by your imperfection, your fallibility and how small you actually are. But there's a problem if you think the Bible will always be too hard to understand. And there's also a problem if you think the Bible will never be too hard to understand, if you think that the Bible is always going to be too hard to understand. If you think that the Bible is always going to be too hard to understand, you are going to twist away from it and you're just going to walk away and find something else.
Speaker 2:But I think the second thought is actually more potentially condemning. If you think the Bible is never supposed to be too hard for you to understand, you're not going to twist yourself away from it. You're going to twist it to meet your expectations of what it is. And I'll tell you when it's the sneakiest. When it is the sneakiest is when you feel like you can open up your Bible without prayer and understand it. When it is the sneakiest is when you feel like you can give someone advice, even give them scripture, without prayerfully coming to God and saying Lord, am I understanding this correctly? If I believe that the Bible is sometimes too hard to understand, if I believe that it's sometimes easy to understand but sometimes far too hard, it changes the way that I approach it. I'm gonna pray before I do. Dwight, I'm thinking about your testimony two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, when you said something to the effect of the Bible was really easy until I became a Christian. And then, once I realized that these things are spiritually understood, I realized that this Bible is so much deeper than I could ever imagine.
Speaker 2:Beautiful quote here by St Jerome. If you don't know St Jerome, he translated the Bible into Latin. You've never read his version. It's not the LIV, so you've never read it. But here is what St Jerome said the scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for a theologian to swim in without ever touching the bottom. When we go to God's word, what Peter and Paul want you to notice is how quickly ignorant people and unstable people are going to twist his word. Please notice that difference. You will twist God's word not just if you're unstable, not just if you want it to say something different. You're prone to twist God's word just out of sheer ignorance, out of spiritual ignorance or ignorance in the sense that you haven't really spent time studying it. This word twist actually comes from the word by which we get torture from. What Peter's saying is we are prone to torture scripture.
Speaker 2:The idea here is of a torture rack. I tried to find a real picture. They're hard to find real ones nowadays. Believe it or not. I guess the practice has gone out of vogue. But this is what a rack would have looked like, and the reason I show you this picture from a textbook in 1884 is because it was actually the clearest picture I could find. But what I want you to notice is this the concept was you would lay a subject out on sort of this large wooden table. Their hands would be attached to a crank on one side and their feet would be attached to the other. Now, for whatever reason, this person was being tortured. There were a million different reasons that humans came up with to harm and hate others. But when the Bible says, twist, what would happen here is, as it was cranked, the body would be pulled out of its natural form, tendons would break, joints would dislocate.
Speaker 2:And when you think of this idea and you look at this scripture, I think it gives us a real good picture of what Peter's saying. He's saying might you be prone, out of ignorance or just because you want to find what you want to find in there, to pull scripture outside of its original design, to dislocate it from where God would actually have it to be? And the reality is all of us are prone to do this. But if Peter can point to this and if Peter can say, man, you have got to come to the Bible humbly. If Peter can say I don't fully understand this, but I do want to make sure that I handle it with care, then I think that is exactly how he would have us move forward. As we consider what it is that he means to be diligent, to be without spot, but also to be at peace. The first thing that I think he would have us find is that you not waste the waiting of life. As you are waiting, be diligent Now. Honestly, I don't think this is much of a stretch, pun intended. I don't think this is much of a stretch on many of you.
Speaker 2:If you're in line at Target and the line is long. If you're in line at Chick-fil-A no offense and the line is long, most of you are going to do something. What are you going to do while you're standing in line? Yeah, you're gonna pull out your phone. Now.
Speaker 2:Y'all mumbled that one, but I am correct in saying I'm not the only one who pulls out my phone when I'm standing in line, correct? Y'all are either pulling out your phone or you're evangelizing the person in front of and behind you, correct? We're all doing the same thing, right? So you pull out your phone and you make an immediate decision as soon as it comes out, and sometimes the notifications, if you're not careful, are going to dictate. You are either going to doom, scroll into nothingness and you are not going to be diligent. You are going to waste the waiting. Or you're going to say I'm going to catch up on some emails, I'm going to look over the recipe that I'm thinking about cooking for dinner tonight, I'm going to hop onto my text messages because I have far too many blue dots and red notifications. I am not going to waste the wait. Am I correct that you guys do this? Right? This is a human thing, all right.
Speaker 2:While we're standing in line, peter is saying the same thing, since you are in the midst of waiting, and what he's pointing at is waiting on the return of Christ, waiting on the world to be made righteous by God. While we're waiting on things to be as God intended for them to be, be diligent, make the best use of the time. Ephesians 5. Hey, christian, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. Make the best use of the time that God has given you.
Speaker 2:And that would be enough of the verse, but notice the very end of it why? Why, when we pull out our phones, should we be thinking about memorizing Scripture? Why, when you're standing in line, is it good for you to have a Scripture memory band on. Why should we look at our lives as though every day counts and matters? Because you and I are living in days that are not righteous. We're living in days that are evil. Every moment of every day. There is a war that is going on, and the question is on which side of it are you? There is a war to lull people to sleep that spiritual realities exist, that their soul is eternal, that they will one day stand before God, that living a life of righteousness accrues the kind of blessings that you want in your life, while living a life of sinful disobedience does the opposite that you want in your life, while living a life of sinful disobedience does the opposite. And believe it or not, tuesday at two o'clock in a line at Chick-fil-A is when you live this out Every day, when you pull out your phone because you have nothing else to do. That's when Ephesians 5 comes to play. God, do I believe that the days are evil enough that if I'm not conscious enough, I will waste them away? And I think Peter says yes, while you are waiting, be diligent.
Speaker 2:Tozer has a beautiful quote on this. He says time is a resource that is non-renewable and non-transferable. When it comes to time, you cannot store it, slow it up, hold it up, divide it or give it up. You can only do three things with it Use it, waste it or invest it. I'm going to leave that up for a minute because I think the three things that Tozer puts at the end of the quote, two of them are going to be easy for you to identify with, and one is not.
Speaker 2:Take a look at the bottom when it comes to the time you have been given. You know, one of the crazy things about being human and not being God is all of us have a timer that none of us can see. I'm not trying to be crude, I'm not trying to be dark. I think this is actually a pretty uplifting passage to make your days matter. But all of you have a clock over your head. It's just you can't see it. Yet we assume that the number of wrinkles on our face tell us how far we are from the clock, but if you've been around the world for a number of years, you realize that is not the case. I think a lot of you know how to use your time wisely. I think a lot of us know how to waste our time wisely. How do we invest it? How do you invest your time? I think there are a lot of different answers that I could give to this, but can I give you one really simple application that I think would be such a gift to your soul Whenever you leave church, whether it's mid-tree or if you go to another church in the weeks or years ahead, as soon as you walk out of hearing what God is doing in the lives of people, william singing truths about God, which he has commanded us in Psalms to do and hopefully ignites your soul, have heard the word of God, hopefully preached in a way that is true to the text and hits home with you.
Speaker 2:Before you hop in your car, pull out your phone. I don't know what you Android people do. Sorry, I used to be one of you. Here's what I would do my hand touches the knob, the handle on my car, and I would say, hey, siri set a three hour timer. Why am I wanting you to do that? Siri set a three-hour timer. Why am I wanting you to do that? Because if you want to let the investment of time with God's people, time in God's word and time worshiping him to grow, don't allow yourself to so quickly jump back into the world, because these days are evil. What would it look like for you to give yourself three hours where your phone is not talking to you? How would it change the conversation in to you? How would it change the conversation in your car? How would it change the conversation around the lunch table? What might those three hours do? That multiply the 90 minutes that you spend here. That might actually do more than the 90 minutes that you spend in here simply because you're willing to say you know what. I trust what God's word says in Ephesians 5, and I want to invest time. Guys, there are a lot of other things that you could do, but that would be by far one of the simplest.
Speaker 2:The second thing that we see is not only that we would not waste our time, but that we should grow in holiness. Guys, if you're a Christian, you want to be found in him without a single spot and without a single blemish. Just because please hear me on this, just because you know you will never attain, it does not mean it is not worth the effort of attaining. If you believe that you have bought into one of the most pervasive lies that the enemy says. By the way. It is only a cousin to you. Don't need to worry about getting saved until you're older and toward the end of your life. It's the idea that salvation is only good for the life to come. Holiness and righteousness is good for you today. It is good for the way you act and interact, it's good for the way you think, it's good for your marriage, it's good for your kids, it's good for your work, it's good for everything. And so Peter is saying guys, be diligent to be found without a single spot. Be diligent to be found without a single spot. Be diligent to be found without a blemish.
Speaker 2:And now comes the part of the sermon that I dislike the most. You'll see why in a second. John writes to Christians and he uses this terminology. Blanchard did not know that I was going to point to this, but what a gift that the Holy Spirit has already brought us here. Christians, you are little and you will never be anything other than little. When you make it to heaven and you have bodies that are perfect, you will be standing in front of a holy God and you will feel smaller than you feel today. Our goal is to realize how small we are and how great God is, and recognize that the disparity between the two is called grace, that he would love us with such an amazing grace. Little children, let no one deceive you, ie. There's something that's going to try to fool you and in many cases, will be successful.
Speaker 2:No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him. Theologians argue is this seed the word of God or the Holy Spirit? But the answer is yes to both. The spirit of God, if you're a Christian, resides in you. The word of God abides in you, and that person cannot keep on sinning, can't do it. How could they Do? You want to know why? Because the genome inside of you is being remade. That's why John talks to them as children. That's why verse 9 says if you are born of God, the concept here is the older you become, the more you begin to look like men your father. The older you become, the more you begin to look like ladies your mother. We grow into the people that we are born from and for those of us who have been reborn in Christ, we begin to look more like him.
Speaker 2:Verse 10,. By this it becomes evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. I want to tell you something that is so encouraging and so discouraging all at the same time. You are never going to be without spot or blemish until your heart stops and God completely remakes you. That's the sad news. Can I give you the good news? If you are truly in Christ and the spirit of God resides in you, it is unstoppable that as you age, you are going to look more like your heavenly father. It is 1,000, batting 1,000, undefeated. The work of the spirit in the life of a believer always yields fruit.
Speaker 2:This is a picture of me and my dad. I don't know how many of you guys know my dad. This is a picture of me and my dad. You can tell that's an old picture because neither of us have beards. I don't like showing pictures of me without a beard because, well, I just don't like it. I don't know how long ago that picture was, but this one is more recent. Here is what I do not like. The picture on the right is me with an old filter put up. I'm taking it down because I legitimately struggle with the fact that I may end up looking like my dad.
Speaker 2:Okay, y'all can giggle, I am so on board with y'all giggling. You just need to know I'm dying inside, all right, not in a in a non like jokey way. I am dying inside. But do you know what the gospel has given me? Do you know what the good news of Christ has given me? It has given me this promise that, regardless of what is tucked into my chromosomes, tucked into my spirit, which is eternal, is this guarantee Will? You are going to look like Jesus, unbelievable. You are going to look like your heavenly father. I think.
Speaker 2:So many times, christians, we read a verse like be diligent to be found without spot or without blemish, and our thought is all right, cowboy up, get your Bible out, not missing another quiet time. I'm going after it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But do you realize this other reality that is saying you can fight it if you want? God is going to make you patient. You can fight it as much as you want. You are going to find more peace in life than you ever thought you were going to be able to. This is the good news of being born by God and as we grow in that holiness. The final thing, he says, is to be formed by peace, which really does bring us to that difficult question we started with how can I possibly find peace while I am diligently striving to be without blemish? Well, one answer is if you're a Christian, it is tucked into you automatically. If you're not a Christian, this is going to feel absolutely impossible If you are not a Christian. It's one of the reasons I put this passage up.
Speaker 2:I want you to realize how impossible it is to live life God's way. That's how impossible it is. Four little paragraphs, that's how impossible it is. And when you say what if God doesn't find me without spot or blemish? What if he finds me and he realizes I don't have joy, that I'm not putting out goodness? What if he finds me and I am arrogant and rude? What if God comes and he looks at my life and I stand before him one day and, instead of having virtue or knowledge, I have mushed my brain out with doom scrolling? What if he doesn't find me thinking about pure things? And when you begin to wrestle with that, this is where Peter steps in and he says I want you to wrestle with this, but my great desire is that you would find peace. Well, how can I do that?
Speaker 2:My favorite verse in all of the Bible it's two of them is in Jude. Jude is a one chapter book John, john, jude, revelation. You can find it easily. It's the next to the last book in your Bible. Watch this. Watch God's word work. Keep I'm using a highlighter. I want you to feel this Keep yourselves in the love of God. Who is responsible to keep you in the love of God? Out loud answer. If you don't mind, okay, you are right. Keep yourself in the love of God. Out loud answer. If you don't mind, okay, you are right. Keep yourself in the love of God.
Speaker 2:Then Jude uses a word that Peter used right here waiting. Keep yourself in the love of God while you're waiting for a world in which you're no longer having to be diligent. It is who you are. Keep yourself in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And then he goes to close his book, and here's how he closes it. Now to him. Who is able to keep you, who is keeping you in the love of God? God is, you are. God is you are. This is what it means to be diligent. This is what it means to be diligent. This is what it means to be at peace. It means not resting and saying this is all God's responsibility. Sanctification is a guarantee, so I'm just going to let it happen. No, that would be twisting the word of God, but so would be saying keep myself, keep myself, hold this thought, do this, read scripture, barely look up. No, where's your faith in the sanctifying work of Christ? We keep ourselves while God is in the midst of keeping us.
Speaker 2:And as confusing as that sounds one of the quotes from John Piper that I will probably, there are two that I will probably remember for the rest of my life. I didn't even fact check myself because I had been quoting this from Piper for so long. So if one of you wants to Google it and tell me that I got it wrong, I don't care. That's fine. Piper puts it this way God keeps me by enabling me to do self-keeping things. Does God keep you by you being in the word? Yes, and he enables you to be able to read it and understand it and enjoy it and desire it. Do I stay in the word of God? Do I stay kept because of my prayers? Yes, and you are able to pray, desirous to pray, because God is in the midst of keeping you, and on and on it goes with every single spiritual discipline.
Speaker 2:Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting, be diligent, be found without spot or blemish, be at peace. Here is how you do it. We grow in grace. Grow in grace in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, peter's last words to the Christians before the sun sets on his life To him be glory, both now and to the day of eternity, which I am about to go and see. Amen, may God make it so. How is it that we do this? We grow in grace.
Speaker 2:If your first answer to the question that I asked was grace, well, how can I possibly find peace while I'm diligently striving to be without blemish Grace? Jesus did this, you're right, but do you know that grace is not just a static thing that you claim and place on yourself? Do you know that? It's something that Peter says you grow in. This is something that you have yet to see the depths of Christian who's been walking with the Lord for 50 years. It's something you have never seen the heights of believer for the past five minutes. The grace of God is bigger and wider and greater than anything that you can imagine.
Speaker 2:All Peter is basically saying is this be diligent to be a receiver of God. That is how you do this. It is not being diligent with what you do. It is being diligent to keep your hands open when you want to do something with them yourself. It is being diligent to say Father, I desire to receive from you today, in this moment, in this situation, in this broken thing. This is what Peter wants us to do. So are you supposed to be working or are you supposed to be resting? Yeah, and I'll prove it to you right now.
Speaker 2:If I told you I want you to stand up from this place and go rest, well, I want you to go find peace. I can tell you what most of you would do. Most of you would go to sleep, am I right? Just by show of hands. How many of you would be like I'll take a morning nap? Okay, a lot. Oh, really, y'all are better than I would have thought. Okay, how about at about two o'clock this afternoon? You feeling it? Then there we go.
Speaker 2:I would be willing to bet that if I had the ability to just speak out of the ether into your world at two o'clock this afternoon and I said, nardi, rest here is not what you would do. You would not say, okay, maniacs would do that, crazy people would do that. Rest, absolutely rest mode engaged. Do you know what you would do? First you would get excited right, I'm not feeling guilty. All right, I'm going to rest, that's great. Then you would probably go to a place. You probably care what the lights are like in that place. You probably care if you have on shoes or not. You might even care if you're close to your kids or if you're far from your kids, because if you really want to be at peace, if you really want to rest, it's going to take work for you to get there. That's what Peter is saying. If you want to find peace and rest with God, put yourself in a place to be able to receive it. I know speaking well enough to know that if I do this, y'all are going to start freaking out for time. You've got to be kidding me.
Speaker 2:Four points Will and communion team are poking their head in. Can I just tell you this? I do think if you want to grow in peace, these are the ways to do it. I made it as easy for you as I could, by making all of them start with ours, and I did use chat GPT for a little help. I was struggling on one of them. But instead of walking through all of these and teaching you a lesson, instead I want to tell you what happened to me last night.
Speaker 2:This never happens to me when I want to rest. I'll tell you what I do. I take off my shoes. That is a prerequisite for me. I go lateral and I close my eyes To my wife's absolute frustration. I can be asleep in about 15 seconds or less. Y'all may know this about me. I always say clear consciences, sleep well and sleep quickly. So I was like all right, she doesn't love that either. Last night I had four or five nightmares back to back. Never happens. Thank you for the awe for the motherly person over. Thank you. I know that I'm in my 40s. I still receive that. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Horrible dreams people breaking into my house, my kids screaming, horrible dream number. And then you wake up and you can't go right back to sleep. I'm literally checking the house. I'm walking around and looking for cars in the driveway. I go back to sleep and I have a dream that my wife is walking out on me. Then I go back to sleep and I wake up and, for whatever reason, I'm in charge of a gymnastic team that has to get to a pizza place and none of the girls can agree on what they want. And I'm just like we've got to get somewhere. Girls figure it out it's all pepperoni, what's the problem? And then I have another dream. I can't even remember now what it was, but I woke up because the night before I was struggling with how do I present this Lord to people in a way that they even care or relate? And then I can't sleep all night and every one of my dreams lines up with something that I had already written down.
Speaker 2:What does it mean for you to be able to rest and find peace in your striving? It means you can rely on the sufficiency of Christ. It means you can realize that you are so far from who God wants you to be, but Christ, his grace, his sacrifice, will always be bigger than your impediment. It means that you can remember the promises of God when you feel like you're not going to make it, when life feels unsafe, when you are fearful of things coming in the world, when the storm or the season, the difficulty, the circumstance, the situation is too big and it's too oppressive. And Psalm 139, every one of your days was written before one of them came to be.
Speaker 2:Isaiah 26, 3,. He keeps in perfect peace, him whose mind has stayed on him because he trusts in him. It means you can rest in the person of Christ, even in all the relational instability that you may have with a mom or with a dad, or with a child, or with a spouse, or with somebody that is a friend or was a friend. That you can rest in the person of Christ. That we simultaneously have peace from God and we have peace with him. Romans 5,. Philippians 4. When we feel like there's no rest to be found, jesus tells us he Matthew 11, gives us rest. Christianity is unlike every religion on the planet.
Speaker 2:Do you know what Buddha's last words were? Strive without ceasing. He took a note out of Peter's, but he could never get to the next line Strive without ceasing. But Peter can say that and then he can say and be at peace, why? Because while the last words of Buddha were strive without ceasing, the last words of Christ on the cross were it's finished, the work is done, struggle no more. My child, son, daughter. I have done the work. I've done the work for 60 to 80 years. I've done the work for 150. I've done the work. If you have a nine-month life and I've done the work if you have a 19-year life, I have finished it.
Speaker 2:And when life feels out of control, when you get to the end of the day and it's not even the end of the day, it's three o'clock and you're just like I just want tomorrow to come, because I can't handle any more of this. Want tomorrow to come because I can't handle any more of this. Rejoice in the sovereignty of God, that you do not have control and that that is an abundantly good thing, that you can rest in the sovereign will of God. When Peter tells us to be diligent, to strive to be found without spot or blemish and to be at peace, what he is saying is believer, non-believer, grow in your ability to receive from God. And that's what we do this morning, it's what we do every morning, but it's especially what we do on a morning where we bring these things out. You know, the Bible says that you can actually receive this wrongly. And if you receive this wrongly, if you twist it, you drink and eat condemnation on yourself. That's what we don't usually read. The end of first Corinthians 11. It just doesn't close the surface out quite as beautifully. It's what it says before we come to this place, as you begin pondering, and we put up some questions for you to think about as you get ready to come to communion. Guys, you're good to go if y'all want to go ahead and come on in as you think about these things.
Speaker 2:How might you be twisting the word of God? How might you be twisting your understanding of it? How might you be twisting yourself to work in a way that Christ is finished? But how might you be twisting yourself to say there is no work for me to do? But how might you be twisting yourself to seek peace by your own making rather than simply say God has called me to grow in this, that I would receive from him? What is it going to take for your heart and mind to be in a place where you can receive well from God? Let's do that together. If you need prayer, if you need encouragement, if you want to talk, we'll have some folks on the back porch. Just come and join us. Stokes is going to lead us in worship.
Speaker 2:This meal is a family meal. It is for Christians. If you're not a believer, we're not trying to make you feel excluded. We just don't want you to partake of something that you don't fully understand, because those who are trusting in Christ look at this and they remember that cross. They remember a hammer that was swung and nails that went through and thorns that were pressed on a head so that they didn't have to happen to you. They remember blood that was shed so that you can stand before God unashamed because you stand on the work of Christ.
Speaker 2:If you're a believer, this is for you. If you're not, we would ask you to watch people respond and pray that you would grow in your ability to receive from the Lord. And Josh, I wasn't going to forget, but I appreciate you staring me down. If you need gluten-free bread, josh has it correct and Matt All right, both of these are gluten free. The rest are not. And so, as you feel able and willing, let's respond to the Lord, take the elements, but wait and we will eat and drink them together If you would ponder these things and let's grow in receiving the Lord.