Be Mindful

We’re entering the home stretch in this 31st week of our ‘Stand Firm’ Series. We’d spent the last few weeks taking a deep dive into Peter’s excursus on false teachers. But this week, and for the next three, he turns his attention back onto his beloved friends. 2 Peter 3:1-7 reads:

1 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I amstirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember thepredictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior throughyour apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days withscoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of hiscoming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were fromthe beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavensexisted long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word ofGod, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water andperished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up forfire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

Peter again reminds his beloved friends of a truth they had already been established in. He goes on to make a link between the prophets who foreshadowed Christian truth, Christ who exemplified it, and the apostles who gave an authoritative interpretation of it. He implores his audience to heed the moral requirements of the gospel, or what Paul in Galatians calls the ‘Law of Christ.’ Those who remember and live into this new Kingdom ethic are those that belong to Jesus. Thsoe that scoff or mock at it, and therefore deny the inevitability of the second coming of Christ, do not. It is to these deep truths and realities that Peter implores his audience to be mindful of.

Give the sermon text a read and a listen and we hope to see you this week at a Family Meal and/or a DNA group to dive even deeper.