Crucial Counsels for the New Year #5

Q: What does the Bible say about the return of Jesus?

The Bible teaches that Jesus will return to complete His work of salvation and usher in a new heavens and a new earth. The return of Jesus is a central doctrine in Scripture, emphasizing that at God's appointed time, He will return to consummate salvation for His people and judge the world. In Romans 8:19-23 and 2 Peter 3:10-15, we find assurances that not only will Christ return, but He will also bring about a restoration of all creation, establishing a new heavens and a new earth. This expectation should profoundly shape the lives of believers today, inspiring them to live in holy conduct as they await this glorious event.

Q: How do we know the doctrine of salvation is true?

The doctrine of salvation is grounded in Scripture, which affirms God's promises and His character of faithfulness. Throughout the Bible, God's promise of salvation is reinforced by His faithfulness and the prophetic Word. Verses like 2 Peter 3:9 demonstrate that God desires all to come to repentance, confirming His long-suffering nature. Additionally, Romans 8 speaks to the certainty of our ultimate redemption and the assurance of victory over sin and death through Christ. Believers can have confidence in their salvation as it is rooted in the character of God and His commitment to fulfill His promises.

Q: Why is living a holy life important for Christians?

Living a holy life reflects the believer's commitment to God and prepares them for Christ's return. A holy life is crucial for Christians as it is an expression of their transformation through Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit. In 2 Peter 3:11-14, believers are urged to live in holiness and godliness, in anticipation of the new heavens and the new earth. This lifestyle not only signifies obedience to God's commands but also aligns with the believer's future hope. By focusing on holiness, Christians testify to the inward change brought about by grace, demonstrating to a watching world the reality of their faith in Christ.

Q: What does it mean to desire the salvation of others?

To desire the salvation of others means actively seeking opportunities to share the gospel and demonstrate Christ's love. A desire for the salvation of others is a natural outflow of understanding God's grace and the reality of judgment. As seen in 2 Peter 3:9-15, God’s long-suffering aims at the repentance of sinners and the expansion of His kingdom. Believers are called to participate in this work by sharing the gospel, praying for the lost, and living in a manner that reflects Christ. This includes being attentive to the spiritual needs of those around us and embodying the gospel in our actions and relationships, thus fulfilling our calling as His ambassadors in the world.

Q: How can Christians hold loosely to worldly possessions?

Christians can hold loosely to worldly possessions by recognizing their temporary nature and prioritizing eternal values. Holding loosely to worldly possessions involves viewing them as temporary gifts from God, not as ultimate treasures. In 1 Peter 2:11, believers are reminded that they are strangers and sojourners in this world, emphasizing a heavenly perspective. By doing so, one is freed from the tyranny of materialism. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, encourages believers to live with an awareness that 'the fashion of this world is passing away.' This mindset allows Christians to invest their time and resources in eternal matters, prioritizing the kingdom of God over earthly concerns.

The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday evening, January 27, 2008, at Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Now then, hear the word of God
from 2 Peter, chapter 3. 2 Peter, chapter 3, and I shall
read verses 8 through 15a. 2 Peter, chapter 3, and beginning
with verse 8. But forget not this one thing,
beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering to you-worth,
not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The day of the Lord will come,
as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great
noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat,
and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up
or discovered, seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved. What manner of persons ought
you to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and
earnestly desiring or even hastening the coming of the day of God,
by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? But according to
His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein
dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that
you look for these things, give diligence that you may be found
in peace, without spot, and blameless in his sight, and account that
the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation. Well, let's again
pray and ask the help of God's Holy Spirit. I thank you for
joining with me in prayer this morning as I felt myself crushed
by the subject and God was gracious to undertake for me and for us
together and gave us some little taste of the powers of the age
to come. Let us look to him for his help
again tonight. Our Father, how we thank you
that you are never weary when we come in the sincerity of felt
need and cry to you to come to us in that need. You've reminded
us of this in the reading of the 40th Psalm, in which this
mighty, towering man of God acknowledged that he was a poor, helpless,
needy man and cried to you for your aid to be given. So we take
our posture with David and pray that you would look upon us in
our pathetic weakness and inability to understand and to grasp the
truth of your word, in our state of indisposition to run in the
way of your commandments. Lord, come to us. pour fresh
measures of grace into the heart and mind of preacher and listener
alike. And do us good, we pray, in Jesus'
name, amen. Now, I believe I am correct in
assuming that the vast majority of you who are gathered here
tonight know that tonight's exposition of the Word of God is in reality
the completion of this morning's sermon. As such, then, this will
be message number 5, or 4B, in a series in which I am seeking
to set before you what I have called counsel for the new year. The common denominator in this
series is comprised of the words, At the beginning of and throughout
this year set your mind upon. And I have sought to take that
introductory statement and then focus it upon two areas thus
far. The first, set your mind directly
upon your Savior, and the second, set your mind resolutely upon
the certainties of the future. And in opening up this second
word of counsel, I have set before you this very basic principle
taught in the Word of God that you and I as Christians only
live as we ought to live in the present when our present is shaped
by the certainties of the future. I then proceeded to open up three
strands of this second major word of counsel, all of them
clustering around the return of our Lord Jesus Christ in power
and in glory at the end of the age. The first strand was this. It is certain that at God's appointed
time, Jesus shall return and complete His work of salvation
in me and in all His people. And I want you to say those words
to yourselves. That is why I did not simply
complete the statement by saying His work of salvation in us That's
generic, bland, but he's going to do it in me and in all of
his people. Secondly, it is certain that
at God's appointed time, Jesus will return and perform his appointed
labor as judge of all mankind, including me. And then this morning,
I stated this third strand It is certain that at God's appointed
time, Jesus will return and usher in the new heavens and the new
earth, wherein righteousness will have its universal, unrivaled,
and permanent home. In seeking to prove this assertion,
we found our attention drawn to two major passages in the
New Testament which teach the certainty of Jesus' return as
a return in which he will usher in the new heavens and the new
earth. So we look together at Romans
chapter 8 verses 19 to 23 and 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 10 through
15a. If you were not here, I urge
you to get the tape from our lending library or a CD or download
message number 4 from sermonaudio.com. Now with this brief review behind
us, what I desire to do tonight is this. I want to show you from
1 Peter and a little bit, I'm sorry, from 2 Peter, the passage
expounded this morning, and then a little bit from 1 Peter, how
this certainty of the future ought indeed to shape and mold
the present for each one of us who names the name of Christ. We're going to look now at 2
Peter, chapter 3, and we're going to see how Peter, as a wise pastor,
not only teaches his readers that when Christ returns, he
will indeed usher in the new heavens and the new earth, but
he explicitly lays out before them how that future certainty
The day of the Lord will come. The heavens will pass away. The elements shall melt with
fervent heat. There will be a new heavens and
a new earth, but in the midst of it, Peter has his therefore
In other words, Peter recognized the principle that if the lives
of these believers in Asia Minor were to be lived in the present
the way they ought to be lived, they must know the reality of
those future certainties pressing in upon them, molding and shaping
their thinking, their values, their priorities, their concerns,
nothing less than their entire And I want us to look together
at, first of all, noting that Peter assumes that if we know
the certainties of the future, that we will set our minds upon
that future. Look at the passage, verse 12. You find the word looking for. Verse 11, seeing these things
are thus to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to
be in all holy living and godliness looking for? Verse 13, but according
to his promise, we look for. Verse 14, wherefore, beloved,
seeing that you look for three times And he does not use what
we would call the tencent or the nickel word for looking for. He uses a verb that means intensely
looking for or looking towards. Three times in this short compass,
Peter is assuming that these believers who now grasp and understand
and believe the certainty of the future, particularly that
at Christ's return He will usher in a new heavens and a new earth,
that the eyes of the mind are now fixed with an intense gaze
upon those realities. This is the verb that Luke uses
in the book of Acts. We're going to look at two examples
of it. In Acts chapter 3, Peter and
John go up to the temple at the hour of prayer, and there's a
lame man sitting there. And we read in Acts 3 and verse
4, Peter fastening his eyes upon him with John said, Look on us,
and he gave heed unto them. Imagine a beggar who is laying,
and these apostles combined say, look on us, how he would fasten
his attention upon them, how there would be a focused disposition
of expectation that these men were going to give him something
in response to his begging. And then later on in the book
of Acts, the verb occurs again in Acts 28, Here Paul and his
companions have been shipwrecked and they land on an island, Acts
chapter 28, and you remember a fire is built and Paul gathers
some wood to put on the fire and some kind of a viper fastens
itself upon him and the superstitious pagans and that island we read
in Acts 28.6 But they expected that he would
have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly, but when they were
long in expectation, there's our verse. Imagine, here this
man is bitten with the viper, and they're all just intensely
gazing. Is he going to die, or is he
going to live? If he dies, then there is some
kind of cosmic justice that this man must have been a murderer
and deserved to die. But the verb, you see, has that
sense of an intent focus of the mind. The beggar looking up at
Peter and John, the pagans looking upon Paul, and now Peter assumes
that if you and I believe what he has taught, it will be a kind
of spiritual instinct that we will be looking for these realities. Now remember, Peter was a realist
in his first letter. He's conscious that he's writing
to people who are slaves and being abused by their masters,
He's writing to women who have unconverted husbands. He's writing
to people who are in the midst of suffering and he says greater
suffering is yet to come and yet amidst all the ordinary press
of what to us would be a relatively primitive lifestyle with no automatic
washers and dryers and microwaves and all of the modern amenities
He expects these common, ordinary people, pressed with all the
common, ordinary pressures of life, that they will be a people
looking for Looking for, looking for, three times he says this
is his assumption. Not once does he give it in the
imperative. Look at it again in the form
in which the Holy Spirit has given it to us. Seeing these
things are to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to
be looking for? But according to promise, we
look for. Wherefore, beloved, seeing you,
look for." He assumes that once they know that this is what awaits
them, they will not be like the muckraker in Pilgrim's Progress,
whose eyes are always down. And with his rake, he is constantly
raking the muck of this world, and he does not look up. Brethren,
we have the horrible problem of muckrakerism. American consumerism
that is constantly screaming at us, you must have this to
be fulfilled, you must have that to be fulfilled, you must have
this commodity, and this toy, and this convenience, and that,
and this, and that, and the other, screaming continually, and it
takes nothing less than a spiritual, resolute determination of heart
to say, no, I will be one who by the grace of God fits into
Peter's description of a real Christian who is looking for,
looking for, looking for. the new heavens and the new earth. This world is not my home. Everything that I look upon is
marked for dust and ashes, dissolution, disintegration. When Jesus returns,
I can look upon it with gratitude as God's gift. The Scripture
says He has given us all things richly to enjoy, but He gives
us nothing to make us muckrakers, to fix our affections upon them,
our perspectives upon them, our goals and ambitions wrapped up
in stuff that is marked for the flames. His assumption is we're
going to be a looking for people. Then in the light of that, In
our context, there are two things that Peter says will happen to
us if we are allowing this certainty of the future to mold our lives
in the present. And what are they? Number one,
you and I will feel the obligation of a serious, whole-souled pursuit
of a holy and godly lifestyle. We will feel the obligation of
a serious, whole-souled pursuit of a holy and a godly lifestyle. Look at verse 11 and then verse
14. Seeing these things are thus
all to be dissolved, what manner of persons, now look at the next
word, ought you to be. And where you find that little
word ought, it is often the translation of a little Greek particle, dei,
D-E-I, which speaks of solemn obligation and duty. And here Peter is affirming that
if indeed we believe that these things are to be dissolved and
that this cosmic cataclysm that leads to the cosmic disillusion
that in turn issues into cosmic regeneration, if this is the
stuff of reality and in that new heavens and new earth, righteousness
will dwell permanently He said, there is an obligation upon us,
now notice, to be in all holy living and godliness. And it's an unusual construction,
the word holy, translated holy living and godliness, they're
in plural. And one commentator has suggested
that we could render it in holy form and behavior, holy forms
of behavior and godly deeds. And the word translated living
is one of Peter's favorite words, anastrophe. He uses it six times
in 1 Peter. And the best current idiomatic
translation is lifestyle. You ought to be in a holy form
of behavior and lifestyle and godly deeds. That's the obligation
that is laid upon us. And then in verse 14, notice
the key word, wherefore, beloved? since we look for a new heavens
and a new earth wherein righteousness has its permanent home. Wherefore,
in the light of this, beloved, seeing that you look for these
things, give diligence, spodadzo, pour your energies into a concentrated
effort that you may be wealthy, that you may be healthy, that
you may be popular, that you may have a life of, no, no, that
you may be found in peace, without spot, and blameless in His sight. If indeed your heart is set upon
the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwells righteousness
and your heart is set upon it because the dominion of sin has
been broken in you by the grace of God. You are indwelt by a
Holy Spirit who has brought you out of the realm of flesh into
the realm of the Spirit. Set your feet upon a path of
holiness. Your greatest burden is your
remaining sin. The greatest joy of heaven next
to seeing your Savior is that you'll love Him with an unsinning
heart. Surely, if those things are the
stuff of your real inner experience, knowing that it's certain you
will dwell in a new heavens and a new earth where there will
be no more sin in you, in anyone around you, and the whole cosmos
is purged from the effects of sin, then what will you do? You
will give diligence. You will be serious and dead
in earnest of being found in peace, without spot, and blameless
in His sight. bringing together the words of
verse 11 and then again in verse 14. I've tried to collate them
under this heading. If this future certainty is molding
us in the present, we will feel the obligation of a serious whole
soul pursuit of a holy and a godly lifestyle. One servant of God
has summarized it this way, Peter calls the libertinists and the
mockers spots and blemishes, The readers are to be the opposite. What Peter condemns in 2.13 of
these people that live to the flesh and turn the grace of God
into life license, he describes them with the words spot and
blemish. He takes those two words that
characterize the ungodly and he puts the little alpha privative,
the little a in front of them and he says you are to be without
spot and without blemish. In other words, everything that
characterizes the ungodly, the opposite is to be true of the
people of God. They are to be the opposite,
spotless and unblemished. We are spotless and unblemished
when we have daily forgiveness and live in obedience and expectation
of the day of judgment. In peace is the same peace that
Peter wants multiplied for his readers. Chapter 1 verse 2, to
be found in peace at the coming of the Lord means in the peace
which Christ has established the condition when all is well
between Him and us. Be diligent, repeats the effective
imperative from chapter 1, verse 10, where He says, on your part,
in all diligence, add to your faith. And then He mentions the
graces that are to be cultivated Peter sets before his readers
that if indeed the certainties of the future are the focus of
the eyes of the soul, not an occasional passing thought, oh
yeah, eventually Jesus will come, but right now the important thing
is what I'm going to see on my computer. The important thing
is my next addressing of this blog, and that blog, and this
text messaging on my telephone, and this, watching the next installment
of American Idol. And if this is your life, don't
talk about looking for the new heavens and the new earth. It's
sheer religious deception. No way, Peter says. If these
are the things that have been brought into your soul by the
power of the Holy Spirit, then surely, he says, your conscience
will agree with me. He asks the question, what manner
of persons ought we to be? In all holy living and godliness,
we will be giving diligence to be found in peace without spot
and blameless in his sight, keeping short accounts with God, with
the Apostle Paul, Acts 24, 16, seeking to maintain at all times
a conscience void of offense to God and to man, quick to own
my sin in the presence of God, quick to own my sin with my wife,
my children, my brothers, my sisters, quick to acknowledge
when my heart is dull and prayerless, quick to own the foul thoughts
that at times rankle in the chambers of my mind, to be found in peace. No unsettled accounts when He
returns, when He returns to be found spotless and blameless
in his sight. And that's obviously not speaking
of the imputed righteousness of Christ. It's speaking of the
practical, personal godliness of the child of God. And it's
not only Peter that sets that standard. Paul does. Philippians
2.14, do everything without murmuring and grumbling in order that you
may be blameless. sons of God without rebuke, shining
as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Or again
in 2 Corinthians 7, having therefore these promises dearly beloved,
let us cleanse ourselves of all defilement, of the flesh and
of the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. I fear, dear
brothers and sisters, we put our eyes upon the lowest acceptable
standards of Christian conduct and we say, if I measure up to
that, I'm okay. And where is the passion, the
serious whole-souled commitment of a Robert Murray McShane who
said, oh God, make me as holy as it's possible for a redeemed
man to be holy in this life. I get weary of this pushing of
the borders of Christian liberty. I want to see people so passionate
to be holy that one has to pastorally put a hand on the shoulder and
say, my brother, I think you're going to do harm to yourself
if you don't ease up a bit in this or that area. Peter says,
when these realities percolate in our souls, They will issue
in this obligation to be committed to a serious, whole-souled pursuit
of a holy and a godly Lifestyle, that will drive us to our Bibles
to know what does it mean to be holy in this relationship,
in that relationship, in this ethical dilemma, and that we'll
find ourselves driven to our Bibles. We'll find the book of
Proverbs precious to us. We'll find the gospel precious
because there we see our Savior who is the great pattern of how
we are to walk. It will drive us into the epistles
to know what we have in Christ and what we are to be in the
light of that union with Christ. We will find ourselves when we
are together asking, what has God taught you from the Word?
Where has God helped you to shore up your obedience? How has God
helped you to overcome that particular sin? We'll do what James says
we'll have as a common experience in our interaction, confessing
our sins one to another, praying one for another. exhorting one
another lest we be hardened through the deceitfulness of sins, restoring
one another when we see each other sin. Brethren, this is
biblical New Testament serious pursuit of holiness. And Peter
says, when the certainties of the future are fixed in the eyeballs
of our souls, then The fruit of it will be this commitment
to a whole soul pursuit of a holy and a godly lifestyle. But then secondly, Peter makes
it plain that we will desire to be useful in seeking the salvation
of others. You will notice that when Peter
is dealing with this matter of the apparent lack of God's integrity
in not keeping his promise that his son would return, two times
in this paragraph, Peter makes it plain that the delay is connected
with God's long-suffering focus upon the salvation of sinners.
Notice he does it in verse 9. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to You, Lord, not wishing that any should perish but that all
should come to repentance. His long-suffering is with the
view of gathering in sinners to himself in the way of the
conquest of the gospel, bringing sinners to repentance. And then
at the end of this treatment of the new heavens and the new
earth, notice verse 15, in the midst of looking for these things
being diligent to be found in peace without spot and blameless,
at the same time we are to account, we are to reckon upon this fact
that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation. You must not think of the delay
of the promise of His coming being fulfilled without thinking
of God's passion to gather in sinners to Himself a passion
that we are to share. In verse 12, there's a debate,
a discussion among serious Bible scholars whether verse 12 should
be rendered looking for and earnestly desiring or whether that verb
should be rendered looking for and hastening the coming of the
day of God. Hasten the coming of the day
of God? How in the world can we do that?
Remember what Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24
and verse 14? This gospel of the kingdom shall
be preached in all the world for a witness. Then shall the
end come. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, but He is longsuffering with the view of gathering in
sinners to Himself. You and I are to account that
the longsuffering of God is salvation. So if we really believe in this
certainty of the future, that when God has gathered in the
last of His elect Jesus will come at the appointed time, and
with his coming there will be this renovation of the earth,
the glorification of the saints, and we will enter into the new
heavens and the new earth. Then you and I will desire to
be useful in seeking the salvation of others, for God is going to
bring in His elect by means of the preaching and the witness
of His people individually and corporately, and thereby we hasten
the coming of the day of God. Now notice I did not say you
will desire and you will work toward becoming an effective
confrontational evangelist. I have never seen my Bible teach
that every believer is obligated to cultivate the gift of an aggressive,
confrontational evangelist. That is, someone who can walk
up to anyone in any situation, introduce the subject of the
gospel, and get the heart of the gospel in a ten-minute presentation. I don't see that taught in my
Bible. God does give a combination of factors that are rooted in
how God puts people together in nature, and how He cultivates
them and develops them, and endowments of the Spirit. There are some
of you who have a gift of confrontational evangelism, and you are exercising
it, and we bless God for that. But I'm not going to lay on the
conscience of God's people that every one of you is obligated
to be a confrontational evangelist. However, on the basis of this
passage, I am prepared to say that if indeed your heart is
set upon this certainty of the future, When the Lord is gathered
in all of His own, and they've been brought to repentance, and
Christ has gotten all of His sheep, conquered all those whom
He goes forth to conquer, then He will return in glory and in
power. Surely you and I will desire
to be useful in seeking the salvation of others. useful in terms of
our gifts, useful in terms of our station in life, useful in
terms of a number of factors, but we cannot and will not be
indifferent to whether people around us go to hell or not,
or indifferent as to whether or not Christ receives the reward
of his sufferings, for the Father has said to him he shall see
of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. And so each one
of us, to some degree or another, should have in our prayer experience
Those who are not in Christ, for whom we pray that God would
open their eyes, bring them to conviction of sin, and reveal
to them the glory of God in the face of Christ, we will be determined
that while we look for and pray for opportunities to give the
tract, to speak as Christian men and women, young men and
women, boys and girls if we are Christians, and look for ways
to let it be known who we are as those who love Christ and
trust Christ, we'll be careful that our lives embody the gospel. If your life doesn't embody the
gospel, shut your mouth. You're a hindrance to the progress
of the gospel. You, a Christian? I see the way
you drive. I see the way you treat your
wife. You are churlish. You are boorish. You're telling
me about the gospel? No, Peter assumes in his first
letter that our lifestyle, will, when anybody's up close enough
to us, eventually provoke questions, sanctify Christ as Lord in your
hearts, ready always to give answer to everyone who asks you,
a reason of the hope that is in you. They see the way you
respond to things that make them wring their hands in frustration,
that make them throw down the snow shovel with curses. They
see the way you respond to disappointments across the whole spectrum of
life because God doesn't insulate us from the common trials of
life. And your life is validating that
you're a Christian. and you are looking for opportunities
verbally to declare what wonderful things the Lord has done for
you. Surely, if our eyes are set upon
the certainty of the future, the new heavens and the new earth,
ushered in when Jesus returns with a return that will be the
day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men, then to some
degree We will say with Paul, knowing the terror of the Lord,
we persuade man and we prayerfully look for opportunities to confess
him openly, to communicate the gospel with all the variables
that I've already mentioned. We will desire to be useful in
seeking the salvation of others. We will account God's long-suffering
to be salvation. But then thirdly, this is the
third way this fixation of heart on the certainty of the future
will mold our lives in the present, and it's this. You will desire and seek to hold
loosely to the things that are marked for the fire. you will
desire and seek to hold loosely to the things that are marked
for the fire. Several years ago, when I was
trying to clean out 38 years of junk from our home in preparation
for my marriage to Dorothy and for her coming into that home,
some of you know that I rented a 20-cubic yard And if you don't have an idea
what a 20 cubic yard dumpster is, it would go from that edge
of the platform over to about here and about as wide as the
front of the platform to here and that deep. And I got a couple
of the young men in the church and hired them to haul out the
stuff, and I marked the stuff that was slated for the dumpster. I want to tell you, Everything
marked for the dumpster, if I hadn't held loosely to it before, I
held loosely to it then. It's marked for the dumpster. The rolled-up carpets up in the
attic and old, oh, I won't tell you all this stuff. Thirty-eight
years, rearing three kids in the home and all the rest, but
when it was marked for the dumpster, it was easy to hold it loosely.
Everything you see, apart from your brothers and sisters who
are marked for glory, is marked for the fire. It's marked for the fire. Don't
set your heart upon it. Don't let the fingers of your
soul get wrapped around it. It's marked for the fire! It's a wonderful way to be kept
from the tyranny of things. Do you appreciate your home? You put on an addition. You had
it painted. It looks lovely. You thank God
for it. It is a pleasant place to come
to. You thank God you were able to put the fresh face on your
home. But, oh, how easily the fingers
of the heart go out and wrap themselves around stuff. It is marked for the fire. And
I find it salutary. If I begin to find the fingers
of my heart starting to wrap themselves around something that
brings me delight and pleasure, just to look at it and say, it's
going up in smoke when he returns. I sat outside this building this
morning, looked up at it, and I said, it's marked for the fire.
And I can't wait to see what this spot of ground is going
to be like after the fire. I'm going to believe the Lord's
going to let me visit it. So that's the place I was privileged
to preach for X number of years, and where God's Word touched
lives and transformed them and rejoiced and praised my Savior. It is marked for the fire. That
house of yours, that car of yours has got that nice new car smell.
It's marked for the fire. This will help you, dear child
of God, when you think in these terms. to hold loosely. That's why Peter could say in
his first letter, I beseech you as strangers and sojourners,
abstain from fleshly lust or desires which war against the
soul. Peter says you must think of
your identity as strangers and sojourners. And those two Greek
words speak of someone not born in the country where he presently
is, and in that country he's not a permanent resident. He's
not home-born. His homeland is somewhere else,
and whatever he's doing there, he's just passing through. He's a resident alien for a time. That's who we are. Why? Because our home is the
new heavens and the new earth. After it's been renovated and
restored to all that God intends it should be, While we're passing
through, yes, He has given us all things richly to enjoy, but
He gives you nothing to make an idol of it. So John's last
words to his little children in his first letter was what?
My little children, guard yourselves from idols. Idols, things upon
which our affections are set in an inordinate way. Turn to
1 Corinthians chapter 7. This is a passage that I believe
lends light upon what happens when we have this biblical perspective
of the future certainty of the new heavens and earth. Paul is
dealing in the context with whether or not single people should marry. Then he says this in that context,
verse 29, But this I say, brethren, the time is shortened, that henceforth
both those that have wives may be as those that have none, and
those that weep as though they wept not, and those that rejoice
as though they rejoiced not, those that buy as though they
possessed not, and those that use the world as not using it
to the full. Why? For the fashion of this
world is passing away. Now, Paul is not contradicting
what he says in Ephesians 5, that husbands are to love their
wives as Christ loved the church, nourish and cherish them as Christ
does His own body, He is not saying that we are not to weep
with real tears with those who weep. These are absolutes for
the relative. What he is saying is, when we
are persuaded that this present world order is passing away,
it's going up in smoke, we will sit loosely to the things that
God gives us, to His most precious gifts And when the demands of
the kingdom mean that for an evening you must leave your family
and leave your wife in order to give yourself to ministry
to this one or that one or to that concern, you then at that
point live as a man who has no wife. And when you hear of needs
that you could meet in terms of God's blessing upon your labors
by denying yourself this or that thing that would be legitimate
in itself. You're in a position economically
to purchase it. It would not be sin. You say,
no, I'm not going to use my stuff to the full. Why, the fashion
of this world passes away. I want to take the money that
would have gone for that new couch that's really not necessary. The present one is adequate. It is not disgraceful. We can
have company without being embarrassed or ashamed. But, oh, I saw this
one on sale at Macy's, and it just... No! I'm not going to use the things
of this world to the full. Why? going to have stuff far
more beautiful in the new heavens and the new earth. It'll discipline
the amount of money we're ready to spend for exotic vacations. There are a lot of places in
this world I'd love to see. I've had offers to go to some
places where people spend thousands of dollars to go, where people
have even offered to pay my way. And I've chosen not to. Why?
Because I'm a killjoy? No! I tell myself, ah, it's a
beautiful place, but I'm going to see it when it's far more
beautiful. And meanwhile, the time and money
and energy I would spend going there, I only have so much to
invest in my life and in the kingdom here and now. The fashion of this world passes
away. I'm coming up on ten years from
retirement time, and everybody's clamoring for early retirement. Why am I still doing this? Because
the fashion of this world is passing away. Hold loosely to
the things of this world, dear people of God. Cultivate the
pilgrim mentality, stranger mentality. Don't live as though people looking
on you would say, huh, this is your heaven. This is your resting
place. John Piper has used the term
cultivating the wartime mentality. For some of us who lived through
the Second World War, that has tremendous meaning. There were
many things legitimate to enjoy. We were willing to forego them
because our very way of life was jeopardized. And we had a
wartime mentality, where you scrimped, and you saved, and
you rolled up the tinfoil from gum wrappers, and you made your
ball of tinfoil and took it to the place where they would collect
them, and you said, there, I'm making a contribution to win
the war. You didn't complain. You counted
it a privilege. And so it is when by God's grace
we can say with Paul, I am willing to spend and be spent out for
the sake of others. So, my dear brothers and sisters,
as exhilarating as it was for all of us to contemplate this
morning the truths of Romans 8 and 2 Peter 3, God wants us
to come out of the cloud of legitimate spiritual excitement and exhilaration,
and in every facet of our lives be shaped and molded by the certainty
of the future. In a renewed commitment to serious
whole-souled godliness and holiness of life, renewed commitment to
be used in the ongoing saving work of God in the hearts of
men, and to desire to hold loosely to the things that are marked
for the fire. And I close again by pleading
with those of you who would be in the category that Peter describes
in verse 7, the day of the destruction of the ungodly. May God grant
that the contemplation of His return when He will judge the
wicked and usher in the new heavens and the new earth. May the occasion
of your seeking the Lord while He may be found calling upon
Him while He is near. Let's pray together. Our Father, we pray that You
would take these portions of Your Word, write them upon all
of our hearts, Help us as a people that we will be given the grace
and the strength to withstand all of those influences around
us that would pull us downward, that would cause us to become
earthbound and things bound. Lord, set us free that we may
be a people whose lives make evident that we are indeed set
in our affections upon the new heavens and the new earth wherein
dwells righteousness. Seal your word to our hearts
and enable us in every little practical way to find expression
of the fresh commitments of our hearts throughout this coming
week. Receive our praise for this day
in your and dismiss us with your blessing upon us, we pray in
Jesus' name. Amen.

Crucial Counsels for the New Year #5

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about the return of Jesus?

How do we know the doctrine of salvation is true?

Why is living a holy life important for Christians?

What does it mean to desire the salvation of others?

How can Christians hold loosely to worldly possessions?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

Comments

Joshua

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Music

Recent Comments

About

Legal

Subscribe

Account

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Recent Comments

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Collections

Music

About

Legal

Subscribe

Crucial Counsels for the New Year #5

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about the return of Jesus?

How do we know the doctrine of salvation is true?

Why is living a holy life important for Christians?

What does it mean to desire the salvation of others?

How can Christians hold loosely to worldly possessions?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

Comments

More from Albert N. Martin

Related Sermons

Same Scripture

Suggested for You

Joshua

Where this book stands in the tradition

Plato

Augustine

The Western Christian Tradition

This Book