"God is Patient on Purpose"
Sermon by the Rev. Anne Kennedy
Advent 2 year b
The Church of the Good Shepherd
2nd Peter 3:8-14

So we are thick into Advent, inching towards Christmas. At our house we've started receiving

large interesting looking packages in the mail with strict warnings from Matt's mother not to open them or look inside, warnings we have to heed because she is coming for Christmas and will know if we broke the rules.

This year I've had a hard time getting into the spirit of things—no good excuses, but reading all the old familiar Advent texts have not gotten me all excited about waiting. Waiting for what? The sky to fall. A lot of new stuff? Jesus to come back? We've been waiting for a couple of thousand years

and he hasn't done it yet. Why be all excited and hopeful this time? This has been my mood this season. But that's not how God feels. God doesn't mind waiting, and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. Because he's not just waiting to wow us all with smoke and clouds and fire and angle wings. He's waiting so that maybe one more of us will scramble our blind muddled stubborn way back to him.

Turn with me to 2 Peter, chapter 3.

I want us to walk through this text together because it gives a reason why, every year, we should discipline ourselves to wait;discipline ourselves to expect the coming of the Lord. It gives us the reason why, when the whole world is listening to Jingle Bell Rock and buying piles of presents, we spend four somber Sundays without flowers on the altar, counting sorrowfully over our sins and thinking about the end of the world. Read with me beginning in verse 8

"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years,

and a thousand years are like a day."

In other words, God is eternal. He does not have years that pass him by, he sees them all at once, from beginnning to end. God lives in an eternal now. Isn't that great? So, I'm struggling along through my enormously long 12 hour day, and for God it's like blinking. As far as he's concerned, time is all one—he sees all of it at a glance.

But Peter goes on. 9 "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some," that's you Anne, "understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."  

This is what I want us to dig into today—God is not slow in keeping his promises, in other words,

he will keep his promises and has already kept them, he is bringing them about. Rather, he is patient.

What is the difference between slowness and patience?

Slowness, is a whiny toddler dragging her little backside down the stairs like molasses in January

when you've told her to move it.

Slowness, usually, is defiant and lazy. Slowness, deliberate slowness is not doing what your Mamma told you to do immediately when she told you, but waiting a little while. We are generally slow people when we relate to God and to his commands. God is not slow. God is patient.

Patience is entirely different. Patience is letting a child sit there and make up her mind whether or not she is going to be obedient.

Patience is swallowing your irritation and anxiety and letting whoever it is that's driving you crazy

sort themselves out without jumping all over them.

Patience is God, waiting, waiting waiting waiting for his people to come back to him.

Not ever foresaking them, not once, but waiting for his people to look up from the bottom of their ditch of sin and say, "wow, it stinks down here, can I get some help out?"

God is patient.

Why?

Because he doesn't want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. You all know what ‘perish' means? It means die, but forever. To be eternally and completely separated from God.

To never be in the presence of God is to be perishing.

Many people in this life, who reject God and continue to reject him are perishing. They are in death.

But there's time. As long as you have breath in your lungs you have time to repent and turn back to God.

And that is why God is waiting. He is not coming back until he has everyone he wants safe in his arms.

He's going to wait and wait and wait.

This is an amazing patience, that God has. That God is here, in this world, by the power of the Holy Spirit, available to anyone, anyone who turns to him, is an amazing thing. He is here waiting.

And what is the average excuse for not turning to Him?

I don't have time.

I don't have my personal life worked out.

I'm waiting to see if this other relationship works out before I give in and turn to God and come to church, because, the implication is, being with such and such person will satisfy me as much or more than being with God.

I find God in nature.

I find God in the mall.

I don't need God because I have my own spiritual center.

And all the time, God is waiting, waiting waiting for us each to get out of ourselves and turn to him.

So that not one of us should perish.

Peter goes on, don't get comfy with this patient God that doesn't want you to perish.

He's not slow, he's not slothful, he's not just sitting around doing nothing.

Eventually the moment will be perfectly right, everybody will be in the gate and it will slam shut and that will be it.

10 "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare."

Its going to be exciting and you don't know when it will happen, so, for heaven's sake, really, be ready for it.

How can you be ready? Peter goes on.

11 "Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming."

That ought to be easy, right? Holy and goldy lives. What does that mean?

Well, holy is a word we use to describe God. He is perfectly Holy. He is perfect. He is perfectly good, perfectly right, perfectly just, perfectly merciful, and, if you are unholy at all and come into his full unveiled presence without the covering of Christ, you will die.

A holy life is one which God orders and sanctifies.

This process of being made holy by God is something you and I can cooperate with

One of the first way to be holy is to pray, to spend time opening your heart to his power and his presence.

.

If you don't already start today. Pray every day for at least 15 minutes, but an hour would be better. The more you are open to God's Spirit, the more he can do.

And read the Bible, at least 4 chapters a day, well, okay, maybe not that many chapters to start off with, but at least one. At least open your bibles and read something so that when you pray God can speak to you, using the scriptures, using his Word. That is the primary way God speaks to you personally, through his Word. Get into it. Let it get into you. Let him use it to show you what kind of person he wants you to be.

When Matt and I are both spending time in prayer, we do have holiness as part of our every day life.

We are respectful of each other. We have the strength and courage to do crazy things like disallow our children from watching any TV whatsoever. We think and conceive of our family life as though God is first and primary.

So we try and listen to him and do what he says.

When we don't pray, its easier not to do this. Then we start bickering at each other and let the kids get away with sassing back, and watch endless hours of the cooking channel.

Holiness comes in the nitty-gritty ness of life, the constantly turning yourself towards God, so that you reflect and refract his life and his light all over the place.

Godly is pretty much the same thing. You live a life characterized by God and his life. His life that we can see best is Jesus. Jesus was perfectly godly. He was willing to die so that you and I wouldn't perish. Godly people put their necks out to bring people into the kingdom. They mention the fact that they're Christians and they love Jesus even when it is socially awkward and makes people think they're unfortunately weird.

Why do you need to be holy and godly? Because when Jesus comes back, everything is going to be over and you won' have time to start being like God then, you need to start being like God now so that you can withstand the heat. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire,

and the elements will melt in the heat.

13 "But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth,

the home of righteousness."

It's a promise. Jesus is coming back. Look forward to it because all that is going away is evil and destruction and death. All the awful things that have totally spoiled this earth. It will be gone.

And there will be a new perfect earth that you, because you have been working on godliness and holiness, will recognize and enjoy very much.

14 "So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him."

That is God.

Don't let the business of the season cause you to sin and become difficult to get along with

because then you will have missed the point. Waiting for God helps you see what its like for God to wait for you—how merciful it is that he waits and waits so that you nor anyone else should perish. Amen.

Amen