The New Heavens and the New Earth Part 2

Introduction and Prayer for Help

0:04 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, January 27, 2008, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:16 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.

0:33 1 Peter, chapter 3, and I shall read verses 8 through 15a.

1:08 2 Peter, chapter 3, and I shall read verses 8 through 15a.

1:38 2 Peter, chapter 3, and I shall read verses 8 through 15a.

2:08 2 Peter, chapter 3, and I shall read verses 8 through 15a. As I felt myself crushed by the subject, and God was gracious to undertake for me and for us together,

2:48 and gave us some little taste of the powers of the age to come, let us look to Him for His help again tonight.

2:59 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. You have 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 give and to give. And we pray that You would look upon us in our pathetic weakness and inability to understand and to give.

3:41 And we pray that You would look upon us in our pathetic weakness and inability to understand and to give. And we pray that You would 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.

Review of the Sermon Series and Core Principle

4:06 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, comprised of the words, at the beginning of and throughout this year,

4:51 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.

5:14 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, word of counsel, all of them clustering around the return of our Lord Jesus Christ in power and

5:52 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's why I did not simply complete the statement by saying

6:16 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

6:48 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. The first is the passage of the New Testament, which is the passage of 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

7:30 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 four 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 be

The Future Certainty Shapes the Present: Peter's Pastoral Wisdom

8:10 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.

8:51 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 therefores. In other words, Peter recognized 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

9:34 their entire lifestyle.

The Assumption of Intense Expectation: 'Looking For'

9:39 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,

10:21 seeing that you look for, three times, and he does not use what we would call the ten cent 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

10:58 and a new earth, that the eyes of the mind are now fixed with an intense gaze upon those realities. This is a very important point. This is a very important point. This is a very important point. This is a very important point.

11:09 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 lame and these apostles come by and say, Look on us, how he would fasten his attention upon them.

11:49 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, they 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.

12:33 But they expected that he would have swollen or fallen. Fallen down dead suddenly, but when they were long in expectation. There's our verb. Imagine, here this man is bitten with the viper and they're all just intensely gazing.

12:54 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.

13:12 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.

13:39 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.

13:56 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 the other things that we do, and all the other things that we do, and all the other things that we do, and all the other things that we do, 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.

14:38 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.

14:54 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,

15:39 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.

16:19 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 are going to be a looking for people.

Obligation to a Serious Pursuit of Holy and Godly Lifestyle

17:01 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.

17:34 We 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 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?

18:03 And where you find that little word ought, it is often the translation of a little Greek word, 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,

18:48 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 plurals. 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,

19:31 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, udadzo,

20:15 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 fine, 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,

21:00 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'll 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?

21:44 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.

22:27 One servant of God has summarized it this way, Peter calls the libertinist 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.

22:54 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, 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.

23:36 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 adding 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,

24:19 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 God and the power of the Holy Spirit

25:04 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.

25:29 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.

25:52 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.

26:16 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.

26:36 Paul does. Philippians 2, 14. Do everything without murmuring and grumbling in order that you may be blameless. Sons of God without repute shining as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

26:56 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

27:41 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 then they will issue in this obligation to be committed to a serious whole-souled pursuit

28:24 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 Gospels precious because there we see our Savior who's the great pattern of how we are to walk. It'll 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

29:09 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 that 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

Desire to Be Useful in Seeking the Salvation of Others

29:52 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

30:36 Peter makes it plain that the delay is connected with God's long suffering focused 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 long suffering to you word 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

31:18 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

32:02 to gather in sinners to himself a passion that we are to share. In verse 12 there is 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?

32:40 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 his long suffering with the view of gathering in sinners to himself you and I are to account that the long suffering 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

33:21 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

34:05 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.

34:46 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 am 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 has gathered in all of his own and they have been brought to repentance and Christ has gotten all of his sheep conquered all those who have been brought to repentance and those whom he goes forth to conquer

35:29 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

36:13 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.

36:58 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.

37:09 I see the way you treat your wife. You are churlish. You are boorish. You're talking about the gospel?

37:18 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 city.

37:52 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 the return that will be the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men, then to some degree we will say with Paul,

38:34 knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men 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 begin 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.

Desire to Hold Loosely to Things Marked for the Fire

39:15 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 dumpster

39:58 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.

40:37 The rolled up carpets up in the attic and old... Oh, I won't tell you all the stuff.

40:43 38 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. Don't set your heart upon it.

41:10 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? Yes.

41:28 You put on an addition. You had it painted. It looks lovely. You thank God for it.

41:34 It's 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's marked for the fire.

41:50 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 and looked up at it. And I said it's marked for the fire.

42:19 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 is going to let me visit it. I said 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.

42:43 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. It's marked for the fire.

42:55 And I think, 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. speak of someone not born in the country where he presently is, and in that country he's not a permanent resident.

43:34 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.

43:48 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.

44:12 So John's last words to his little children in his first letter was what? My little children, guard. Guard yourselves from idols. Idols, things upon which our affections are set in an inordinate way.

Paul's Teaching on Holding Loosely to the World

44:32 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.

44:49 Paul is dealing in the context with whether or not, single people should marry.

44:57 And 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 rejoice not, those that buy as those, 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.

45:41 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,

46:26 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.

47:11 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, some, no, I'm not going to use the things of this world to the full. Why?

47:39 I'm 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.

47:58 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?

48:09 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.

48:28 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.

48:50 Hold loosely to the things of this world, dear people of God. Cultivate the pilgrim mentality, stranger mentality. Don't live this. Though people looking on you would say, oh, this is your heaven.

49:08 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.

49:25 We were willing to forego them, because our very way of life was jeopardized, and we had a wartime mentality. We were willing to spend and be spent out for the sake of others. So, my dear brothers and sisters, I want to ask you to think about this. I want to ask you to think about the fact that you are living in a world 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.

50:05 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.

Conclusion and Call to Action

50:09 My fellow 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. My fellow brothers and sisters, 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.

50:53 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, be the occasion of your seeking the Lord while he may be found, calling upon him while he is near.

Closing Prayer

51:33 Let's pray together.

51:41 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.

52:16 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 courts. And dismiss us with your blessing upon us, we pray, in Jesus' name.

52:53 Amen.