This will be the last week in second Peter. So. We're going to look at chapter three verses 13 through 18 this morning. And we have not read that this morning, so let me read that for us here. But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be 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 the day of eternity. Amen. I told you earlier that I was going to start off with the glory of Patrick. From time to time I'm asked about that line in the. Song that says world without end. A person might be reading second Peter three and come to the conclusion that since Peter says that the elements will be burned and melt and dissolve. That the glory of Patrick doesn't know what it's talking about. The world will end, and therefore we should not sing it. Are Peter and the famous early hymn in contradiction? My response is not at all. Because Peter's not finished, because he tells us that according to the promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. See, the world will not end any more than you or I will end. Even though we will die, we will not end. One day, God is going to make all things new. Peter takes this idea of a new heaven and earth straight from Isaiah, who ended his prophecy. These are almost the very last words of the book of Isaiah. He said, For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. For the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and our people to be a gladness. For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath. All flesh shall come to worship me, declares the Lord. Now, we read the gospel in Revelation and we saw that John gives nearly the very same picture of the new heavens and new earth with Jerusalem also coming out of the clouds like a bride adorned for her husband. So this is obviously an important doctrine, and it's one that deeply roots our future lives in a physical reality. OK. This is not the new clouds where we're going to sit upon with halos on our heads singing songs forever. This is the new heavens and the new earth. It's a physical reality. Now, it's the new heaven and the new earth that helps you understand that the glory of Patry is correct. I can help you see how this works a little better by going to where Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 8 verses 18 through 22, because though he doesn't use the language New Heavens and New Earth, he does talk about the idea. He says, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. He says, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay. In order to obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God, for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together and the pains of childbirth until now. You see, the creation would not long for these things if it was going to be annihilated and never exist again. Would it make any sense? So I want you to notice how Paul ties the liberation of creation to the freedom of the glory of the children of God, that is, of Christians. Just as when Adam fell into sin, the earth began to produce thorns and thistles. So also the new Adam gives redemption to our bodies so that the creation itself will finally move away from the curse. Now, that does not speak of an annihilation, does it? Of the new heavens and the new earth. It speaks of their restoration, their liberation and their redemption. So how do you square that with Peter's language and seemingly John's, too, when he says that they have passed away? Peter says all things are to be dissolved. Well, there's two possible ways. Either Peter is using highly figurative language of apocalyptic literature, much as John himself does, and this is a possible solution that I'm not going to get into it because it would take a whole sermon just to explain that in a way that I could understand, OK, I'm not going to go down that direction, but I suffer to mention that it's possible that Peter's using that kind of language. But it's also possible that God is simply going to reconstitute the old to make it new. And in order to help you understand that, I want you to think about the resurrection of your own bodies, OK? We know that our present bodies, these bodies, The one that you have right now are going to be raised because Jesus's body was raised. And I had a professor at seminary who said, no, totally dissimilar bodies, nothing like these bodies whatsoever. He couldn't answer this question about Jesus. You see, the body of Jesus's resurrection was his body complete down to the scars and the marks of the crucifixion. The disciples recognized him because it was him. Right. But you see, if that's true, then that means even a person that has been cremated in life or at death by a wildfire, by a house fire or in a nuclear fire or in a fires of crematorium. Will be reconstituted in the resurrection of the last day. Now, this is you sit here and you go, how is that possible? All I can say is that this is a simple thing for God to do. There's not a simple thing for me to do. I can't even imagine it. But this is the God who created all things out of nothing. And you think that this is a hard thing for God to reconstitute your body? This is God we're talking about. It doesn't matter if something's been dissolved with fire or not. Therefore, you see, we believe in a world without end. Now, it's not the world exactly as we know it today. I mean, John didn't describe that in Revelation 21. But it is a world renewed, reformed, restored. To its pristine state in the Garden of Eden, and yes, even better than that, because the coming world will no longer ever be subject to decay ever. And I tell you all this because this is something that you are to know, to understand, to believe it is your great hope. Peter tells you that this is a promise of God in verse 13. In verse 14, he says, this is something you are waiting for. And in verse 17, it says this is something you know beforehand. This is how I want to get into the passage today, it's the idea of knowing something about God and his works, which is a theme that began in the first chapter, which is now being picked up here. You will remember that in chapter one, when we first looked at this about two months ago. Peter said that grace and peace come through the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our Lord. OK. Grace and peace come through the knowledge of God, he says, we've been granted all things pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to himself, verse three in chapter one. He said that the only way to begin your faith is with the knowledge of God and the way to grow in your faith with an ever increasing measure of the knowledge of God is what you need. So Peter told you to supplement your virtue with knowledge in chapter one verse five. And he concludes that point by saying that you don't want to be ineffective. Now, I want you to get this because this is where I'm going to take this. You don't want to be ineffective and unfruitful in your knowledge of God. It's all about the knowledge of God in chapter one. Knowledge is the major theme that began the letter, and now it is a major theme at the end of the letter. OK. You see, Peter appears to be deeply concerned, friends, that you know more and more about God. And this is what our series on Jude and second Peter has tried to do, even if a lot of that knowledge isn't exactly popular things to talk about in our day. But why would Peter care about such a thing? I suppose there's several reasons. One is that there is a kind of knowledge of God that doesn't lead to anything good, particularly righteousness. Which is the other major theme here. But you see, that should never be called true knowledge, if chapter chapter two of this letter has anything to say, it's a false knowledge that heretics claim to have. It's a prideful pseudo knowledge and knowledge of God that they make up themselves. And it's a knowledge that leads them to teach licentiousness. See, many people claim to speak for God, to have knowledge of God, to have received a word of knowledge. And then they go and they tell people to live however they feel. In other words, if your knowledge of God tells you that it's OK to live any old way, then you don't have true knowledge of the Holy One. Some with Ed earlier during the break here about how Some people that you meet come across as know-it-alls. And I think what's going on there is that they have an unvirtuous kind of a knowledge. Their knowledge is just simply there to puff them up, but the true knowledge that you have of God doesn't puff you up. It humbles you and it creates a sense of morality in your life, not a sense of pride and arrogance. One is a false knowledge, one is a true knowledge. I say that because there's another problem with which to be concerned, many people in our day and age, sadly, pit knowledge against ethics. OK, theological sermons are just not practical sermons, we are told. They don't do the things that people need for them to do, they don't do them any good, they don't meet them where they live. with their wives and coworkers, kids and neighbors away with head trips, give us something useful. So the only kind of knowledge that many people want to acquire from a pulpit is how to live a better life, oftentimes so that they can learn how to live a happier life and a way of easing their life away from sufferings and distractions that come from living in a fallen world. Frankly, oftentimes this kind of a desire that you want when you go to church to get this is very narcissistic, self-centered. Just so you understand, I believe that you need to teach people how to live godly lives. This must never be divorced from understanding the reason that you do so is to be a reflection of God. You see the law. or in our day hints or advice or tips or strategies or suggestions. They too often passes the law. Even these things, none of it can be preached in a God vacuum. As if these rules just sort of floated down from the clouds arbitrarily and sort of landed into our laps. Because if you do this, it's going to lead to legalistic self-righteousness when you talk about the law or when you talk about what you're supposed to do. How many Christians that love to be told what to do from the pulpit also love to look down their noses at other Christians? Because they aren't doing what they think they need to be doing with their Christian lives. You see, we're in a desperate situation in the church when the knowledge that people get from pastors is knowledge devoid of God himself. Most people don't even think that's a problem. In fact, most people don't understand the problem, most people don't even know that there is a problem, which is one of the biggest problems of all. See, how can you tell somebody to do something without explaining to them the person of God himself? Without comparing your righteousness to his righteousness, without showing people what the true standard actually looks like. Because when you do that, then you get a whole different idea of what the law is about. And you understand, I can't reach that model as Mason talked about before his prayer this morning. I can't reach that. I need something else, which is what gives you the ability to preach the gospel to people. And in light of all this, I want you to think about something in the last part of Peter in chapter three, Peter equates not once, but twice. Living a godly life because you've learned the truth about the future. Peter's explanation of the future has been long on telling you about God's attributes. And I just sort of this popped into my mind, but think about this in chapter three, you have learned about his sovereign power in verse five, his truthful word. In verses five through seven, his justice and his wrath throughout most of the first part of the chapter, his transcendence over time. You've learned about his patience. You've learned about his love. Maybe you didn't even realize that this is what Peter had been doing in this chapter. But he's told you many things about God, at least seven different things about God himself. He's explicitly grounded the commandments that he now gives you in the nature of God. Now, how different this is from telling you to live your best life now as Jesus, the cheerleader, jumps on the sidelines with pom poms in his hand rooting you on. That's not the kind of knowledge of God we're talking about, we're talking about you need to know who God is. Peter's done that for you. See, in all of this, Peter tells you that your knowledge of God affects the way you live your life. And this is the major point. Putting a little bit more specifically in this chapter, anyway, Peter teaches you how eschatology of all things affects your ethics. People say I like alliteration. There you go. Your eschatology affects your ethics. Now, this is radically different from a kind of eschatology that only produces fear of the future, as some views of eschatology do. What does fear do? It paralyzes people so that they can't move or think or do anything else. It also differs drastically from a kind of eschatology that causes you to want to escape the world, to sell all your goods and go live on the top of somebody else's roof because you've sold yours and go wait for God to return on a comet or something like that. In fact, I think that these kinds of things, when promoted, actually create skeptics and cynics towards our faith because they see that the fruit being produced by the theology isn't anything that they know it should be like. Now, this shows us how our theology is really more like anthropology. She makes it contradictory, we have these strange ways of making our theology be about us. more than about God and His glory. I mean, you do want to be raptured out of here, don't you? It's all about me. That's the focus. But what does Peter's theology do? He says in chapter 3, verse 1, I am stirring you up. I'm stirring up your sincere mind, your mind, by way of reminder, so that, now we come to verse 11, Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be like in lives of holiness and godliness? And again, in verse 13, since we're waiting for these promises of the new heaven and new earth in which righteousness dwells, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace. Do you see how this differs from the kind of knowledge of God that lives in ivory towers, never coming down out of the clouds to the ground where people live. As so many people complain that theology, that's all it is. But there's a direct relationship here between the true knowledge of God and his works and living godly lives, you see. What is that relationship? You are to conform your lives today to live in a way that will conform to the future kingdom that you're going to be in. The kingdom, Peter says, where righteousness dwells. It's funny that even in our questions about the glory of Patrick, we can get tripped up because if you ask a question about the world without end, there's the mescatology for you. Do you desire the answer in order to help you live a more godly, righteous life? Or, in other words, are you just interested in a bit of information that you can pack away and look smart? Or are you concerned that the ultimate reason that you're learning about God is so that you can be conformed into the image of a son so that you can live and worship God in an acceptable way? That's what the end of your knowledge is supposed to be, friends. How could it like this in Romans 12, one, how could I not talk about this verse? He says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, in other words, Because of everything I just said in the first 11 chapters, which is about as hardcore doctrine and theology and knowledge you can get. He says, because of all those things that I've told you, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship. So you just cannot separate knowledge from action in God's kingdom, it's not possible. If you think you can, then you're either not being fed the right stuff to know about God, or you're simply not believing the things that you're being told. There is no other alternative. There's no knowledge just for the sake of knowing any more than there's just ethics just for the sake of doing. All is to be done to the glory of God. So what are you to be like? Well, in this section of the letter, you're told to live lives of holiness and godliness. To be diligent, to be found without spot or blemish and at peace. OK. Now, most of that's very general, it's not like Paul says, don't quarrel or Peter says don't quarrel, he does all that in the first letter. But here's very general, because he simply presupposing that you know something about God. OK, God is a holy God. And so you are to be holy people. Now, maybe you don't know what holy means in its most literal usage, it means that God is separate, he's set apart, he is something entirely other than you are. You know, when a priest made a golden utensil in the tabernacle, holy, He washed it. He set it apart as something that was no longer common and profane, but holy. It was set apart. It became holy. It was dedicated for that purpose. It was to be used in a holy service. It isn't that the thing itself. Think of a cup in the tabernacle or a lamp stand. It's not that these things were evil. Before that, it isn't that their usage changed somehow in making it holy so that now they start doing things that lamps and cups never did before. Rather, it's that their use is now glorifying God because it's placed in direct service for him. It's being used in holy worship. And in fact, I would suggest to you that John and Peter and Isaiah, all three, when they talk about the new heavens and earth, have righteousness and worship in mind as their ultimate focus. Peter says all flesh shall come to worship before me. And you got to think about your vocations as an example of holiness. I could do this with all sorts of things, but I wanted to pick on this one. Because I think a lot of Christians have a terrible misunderstanding about this, especially with an evangelicalism that sort of makes us everything has to be Christianized, OK? It's not that as Christians you need to work in a Christian parachurch organization in order to be pleasing to God with your work. nor that you need to become a pastor or teacher in a church in order to make your work pleasing to him. It is rather that because you have been set apart from the world, because God's Holy Spirit dwells in you, whatever you do, as long as it's not sinful, with that caveat is now a holy work unto the Lord. You may think of it like this, wherever God was, the place itself became holy. His special presence. Was in the burning bush, for example, and so the place where Moses stood was holy ground. His special presence was on top of Mount Sinai, and so the very mountain became holy ground. The people weren't even allowed to touch it or they would die. His glory cloud filled the temple and so the temple became holy. There's nothing intrinsically holy about dirt or a mountain or a temple. But they all become holy when God, when a holy God touches them. I wish I could teach these to our Jewish friends who go to the wailing wall and just sit there and kiss the wall all day long, every day, month after month, year after year, because they think that the wall is holy. God left it. That's what Ezekiel said. It's not holy anymore. If God's presence is there, it's not holy. If his presence is there, it is holy because God's holy. And because God's in you, whatever you're doing and touching is holy, you see? Because God has made you holy people. So I could list a whole litany of vocations that you can participate in. You can be a doctor, an accountant, a plumber, a city manager, a shipping receiver, a housewife, a mother, a father, a student, a forest ranger. A Wal-Mart greeter. That one's for you, Tim. Although you're not a greeter. But you work at Wal-Mart. You can even work at Wal-Mart. Tax collector. You can be a tax collector, a lawyer or a politician. Anything that's not itself sinful. Now, the question is asked, how is your work different from the person sitting in the cubicle right next to you who's doing the same thing, but he's not a Christian? It's not that the work is different. It's that you are different. You do your work to the glory of God, knowing that he is your creator, knowing that he's the creator of work. Knowing that he gave you a mandate to fill the earth and subdue it for him. Knowing that you're able to do your work lawfully to glorify God. Knowing that in the new heavens and the new earth, there will very likely be very many of the same kinds of tasks to be carried out here. And knowing that though your work or through your work, God is able to demonstrate what his kingdom is going to be like. Do you see how godliness touches on this? Peter says you're to be godly. You're to work in a godly, God-pleasing, God-exalting, God-glorifying way without complaining, without grumbling, with joy. A lot of you think, I mean, it's like the worst news in the world for you to even contemplate that your job might be an eternal job. God forbid that. But it's because you're not thinking rightly about your vocation. It's because you're not doing your work to the glory of God. And if you start to think like that, it will revolutionize your life. Now, I remember when I was loading trucks and doing this and we were starting this church and I was loading trucks. And it was a hard thing. I don't deny it. The hard thing to go to work in a place like that where you have to do this task and where at that particular time in that job, there was a lot of turmoil. It wasn't easy to go to work there. And I prayed every single day when I rode to work, Lord, help me to glorify you and what I'm doing today. And that means in my attitude, too. And I'm telling you, it changed the way that I thought about work. And I think a lot of you need to do the very same thing you're called to be holy and godly. Start in the place where you work. Show respect to your boss, do your work diligently, do it well, treat your employees fairly, generously, kindly. See, to be godly is to be like God, you are an image bearer made after the image of your creator to be like God. But unlike your unbelieving friends, you are being renewed in the image of the creator. How? I think about this. In light of Peter, Paul says you're renewed in the image, in knowledge and in righteousness and holiness. It's the very same things Peter's talking about here. Now, you could apply this to almost anything, not just work. You could apply it to a hobby you like. to a trip you take, to a game you play, to a meal you eat, to a date you go on, to a conversation you have, to almost anything in life that you're doing, you apply what Peter is saying, holy and godly. The good news about being found to be with spot or blemish that Peter talks about here is that first of all, Christ does this work in you through washing his bride with the word. I bring up Ephesians 526, it says, you know, Christ washes his bride with the word, so she will be without spot or blemish. It's the very same kind of language again that Peter is using. Why? So that he may present the church to himself in splendor. Without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. So Paul says. Again, Paul says nearly the same thing as Peter. I'm kind of making this point. They may not be catching on to it in my mind. I don't put it in your mind. I'm talking about Paul. I'm talking about Peter. I'm talking about Paul. I'm talking about Peter. Talking about Paul. I'm talking about Peter. They're saying the same thing and all these different things you're going to find out here in a minute. Why? OK. If you were listening to what I was reading, you already know why. You're to be at peace. I take this to mean that you're to be at peace with God first and foremost. This means that you must accept his forgiveness of your sins by faith, because God is in the business of reconciling people to himself through the death of his son. You see how Peter talks immediately after peace in verse 15 now about counting the patience of the Lord is salvation. Being at peace has to be related to God, first of all, But you're also to be at peace with God when you're doing his will. Because you have peace with God through justification, you're able to obey from the heart. You're able to have great peace with God. When you sin, you're not at peace, in other words. What are you when you're sinning? Well, you're restless, you're jittery, you're nervous, you're anxious, you're depressed, you're paranoid, you're angry. All sorts of other things, because you're sinning. It's the very opposite of being at peace. So you need to be justified first. Then you need to be doing what God says. And in both of these ways, you'll be at peace. And you know, when you have peace with God, when you're at peace with him, then and only then, frankly, are you able to be at peace with others and with yourself? That's kind of the order of it. When you're at peace, you're no longer fighting. Instead, you are resting and enjoying your content and happy no matter what the circumstance of your life happens to be, because you know that ultimately nothing can compare. With the love of God that is in Christ and nothing can separate you from that love. That's what salvation brings to a person, so. Peter's talking about the end of the world, living a righteous, holy life, Salvation. And all of a sudden, he breaks into this strange. Two verses about Paul of all things. Almost out of the blue, he says, 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 on these matters, there are some things in them that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. I don't know about you, but the first time I read those words, I remember thinking, I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Paul's hard to understand. Because Paul's hard to understand, and it makes me glad to know that even the rock. Now, this is the true rock. Not the wrestler, but Peter had difficulty understanding what Paul said. But that really isn't exactly Peter's point, which is to sort of like put us all in the same category. Boy, nobody understands Paul's talking about. Instead, the point seems to be that when people hear about salvation in Christ. About the end of the world, they often tend to think that it no longer matters how we live. As they do with Peter, so they do with Paul. Can we figure out exactly what Peter refers to here when he's talking about Paul? Well, maybe it's the teaching like in Romans eight that we already looked at about the mysterious relationship between the new earth and the children of God. I admit that's mysterious, I admit it's hard to understand, but I don't think that this gets to the heart of the matter. I think Martin Luther was probably onto something when he made this comment about our verses here. He said Peter saw that many frivolous spirits were jumbling and twisting Paul's words and teaching, because some things in the latter's epistles are difficult to understand. As, for example, when he says that man is justified by faith apart from works, that the law came in to increase the trespass, that were sin increased, grace abounded all the more. These are all things Paul was saying, teaching. It's all found in Romans. And when he makes other similar statements, people hear this and they say, if that's true, then we will be idle, do no good work and thus become pious. Just as it is also said today that we forbid good works, that's what Luther was being accused of as well for any finishes, for if St. Paul's words have been twisted, it's. Is it surprising that our words are also twisted as reformers? Any honest person knows that This is a major thing that needs to be corrected in over and over again in the New Testament, especially with Paul. Remember, he asked the Romans, he's writing to the Romans, he's talking about grace, he's talking about justification. By faith, apart from works, and then he says out of the blue, should we go on sending so that grace will increase? Anticipating exactly what they were already accusing him of in every place that he ever went. He writes to the Corinthians that they were twisting his words when they said all things are lawful for me. So he clarifies, but not all things are beneficial. Most people today don't understand how knowledge and ethics work together either. It's one of the reasons why they put the two together against one another. But this is never more true than when we're talking about the things of salvation. So what happened? You bring up the doctrine of predestination and people say, well, then it doesn't matter if I evangelize. You bring up the doctrine of justification and people say, well, if it's not by works, then why would anybody care about doing good works? You bring up glorification and people say, well, if Jesus is coming back, what's the point in anything? I'm just going to go live on my roof. I'm reminded when Luther was asked what he would do if he knew with certainty that Jesus would come back tomorrow. I think I've said this a couple of times. You know what Martin Luther said? He said, I'd plant a tree. Why? Because what we do every moment matters to God, and even this act done a second before Jesus returns would be gone to honoring because this is the kind of thing we're commanded to do throughout our lives. Now you laugh at a comment like Luther's. You plant a tree. That's absurd. And so you become the opposite of the tree uprooted and ready to wither away. It's not without reason that the Psalter opens up with these words. I'll read Psalm 1 for you. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. He's like a tree. planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither in all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so. But are like chaff that the wind drives away, therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor centers in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. You see, my friends, doctrine matters. Knowledge matters. True knowledge leads to correct the God honoring behavior. So Peter wraps up in verse 17, 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. This is exactly everything that I've been talking about this morning. When you don't understand the truth, then you end up living a life that is not honoring to God. This usually comes out in more ways than one. You stop thinking critically about your faith. You stop behaving in a manner worthy of the calling that you have received. You stop caring about other people and you only begin to think about yourself. But true knowledge leads not only to ethics, but to worship, which is the ultimate goal of what you do. On that day, when the earth is full of the knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea, then all people will come before God's throne, Isaiah says, from Sabbath to Sabbath, to worship God and give glory to him. Then they will leave, they will return to their homes refreshed. Their lives and work in the new creation will be fully, perfectly glorifying to God. That's what you're to look forward to. You're describing the weekly pattern of our lives. But Isaiah is talking about the heavenly pattern, the eternal pattern. He's talking about the new heavens and the new earth. Then people are going to go from Sabbath to Sabbath into the holy city to worship the Lord. They're going to go out of the city. They're going to look upon the bodies of the dead in Gehenna. They're going to make their way back home. And the idea is so that they can go and do the very things that I've been talking about here today. And that's the eternal pattern. That's not just what you're doing here right now. You see, the new creation is patterned after this creation. And what God created originally, he's going to restore in eternity. My goodness, we have such a thought that nothing that we do in this world right now is going to be anything like what's going to happen in heaven. It's no wonder our lives are just a shamble. I want to leave you with the kind of word that Peter leaves you with, 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. Now, this morning I began with the doxology, the glory of Patry. Now I want to end with one, because as I've been saying, glorifying God is the chief end of man. It is the purpose for which you were created. It is the reason God breathed life into the very first man. It's the purpose for everything that you do. It's the one enduring thing that will last throughout all ages. Everything else we do doesn't go vanish, but it's subsumed under the idea of worshiping and glorifying God. The glory of Patry is a little different than Peter's doxology. The church fathers intentionally created a Trinitarian doxology, but look at Peter. In this last verse, Calvin makes this comment that this is one of the great verses in the Bible directed at the deity of Christ. It doesn't say Jesus is God, but what does it say? It says, grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to him That is, Christ be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. To whom belongs the glory? To God alone be the glory. Great things he has done. So when Peter says to Christ be the glory, he is very bluntly telling you that Christ is God and anything less would make Peter a blasphemer for saying something like that. You see, Peter wants you to look upon Christ in order to understand what God is like. In order to know about God, if you want to see the father, think on the son, if you want to experience the Holy Spirit, listen to him testify to you about the person and work of Christ, which is your only hope of salvation. Now, all three persons have the rightful place and to all three belong the glory. But it is Jesus in this age that we turn to for justification, inspiration, sanctification for all things. It is in him that we are hidden and that we are clothed. It is in union with him that we are united to the father by the spirit. So direct your gaze at the Lord Jesus this day, look upon his majesty. Humbly showing you in a man with no features that we should give notice to him. Exemplified in his obedient work is your example on your behalf, powerfully displayed in the foolishness of the cross, the resurrection and the ascension into heaven. The one who is seated at the right hand of God, the one who will return soon, dealing out trouble and wrath to his enemies, but taking his precious spotless bride to be with him in heaven forever. Glory be to the father and to the son. And to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for the letters of Jude and second Peter. How you preserve them for us, for how they teach us so many of the same things. Thank you for the writings of the Apostle Paul that Peter refers to as scripture that we didn't get into here today, but it shows us that even at that early date that these. People recognize because your word manifested itself that these are the scriptures. that they are on par with what you have preserved for us in the Old Testament, from the writings of Moses and David and Isaiah and the prophets. To the lamentations, to the song of Solomon, to the earliest work of Job, we have all of these. Works and books by all of these different men, this all teach us how to know you better and truly. And in light of the knowledge that we gain from them, they command us to live lives that are pleasing to you and to reorient our thinking about our own lives and about the world around us so that it conforms to your heavenly kingdom and the pattern that you set in imprinted into the creation in which you will restore in the new creation, the new heaven and the new earth. Lord, I pray that your word would work its work in our hearts, that you would sow it deeply into us, into our minds, that your Holy Spirit would grow the seed of the word and that it would produce fruit in our life, that we would not be those who are on head trips for the sake of knowledge alone, but that we would be seeking When we come to worship you and when we leave here as well to go home and apply what we have learned, what we have heard from your word, that you would be doing this so that you would be changing us and conforming us more into the image of Christ. I pray that you would season our talk with salt and that you would cause us to be agents of light in the world. In our families, our spouses, with our children, With our families, with our neighbors, with our co-workers. Lord, it is evident and abundant that what we know about you is to be taken and put into practice. We know that you are the one who sanctifies us as well as justifies us. And so we call upon you to not just help us, but to transform us and that your word would do its work. And I pray, Lord, that as we come to the Lord's Supper, that we might reflect even more upon your goodness in the gospel that is shown to us so that the power of the gospel would be at work in our lives. We thank you for the ability to have a meal together like this, that we're able to eat together every week around this table to be reminded of Christ, what he's done for us and his death, especially as the Sacrifice for our sins as the one who takes away our sins by his blood. We thank you for the opportunity to worship you this morning in song and in hearing the word and in being able to pray to you like this and in. Even in our offering that is to come in the benediction in the way that you call us to yourself and gather us here. All of these things are a great precious pearl treasure for us, and we are thankful and we want to express that to you this morning. It's in Jesus name that we give you thanks, we give you praise, and we ask for you to hear our prayer. Amen.