Mosaic Church - At Walt Disney World

In this message, we look at the incredible invitation we hold in participating in bringing the Kingdom of God into our world in the everyday realities of life, at WDW and beyond.

Is this world as good as it gets or can we have hope for more? In this concluding message in 2 Peter, we explore final Peter’s desire, for the church to set their hope on a future that will radically alter the here and now.

Peter reminds the church that false teachers were predicted to come and mock the coming justice of Jesus in the last days. These teachers assume that Jesus’ delayed return means no return, and therefore, they live after their sinful desires. However, they fail to realize that the Lord’s delay is actually the Lord’s patience that all should turn from sin, escaping the coming justice. As recipients of God’s patience, we can participate in His patience toward all people, even our enemies.

False teaching, in Peter’s day and our own, would have us believe that true freedom is life without any restraint, following our desires as our highest authority. However, this kind of freedom is an enslaving illusion that leads to death. If we do not overcome our sin by the Spirit, it will overcome us. True freedom is the ability to choose the good that leads to life and freedom in Christ.

Peter is lovingly serious about us experiencing life in the truth of the Gospel among the community of God’s people. Because of this desire, He is likewise serious about us not becoming blind and arrogant toward the deadliness of sin, along with false teachers in the church. We, therefore, must be a people of gospel truth, able to discern false gospels that take sin lightly and miss grace completely.

In Peter’s final Old Testament illustration of God’s sparing “righteous” Lot in bringing justice upon Sodom and Gomorrah, we find that God’s sparing anyone from judgment is based purely on His mercy. Lot’s righteousness, like our own, still find’s itself in need of grace. Through the lens of the Gospel, we see that Lot’s story points to Jesus, the true righteous One, who would be destroyed for the sake of the unrighteous. God is able to save from judgment those of us who, though unrighteous and undeserving like Lot, trust in God’s grace through Jesus alone.

Our God reminds us through Peter that His constant presence relentlessly holds the cosmos and all of humanity together. The life of Noah was but a foreshadowing of God fulfilling His plan to preserve humanity through the only righteous one, Jesus. Choosing to live in our own way apart from Him always leads to death, darkness and destruction but His way is life, light and freedom, and we should desire that now and into eternity.

Our God is spreading the glory of His presence, our true Home, to the ends of the earth through His people, the Church, as they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. God invites all of His children, followers of Jesus, to joyfully, dependently, and actively join Him in His work of reaching the nations.

The historical reminder of the justice God did not withhold toward the demonic angels when they rebelled against Him reveals that our God is able to keep His people safe as He will one day execute justice to protect His faithfulness, promises, and people.

Not all prophecy is God’s prophecy. In contrast with the reliable truth of Scripture revealed by God, false teachers will rise up with intentions of deception and manipulation among God’s people. Although God is patient with such teachers, there is coming a day when justice will prevail in their final destruction. In the meantime, by God’s grace, we have the truth of Scripture in order to discern false teaching, both around us and within us.