Let Me Remind You

well here we are again with another opportunity to dig in god's word together to see what he has in store for us to experience his love and his correction his direction for our lives whatever he has for us let's be open to it right now father speak to us through your word i give myself to you help us to learn and grow by your truth and may this time in your word be transforming for us inspiring and life-changing we pray in jesus name amen amen once again my privilege to come and share the word of god with you and on behalf of my wife vicky and i thank you so much for all that you do to encourage us each and every week to continue to serve the lord and to all of our volunteers and staff and members and friends who make this happen thank you all so much for everything you do i want to get into the word of god in the new testament book of second peter ii peter back towards the back if you get to the maps in the back you went too far if you see revelation keep going to the left yeah second peter 2 peter chapter 1 and i'm going to read verses 12 through 15 for our focus second peter chapter 1 beginning in verse 12. says in the new living translation therefore i will always remind you always remind you about these things even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth you have been taught verse 13 and it is only right that i should keep on reminding you as long as i live for our lord jesus christ has shown me that i must lose i must soon leave this earthly life verse 15 so i will work hard to make sure you always remember these things after i am gone verse 12 he says i will always remind you verse 13 he says i should keep on reminding you verse 15 he says i want to make sure you always remember these things after i'm gone i'm going to stop reading right there and i want to i've chosen as a subject for today's conversation and dialogue around the scriptures let me remind you let me remind you yeah let me remind you i don't want you to forget this what i've taught you and what i've shared with you is far too important let me remind you i don't want you to get away from this and i don't want it to get away from you let me remind you the apostle peter is a very interesting character if you've ever read the bible particularly the new testament book of the gospels you'll find a roller coaster ride if you follow the life of peter first of all we first meet him in scripture he is a jewish fisherman he's an entrepreneur he works in the fishing business and it's how he paid his bills as how he built his life is is how he took care of his family and met his material needs until one chance today he met jesus and at the intersection of that meeting was a transformation of his entire life he was never the same after that one meeting with jesus can change your whole life jesus meets peter in what can seem to be a divine coincidence and tells peter at their first meeting drop your net follow me now you have to understand how profound that statement is that that's a profound statement in light of the fact that peter actually did it peter dropped his net and followed jesus jesus said i'm gonna make you fish for men i know what you've been fishing for i know what you've been doing stop that follow me follow me into the adventure of a lifetime but you can't oh watch this you can't carry your net and reach your next at the same time i just preached that i just said something to somebody your net might be keeping you from your next you can't follow me without dropping your net that's that's so good right it's what amazes me about god he will put us in situations where where it's like perfectly time he'll bring someone into our life or something into our life or some opportunity into our life and they walk across our lives and they pull us and they call us into our next and and in order to go into your next there must be you can't you you have to leave the known in order to go to the next whatever you're doing you know it it's familiar but sometimes your familia is fighting your future because of your unwillingness to disconnect from it and i understand why there is this tension around going into my next i understand it because because my now has been feeding me my now has been paying my bills my now has been taking care of me i went to school for my now i i i even opened up my own now business i i started a practice for my now i i've been trained in my now i spent my life trying to develop my now and now you're talking about my next and you're also telling me i can't even take my now into my next and some of y'all i'm preaching to you already because you're in that tension right now between your now and your next and you can't move into your next and take your net you can't move into your future and remain committed to the familiar you got to be willing to make a move and jesus will call you in that moment and something pulls you into uncertainty and in an irrational way makes you want to go after what you don't even know but it's pulling me it's calling me it's calling me can you relate to that can you relate to can you relate to a pool something that calls you out of the familia something you can't even explain to your family they don't even understand they think you're being irresponsible they think you're being ridiculous because they watch you go to school for this and they watch you build your life on this and why would you spend all this time building something like this and walk away from all this to go into something you've never done before i understand the irrationality of it because you can't make that make sense you can't make it make sense all i can tell you is there's something pulling me it's something pulling me and jesus has a way of pulling us he he may use someone he may do something he may use some opportunity but it usually comes at the intersection between us having being prepared like there's something about my now that no longer fulfills me anyway there there's something about my noun that says i've been there and done that and there's something about my necks that pulls me it is the curiosity of my necks the desire that pulls me into a place that i don't know how it's gonna all work out but it's pulling me and it's calling me and he left his now he left his known to pursue his neck excuse me for getting off on the tangent let me say this to somebody who's in that tension right now that you're scared to move into your necks because you're being controlled by your now i just want to tell you that even if peter left the fishing business to go follow jesus if it didn't work if following jesus didn't work he could always go back to fishing he knew how to do that he was great at that and i'm saying that because some of you are scared to pursue your next because you're so so committed and so tethered to your now and i'm telling you whatever your next is if it doesn't work out if you leave your now for your next you can always go back to you now because you're good at it you're great at it you can always rebuild it you got to bet on yourself you are you are the security blanket for your own move i can always do what i did i can always go back to what i did but i'll never know what was my next if i don't break a move and dropping your net can be scary but peter did it i don't know that's a whole nother sermon if he did it he dropped his net and he followed jesus and the bible says that jesus made him one of his 12 disciples he wasn't just one of the 12 he was one of the leaders of the 12 disciples he was one of the leaders of the inner circle he wasn't just in 12 he was amongst the top three with peter james and john and every time you see the disciples listed in the bible peter's name comes first and when he's missing an inner circle peter's name comes first when he's listening to 12 peter's name comes first because he was preeminent amongst the disciples he was the leader of the disciples he's the leader of unto this day he is respected as one of the first popes of the catholic church tradition of post because of his allegiance because jesus said something to him that based on maybe some questionable hermeneutics that people have made him the pope because of a conversation jesus had with him and his disciples in matthew chapter 16 in verses 13 to 19 jesus comes to his disciples and he's walking through caesarea philippi and he says to his disciples well who do men say that i am what's the word on the street about me what are people saying about me and the disciples collectively said well some says there are elias and some say jeremiah and some say uh john or some say one of the other prophets and jesus said ho ho ho ho that's what they say who do y'all say that i am and peter the leader stepped up and said thou art the christ the son of the living god and jesus said flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you that came from my father which is oh that's good right there that that wasn't that didn't come out of your education that's revelation right there see revelation always trumps education excuse me right there that's why in acts chapter 4 verse 13 when some men were describing peter they said let me tell you i can tell you something about peter that's obvious he is an unlearned man he doesn't have any training in the scriptures but i can tell you something else about him he's been with god he has been with the lord i'm telling you i'm all for a formal education get all the education you can get in your life but know this that revelation trumps education every time and if you get a good education or you don't get a good education may everybody that meets you say i can tell she's been with god i can tell he's been with god peter is an amazing character one minute he is on a mountaintop of commitment to jesus telling jesus and all the disciples i will never let you down i don't care what it costs if i have to die or go to jail you can count on me in less than 24 hours he was cussing people off saying i don't even know who jesus is it was peter who when jesus was about to be arrested because he loved jesus so much who pulled out his sword and cut somebody's ear off because he's willing to fight for jesus and later that same night he was warming his hands by the enemy's fire is an intriguing personality how do you go from that to to the place where after jesus was said to have risen from the dead the bible says peter ran to the tomb he ran to the tomb let me tell you something if you ever heard somebody you knew that died was alive again you would be impressed you may even look it up online but you ain't running to nobody's tomb site unless they matter to you there he is running to the tomb of jesus and then he gets his recommissioning from jesus when jesus says if you love me feed my sheep do you love me feed my lambs and jesus recommissioned them and it is peter in the book of acts who's leading the church at pentecost and thousands are coming to jesus every day under his ministry and leadership and then when they tell him to stop preaching in jesus name he keeps on preaching and when he gets beaten and persecuted for him he doesn't run and say i don't know jesus he says i'm honored to get beaten in this name this is the peter we're talking about right now and this same peter who's writing this book that we're studying today is about to die second peter was written just before peter died and we don't know exactly how he died but we know in john chapter 21 verse 18 to 19 that jesus actually prophesied to peter about how he would die he says they're going to stretch your arms out and they're going to take you somewhere you don't want to go and so jesus is actually prophesying that peace peter will die like jesus via crucifixion that's what we have in scripture in mythology and legend we are told that peter was crucified upside down because he felt he was too unworthy to be crucified like jesus so he said crucify me upside down now that's mythology i don't know if that's true it may be impossible for a person to be crucified upside down because what happens in crucifixion to break down the anatomical structure of a human being usually requires them to be upright for that to happen but no matter how he died he died but just before he died he wants to remind this group of believers in asia minor uh some things he does not want them to forget and he says over and over again in this passage i just read let me remind you i want to remind you i want to remind you i don't want you to forget this i don't want you to forget this even when i'm gone let me remind you of this and what he's reminding them of is back in verses 5 through 9 let me read that in verse 5 he says in view of all of this i'm in first second peter 1 verse 5 and view of all this make every effort to respond to god's promises supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence and moral excellence with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with patient endurance and patient endurance with godliness verse 7 and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love for everyone verse 8 here it is the more you grow like this the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of the lord jesus christ but those who fall to who fail to develop in this way those who fail to develop in this way those who fail to develop in this way are short-sighted or blind forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins he says don't forget this don't forget don't forget that you must grow in your relationship with god if you don't grow in your relationship with god you're going to be in trouble if you're not growing in your knowledge of jesus christ you're going to be in trouble and i want to remind you of this and he gives them four reasons in this book four reasons why peter wants them to be reminded of how important it is to continue to grow in their relationship with jesus christ and i'm telling you these four reasons are important for us let me say something being a stagnant christian is dangerous and i want to give you these same four reasons that peter gave to his audience the believers in asia minor the first reason he says is because of the competing voices all around them the competing voices they were called false teachers he spends a lot of time in this book talking about false teachers and in verse in chapter 2 verse 12 listen to these words he says these false teachers verse 12 chapter 2 are like unthinking animals creatures of instinct they're born to be caught and destroyed they scoff at things they do not understand like and like animals they will be destroyed their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done they love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight they are a disgrace and a stain among you watch this they delight in deception even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals they commit adultery with their eyes and their desire for sin is never satisfied they lure unstable people into sin and they are well trained in greed they live under god's curse verse 15 they have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of balaam the son of beor who loved to earn money by doing wrong ooh listen to that he's talking about false teachings he says watch this they have wandered off the right road it is very intriguing to me that when you look at somebody who could be considered a wicked leader considered a wicked leader or a false teacher that the bible says here in second peter chapter 2 verse 15 that they wandered off the right road which means at some point this leader was on the right path i don't care who you are you have to understand that even when you're in leadership we have to always pray lord please keep me on the right path please keep me in the right way please keep me god these people were on the right path and ended up on a path of not only misleading and misguiding people but on the path of their own personal destruction and peter says the reason why i gotta remind you of the things and the truths you've learned is because they're competing voices all around you they're false teachers everywhere and they're misleading you and oh how true that is now like think about all the competing voices against our christian doctrine and our christian beliefs and our christian philosophies and our christian faith think about all the competing voices it's far more difficult than in peter's time in peter's time you could probably like count the false teachers and you could easily identify them because they all were a part of the christian ecclesiastical order they were all ministers they were all preachers but now you don't have to be reverend or doctor or bishop or evangelist or prophet or prophetess to be a false teacher you can just be a podcaster all you need is a platform you can be a writer of books or plays or a blogger and be a false prophet you can put dope beats to music and put lyrics over top of it like a rapper or a singer and be a false prophet you can put on a suit and walk in washington dc on capitol hill and be dressed in the clothing and garments of a politician and all the while you're producing policies that are all about false prophets you're a false prophet you you you can you can be a school teacher and be a false prophet you can be a social media influencer and be a false prophet it's all you need to be a false prophet now is a platform and an audience and a misleading message and i'm saying it's everywhere everywhere you turn everywhere you open your phone you turn on the television you go everywhere what's the truth what's the truth and peter said i got to remind you of it i got to remind you of it because there are a lot of voices competing there a lot of competing voices so you have to be reminded of truth because there's so many things out here that are distracting you when i when i was a cashier at this kmart that i'm standing in right now i used to work in this building one of the things that they used to do was back when i was a cashier this is the 1980s they didn't have the markers that would detect counterfeit money so you couldn't swipe it with a marker and it would reveal by the ink that this was counterfeit they never did that for us and they never showed us counterfeit money when i worked as a cashier kmart they only showed us real money they only let us work with real money and it only kept us around real money and the thinking behind that was if you're around real money enough fake money will stand out as soon as you see it and it worked it worked for me i never collected any fake money the whole time i worked there and here's the truth here's the truth see god wants you to be so familiar with his truth and so exposed to his truth that when a lie comes out it stands out to you but if you're dabbling in lies all the time and you only dabble in truth part-time you just listen to somebody preach on sundays or on weekends then how can you stand up against all the competing voices you don't even know the truth well enough for it to expose a lie first reason he says i'm gonna remind you is because of all these competing voices the second reason is in verse 10 of chapter one the second reason i want to remind you of how important it is to keep drawing your relationship with god is so that you don't fall away listen to ii peter chapter 2 chapter 1 verse 10 it says these things so dear brothers and sisters work hard to prove that you're really among those god is called and chosen do these things and you will never fall away do these things and you will never fall away do what things everything he said in verse five to nine add to your add to your faith generous provision of moral excellence add to more excellence knowledge to knowledge self-control to self-control patients patient endurance the patient endurance godliness etc etc grow like this grow like this grow like this do these things and you won't fall away isn't that deep that the key to never it's called apostasy in scripture the theological term is is a falling away you'd be surprised how many people who were once rooted in the church who are not only not going to church they are out there i mean just out there just out there he says the key to being the key to not falling away is not stability it's growth you can't just be stagnant you can't just be like i'm chilling spiritually like this world this flesh this enemy this darkness these false teachers these competing invoices it's too many things pulling us in the opposite way it's like being on a treadmill if a trail middle is on and it's moving if you're not moving forward you're going backwards you can't just be stagnant you're going to fall away and he says i'm trying to remind you these things so that you do not fall away somebody put in the chat lord don't let me fall away we're fighting these enemies we're fighting our own flesh it reminds me of a song i used to sing back in the day we used to sing hymns where i'm from where i went to chapel and bible college we sing hymns i'm i'm you know i'm praying i'll praise the thing with throwing him in no me throw nobody on the bus but there's an old hymn to call come thou fount of every blessing tune my heart to sing thy grace streams of mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise teach me some melodious sonnet sung by flaming stars above y'all don't know about that but this is what i love about it this is what i love about it the song says prone to wander lord i feel it prone to leave the god i love so lord take my heart take and seal it seal it for thy courts above i'm prone to wander i'm prone to wander i got wandering tendencies and the way you fight wandering is growth are you growing here's a question i want to ask you straight up here's a question my question to you is this are you growing spiritually in your life right now are you growing spiritually in your life right now and when i say right now i ain't talking about this second i'm talking this season of your life are you growing are you growing in fact in second peter 3 17 and 18 peter brings this issue up again seconds peter 3 17 and 18 he says this i am warning you ahead of time dear friends be on guard so that you will not be carried away there it is again by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing rather how do you fix it peter you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our lord and savior jesus christ growth is the key are you growing in your life right now is there is there an ascending pattern towards jesus happening in your life is there this spiritual momentum that's moving you forward based on your devotion based on your discipline based on your spiritual habits because i'm tell you something right now if you're not repent right now get with god right now put it on your calendar get it on your phone get back in prayer get back into his word get in worship get in fellowship stop working at the church and start worshiping the god of the church stop hiding behind cliches stop hiding behind lingo because you can sound spiritual won't he won't he won't he do it won't he come through ain't gotta god is good all the time all the time god is good i ain't talking about lingo i'm talking about an authentic genuine ascension of your daily devotion to jesus christ that's pulling you deeper into his truth that's pulling you stronger into prayer and it's pulling you to a more committed life to his word are you growing spiritually because if you're not growing spiritually you are in trouble you are in danger sometimes you don't know it if you ever ask somebody who was once rooted in the lord and down there just out there and you can just see it on the social media post just how they flow now they used to talk about the lord we're talking about you they were really devoted now they just talk about they wilding out it ain't just the pandemic they just they gone right if you would ever talk to them and they would ever run back the film if they run back to film they would have to tell you that it didn't happen quickly it wasn't suddenly i didn't just fall out one day and i was out here it started with compromise it started with spiritual complacency i just started taking my time and the word for granted i just started taking prayer and worship again i got used to i just i started getting god became familiar to me yeah be careful be careful i'm reminding you so that you don't slip away here's the third here's the third reason why he warns them and reminds them he says thirdly it's not just because of false teachers it's not just because you might fall away he says i'm reminding you to keep growing in the lord because i'm running out of time i'm running out of time in verse 14. listen what he says i'm back in chapter 1 and verse 14 back in our text he says our god our lord jesus christ has shown me that i must soon leave this earthly life i'm running out of time i'm working hard to tell y'all and remind y'all and teach y'all and warn y'all cause my time is running out i'm running out of time i'm running out of time the time of my departure is at hand paul put it that way i don't know how much time i have left and surely he didn't know when he would die but he knew he was going to die he says i'm running out of time and i got to make sure that i give this to you all before my time runs out this was the last thing this was the last thing these little three chapters in second peter the last letter that peter ever wrote was right before he died let me ask you a question what would you write right before you died what would you write who would you write and what would you say what would be the content of your final words in writing would you tell somebody you love them that has been difficult to say that too so that they'll make sure that you don't leave without them hearing that would you say you're sorry to somebody that maybe you've allowed something to fester between you that really was petty compared to the bigger picture in life would you apologize to somebody would you tell somebody i'm proud of you and i wouldn't want to leave this life without you knowing it i i don't want you to wonder if i'm proud i want you to know i believe in you i'm hopeful for you and i believe everything's going to be all right what would you what would you post if you were running out of time if you have one more post to put on social media if you have one more post to put on your ig page your facebook page your tick tock or your twitter page what would you post what would you post what would you want what message would you want to communicate to the broader audience what would you tell people may i make a suggestion to you maybe you can take time right now [Music] to do what you just thought you would do maybe just take your phone right now and just text somebody and say i love you i know you they should know i love them i pay your tuition don't i pay and you got something to eat don't you yeah it's kind of his responsibility but seem like you don't like me maybe you can text somebody right now and tell them i'm proud of you i know i get on your live but i'm probably maybe you can text somebody right now and just say i'm sorry for my contribution to the confusion and chaos let me tell you why i said let me tell you why that's so important because just like peter we're all running out of time and let me tell you something else in the world we live in every single day 150 000 people die every day and that's pre covert let me tell you something about those 150 150 000 people that will die before this day is over before this night is over is that very few of them know for sure what their last day will be let me tell you something about us we don't know either we don't know death off death often comes unexpectedly so while we have time what would you say take a page out of peter's book and write something that you don't want to leave earth without reminding people of i got one more reason and then i have a final point one more reason why peter had to remind these people these believers to keep growing in the lord not just because of false teachers not just because if you don't keep growing you might fall away and not just because he was running out of time but because you know what he's saying this is my legacy work it's about legacy work i'm a read description i want to tell you something from my heart today and i might get emotional about this because i really feel like i'm in a season of legacy work but it's in verse 15 where i get this point he says so i will work hard to make sure you always remember these things after i'm gone after i'm gone after i'm gone you know what i know for every single one of you listen to me including myself one day will be said of us to be said of all of us after i'm gone what are you doing about after you're gone legacy work legacy work legacy work it's important what are you doing to prepare here's my question what are you preparing and who are you pouring into for when you're gone let me say it again what are you preparing what are you building what are you what are you putting in place and who are you pouring into for after you're gone that's profound that's legacy work peter's saying this ain't even about me at this point it's about y'all now somebody type legacy work into the chat legacy work this ain't even about me anymore i'm about to bounce i'm about to go up yonder yeah i'm about to go to the place where the wicked ceased from troubling and the weary be at rest i'm about to go to a place where there leaves on trees that are good for the healing of the nations i'm about to go to a place where the old folks say i'll study war no more i'm about to go to the place where all the saints of god are gathered at home and we'll tell the story how we've overcome and we'll understand it better by and by i'm about to check out some glad morning when this life is over i'll fly away this ain't even about me this is legacy work i'm going to a place where there's no more sickness and no more sorrow and no more pain and no more death and god shall wipe away every tear from my eyes i'm about to get my wings yeah the time is at hand i'm ready to be poured out like a drink offering the time of my departure is at hand yeah henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness that the lord the righteous the judge shall give me on that day and not to me only but to all those that love his appearing i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready and it is well with my soul it don't have to be well with my body it only had to be well with my mind it's well with my soul i'm ready so i got some work to do some legacy work it's not about me now time is running out i've fought my battles i've lived my dreams i've seen god's hand i'm pouring now i'm pouring now i'm pouring now i live with my cup tilted now my cup is on tilt now i live my life trying to fill my cup and learn what i could learn and gain what i can gain and succeed where i can succeed but now i've shifted now my cup is tilted now i'm trying to see where i can pour now who needs what i got if i got it you can have it if i know it you can learn it if i understand it i'll share it with you i'm pouring now if you already know everything i'm not here for you i'm looking for some way to pour i'm looking for a water to plant i'm looking for a saucer to drip over into and to tell my experience and to learn somebody understands what i'm talking about that you come to a place where you slayed your bears and you slayed your lions and you slayed your giants and you run through a wall and you leaped over the wall and you run through troops it ain't even about you anymore you're looking for the next generation of killers that you can pour into and teach them how to win that's what legacy work is all about i'm not intimidated about who's got next i'm not intimidated by my replacement i welcome you when you came on the scene that was my cue it's my curtain call when you showed up i'm not intimidated by you i'm giving back to you who are you giving back to giving back to who's behind you everybody i pour into who's behind me if they get filled up we all rise up you understand what i'm saying i don't have to be insecure about who's next i've already done what i wanted i've lived my life i've accomplished my dreams peter said i'm running out of time and it's important that i give you everything i got because let me tell you something it's cool to live with a full cup but you should never die with a cup that's full you should die empty whose your timothy paul lois eunice yeah everybody talk about what paul meant to timothy long before paul came on the scene it was a lois and it was a eunice that poured into him who's your esther mordecai who's your who's your joshua moses i'm preaching to somebody today that's got to have a shift in your mind that is no longer about you it's about who's next whoever i'm preaching to right now hear my shoulders heal my shoulders don't just lean on them stand on them i want you to see what i couldn't see i wanted to go where i couldn't go moses saw the promised land joshua will walk in it who's next who's next who's next who's next i'm looking for next i'm not intimidated by dex i'm looking for next i'm looking for places i can pour i'm looking for places it's legacy work it's legacy where do y'all understand what i'm saying i want to leave this life empty it's pouring time it's pouring time it's pouring time when i'm gone i don't want you to forget this he says i'm telling you this so you remember when i'm gone let me remind you for when i'm gone may you always remember this when i'm gone because i'm leaving i'm putting i'm putting infrastructures in place yeah i'm putting systems in place i'm putting things in place so that you have a solid foundation to build on legacy legacy legacy legacy legacy give back and because peter wrote something peter wrote something that would outlive him i want to challenge somebody listening to me today you need to write something some of you should be writing a book you say well some of y'all don't write because you don't think you're an author writing a book is not about just selling books most people to write books cannot live off the books they wrote writing a book is about leaving something that keeps speaking for you when you're gone that's legacy work legacy work i'm reminding you because this is my legacy work i got one more thing and i'm done one more thing he reminds them of in chapter three he says i want you to remember this thing look at chapter three verse eight in chapter three verse eight he says but you must not forget this one thing dear friends don't forget this don't forget this a day is like a thousand years to the lord think about that in a thousand years like a day god's time schedule is totally different listen a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day watch this the lord isn't really being slow about his promise see what was going on here is that a lot of people didn't think god was keeping his word because he promised he was coming back but he hadn't came back so he said he can't be trusted he can't keep his word but god is more and more watch this god's patience is trumping his promise listen to this he says god is not back to verse 9 the lord isn't really being slow about his promise as some people think no he's being patient for your sake he does not want anyone to be destroyed but wants everyone to repent here's what the word of god is saying the reason why god hasn't come back yet is he's giving us time to get it right it ain't that he broke his promise that he's coming back is that he's patient his patience his love he's waiting on us he's waiting on us he's waiting on us people look at why is there so much evil in the world today it's because of the patience of the lord he's let his people a while now it's because of the patience of the lord when we say with god see because if god wasn't patient he would just wipe the world out and not give anybody any more chance and we would and a lot of christian people say well wipe him out jesus but he didn't wipe you out oh y'all ain't ready for that he didn't wipe you out with you i know you've been so saved so long that you forgot you was all up in the midst of it you was you was throwing the parties you was running the numbers you was pushing all of the sin all around but he didn't wipe you out the reason why god has not come back yet because he's patient and he's waiting on people to repent and he's giving people time to get it right and i don't know about you but i'm grateful that he waited on me i'm grateful that he waited on me are you grateful that he waited on you are you grateful that he waited on you and i got a question for you what would have happened if he hadn't waited check this out where would i be if you left me god where would i be if you left me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you waited for me [Applause] [Music] where would i be [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] wow wow god wait think about that question where would i be where would i be if you hadn't waited it's scary to think about it isn't it i don't even wan i don't even want to see the what could have been footage of where i would have been where would i have been if you hadn't waited where would you be if you hadn't waited and god waited in some dark places for us he waited outside of nightclubs and waited outside of strip clubs and waited outside of crack houses and waited outside the hotels and waited outside of parked cars and wait yeah yeah we said he waited outside of liquor stores he waited outside of gambling casinos he's still waiting he's still waiting because he loves us if you're grateful that he waited give him a praise that he waited that he waited that he waited let the lord know you're grateful that he waited in fact here's something i want you to do i want you to think about the time when you first met the lord like when you first came to christ and gave him your life as your savior anybody in that category how old were you when you did that because however old you were at that time if you subtract the years from your birth that's how long he waited for you he waited for you and then some of us got saved then backslid and then he waited again and he waited again so we came back out of that and came back out of that thank god that he waited that he waited that he's a patient god that he loves us enough to wait on him that he let thank you god that you let time be my friend that she let enough click enough talks enough clicks on the talk on the clock enough clicks on the clock enough ticks on the clock i'm gonna get it right you left enough ticks on the clock for me to get it right you left enough calendar days on the calendar for me to get it right you left enough months in the year for me to get it right you left me enough time to get it right and i'm so grateful for that thank you lord for waiting thank you for waiting so i have a question for you in light of how often and how long god waited for us is there somebody that we need to wait on who gets on your nerves who are you sick and tired of i'm tired of them lying i'm tired of them breaking promises i'm tired of being irresponsible time not coming through i'm tired of the addiction i'm tired of their behavior i'm tired of it fed up done with them who are you done with let me ask you a question could it can you just ask god god is it possible that you want me to wait on them like you waited on and god didn't just wait on us and sit back he was loving on us and covering us and caring for us and jesus was praying for us who is it that god wants you to patiently wait on ask god to help you i've kept you long enough let me close with verse 15 of chapter three it's a little phrase that really blessed me when i read it it's the a portion of chapter three of ii peter it says and remember our lord's patience gives people time to be saved remember our lord's patient gives people time to be saved thank you lord for waiting and many of you right now this is your moment it's because of the truth of that verse that you're about to be saved because he waited on you and this is your moment and i'm just gonna serve as your as your prayer guide right now it's not all i'm going to do is give you some words and and it's not the words it's it's what's coming out of your mouth and what's coming out of your heart that i'm just giving you some words to connect your heart with the heart of god so just say these things with me if you're saying listen preacher you're talking to me today he was patient enough to give me time to be saved i want to be saved i want to know where i'm going is to heaven when i die i want to be saved i want that if that's you say these words with me just repeat these words dear god say it dear god thank you for the time you've given me and i don't want to waste any more time thank you for this moment thank you for your grace thank you for your patience thank you for not giving up on me i i've given up on myself and you haven't given up on me thank you thank you for your word your word says whosoever shall call upon say that with me the name of the lord shall be saved your word says whosoever shall call upon the name of the lord shall be saved i call your name right now the name of the lord jesus christ and i thank you for your forgiveness for your patience for your mercy and for your salvation thank you for amazing grace this day amen amen amen let me tell you something in the spiritual world for hundreds of you change just fell off of you spiritually because he just set you free he just set you free and i don't just want you to rejoice by yourself i want you to celebrate by yourself i want you to hit me up i want you to email me and tell me that you just prayed this prayer i know all y'all be calling praying telling me what asking me telling you your feet hurt and all that i'm talking about people who prayed this prayer praise the lord you prayed this prayer and you're aligning your faith with jesus christ and you want to take the next step right now i want to rejoice with you and i want to give you next steps here's what you do email me at keith battle zionchurch.org keith battle zionchurch.org hit me up i'm going to give you some information and share with you how to keep this spiritual momentum going in your life so that you can grow in your relationship with god my time is up god bless y'all see you next week let's live for jesus and that's love for him as well amen

Channel: Keith Battle

Views: 5,045

Rating: 4.8541665 out of 5

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Id: rT9X3g4bZDU

Length: 49min 37sec (2977 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 15 2021