WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? (4 OF 10)
by Roger Thomas
Scripture: II PETER 3
This content is part of a series.
What Are You Waiting For? (4 of 10)
Series: Eternal Matters
Roger Thomas
II Peter 3:1-15
Introduction: Waiting is hard! Just ask anyone sitting in a hospital waiting room looking for the surgeon to report on the outcome of a loved one's operation. Or watch a patient waiting in a doctor's office to be told the results of the biopsy. Or soldiers, poised and ready for battle, just waiting for the command to move out. Or a farmer waiting for the rain to quit.
Even waiting for positive things is not easy. Just ask a child trying to stay in bed on Christmas morning like told. Or a father at the wheel of the family car when asked for the ten millionth time, "Are we there yet?" Or a retiring employee waiting for the last day at work. Or just waiting for vacation.
But hard or not, waiting is exactly what believers must do until Jesus comes. Jesus said he was going away and that he was coming back. Until then we wait!
Scripture puts it like this: "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him" (Heb. 9:27-28). "Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains" (James 5:7). James apparently had never met any Missouri farmers!
This is perhaps the biggest challenge of the Christian life--waiting for Christ's return. We are not the first to face the challenge nor do we know if ours will be the last generation that has to wait. As we wait, two traps need to be avoided.
First, some are always tempted to do nothing else but wait, to just drop everything that they are doing, fold their hands and wait. Believers have done that. Even in my lifetime, I have read of groups who became convinced that Christ's return was just ar ...
Series: Eternal Matters
Roger Thomas
II Peter 3:1-15
Introduction: Waiting is hard! Just ask anyone sitting in a hospital waiting room looking for the surgeon to report on the outcome of a loved one's operation. Or watch a patient waiting in a doctor's office to be told the results of the biopsy. Or soldiers, poised and ready for battle, just waiting for the command to move out. Or a farmer waiting for the rain to quit.
Even waiting for positive things is not easy. Just ask a child trying to stay in bed on Christmas morning like told. Or a father at the wheel of the family car when asked for the ten millionth time, "Are we there yet?" Or a retiring employee waiting for the last day at work. Or just waiting for vacation.
But hard or not, waiting is exactly what believers must do until Jesus comes. Jesus said he was going away and that he was coming back. Until then we wait!
Scripture puts it like this: "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him" (Heb. 9:27-28). "Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains" (James 5:7). James apparently had never met any Missouri farmers!
This is perhaps the biggest challenge of the Christian life--waiting for Christ's return. We are not the first to face the challenge nor do we know if ours will be the last generation that has to wait. As we wait, two traps need to be avoided.
First, some are always tempted to do nothing else but wait, to just drop everything that they are doing, fold their hands and wait. Believers have done that. Even in my lifetime, I have read of groups who became convinced that Christ's return was just ar ...
There are 13514 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
