"EMBRACING LIFE"

Dr. Glen A. Thorp August 14, 2011
II Peter 3:1-18, Psalm 57 (All Rights Reserved)
“EMBRACING LIFE”
(Teaching to Live Well!)

INTRODUCTION: “This must have been one the worst weeks of the year.” As a result of the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the United State’s credit rating from AAA to AA+, the Stock Market plunge 634.76 points, on Monday. The worst drop since 2008. Tuesday, after the Federal Reserve indicated it would keep interest rates where they were for two years, the Stock Market jumped 420 points. Wednesday, the Market was back down 500 points. Ended week: up 126.

“Rioters Spread a Trail of Theft and Destruction Across London, Birmingham, Nottingham and Manchester, England. This worst outbreak of civil unrest in a decade, was sparked by the shooting of a local man by the police, aggravated by economic uncertainty and lawlessness youth broke windows of shops then stole items like cell-phones and plasma TVs. Fires were set causing destruction to building, buses and cars. The masked hooligans took advantage of the situation to have fun destroying and stealing.

Tuesday, through Twitter and Premier Christian Radio thousands of volunteers showed up with brooms to clean up the affected neighborhoods. One man said: “I am more encouraged by thousands who came to help than I am discouraged by those who caused such destruction.” England follows the pattern began last summer in France and evidenced this year in Greece.

It reminds me of the riots that occurred in SE LA after the police were acquitted of excessive force of the beating of Rodney King in Sylmar,1992.
During times of economic downturn, almost any incident can spark a riot, looting and destruction to property.

This week the bodies of 30 Special Forces including 25 Navy Seals, were flown home. Last week, a Chinook helicopter transporting 38 members of the Special Forces, including 8 Afghans, crashed killing all aboard. It was the worst loss of life in one incident in the Afghan war.

We live in uncertain times: Economic, Drought, Fires etc. The 9.0 earthquake in Japan followed by a huge tsunami causing mas destruction, including four nuclear plants lead to evacuation of large areas in Northern Japan, shut-down of automobile assembly plants and rationed amount of electricity resulting in office workers arriving in casual clothes because the A.C was turned off. During a normal calendar year Southern California has around 367 earthquakes of 3.0. That is more than one every day. We take them for granted. After the 1994 Northridge Earthquake of 6.7 one our church members gave me Psalm 57:1-2
O God in you ... my soul takes refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the disaster has passed.

Psalm 18:31-33 (Read) Who is God beside the Lord?
Who is the Rock except our God?

It is said that the safest place during the “BIG ONE” is the Golden Gate Bridge. It is said to be able withstand a 9.0 earthquake. Sway and Cantilever Construction: every bit of concrete, pavement and steel interrelated with two giant cables attached to two pillars deeply embedded into Bed Rock. God is our Bed Rock!

Each of the Scriptures has a similar theme:
Embracing Life rather than being paralyzed by it.
Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain wisdom. The Message: Teach us to live well! Teach us to live wisely & well!
II Peter Was written to warn, teach about False Teachers
and handling heresy within their community.
I Peter addressed handling persecution (trials from outside.)

3:1 Dear friends, this is my second letter to you.
I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate
you to wholesome thinking. Emb!racing Life

Three Great Truths on which to do this.

1. Time to God is not the same as to us.
God may have seemed slow to act as Christians faced persecution every day and were seeing their friends die. False teachers: Scoffed:
“See Jesus did not keep his word. He has not returned." (3:8)
Psalm 90:4: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years,
and a thousand years are like a day.
Time as viewed from human and divine perspectives:
Century - human calendar like a couple of hours with God.
Reversal of relationship between days and years. That is true.

2. Time is regarded as an opportunity.
"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise ...
He is patient with you." (Time for Repentance)
Jesus is waiting so more people will come to believe.
Jn.10:10 I have come that you may have life, have it to the full
In the mean time we are embracing life to the fullest.
Living each day as it may be our last and planning as if Jesus will not return for a long time. Each day is a gift to use, to develop ourselves,
to grow closer to God and to render service to another.
Embrace God’s gift of time.

3. God does not wish that any should perish.
Not wanting anyone to perish,
But everyone come to repentance.

Genesis 15:16 For the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure God told Abraham 400 years before fulfilled, longer than the USA has existed.

v. 10 The day of the Lord will come like a thief.
The heavens will disappear with a roar,
the elements will be destroyed by fire and
the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
"Everything that is done will disclosed." (NRSV)
Maintains the nuances of the Greek preserving the basic verb: erga from the word “to work, to do.”

Day of Lord: (Read) Isaiah 34:4. Joel 3:15,16 –2:12,13
Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, Revelation 6:12-17
Acts 3:19-21, Romans 2:4

Epicureans, False Teachers: “Since God had yet to intervene to reverse human injustice, it was proof that there would be no ultimate judgment of humans before God ... Truth: Divine judgement was seen in connection with redemption.” “New Heaven/Earth”
“In his kindness, God holds back his judgement giving people time to repent. It is easy to mistake God’s patience for approval of the wrong way we are living.”

“Everything God does is true to God’s character.
God is merciful, knows all, and acts justly –
and his timing is perfect.” (Application Bible, Gn. 15)

v. 5 God created the world by His Word.
God’s Word will play a similar part in the final catastrophe. God does not need to submit to the so called laws of the universe. (Richard Dawkins)

v. 9 God’s mercy is an alternative explanation for
the alleged delay of the parousia the coming of a head-state.

C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, p. 137
“God was everlasting. His life was infinite in time.
Nothing outlasts God, nothing slips away from Him.
Timeless as an eternal present.”
The Eternal may meet us in what is by our present measurements, a day or a minute, or a second but we have touched what is not in any way commensurable with lengths of time, whether long or short.”

Psalm 18:31-33 “God promises to give us strength to meet challenges, but he doesn’t promise to eliminate them ... God stands beside us, teaches us, and strengthens us to face them.” (Application Bible)

II Peter 3:18 Grow in grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Elmer Leslie, The Psalms.
“The greatest contrast between God and man is that between eternity and finitude. We fragile children think of a millennium as a vast epoch. But eternal God as though it were but yesterday. God has appointed man a time of living comparable to a swiftly passing watch in the night. (3 hours)
Like grass luxurious in the morning only to wither by evening tide under the harsh oriental sun.

Pray that God, the great teacher, will teach people to pay earnest heed to the brevity of life and therefore embrace each passing day with a wise heart. Truly apply that wisdom when omprehending the shortness of human life.”
Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Psalm 57:2 In the shadow of your wing I will take refuge..

Indescribable majesty and power. Keep trusting God.
In God’s timing will come and save ...

CONCLUSION: Pray Like There’s No Tomorrow!
Story: Roger lead Mr. Hanover to Christ on May 7. Five years later he met Hanover’s wife, learning that same day May 7, Mr. Hanover was killed in an car accident. Mrs. Hanover: I prayed that my husband would accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. I thought God had not kept his promise.
I stopped living for God because I thought God had not kept His Word!”

Peggy Noonan, Opinion writer the Wall Street Journal:
After the London Riots (August 13, 2011, A13)
“The riots in Britain left some Americans shaken...
We have been to England, visited a lot of those neighborhoods.
They were peaceful; now they’re in flames...We saw something over there that in smaller ways we’re starting to see over here...
The violence has root causes that government can’t reach...” Noonan quotes a couple of British Newspapers: “Young people have been looting shops they like: JD Sports and Mobile Phone shops,,,yet Waterstone’s Bookstore was left alone...Criminality in a raw form, not politics...”
“Philadelphia right now is under curfew because of flash mobs. Young people send out the word on social media, and suddenly dozens or hundreds of them hit a targeted store, steal everything on the shelves, and run, know one will stop or catch them...
Some of these young people come from brokenness, shallowness and terror...2009, census data, there are 74 million children under 18... 20 million live in single parent families...Over 700,000 children have been the subject of reports of abuse.
The problem, at the bottom, is love, something we never talk about in public policy discussions because it is too soft and cannot be quantified or legislated. But little children ( I would add, adults) without love and guidance are afraid. They are terrified–they have nothing solid in the world, which is a pretty scary place. So they never feel safe. As they grow, their fear becomes rage...violence.
What’s needed cannot be provided by government.”

Embracing Life starts with Embracing God's Love Appreciating every moment of life and Seeking to Demonstrate the Transforming Power of God's Love to all, espcially those who have not known love and live in fear. Perfect love casts out fear.