Mosaic Church | Winter Garden Audio

Paul reminds us that God has always intended Jesus’ church to be led—not by one leader—but by a plurality of them. Not only are the leaders to be plural, but godly and worth following. They must have character that stands both the test of time and the watchful eye of the entire church body. Ultimately, God’s desire is for godly leadership within the local church to be influenced by God’s character rather than the world’s culture.

Paul writes to his long-time disciple Titus in order to preserve the church in the strategic but rebellious island of Crete. Our trustworthy God, unlike the lying, false gods of Crete, will be made known when the church grows in the faith and knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness and hope. All of this is only possible as we are filled with the grace and peace of the gospel that overflows into a lost and broken world.

Life is full of long, hard labor. When it is tempting for us to take shortcuts or give up altogether, we can trust that God, in time, will bear fruit in our lives. The fruit may come in this life, it may come in even greater degree in eternity, or it may look like growth in deeper faith and greater joy in our hearts. So stay the course, Long-Laborer; your trustworthy God will see that your labor for Him is not in vain.

Peter closes his second letter by reminding us of God’s amazing, multiplied grace. This grace empowers us to sacrificially offer our lives to God as we await Jesus’ imminent return. Not only that, but we likewise keep ourselves from being carried away into lawlessness by growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. And where we stumble in living out God’s unwavering truth, His grace is greater still to catch us where we fall. Jesus has all the more grace to give and therefore all the more glory to have, both now and forever.

It is a fact that Jesus will return despite any disbelief. Although this is sobering, it also should compel believers to respond and live lives of holiness and godliness. The invitation to actively wait for His return while simultaneously hastening His coming by participating in our sanctification is beautiful! By the power of the Holy Spirit, we can move towards being more and more like Him – set apart, unique, different – Holy.

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.

Believers today often long to have been with Jesus and to have seen what the first disciples saw. However, Peter actually tells us that what strengthens our faith is not ultimately what we see, but the word revealed by God through man as they were carried along by the Spirit! Let us then be diligent to “pay attention” to the lamp of God’s word until Jesus comes again to bring grace and justice to the earth!

The common view of our culture is that the old is useless and the new is better. Yet, Peter is encouraging believers to be regularly reminded of the ‘Old Truths’ that our faith has been founded on. Why? Because we are prone to forget what we know! Therefore, as we gather together, let us learn to be intentional and consistent in our efforts to remind one another of the grace that stirs us up to love and good works.

Knowing that his death is imminent, Peter urgently reminds Christians that the virtuous life can only be sustained by worshipping in response to the grace we have received and continue to receive. Therefore, now that we have received all things for life and godliness, we are invited to deeply enjoy the glory of life in the Kingdom, remembering the incredible reality that we have been rescued from worldly corruption to become partakers of the divine nature!

Peter begins his last letter to the Church, all of whom are of equal standing before God with the apostles, to encourage us to open ourselves to more of the grace God multiplies to us. Believers can either close themselves off to the experience of grace multiplied or they can open themselves more fully to the God who is not merely the God of all grace, but the God of MORE grace.

Why is Easter Sunday such a big deal? On this day, we remember and celebrate that Jesus ransomed people from every nation with His blood and has made us conquerors with Him in His victory over death. As Home comes with light and life to fill the earth, pushing out death and darkness, we will get to forever enjoy the glory of our risen Christ, the only one worthy to carry forth God’s plan to make all things new!

Good Friday provides us the sobering opportunity to remind our prone-to-forget hearts the mind blowing reality of Christ crucified in our place. While we deserved death and eternal separation from God, yet our Savior became flesh to take our sin upon himself and tear the veil that previously kept us distant from where we belonged all along. Our true Home, God’s holy and loving presence, has come after us and near to us through Jesus. This is what makes Good Friday, so “Good”.

After the manifest presence of God departs from the architectural temple, God promises of a better temple to come. This promised temple pictures a river flowing from it giving life to everything it touches. Today, God is faithfully bringing about this vision as those who come to Jesus are filled with the Spirit and now have “rivers of living water” flowing from their hearts. Mosaic celebrates its 20th anniversary as one of the many ways our faithful God has been bringing light and life into the world through His generational and global church to push back the gates of hell.