A Great and Glorious Coming

At the very end of Jesus ministry, and I mean the very end, just before he ascended back to heaven he gathered his disciples and gave them the great commission.

I often ask candidates for baptism why this passage is so important.  Because Jesus recognizes this is the last thing he was going to say, just like the things you would say if you knew you had only a few hours to live.  So, he instructs the disciples by saying “all authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth. . .”

If you paid attention to the reading of this passage you will recognize that Peter is giving a kind of last will and testament.

Note his condition:

          What Peter does here is very similar to what many others have done.  Probably the most familiar to us is when Jacob gathered his twelve sons before he died and spoke of his imminent death and the role that each of these sons would play as the heads of the twelve tribes of

Israel.

The pattern goes something like this:

          Someone knows they are about to die

          They call their family and close friends

          They remind them to remember his teaching and example

          They may speak of the future

          They give moral instruction

This is what Peter is doing in this paragraph which become a transition between the challenge to grow in Christ and the specific issue Peter wants to address.

Now how did Peter know he was going to die?

          How do you want your steak?  Pureed.

          You and your teeth don’t sleep together any more.

You bed over to straighten your wrinkled socks only to discover you are wearing any.

At the breakfast table you hear snap, crackle and pop and nobody is eating cereal

One of the throw pillow on your bed is a hot water bottle

Happy hour is nap time

His Concern

That they remember.

This is important.

          Weddings - make us remember our commitments

          Funerals - make us remember things about life

          Study and interaction with the word of God

Things they know - v 12

Established in the truth - v 12

Remind you - v 13

Able to call these things to mind - v 15

We too have been gathered this morning to hear what Peter has to say . . .

This is the main pt:

          Christ is going to return in glory and judgement at the end of history

You see this is precisely where the false teachers were attacking Christian truth

Peter now reminds them of his teaching:

It was according to cleverly invented stories

If he is not coming all there then is this life

          It doesn’t matter how we live

You don’t have to worry about being reward for good or judged for evil

So what his first argument against their message being cleverly devised

But we were eye witnesses

          What we teach is the direct result of what we saw and heard.

          John - we have tasted, handled, heard, seen

          Paul - many have seen the resurrected Christ.

The transfiguration prefigures what will take place when Christ returns

          Beloved son - Psalm 2

          My chosen one in whom my soul delights - Isa 42:1

          I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain Ps2

Peter’s second argument - The Prophetic word

          We should pay attention

          It is not really the word of man

          It is the word of God