Peter, and you'll remember that the book of 2 Peter is a letter. It's a letter written by a man
named Peter, and he writes it to a church somewhere in the Roman Empire in the 60s AD.
And he writes it with one hope, one goal. He wants these people to grow. And you know by now he wants
them to grow in two ways. He wants them to grow in grace, and he wants them to grow in knowledge.
We're near the end of chapter 3. Today we have only two Sundays left in 2 Peter, this Sunday
and next Sunday. And so we're coming to Peter's conclusion. Remember we've been talking about the
false teachers in chapters 2 and 3. That's why knowledge and grace are so important to Peter,
because both of those things are under attack by the false teachers. And the last two weeks we've
taken a look at the end of the world. Two weeks ago I asked you what is the end of the world going to
look like, and we saw that it's going to include the world being stripped down and then remade.
And then last week we asked not what is the end of the world going to look like, but why do we care?
About the end of the world. Of course the answer was that the end of the world is part of how we
think about and what propels us to live lives of holiness and godliness. Peter is finishing his
letter now, and he's going to give us his final thoughts. In fact, we already kind of saw one of
them in verse 14, because one of his final thoughts is that we would be diligent to be found without spot
or blemish. Now we're moving on to verses 15 through 17. And in 15 through 18, the very end to this
letter we're going to see two basic thoughts that Peter gives us. This week it's going to be negative,
next week's positive. In other words, this week it's what we don't do, next week it's what we do do.
This week, don't be carried away. Verse 17. Next week, verse 18, grow.
Now of course we understand why he would tell us not to be carried away, right? Because we've seen in the
last two chapters we have these false teachers. So we want to make sure if there's false teaching,
we're not taken in by it. However, there's a problem that comes up in this section. We've seen
right at the beginning of chapter 3 that we look to the Bible as our ultimate authority,
but what happens when people look to the Bible as their ultimate authority and come to different
conclusions about it? How do we know that something is false teaching or not? How do we know if someone
is, what Peter refers to here, as twisting? There are some things, verse 16 he tells us,
that the unstable twist to their own destruction. And so we see this principle here, people twist
the scriptures. How do we know when that's happening? What do we do with the fact that many
people read the Bible and come to all sorts of different conclusions? What do we do with all
the different denominations? In fact, if you were to Google right now, any pastor who's prominent,
and then add the words false teacher, there's probably someone out there who thinks he's a false
teacher. It's not hard to find. In fact, that's what happens when you become famous. Someone attacks you as a
false teacher. And so how do we sort through all that? What do we do with that? How can we avoid
twisted interpretations? How can we stand firm? I might add another question to this. How are we
supposed to pick a church? How do we know this is a church that's going to allow us to stand firm,
that we're not being taught things that are false and incorrect? Now, you might be thinking,
why would I need to know that? I've already picked a church. I trust the doctrine, hopefully,
of this church. I don't listen to other teachers. Well, I want you to think about a few things.
First of all, some of you are going to move. I'm going to say something shocking and radical.
In five years, many of us won't be here. When you move, you may have to pick a new church.
I also want you to do the thought experiment of how many people in this room will be here in five years?
How many of you were here five years ago?
What does it take to keep a church on track, teaching the right doctrine?
Well, it takes us over and over again, time and time again, returning to what it is that we believe,
protecting what God has given us in his word.
And so it's with that that we're going to head into this section. Now, sometimes when we head into
tougher sections like this one, I give you my strategy coming up, and here's our strategy going in.
We're not going to talk about verse 15. The reason we're not going to talk about verse 15 is we've
already covered it earlier in this chapter. It's just talking about the idea that God's delay in
coming is not a delay, but it's due to his patience. We covered that extensively earlier in chapter 3.
What we are going to do is focus on verses 16 and 17, and we're going to look at two things.
First of all, number one, there are people who twist the scriptures.
There are people who twist the Bible. Number two, we need to stand firm.
Those are the two things we're going to look at this morning. Some people twist the scriptures.
We need to stand firm against that. I'm going to give you a little bit of explanation
and a lot of application. And so as with that, I invite you to turn with me to 2 Peter chapter 3.
We're going to start at verse 15, and as we come to this, you can turn in your Bible.
It's printed near the end of your worship guide. Maybe you can bring it up on your phone.
Regardless of where you are reading, remember that this is God's word.
And Proverbs chapter 30 verse 5 tells us that every word of God proves true.
He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.
And so that's why we read now, starting at verse 15.
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you
according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks of them of these matters.
There are some things in them that are hard to understand,
which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures.
You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people
and lose your own stability.
I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.
Our Father in heaven, we thank you again for your word that you've given to us.
And we ask you again for your help, that you would speak clearly through your word,
that you would show us our need for your grace and the gospel,
that you'd show us how you meet us at that point of need,
and most of all, that you would show us Jesus Christ,
that we would see Him as more beautiful and more glorious than we did before we came here this morning.
We thank you that we don't have to earn these things from you or prove anything to you,
but instead we ask simply in the name of our mighty Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
If you are a runner or a cyclist or you're someone who likes to hike,
you might be familiar with the phone app called Strava.
And what this app does, it's all around the world,
and it's an app that allows people to track their activity.
So if you go out, turn it on, everyone can see how many miles you went,
how fast you are going, they can pull up your exact route and see where you ran.
And so people enjoy this, right?
It's sort of its own form of social media for people to encourage each other
and impress each other with what it is that they're doing to stay active.
Now, if we have this, of course, there's a tremendous amount of data
about where people are out doing all sorts of activities.
And a couple years ago, in 2018, Strava, this app,
decided they were going to release a heat map.
In other words, they were releasing a map of the world
that shows the places where people were using their map
and the routes that they were taking.
Now, some of you might realize where this is going.
If you're in the military,
there was a lot of heat in places that the U.S. government
did not want anyone to know about.
There were soldiers going out on secret army bases,
forward operating bases,
and they were using this app and recording their activity.
And suddenly, those installations were exposed to the world.
In fact, there were some CIA black sites that became public.
People were at these sites.
They decided to go for a run, recorded it on their watch.
Now, this happened to occur mostly to West.
It wasn't just the U.S.
There were some other militaries that got exposed by this.
And surprise, surprise, it was mostly Western armies
who fell prey to this.
Turns out that the Taliban,
when they go out on their exercise runs,
they don't turn on their app to track it
so they can share it with other jihadis.
And so the military world was very embarrassed by this
because their secret installations had been exposed.
It also highlights something good for us, right?
A heat map shows us where people have gone
over and over and over again.
It shows us what's reliable.
If there's a place where people are running
over and over again,
that must be a good route, right?
That must be a place we can trust.
Either for good or for bad,
heat maps show us where there's a focus,
where there's something that happens
by people over and over again.
As we come to this passage,
we have two principles.
Remember I told you in our principle,
our first one is that there are people
who twist the scriptures.
Verse 16, we're talking about Paul.
He says there's things that Paul writes
that are hard to understand.
Many of us agree with that.
And there are some things in these letters
that are hard to understand,
which the ignorant and unstable
twist to their own destruction.
In other words, there are people
who interpret the Bible in a way that's wrong.
And it's not just that it's wrong,
it's dangerous.
And so that raises a question for us.
How do we know if the Bible is being interpreted
in a way that's dangerous or not?
Who should we trust?
Who should we not trust?
And I'm gonna suggest to you this morning
as people who live in 2021,
one of the primary ways that we determine
whether we trust an interpretation of the Bible,
whether we know something's being twisted or not,
is whether or not there's a heat map to back it up.
And I'll explain that to you in a few ways.
First of all, when someone's interpreting the Bible for us,
we should ask ourselves,
when they provide this interpretation, this doctrine,
is this something that the church has agreed about
throughout time and around the world?
Is there heat around this interpretation?
Is this what the church has believed
throughout the centuries?
Is this what the church around the world believes?
If not, we should be suspicious of it.
If not, we should have some humility.
Why is it that we are suddenly smarter
than everyone else who's ever lived?
How are we more competent than other Christians?
How are we the ones who have this special insight
that the Holy Spirit, for some reason,
has never caused anyone else
in the history of Christianity to see?
There needs to be, when we look at doctrines,
when we're assessing whether something's true or false,
there needs to be a heat map around it.
We want to see other Christians at other times
and other places in agreement with us.
And so, I'll give you some examples, right?
Remember, in this letter,
these false teachers are attacking the idea
that Jesus is coming again to judge the world.
They are attacking the idea that there's a place
that's called hell that exists,
that's a real place where people are going.
Well, how do today we counter that?
One of the ways we counter it is we say,
look, that's actually not what the church
has historically believed.
That's not what the church around the world has believed.
That's not what the church throughout history has believed.
And so, this is a novel interpretation, right?
This is something that's been rejected by the church
over and over again.
People will say things like this,
well, that's just your interpretation, right?
Yeah, that is just my interpretation.
It's also the interpretation of the church
throughout the centuries.
So, chew on that.
There's a subset of the heat map as well.
So, we have our heat map when it comes to the church
around the world and throughout history.
We also have our heat map when it comes to
whether there's an overlap between the heat
that someone's giving you and the heat of our culture.
In other words, there's a temptation.
One of the reasons we might take up an interpretation
of the Bible that pulls away from what the church
has normally taught is because our culture
is also attacking that very same truth.
So, for example, it just so happens that we live
in a culture that is very egalitarian
and is obsessed with sexual freedom.
So, surprise, surprise, it might happen
that someone interprets the Bible in such a way
that's very egalitarian and pushes
for all sorts of sexual licentiousness, sexual immorality.
Remember, that's another issue that's huge
in the book of 2 Peter.
Well, we need to be suspicious of that, right?
We can see the heat overlap.
We can see the overlap between what our culture is teaching
and what the interpretation that these people are giving the Bible.
It's very convenient when you come up with a new interpretation
that somehow agrees with the idols of your culture.
So, that's another way we look at the heat map.
We assess whether someone is a false teacher or not.
We assess, remember, we're pulling all of this from verse 16,
whether they're twisting the scriptures or not.
We should be suspicious of interpretations of the Bible
that happen to please and love everything our culture loves.
Now, I'll give you a caveat.
Because we live in a world that's filled with people
who are made in God's image,
there's times when our culture is going to love things
that the Bible also loves.
So, this is not a uniform rule.
I'll give you one example.
Right now, we live in a culture that is very opposed to racism.
Guess what?
The Bible is also very opposed to racism.
So, we don't just say, well, the culture likes this,
therefore, we're going to throw it out, right?
We have to do both heat maps.
What we do is we look and we say,
has the Bible always cared about that?
And we can see, when it comes to races,
God's the one who created diversity in the very beginning,
Genesis 1 and 2.
We see slavery as something that the Bible speaks about,
even in places like Exodus, chapter 21.
There's a ban on man stealing.
We see it in the New Testament.
Philemon gives us hints of where the Bible is headed
in terms of these things.
So, we don't always say, well, the culture loves that,
so it's wrong.
But if the culture loves something,
and someone's going to an interpretation
that also loves that,
and it goes against, again, our previous heat map
with the Bible and the church has taught for centuries,
we need to be very suspicious.
That's a sign we're dealing with someone
who is twisting the scriptures.
Another way we can suspect it,
remember, again, these are things that are aligning
with what these false teachers are doing in 2 Peter.
Those are two things they're attacking.
They're attacking Jesus' second coming.
They're attacking the sexual ethics of the Bible,
what Jesus himself taught.
Well, another thing we can do
is we can look at what people have to gain
from their teaching.
So, I had a professor in seminary
who said one test you can do
is see what non-Christians, who are scholars,
believe the Bible is teaching.
Now, this is going to sound a little bit counterintuitive,
but I want you to track the logic with me.
If you're a Christian,
and you believe that the Bible is your authority,
sometimes you have an incentive
to interpret it incorrectly.
Because then you get out of the moral bind, right?
I believe the Bible is authoritative,
so I have an incentive to believe
that it doesn't teach something that's hard,
because then I get out of it.
If someone doesn't believe the Bible is true,
it doesn't really matter
whether the Bible teaches something hard or not.
So, they can say,
yeah, yeah, Paul actually did teach this
about sexual ethics,
and I don't care,
because Paul has no authority in my life.
Right?
There's actually sometimes an integrity
that comes with people who study the Bible
who are not Christians.
Now, I have to be careful about that,
because we've talked about before
in 1 Corinthians 2,
there's some things
only the Holy Spirit can help us understand.
But what this professor pointed out
is that when it comes to hard texts
about gender and sexuality,
people who are non-Christians
are more likely to interpret it
in a traditional way.
Why?
Because they don't really care
what the end result is.
They're still going to do whatever they want.
And so there's a variety of tests,
things that we can use
to figure out where true teaching is.
These are tools that we use
when people come and they say things like,
well, you know,
there's just a variety of ways
of thinking about it.
And that's just your interpretation,
but I have a different interpretation.
Right?
We all enjoy different flavors of ice cream.
And I'm just going to line up
the options of biblical interpretation,
and I'm going to pick the flavor I like most.
Well, no, that's not how the Bible works.
Right?
There's a true interpretation
and a false interpretation.
Now, these false teachers,
as we've seen,
give us another test
for how we identify false teaching,
and that is the teachers
have something to gain from it.
Remember, we saw earlier
these false teachers are greedy.
They are getting money somehow
from their false teaching.
And so that's another question
you can ask when you're trying to discern
whether someone's a false teacher.
Do they have something to gain?
Sometimes this takes two directions.
Either they're loosening
the requirements of Scripture
or they're tightening
the requirements of Scripture.
Someone who's loosening it
has a lot to gain.
They're going to be able
to do whatever they want, right?
They're doing what's called
tickling ears,
so they're going to get a following.
There's people who are going to want
to hear what they have to say
because it will allow them
to do whatever they want.
The other thing false teachers do,
and this is,
so the first example I gave you,
that's what the false teachers
in 2 Peter are doing.
They're loosening
the requirements of the Bible.
Sometimes, though,
false teachers do
the opposite thing.
They increase
the requirements of the Bible.
You might ask,
what does that person
have to gain from it?
They gain a lot of power.
In fact, this is how cults work.
There was a cult,
I won't name,
that was very active
in the 70s and the 80s
and the 90s,
and I was in a Presbyterian church,
and there were some people
who were involved in that cult.
And I've met people since then
who were involved in that cult.
There seemed to be
kind of an overlap
between some of the churches
in our denomination
and this organization.
What they would do
is they would give
very detailed prescriptions
for every element of your life.
They created a new law,
essentially.
And of course,
these teachers gain power from that.
Who are you going to find out
the new law from?
It's going to have to be them.
Who are you going to pay
to find out the new teaching?
It's going to have to be them.
What happens if they're the only ones
with the secret knowledge?
Well, you're going to have
to listen to them, right?
So we're wary of false teachers
when they violate
what I'd call
the narrow gate principle.
What I mean by that is this.
Jesus tells us
in Matthew chapter 7,
enter by the narrow gate.
For the gate is wide
and the way is easy
that leads to destruction.
And those who enter it are many.
For the gate is narrow
and the way is hard
that leads to life.
And those who find it are few.
In other words,
the Christian life
is a narrow path.
There are some people
who gain by making it less narrow.
There are some people
who gain by making it more narrow.
That's one of our tests
of false teaching.
So we have a variety of things.
We've got our heat map
we're looking at, right?
Is there a lot of heat
around this teaching
throughout the history
of the church
and around the world?
There's a lot of heat.
There's a chance,
you know, we should probably trust
that interpretation
at some level.
That doesn't make
church history authoritative.
It makes church history a guide.
Gives us some humility
as we interpret scripture.
Remember, scripture
is our absolute authority.
We also need to see
if there's a cultural element
that's causing people
to interpret scripture
in a new way.
That's another kind of heat map.
Is there an overlap
between cultural heat
and that person's
interpretation of scripture?
If so,
we should probably be
a little bit suspicious of it.
Doesn't mean it's always wrong,
but that's going to be
a test for us.
Is it something
that encourages sin?
Is it going to let
this teacher live
a lifestyle that's different
from the Bible,
what the Bible prescribes?
And finally,
we kind of have
this gate principle.
Is this teacher
making the gate
the narrow way super wide,
or are they making
the narrow way even narrower?
Now, you might wonder
what this has to do
with this passage.
What I'm doing
is I'm giving you
a little bit of explanation
and a lot of application.
How we assess
what's twisted scripture
is going to be
slightly different
than the people
receiving this letter
because we don't live
in the 60s AD anymore.
And so we actually
have the privilege
of many years
of church history
to look back on.
We have the privilege
of seeing the Holy Spirit
at work for millennium.
And so we're able
to use this variety
of ways to look
and say,
okay, is this person
twisting scripture?
Is this person
pulling me astray?
And of course,
we see the importance
of doing this
because we're told,
verse 16,
when they twist
the scriptures,
they do it
to their own destruction.
There's a dangerous element
to twisting the Bible.
And so we need
to have these principles
in mind
so that we're not
taken off guard
when someone comes
and wants to try
to pull us away
by some new
and novel teaching.
So we're getting,
again,
at Peter's summary
at the end of his letter.
He's giving us
a negative command
to make sure people
aren't pulled away
by false teaching.
Next week,
he's going to give us
a positive command
that we run after
good teaching.
So that's our first
principle.
Our first principle
is there are people
who twist the scriptures.
There's a variety
of ways that we use
to figure out
whether someone's
twisting the scriptures
or not.
There's a lot of
helpful tests
that we can apply
as we navigate
what's right
and wrong.
I haven't said
everything.
Of course,
there's a lot
of other ways
we could assess
false teaching.
I haven't said
everything,
but I've said something.
Some of those
are the most helpful
low-hanging fruit
for us
when it comes
to figuring out
if someone
is a false teacher.
I'll say this as well.
We've talked about
this before.
In 2 Peter,
false teachers
hate accountability.
So you look
at the heat map,
there's not going
to be a lot
of other people
there keeping tabs
on what they're teaching.
If you're at a church,
there's no transparency
about the finances.
No matter how good
the teaching is,
you should have
some questions.
You're at a church.
This person's
a wonderful teacher,
not accountable
to any denomination,
not accountable
to elders,
not accountable
to other churches.
You should probably
have some questions.
Go back to my reference
about there's something
to gain.
There is something
to gain
by having no accountability.
Okay,
so that's another way
we discern false teachers.
People talk a lot
about the falls
that happen in the church
and the scandals
that have happened recently.
I won't say all of them,
but many of them
have occurred
and been committed
by people who had
little to no accountability.
It's not fail-proof.
It doesn't mean
that someone
with accountability
is always going
to be perfect
or won't have
a scandal.
It just means
the odds
are a lot lower.
So that's our
first principle.
People twist
the scriptures,
beware.
Our second principle,
verse 17,
do not be carried away.
We're told this,
you therefore,
beloved,
knowing this beforehand,
you've been warned,
you know everything
I just told you,
you know there are
people out there
who are looking
to twist the scriptures
for their own gain
and to align
with the culture
around them.
Take care
that you are not
carried away
with the error
of lawless people
and lose your own stability.
So we're aware
of the threat,
we need to make sure
we're on guard
against it.
And that's our
second principle.
Principle one,
people twist the scriptures.
Principle two,
be on guard.
You know there are people
who are looking
to take advantage of you,
don't be carried away.
Don't be fooled,
don't be deceived.
Again,
I'm going to give you
that principle.
We're going to have
a lot of application.
Application one,
simply apply everything
I've already told you.
Think critically
about what people
are teaching
about the Bible.
You should ask yourself,
does this person
have something
to gain from this?
Are they making
the narrow way
less narrow?
Are they making
the narrow way
more narrow?
Is this person,
have they capitulated
to some of the idols
of our culture?
Are they coming up
with an interpretation
that doesn't really appear
on the heat map
of Christianity?
It's not always good
for someone to tell you
something new
and exciting.
Sometimes it's very helpful
for someone to tell you
something old
and boring.
I'll give you
some other ways
that we can stay
on guard,
we cannot be carried away.
One of them comes
to the way
that we pick our churches
and the way we run
our churches.
The lowest hanging fruit
would probably be this,
do they believe
that the Bible
is God's word?
Does the church
that you're in
believe that it has
authority,
that it's without error?
Is the church
that you're in
holding fast
to that truth?
Remember,
we're talking about
twisting scriptures.
One of the first steps
in going downhill
is believing
that the Bible
is something
that's a suggestion.
It's man's record
of his experience
with God,
not God's actual words.
So we need to hold
that as a foundational truth.
There are churches,
right,
that we disagree with
on a bunch
of secondary issues,
and we also have
a lot of unity
with them
because we agree
on primary issues.
One of them
is the authority
of the word of God.
What does the church
that you're in,
what does the church
that you're picking,
believe about the Bible?
Okay,
I'm going to give you
a second way
that we stand firm,
and this is something
we practice in our church.
Does this church
have consecutive,
or what's called
sequential,
expository preaching?
In other words,
does this church
pick books of the Bible
and preach everything
in that book?
That's why we're going
through the book
of 2 Peter slowly.
We've had multiple sermons
on various sections
because we're committed
to preaching
through entire books
of the Bible.
That protects us
from being carried away
in a couple ways.
First of all,
we can't avoid hard things.
Almost every book
of the Bible
includes sections
that are really hard
to preach.
Almost every book
of the Bible includes,
maybe I could say
every book of the Bible,
includes commands
that we don't want to hear.
When we commit
to preaching
through a whole book,
we're committing
to not being carried away.
We're committing
to not cherry picking
only the passages
that we want to hear.
Remember I told you earlier
when we talked about
the false teachers,
their negative
was that they were
downplaying hard doctrines
or denying them.
Our positive
is to make sure
that we're teaching
challenging
and difficult doctrines.
We know that we're
not being carried away.
We know that we're
in a place that's firm
and stable.
Not 100% guarantee,
but our odds
are much higher
when we're in a place
where the Bible
is regularly preached
through an entire book.
It's not always exciting.
We have passages
that are more exciting
than others,
and it's also
how we expose ourselves
to the whole counsel
of God.
Another way,
is there a confession
of faith?
Does this church
summarize their doctrine
somehow,
or is it just up
to the pastor each week
to get up front
and decide
kind of what he believes
from that passage?
That goes along
with there being
accountability.
Is the church
personality based?
If it's based around
one person
and their ideas,
that's also dangerous,
right?
That person could decide
they believe
something different.
There's a reason,
there's thought
and intention
behind a lot of the
things that we do
as a church.
There's a reason
that I don't pray
the congregational
prayer every week.
We have elders
coming forward.
A variety of elders
pray the congregational
prayer.
We do that intentionally
because we want
to communicate
that there's a lot
of spiritual leaders
in this church.
There's not one
spiritual leader.
And we do that
because it's
spiritually healthy.
It protects us
from being carried away.
We're held accountable
to one another.
There are multiple
shepherds in this church,
right?
This church doesn't
rise or fall on me.
If we have a
personality based church
that's a dangerous place,
it's a place
where we're more likely
to be carried away.
I'll simply say this,
in all of those things,
those are our core,
our foundation,
right?
There's lots of things
that make churches
attractive.
Lots of reasons
that people are drawn
to a church.
Maybe there's good music.
It's a wonderful thing.
We want good music.
Maybe there's a wonderful nursery.
That's a wonderful thing.
We want a wonderful nursery.
But the question is this,
at the end of the day,
is this a church
where I will be able
to stand firm?
Or is this a church
where I'll be carried away?
I want you to think
about it this way.
If you're buying a car,
I think I've used
this illustration before,
there's a lot of wonderful
things about a car
that you might buy.
It might have wonderful
cup holders that can hold
the largest cup from 7-Eleven.
It might have heated seats,
which is wonderful
in the Colorado winters.
It might have
wonderful upholstery.
There might be tons
of storage room.
It might have a hatchback
in the back,
so it's easier to throw in
big packages
from certain stores.
Maybe it's a pickup truck
and you love the bed.
But at the end of the day,
the question is this,
can the car drive?
Can it take you
from point A to point B?
If not,
nothing else matters.
There are many
wonderful things
that we want to be true
of our church, right?
We want to have
wonderful music.
We want to have
a great nursery.
We want to have
vibrant community.
All of those things matter
and at the end of the day,
the question is this,
is this a faithful church?
Are we holding true
to the Word of God?
Are we teaching
the same things
that the Bible teaches?
I'll just say,
as an aside,
some people will be
in churches
that are unfaithful
and they'll say,
well, I'm just staying there
just to be a witness.
I'm just going to try
to change things
from the inside.
Don't do that.
Don't overestimate
your ability
to not be carried away.
There's a social element,
right?
There's a social element
to what we believe.
We can't help
but be influenced
by the people around us.
So we want to be
in a church.
Don't overestimate
your ability
to stand in the wind.
In terms of churches,
I'll also say this,
there's no perfect church.
So it's not that
we're in a church
that does everything correctly.
It's that we're a church
that holds true
to our primary doctrines.
In fact,
we have a confession
of faith at this church
and that confession
of faith says explicitly
the purest churches
under heaven
are subject
to both mixture
and error.
So we believe
as a church,
part of our confession
of faith
is that we've gotten
some things wrong.
If we knew
what those were,
we would correct them.
Right?
No one of us
understands the Bible
perfectly.
No one of us
gets everything right.
And there's a path
that's correct.
We can stay away
from false teaching.
Okay, so both are true.
We don't demand perfection.
We also look
for help.
Okay, finally,
standing firm,
you've picked
the right church.
What do you need
to do next?
You need to show up.
We get strong
little by little.
You know
that you can build,
you can grow fat
in a week.
If I decided this week
that I wanted
to gain 10 pounds,
I'm confident
I could make it happen.
Like, I don't need
to think very carefully
about what my plan is.
I'd go to Walmart,
I'd buy a ton
of ice cream,
and I would just,
I'd be disciplined.
You know,
I'd be focused every day,
making sure I ate enough.
I could probably
show up next Sunday
and have gained 10 pounds.
I don't think
it would be that hard.
What if I wanted
to gain 10 pounds
of muscle?
It would be impossible
for me to do that
in a week.
There's no way.
The same is true,
brothers and sisters,
for us as Christians.
We become strong
little by little
week after week.
We become strong
as we are exposed
week after week
as we're fed
over and over
by what God
has to say
in His Word.
We do not come to church
to have our ears tickled.
We're not here only
when we're in exciting
passage of the Bible.
I want you to think
for a second
you're having
a brain surgeon
operate on you
and you find out
this surgeon
only showed up
for the exciting
classes in med school.
And when he found out
they were covering
a topic that was boring
or he sort of already
felt like he knew it,
he just skipped out.
Do you want to see
that surgeon?
Life is a dangerous place.
We need all
of God's counsel
as much as we can
get on our journey.
If we do not want
to be carried away
then we know
that repetition
is what gives us strength.
This is what
every bodybuilder knows,
right?
You don't get strong
by going to the gym
once a month.
That's not how
I'm going to build
10 pounds of muscle.
I get strong
showing up
week after week
doing the work
with a discipline
and a practice
and a focus.
not because
I'm a legalist
but because
I know
that is how
I stand
firm.
And so the same
is true for us.
We are not
carried away
when we know
the whole counsel
of God.
We know the whole
counsel of God
when we're in a church
that is giving us
that week after week
when it's exciting,
when it's boring,
when it's new,
when it's repetitive,
when it's things
we don't know,
when it's things
we do know.
We are coming back
because we want
this to be true of us.
We want to take care
that we're not
carried away
with the error
of lawless people.
Of course,
our Lord Jesus
tells us the same thing.
He tells us
in Matthew chapter 7
that building our lives
on His word
is like building
a house on a rock.
He says,
Everyone then
who hears these words
of mine and does them
will be like a wise man
who built his house
on the rock.
And the rain fell
and the floods came
and the winds blew
and beat on that house
but it did not fall
because it had been
founded on the rock.
And everyone who hears
these words of mine
and does not do them
will be like a foolish man
who built his house
on the sand.
And the rain fell
and the floods came
and the winds blew
and beat against that house
and it fell
and great was the fall of it.
We know what the rock is.
Jesus has given us
the incentive,
the motivation,
the power that we need
to follow His commands,
to not be carried away,
to not be taken in
by things that are twisted
because we know
we want to be on the rock.
There's all kinds of people
all the time
who are trying to tell you
what the next big investment
is going to be, right?
You might see these ads.
If you had invested
in Amazon.com in 1999,
you would be
this kind of millionaire.
If you'd invested
in Walmart in 1992,
you'd be now worth this.
And if you pay us
the appropriate amount
of money,
we'll tell you
the next stock to pick,
right?
Those are predictions.
What God gives us
is not a prediction
but a promise.
If we knew now,
if we knew then
what we knew now,
right,
we would have invested.
We already know now
what will be true
in the future.
That God
and his word
is the rock
that we build upon.
How much more
should we be eager
to build for it?
How much more
should we invest in it?
How much more
should we want
to stand firm?
There's a couple
of movies
that have come out
recently.
One of them
is called
The Dawn Wall.
The other is called
Free Solo.
And they're about
two climbers,
each of whom
is trying to climb
El Capitan
and Yosemite.
And in Dawn Wall
it tells the story
of Johnny Caldwell
and he takes
seven years
to figure out
the appropriate route
to actually be able
to climb this wall
all the way to the top.
Now if you're going
to climb this wall,
which route
are you going to take?
Are you going to take
the route that's
already been planned out
or are you going
to take a new
novel route?
Are you going to go
try to figure out
your own path?
Brothers and sisters,
when it comes
to the Christian life
there are people
promoting and following
all sorts of routes.
But when we follow
after our Lord
and Savior,
Jesus Christ,
what we do
is we take hold
of and grasp
the trusted
and firm,
reliable route.
The route
that we find
in God
and His Word
that has been proved
by Christians
before us
for millennia
and around the world.
We go with
what is true
because we want
the route
that is proven
and safe.
We want to build
our lives
not on sand
but on the rock.
So that's why
we take care
that we're not
carried away
with the error
of lawless people
and lose
our own stability.
I invite you
to pray with me.
Our Father in Heaven,
we thank You
that Your Word
is our safe route.
God,
we ask that You
would protect us
and this church
from false teaching
and that You
would grow us up
to love Your Word
and to know it
when it tells us
things that are easy
and popular
and when it tells us
things that are hard
and unpopular.
We ask that You
would do this
by helping us
to look to Jesus
who we know
is our rock
and our foundation
and we ask these things
in His mighty name.
Amen.