Join Pastor Tim at 7 pm (Central) as we wrap up “Growing” by looking at the hope we have as we look towards God’s promises being fulfilled in the future.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
The pastor describes God’s promises as a “lamp shining in a dark place” that provides reliable light, contrasting this with other sources of hope that may fail. What are some ways you’ve experienced or witnessed people turning to unreliable sources of hope instead of God’s promises? How can we help each other recognize and resist these false lights?
Peter emphasizes that prophecies come from God, not human interpretation. How should this distinction affect the way we evaluate claims made by teachers, leaders, or even our own assumptions about what God is saying to us?
The sermon discusses how past fulfilled prophecies (like Jesus coming as the Messiah) should give us confidence in future promises. How does reflecting on what God has already accomplished change your perspective on uncertainties in your life right now?
The pastor uses the image of a winter field gradually growing toward summer harvest as a metaphor for spiritual growth. Where do you see yourself in that cycle right now—still in winter, entering spring, actively growing, or approaching harvest? How does understanding God’s larger promise of “making all things new” affect how you view your current season?
How can we practically “judge other truth claims in the light of God’s promises” when making decisions about work, relationships, hobbies, and other areas of life? What does it look like to use God’s word as a “flashlight” to evaluate these choices?
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
Good evening and welcome to Steadfast. I am so glad to be with you again tonight. And tonight is a special night. We’re wrapping up our series Growing. It’s been a wonderful adventure going through the promises we find in 2 Peter. Tonight we are going to think of the promises for the future. What do God’s prophecies tell us? How do they affect our lives? That’s what we’re going to be thinking about. So let’s go ahead and come before our God in prayer, and then we’ll jump right in. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for your goodness and your love, that you love us, that you have saved us, and that you promise a future to us as well. Lord, as we think about that, would you encourage us through those promises? Would you help us to keep our eyes on you through them? We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I remember a number of years ago I was working in a storage warehouse at the university I was teaching at with one of my work-study students. We were going through boxes trying to find something, and a storm came through. And we didn’t even know there was a storm because there weren’t any windows. It was just purely artificial light. And then that light went out, and it was dark. It was really dark. It only went out for a second. The generator kicked in, and everything went back to normal. But in that moment, you experienced a really amazingly deep darkness. You couldn’t see anything.
When we think about something like that, if we’ve had an experience like that, it really jolts us because we realize how much we depend on being able to see, to see the things around us, to guide us as we go about our lives. And Peter tonight talks about the sorts of things that encroach and bring darkness into our lives and where we should turn for light. Because we turn to all kinds of different sources for light. We look for light in all kinds of different places. And Peter says, but there’s one source of light that lasts. One source that’s not going to get knocked out by a storm. The bulb isn’t going to burn out. It’s always dependable. And that’s God’s promises. We need to turn to him.
It’s easy to get caught up in those dark places of life as we go and seek to light our own path. We think we have everything in order. We think we have perfect plans and hopes and dreams. And then a year like 2020 happens. I saw someone joking the other day that in the future, whenever we want to say things aren’t going according to plan, we’ll just say, right now my life is a 2020. And right now, I think all of us would completely get that. It makes sense because all of us have probably experienced major changes to our plans this year.
But even in normal years, we experience moments, oftentimes whole seasons where our plans aren’t going how we would hope and it feels dark and we feel hopeless. And that’s what Peter’s addressing here. So let’s go ahead and we’ll dig in starting at verse 19 of chapter one. And we hear about where we get the hope and the light of God’s promises. Peter writes this, “And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”
Peter says, the light is actually right in front of you. The light comes from God’s promises. You see, we get so focused on maybe even those initial truths that we find in scripture that we forget that God has his word packed full of his promises, his plans for the future that are sure and definite and that when we trust in him, we get to be a part of. He talks about the restoration of all things that the world will be made right again. And Peter says, these are the things that because we know that Jesus lives and that he has redeemed us, these are the things we rejoice in because they’re true for us. God lights our way with hope in a world where every day it feels like things are chipping away at our hope and everything around us, all the voices we hear, all the promises we make, everything around us, all the voices we hear from media and from the internet and from oftentimes even each other are chipping away at that hope and bringing in fear.
What do we find? We turn to God’s word and we see the light of God’s hope of his promises, his prophetic word that speaks about what is to come. Past prophecies are a key part of that. Sometimes I don’t think we spend that much time on them. They’re more of an interesting educational side note that we’ll hear people rattle off how many promises of God were fulfilled when Jesus came. We say, well, that’s really nice. I’m so glad to know that that happened in the past. And then we move on. But those promises are for us and give us that hope too.
It shows us who God is when we see that God in his word has declared over time that things will happen and that those things have happened and those things continue to happen. So that when we read that God is going to make all things new, that death itself will be banished, we don’t see that as some kind of pie-in-the-sky utopia. But rather we see it as the logical conclusion of everything that God has been doing from his very first promise of redemption all the way back in Genesis chapter 3. When Adam and Eve had fallen, he said that he would bring forth a Redeemer who would crush Satan. And from that moment on, throughout his law, throughout all the prophets in the Old Testament, and throughout the New Testament, we read again and again how God is going to make all things new, that those things that feel broken in our world won’t last.
We see who God is, a loving, heavenly Father. We’ve seen that over the past few weeks. We’ve been talking about how God works in our lives. We’ve been talking about the confidence we can have because of eyewitnesses who saw Jesus in his ministry. But Peter says it doesn’t have to stop there. We can have confidence too because in Jesus we saw God’s promises fulfilled. And because of that, we know that his future promises will be fulfilled too.
I’ve been struck as we’ve been in this series over on our men’s Bible study, we’ve been going through Isaiah. And Isaiah is so full of God’s promises, both about the coming Messiah, who is now here, who is Jesus, and also what is to come in the future. And let’s just take a look at one of those prophecies we looked at in that study, Isaiah 59 verses 19 and 20. Isaiah writes, “So they,” that is the nations, all the other nations around the world other than Israel, “they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. For he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives. And a Redeemer will come to Zion to those in Jacob who turn from their transgressions,” declares the Lord.
We see here a promise of a Redeemer, and we know that’s fulfilled in Jesus, but it goes further than that. It says, not only is there a Redeemer who will come to God’s people, that Redeemer is going to be known from the east to the west from the rising to the setting of the sun, the nations will fear the Lord will praise him. And we’ve seen a fulfillment of that already. Think about our current world. This is so normal to us, we don’t really stop and think about it. But think about that a Messiah could rise up, a king could rise up in a little bitty Mediterranean country that otherwise would be a mere footnote in history. And that people all around the world praise his name every single day. You cannot point even from just a purely secular standpoint to anyone who’s been more significant in history than Jesus. So we already see the fear of the Lord going out throughout all the nations, that this God whom Israel was called to proclaim is now proclaimed all around the world.
We don’t see it fully. This is a preview, and that’s what we see in Isaiah 59. And this is what Peter has in mind back in 2 Peter. He’s talking about these sorts of promises and saying we see a partial fulfillment now, we see that Jesus has come, that people are coming to believe in him, that the good news is going out, and so much more that good news is going to go out, and God is going to be victorious. That’s our hope. Right now we see a partial picture of what God’s doing, but we’re not done yet. Or rather, more importantly, God is not done yet. He is going to fulfill his promises completely.
That’s what Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 at the very end of that chapter. He writes, “For now we see him mere dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Right now we’re sort of seeing what God’s doing, but then that darkness creeps back in, and we’re not quite sure where we’re going. We see sort of dimly what’s happening, but Paul says it’s going to be fully clear when Jesus returns in the fulfillment of God’s promises.
Let’s just think for a moment about darkness. Really, really dark darkness. You can’t see anything. Maybe this is like that moment I was talking about in the warehouse. You’re stuck in this dark place, and all you see is pitch blackness, and then your eyes maybe start to see a little something, but it’s still incredibly dark. And this is often how we’re living life. We have a little light. We’re not completely in the dark anymore because we have the hope of Jesus. I hope all of us have that, and if you don’t, then hear these promises and turn to him right now, because we start to see, but it’s still really dark.
And so we start reaching out in this darkness for something that can help us to see. Maybe we find a flashlight, and then we start to see a little something, but it sometimes can still look a little scary. It looks a little uncertain still, because it’s still so dark. But what happens as we study God’s promises, and we understand him more fully, and he continues to grow us as we’ve been talking about? Gradually, the lights start to come back on, and we can see again, and we have hope. And we have hope. And we know that hope is just a foretaste of the fullness of that hope that’s coming in the future when Jesus returns. That’s what we have to look forward to, the full brightness of day in God’s presence.
That’s what Peter has in mind at the end of verse 19. He says that morning star that’s going to rise, Jesus is coming, and then there’ll be full brightness. It won’t just be like a lamp in the dark. We’ll be in the light of day. But even in the moment, even right now, even in the uncertainty of our life right now, God provides a working flashlight that lights the way, that gives us hope, that allows us to see where he’s leading us. And Peter goes on to tell us why we can count on that flashlight. And that’s so important, too. It’s not important enough just to know, it’s not enough just to know that you have a flashlight. You need to know that flashlight is going to work for you, and it’s going to continue to work for you.
Maybe you’re like me, and you forget to put batteries in your flashlights, and they’re often almost dead or completely dead. It’s important that we know that as God provides light to us, it’s going to last, that it’s reliable, that we can trust it. And we see more confidence that we can have, more promises of God, and how they work together in verses 20 and 21. Peter says this, “Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
I can tell you really hopeful things. Lots of people can tell you, it’s going to be great. Tomorrow is going to be great. This year is going to be great. How many people said that a few months ago before 2020 started? We can talk about next year or the year after. You can make a plan for where you want to be in five years or ten or for retirement. All these different things that we might do, we don’t really know. And Peter says, here’s what we absolutely need to know. Here’s what those that he’s writing, those of us reading today, what do we need to know? We need to know that when we read the promises of God in scripture, we’re not talking about those sorts of hopes that may or may not happen. We’re not talking about those things that can seem really great, but then the lights are going to shut back off because the batteries weren’t really good and reliable.
When we read the prophecies in scripture, when we hear the word proclaimed, what are we hearing? We’re hearing God himself speak. And because we hear God speaking, we can have confidence that it will happen. It’s not that we’re willing this to happen. It’s not that Peter’s willing it to happen or Isaiah or Jeremiah or Paul or Moses. It’s that God has spoken. He’s spoken to all of us throughout the ages that we can have confidence that his word is true.
And so when we see that prophetic confirmation that Peter talks about throughout history, the things that God has already done, it tells us that we can have confidence in what God will do. And the uncertain weight that we find ourselves in, in the times that our plans are completely upended and we don’t know where we’re going, we turn to God and we have confidence because we see that his word is always true.
It’s why we need to be so careful when people make claims, when maybe they say they have a word from God, they’re going to give us a prophecy, they’re going to tell us how things should be, and they start to maybe use a little scripture, but they add a bunch of other stuff in. They say they have something new or they twist the scriptures to make them fit what they think should be. They start to read between the lines. What’s wrong when that happens? Well, then we’re back to having those batteries we don’t know that we don’t know if they’re reliable or not. They may light the flashlight for a while, they may go out, we don’t know.
Peter goes on in chapter 2 with this warning. He says, “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who brought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.” Peter says you need to pay enough attention to the reliable flashlight, the reliable lamp of God’s word, that when all these other claims come along and someone says, “Well, put down that working flashlight that’s working really well for you and take this one because it’s so much better,” that we have enough confidence in God’s word that we won’t let go of the truth. We have enough confidence in God’s word and enough knowledge of it that we can tell when people are leading us astray.
Because there are going to be those false teachers. There always have been, and there always will be. And Peter says, understand this, God’s promises will happen. God’s promises are true. Don’t follow other promises that at best are empty hopes, because they’ll lead you astray and God’s word will be ignored.
I saw this week that the legislature in New Hampshire passed legislation legalizing flying cars. There’s only a couple of problems with this legislation if you’re thinking about moving because finally you get to live in the land of the Jetsons. They actually nicknamed the bill that, the Jetson bill. There’s only a couple of problems. One, no one’s making a flying car right now, so you can go there and it might be legal, but there’s nothing to fly. And the second problem is almost as bad as the first because I don’t know about you, but when I picture a flying car, what do I imagine? I don’t imagine just taxiing my way to the airport. I imagine being stuck in a traffic jam and thinking enough of this and hitting a little button and just taking off and flying. But that’s not what this bill legalizes. If someone actually manages to make that long promised flying car, it only makes it legal to drive that car on the road to get to the airport.
What fun is that? It’s a half promise at best of the things that we’ve hoped for. And that’s why we need to ask if we’re really focused on God’s promises, on the confidence we can have there. And that’s our first question for us to think about this week, which is, am I clinging to the hope of Jesus making all things new as that was driving me, or am I running after flying cars? Am I chasing after what really happens, that God will make all things new? If one of those promises is really meaningful to you right now, why don’t you stick that down in the comments right below this video and share it with others. We can encourage each other by sharing those things.
Second promise is really important too. Do I judge other truth claims in the light of God’s promises? We need those two together. Am I looking to God’s promises that he’s going to make everything new? Is that what’s driving me? Is that what gives me hope? Because that is a hope that’s going to last. That hope will not fail. That light will not go out. And then as other things throughout life, as I’m going about life and I’m trying to decide what to do in all areas of life, where I should work, how I should relate to my family, who I should spend my time with, what church I should be at, what hobbies I should pick up, all these different things, many of them, it seems like there’s so many questions up in the air and we don’t quite know how to discern.
And what we should do is to make sure that all those things that seem to promise happiness, all those things that seem to offer a little escape from the gloom, that we make sure to go to God’s promises and go to his word and say, do they conform to it? Because we can use that flashlight to shine on other things and see, are they contributing to that light or are they actually just absorbing it and draining it?
Throughout this series Growing, we’ve had an opening video that shows a farm field growing with a little tractor. I’ve driven by this tractor for years. I feel sort of attached to this little tractor. And if you recall at the very beginning of the video every week, we’ve had the picture of the tractor in the middle of a winter field with snow. And this little tractor is parked right alongside the road, hooked up to a pump, pumping out water out of that field. That seems like an awful job, just pumping all the time. But why is it important the tractor does it? So that that farm field will grow, that the corn that you see there can just grow and stretch towards the sky and ultimately feed people or animals that can be nourishing.
And so we see it go from growing from what appears to be a hopeless field, frozen with snow falling on it, to the full promise of the fully grown corn. When we’ve been talking about growing, when we’ve been thinking about what 2 Peter has to say to us about growing in God’s grace, it’s like being in that winter field and then slowly seeing God work in our lives. That’s the Christian life, slowly seeing him work, seeing that corn start to come out of our lives, growing every little bit. Often it seems really, really slow. Sometimes it seems really quick. But what do we know? What’s important for us to know? That the full growth of summer is coming. That whether we’re still mostly in that winter phase, maybe you feel like you’re there right now, or maybe you feel like you’re right in the middle of spring and everything is growing really well, what do we know? That our purpose, that the fulfillment of what God is going to do in our lives is coming.
That when we look to his promises, that we can see the past fulfillment of them and have confidence in the time when all the gloom, everything that makes us feel hopeless in life today, everything that feels so uncertain in 2020, but all the uncertainties that are going to be there in 2025 and 2030 and 2035 and beyond as well because we’re in a broken, fallen world, those things will be erased because Jesus is making all things new. We have hope because God is growing us for better times. Right now it doesn’t necessarily feel like those sorts of times, but God is growing us for better times, times in the very presence of God. That’s our hope. And when we feel in the gloom and when it starts to brighten up, keep our eyes fixed on that, that God is growing us and that ultimately we will come into the full light of his presence.
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank you for your goodness, for your faithfulness from the beginning of all time until now that we know that your promises are true and that they will be fulfilled. Lord, would you help us to keep fixed on that when we have doubts, when we have fears, knowing that you are with us both now and forever. Lord, I pray for anyone that’s watching tonight that might feel like that winter field that maybe doesn’t feel like there’s any hope, any promises, that through the power of your Spirit that person might know you tonight and start to see a little of that light from that lamp. And for all of us, Lord, would you help us to hold on to your light that we wouldn’t turn and look at the gloom, that we wouldn’t go searching after other lamps that ultimately fail, but we would cling to your promises for we know that at the end of time when Jesus returns we will see them fully, completely made true and fulfilled.
And that by your love that you were preparing us for that, what wonderful news that is. We praise you for that tonight, oh Lord. We thank you that we can come into your presence. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It’s been so great going through the series Growing with you. It sort of felt like a road trip. We’ve been traveling down the road of life. And sometimes when you’re traveling down the road of life, you may see something really interesting. You don’t stop at the time. You say, I want to come back this way another time and go see it.
And our next series is going to be sort of one of those times you go back and you stop and see something scenic that you drove by before. Our next series is called Follow Me. We’re going to circle back, go back down the road, go back to early in 2 Peter chapter 1, where Peter lists out different attributes that should be in our lives: faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love. We’re going to think about these things. We’re not going to just stay in those verses. We’re going to think about how this is a call to follow Jesus. He said to Peter, he said to his other disciples, “Follow me.” And he says to us, follow me.
And as we read these attributes, they’re attributes of God. We see God fulfill them throughout scripture. And so each week in the next series, we’re going to look at some of those aspects of who God is, reflect on how he shows those things to us, and then how he calls us to follow him by showing those things to the world. I think it’s going to be a really encouraging time. I hope you’ll join me next week at 7 p.m. on Monday night as we begin that new series, Follow Me. I hope that you’ll invite some friends. And maybe tonight’s message has also been encouraging to you, and I hope that you would consider sharing it, that you consider liking it, maybe leaving a comment. Let others know about the hope of the gospel that we’re digging into here on Monday nights. You can help us to share that hope to a world that needs it.
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, subscribe on YouTube. These things help to get the word out. I hope that you’ll consider doing that tonight. Also, I talked about our men’s Bible study and the promises that we see in Isaiah. We’re still going to be in Isaiah for several more weeks, and I hope that you would consider joining us on Thursday night, 7 p.m. It’s a wonderful time, wonderful group of men studying God’s word together. Would you please consider setting aside this Thursday night and join us at 7 p.m. If you don’t know how to log in, shoot me an email, leave a message on the comments. I’d be glad to give you the instructions on how to get involved. We have men from different churches, different states coming together, studying God’s word and being encouraged by it.
Speaking of contacting me, if you want to shoot me an email with a prayer request, I’d be glad to hear from you. Perhaps you have comments or questions about tonight’s message. I’d be happy to hear from you about that too. Or leave something in the comments, a question for people to discuss, a prayer request for all of us to share in praying together. It’s always great when we can come together as God’s people and pray.
I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week. I hope this series, as we’ve looked at how God grows us, has been encouraging to you. And I hope you come back next week and we can join in digging into God’s word again as we look to follow Jesus in our new series, Follow Me. Have a wonderful and blessed week.