The coming destruction of the present creation is not just a doctrine to believe—it's a call to live differently. In this expository sermon from 2 Peter 3:11–12, Pastor Jim Osman draws out the practical weight of Peter's eschatological teaching and presses it into the conscience of every believer.

Peter's concluding exhortations are clear: those who genuinely believe Christ will return are marked by it. First, they are a holy people—set apart in conduct and godliness, fitted for a new creation in which only righteousness dwells. Osman unpacks what that means practically, showing that holiness is not merely a positional reality but a moral pursuit, one that grace both demands and provides.

Second, they are a hastening people—those who long for and actively work toward the coming of the day of God. Osman addresses the apparent tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility head-on. The day is fixed on God's calendar; yet Scripture calls believers to hasten it through holy living, faithful gospel proclamation, and earnest prayer. These are not contradictions—they are the two sides of the same sovereign purpose.

If Christ is returning, and Peter insists He is, the only question left is: what kind of people ought we to be?

Two thousand years feels like a long time to wait. Jim Osman says that's exactly the point.

Continuing through 2 Peter 3, Osman tackles the mockers' challenge in verse 4: where is the promise of His coming? Peter's answer comes in two parts, and this sermon focuses on the second: God's patience. Osman walks through what that patience actually means, tracing it back through Exodus, Isaiah, and the Psalms to show that the Old Testament's "slow to anger" God and the New Testament's patient Father are the same God, not two different ones.

He works carefully through the Greek behind "slow" in verse 9, distinguishing tardiness from sovereign timing, and uses Habakkuk's own wrestling with delay as a parallel. Then comes the heart of the message: who exactly is God being patient toward? Osman pushes back against a popular reading of "not willing for any to perish," arguing from context that Peter is addressing God's own people, the elect not yet gathered in, not the whole world indiscriminately.

The sermon closes with four practical encouragements, including a direct word to anyone listening who has yet to repent. This episode offers a clear, doctrinally grounded answer to anyone wondering why God seems to be taking so long.

Trouble has a strange way of feeling like a curse. Phil Johnson makes the case from James 1:2–4 that for the Christian, it's actually the opposite.

Working through one of the earliest letters in the New Testament, Johnson identifies the James who wrote it: not the apostle, but the Lord's half-brother who became the leading elder in the Jerusalem church. From there, he turns to the text itself, "consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials," and unpacks why that command isn't naive but deeply theological.

Johnson works through the Greek word behind both "trials" and "temptations," distinguishes between testing from God and enticement from the devil, and draws on the suffering of Job and Peter's failure and restoration to show that affliction is never random. It's purposeful, sovereignly governed, and aimed at one outcome: maturity that lacks nothing.

Three convictions anchor the message: trouble is a blessing, not a curse; tribulation tests us rather than punishes us; and trials perfect us rather than defeat us. For anyone wrestling w