I have a lifelong love of politics, always interested, always have enjoyed politics. And so one of my favorite tv shows is The West Wing. The West Wing is a political drama. Yeah. There's some hands out there in The West Wing is a political drama that focuses on uh fictional, but focus on what life is like in the presidency and in the White House. It is very well written and it is just a super fascinating. Uh The President in the show is played by martin Sheen. He is President, Josiah Bartlet but his friends call him Jed. And as with any other President, with President Bartlet, there's always something going on. There's something happening. He's always in the middle of something and once all the the national emergencies have been dealt with once. All the the international wars have been avoided once. All the thanksgiving turkeys have been pardoned and and all the other things that he has to do after everything that happens. There's this thing that President Bartlet always says and I have been saying it for most of my adult life and that thing is this, he says, okay, what's next? What's next? I'm always in the in the next thing, whatever the next thing, maybe it maybe something with my family, maybe something at church, maybe something with my extended family. It may be a wedding or a funeral. It maybe frequencies on microphones, it maybe leaks and roofs may be broken down cars, it may be picking up chili dogs at the hot dog King. Whatever it is, I'm always in. What's next? Here's the next here's the next. Here's the next what's next? What's next? I walk down this hall all the time. I walked through the sanctuary this morning. But okay, that's okay. What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next today? We're honoring our graduates and the reality is, our graduates are a group of people that right now in life are going, hey, what's next? That's a, that's a question in their mind. Some of them have already been able to answer that. They either already have a job or they're, or they're going to college or they're going to get their, their masters or whatever. There, there's something going on. Maybe some of them are getting ready to start a tall Utah celery farm. You know, I mean, maybe, maybe they got it all figured out. You know, maybe all that's together. But the reality is every single one of us. We are always in what's next? See, some of our graduates know what they're going to do. And some of our graduates don't know what they're going to do. And the truth is, we're the same. You know, we are always no matter who we are, no matter where we live, no matter what we do for a living. We're always in the middle of what's next. And if we're honest, the truth is none of us really know what's happening next, Right. It doesn't matter what kind of organizer planner you are. It doesn't matter how much how great you are at google calendar at the end of the day. None of us really know what's next. So is there any help for that? Is there any help for the reality that we don't know what's next? Well there is. And we're going to see it in God's word. Today we continue with our series doors. Looking at some of the most defining doors that we face every single day in life. And our message today is next doors and we'll be looking in the bible at second peter chapter three, verses eight and nine. And what Simon Peter is going to do Is he's going to give us one fact and this one fact will help us through every door that we have to go through Next, all the next door's in life. This one fact will help. So what do we have? Let's find out. 2nd Peter Chapter three, beginning with verse eight, but do not let this one fact escape your notice. Beloved one fact. Well, one thing that we need to get today and really at any moment in our life to go through whatever the next door is and there's a lot of next door's right, we all have next door's in life, our graduates are going through the next door of work or the next door of school. The next door of whatever it may be. And it's easy I think for us to to see them on stage and go, oh, that's great. We're so proud of them, That's nice, but we have next door's right, we all have next doors tomorrow afternoon. My dad and I are going to walk through the door of an oncology doctor. We've never been through that door. That's that's the next door in our life tomorrow. All of us have next door's right, we have next doors that we have to go through every single day and what peter's doing. He's given us one fact for every single one of those doors. It's kind of important. We get this fact and interestingly notice who he's speaking to here. He says beloved, I give my kids lots of facts, you know, there's lots of advice and and lots of council. They, they hear a lot of things from me and they hear them over and over and over again and and it's not because I'm trying to be, you know, an olympic, you know ogre, you know, and just nag them all the time. No, I'm telling them things because there's a reason that they need to hear certain things from me 473 times before they leave the house and grow up right, there's there's things, there's truce that they need and I tell them those things because I love them, I tell them those things because I want them to get these things if there's one thing my dad has said to me, my entire life is when I leave the house dads, how many of you say this? My dad always says things are going to rain. Be careful on the roads, you know be careful out there, you know, heard it my whole life. And the reality is I'm at the point now that I'm finally starting to listen to him, you know when there's a lot of rain, a lot of water on the roads, I'm I'm learning to slow down a little bit. There's a reason we have to hear things over and over again. And one of the reasons that we hear things over and over again from certain people is because they love us. Peter calls these christians beloved, he loves christians, they are brothers and sisters in christ to him. So he loves them so much that he wants to be sure that this one thing doesn't escape their notice that this one fact is part of their daily lives. And what is that one thing, What's that One fact Think of verse eight That with the Lord one day is like 1000 years And 1000 years. Like one day Imagine a parent telling their child, Hey, we're going to Frankie's fun park in 30 minutes. Okay. You know what's going to happen next? Every 30 seconds that kid's going to come in the room, is it 30 minutes yet? 30 minutes or it's time to go, time to go. It's been 30 minutes yet it's time up. Can we go, can we go, can we go, can we go because see time for a child and time for an adult are completely different. Right? There just completely different things. We measure time with months and days and weeks and years and seconds and and we measure our lives with birthdays, right? Well some of us measure our lives with birthdays, right? Some of us are still about five years off from what it says on your birth certificate. When someone asks us, you know how old we are, some of us don't act our age and and that's that's a good thing. Sometimes One of my Dearest friends just celebrated her birthday back in November. Her kids bought her two balloons that said 66. That was a creative upside down way of celebrating her actual age. And uh loved the picture that she sent me with her 66 balloons. But the reality is that she doesn't act her age. She doesn't seem like she's a nonagenarian at all. Well almost no longer a nonagenarian in fact this morning as most sunday mornings, she always texts me, text me and says she's praying for me, text me and says she's praying for our church. And just so you know, there are about four or five people that have never been in this room that text me on sunday morning and tell me they're praying for you. And there's a bunch of people that have never attended this church that watch our service every week online during the week, not even on Sundays and so she'll text me and this morning right now. She's sitting at home watching our service on her smart tv. She'll watch the whole service again tomorrow. She may even watch it again another time this week. She loves our church. She doesn't act her age and I love it because she is such an encouragement to my heart and to my mind in so many different ways. We have a lot of ways that we measure things and then we have this picture of jesus. I mean it's been about 2000 years since Jesus was crucified since he rose from the grave. And there's this promise that jesus is coming again, but it's been a long time. have been 2000 years on our calendar, But on God's calendar it's been like two days. No, that's important. That's what Peter wants us to get To us. It's 2000 years to God. It's like two days, not exactly two days. Okay, Peter didn't give us this verse to try to put it in some kind of rapture calculus formula so we can figure out the end of time. Okay. No, he's just saying, look you need to understand something. God's ways are not your ways God is God and we are not his time is not our time. His calendar is not our calendar. His schedule is not our schedule. Our time is gone, it flies away and Seven decades, eight decades, 9 decades, 10 decades. But God is eternal. The bible says he's from everlasting to everlasting. Somebody said this about God. They said God doesn't age. God doesn't forget. And God can see every moment in history and he never gets bored, never so automatically we know we're not like God right? Because I get it, some of your board right now, I got it. It's alright, it's okay. I'm not going to be that offended. Yeah. We instinctively know that God's time is not our time. There's a difference. God made a promise to Abraham and that promise came true 400 years later with Joshua. God made a promise to Sarah that she was going to get pregnant and she did 25 years later, God gave a promise to David that there was going to be a messiah. And the promise came true 2000 years later Jesus told his disciples that the holy Spirit was coming and the Holy Spirit did come two months later. God's time is not our time. His schedule is not our schedule. He keeps all of his promises, but he doesn't always keep his promises on our schedule. You've seen that, that meme out there that says um uh wives, you don't have to tell your husbands what to do and you definitely don't have to remind him every 3-6 months. You know? See our schedule and our timetable is so different, so different, peter is telling us for a reason. He's saying, look, I'm telling you this about God's time and your time because I want you to understand something, Jesus is coming again, Jesus is returning everything that was ever promised about Jesus perfectly came true. So we have no reason to think that that all of his promises before his crucifixion and resurrection are not also going to be true and after his resurrection are not also going to be true, Jesus is trustworthy. Everything about him has always come true. So Peter is saying, look, people are going to tell you that it's all a bunch of hippie dippy bologna people are going to tell you that this promise of the return of jesus is it's not true, they're going to mock it, they're going to scoff at it. And so Peter says, let me give you a fact see, mockers and scoffers, they give us opinions, pundits, give us opinions. God gives us facts, Jesus is no hopeful political candidate. He's not hoping that he will be elected. He's already been elected. He's already in office. I can't present jesus to you today as the next king because he's already king. The authentication of his life, His crucifixion, his resurrection, his ascension, all the truth about jesus establishes that right now and forever, he will always be the king of all kings, he will always be the Lord of all lords and no matter who you ever vote for, they will never be the last voice ever, the last voice. The last authority will always be jesus, the first and greatest authority. The name above all other names will always be jesus. And if that's not true, then we should all be at Bojangles right now. We should be sitting at Bojangles talking about sports and politics and the price of gas. We should be wasting our life over biscuits and coffee. We shouldn't be here because this is a false religion. If jesus is not risen, if jesus is not Lord of jesus is not king, but you know what? We're not at Bojangles are we now? We're here because by the kindness and grace of God, we have become convinced. This is not a fairy tale. Or maybe you haven't been convinced yet. And maybe today's your day. Maybe today is the day that God helps you see that all of these things about jesus are true, that he is the messiah, that he is the savior of the world, that he is coming again. God's time and our time are not the same. They're they're a little off. And so Peter takes this a little deeper. Listen to verse nine, the Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness because that's the question right. Hey, I don't know you this Christianity thing. Maybe it's not really because you all had this promise for a long time and nothing's happened with it. Pierce says God's not slow not the way we think about slow. Imagine you're taking a plane trip somewhere and you have a a scheduled connecting flight And then you have a scheduled two hour layover? Okay? So you take your first flight, you get to the next airport, you're sitting there, you're hanging out, you go get you a tall Utah, celery smoothie and you play candy crush, you know for two hours in the airport. All right. And then your plane shows up, here's the thing you waited for two hours but you're playing in late, your plane is is right on time. It's just that your personal timetable and the schedule of that plane were not on the same track. What peter is trying to do is help us to see that God is not late. God is not tardy, God is not off schedule, God is not slow, he is always perfectly right on time even when it doesn't feel like it to us and it feels like it to us sometimes right? I mean we have these moments where we're frustrated because it seems like God is not working on our timetable. Do you know somebody who's super impatient and if it's you you don't have to raise your hand, it's alright, don't worry about it. But have you ever been around somebody super impatient? I mean they tend to be super demanding and really at times kind of rude. Have you ever noticed that people who are super impatient and super demanding on the flip side seem to demand that your patient with them, they will a lot of time. And a lot of waiting from us. They just don't want to give the same to us if we're honest, we're that way with God. We we have this thing sometimes with God that we get demanding that he's not working on our schedule. Here's how this looks in real life. See sometimes in church we're thinking is this sermon ever going to be over? You know? But guess what? On vacation, what do we say? I can't believe the week is over. See time feels different in different moments and when it comes to our view of God, sometimes we want God to work according to our time and God doesn't work that way. See we have past, present and future, but in every sense of the word God is kind of always working in the present. And it's been that way since the beginning of time. Since before the beginning of time on earth God is always working in the present. He's always doing his thing. So he's not slow. He's not off schedule, But it seems like it sometimes. Right? It seems like he is delaying. Especially with jesus. I mean, gosh, wouldn't it be a lot easier if jesus had already returned, then nobody would be doubting what we say. So why is jesus not here, you what What's what's the slowness Peter tells us look at verse nine the Lord is not slow but is patient toward you. Not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. That's not slow. He's not off schedule, he's not being lazy, he's he's not accidentally delaying anything. He is purposely keeping his door open. He is purposely saying there are still seats at my table. God is inviting and inviting and inviting. He is keeping himself available to receive and receive and receive In the Bible. In Ezekiel 33. It says that God does not delight in the death of the wicked and the unrighteous. Let me just hurt our feelings for a second. If we're honest, sometimes we do. We want the wicked terrorists to die a terrible death. We we want the the unjust criminals to have an awful sentence in an awful life. God God's character doesn't say that God doesn't delight in the death of the wicked and unrighteous. In fact, what we see about the character of God is it is full of grace. It is full of mercy. It is full of compassion. It is full of love. I shared in one of our podcast this week that if you're looking for the most tolerant being in the universe, look at God. We live in a culture screaming for tolerance. They don't have a clue. The most tolerant being in the universe is God the most gracious person in the universe is God. Someone sent me a quote this week that said, Grace is the stamp that says ransomed on a life that screams ruined. I feel that if you ever feel like my life is just ruined with the Grace of God changes. The stamp the stamp your look you're looking at on your forehead says ruined, ruined, ruined. But through jesus the stamp changes and God says the ransomed ransom ransom. My grace is sufficient. You have what you need in me. See God desires to show his grace, he desires to show grace to the wicked. God desires to show grace to the unrighteous because his delight. His desire is that all would be saved. But he does not act on that desire meaning everybody doesn't get saved. So, so why is that? I can't do the math. God is God in his ways are not my ways. Somebody says well that's not fair. I don't think it's fair that that everybody wouldn't get saved. I just don't think that's right. Think of it this way. What if someone were to take the life of someone in your family and the person was caught and you're in the courtroom at sentencing time. Your family has been asked to speak at the sentencing. None of us would expect your family to stand up and say, hey, you know what things happen. People make mistakes, no big deal. Just just let him go your honor. No we wouldn't think that we would think like most of us hate this purple person on purpose took another life and and there should be some measure of justice that served. But for some reason we have this thing that we think that the creator of the universe should just ignore justice when it comes to our sins or our parents, sin or our kids sin or anyone else's sin. We say well God you you should just let it go. You should just ignore justice when it comes to our sin. Come on, you're supposed to be gracious. Paul was writing the church at Rome and he said this in Romans 6 23 for the wages of sin is death. If we got the correct salary and benefits package for our sin, it would be eternal death. It would be everlasting death. Our rebellion against a Holy God means that we would die in our sins forever. That's where we should start. But we don't, you know where we start? We start. Well that's not fair. But it's not, it's not fair. Just look at the general rebellion in the world. Okay, you don't have to, you don't have to think about it as a christian. Just think about it as like a human being. Look at the general evil in the world evil that's done on purpose every day and then look in your own life at your own rebellious failures. You know like you know exactly what you're doing. You know exactly how you're speaking to your spouse, how you're speaking to your kids, how you're speaking to your parents, what you're doing on your taxes, You know what you're doing on the weekends when we we know, you know, if we just look generally speaking at rebellion and sin and evil in the world, if we're honest, what's really fair? No one should get into heaven. Nobody, there are some people that would say, well my God would never send anyone to hell. But see that's the thing, we can't make God in our image. This isn't a buffet. You know, God's character is his character. His character is he's the creator of the universe. He's the ancient of days, He's the lord of hosts. He is the God of Israel. He's the great I am. He's the alpha and the omega. There is no one like him. He is from everlasting to everlasting. I'm from now to I don't know, 75 maybe, I don't know. But God's everlasting. He's eternal. His character is his character and Peter says, God's not being slow. Peter says, God is being patient, he's waiting to give mercy. The door is open, there's still chairs at the table. God is being mercyful. He's not being unable, he's not being uncaring, he's not being unloving. God is the one who's making a way for salvation. God is the one who's making a way for things to change God is the one being gracious and mercyful and patient. This is who he is. But many people just keep rejecting him or they keep ignoring him. Remember. Noah Could God have strengthened Noah given him the map and the skills and the directions to pull the arc off in 10 years, 20 years maybe. Sure it could have. But how long did it take him? 120 120 years to build the ark? Why? Why did it take so long? Because God is gracious and he is mercyful and he is compassionate and he is patient. See God was leaving the door open for 120 years. If we're honest, some of us start losing our minds at 120 seconds in line. At the drive through. Right? We we are generally speaking and impatient people. We we want everything right now. Instant gratification is the curse of every generation and every person of every age. From the toddler to the senior adult. We are all so impatient. We we want what we want when we want it. So for 120 years. God was patient. And how many people turn to him. How many people listen to Noah's message repent. Turn to God! How many people joined the church of the ark? Nobody. 120 years of hearing a message of mercy. 120 years doors open. There's there's chairs at the banquet. Now it will pass people who mock God's truth. They are missing the math that the one they are mocking is being patient with them. He's waiting. He's being mercyful. He's being gracious. This so called delay of God. It is kindness. It's love doors open, chairs are at the table. Yeah. God's not slow. He's really patient. He's really kind. He's really gracious, but he will not wait forever. There there is a schedule. It's 2000 years for us. It's maybe a couple of days for him. But but there's a schedule we're not promised tomorrow. Someone has said that that everyone will have eternal life. It'll either be this this hard to explain. And imagine imagine agony of eternal life being an enemy of God or it will be this hard to explain. And imagine the joy of being a friend of God forever a friend of God, or forever an enemy of God. And the only way you can be a friend is by knowing christ and by being known by christ. So if you are not a christian. Do not be slow. Do not delay. Come to christ today, repent, receive his salvation. 120 years went by and the people wouldn't even respond and they perished. Don't let that be anything close to your story. But what if you're a christian. What if you truly are saved and you're walking with jesus. What does this from peter have to do with you. How can it encourage you? Well, I would say for a believer. The encouragement here is very similar to the encouragement that we could give to our graduates today and what encouragement is that? Well, I have one graduate today. My oldest daughter was up here earlier. Um Lord Willing, I have another graduate next May for on schedule correctly. Right? Um Lord willing and bless Holden's heart, maybe three years from now, I'll have another graduate, you know, up here, he's on track, which is good. Uh and then, and my oldest son, he's graduating every day from the school of hard knocks in the automotive industry. So I got graduates all the time all around my house. So, so when I say, hey, I have a message or a little encouragement for graduates, you know, I'm not winging it here, I'm in the middle of their lives in the middle of their world. Every single day, eight weeks ago I was reading an article on Fomo. If you don't know what fomo is, it's the fear of missing out. And as I was reading through this article by this woman named Fabian Harford, who who at the time she wrote the article, worked in Women's Ministry. I couldn't help but go man, I've got to text this to my kids. So I took some portions out and and I texted it to them. And so so my, my encouragement for graduates and really for all of us is not something I'm pulling from the Sky. It's the kind of stuff that I'm in every single day. So this is what I texted my kids. This is what Fabian said. Fomo is at the root of every sin. The panic that if we obey God we will miss out on something good. It's a great word. The fear of missing out is at the root of every sin. It is easy for us to say, oh those young people, they just want to do everything. Okay, so let me hurt all of our feelings. You know what Covid exposed about all of us? Every single one of us deal with a serious, sinful case of fomo. You know why? Because we want everything back. We want it back like it was before. Can I just tell you nothing in your life has ever gotten back to the way it was before? Not for a single 2nd ever. Nothing has ever returned to the way it was before. Never in the history of the world has anything returned to the way it was before? So Fomo is for all of us. It's all of us. We are afraid of missing out on something new or we're afraid of missing out on what we used to have. It's all sin. If we let it be the fear of missing out. So here's the answer for Fomo. For all of us. This is what Fabian says at the heart of our gospel is a God who has sent his only son that he could buy for us. The great and precious promise that fully crushes the root of fomo. Did you catch that? I'm going to give you a little quote to go with that. But what he's saying is this if you're afraid the way you crush your fear is with jesus, the name above every other name. There is something about that name because it's the only name that can crush fear. It's the only name that can crush anger is the only name that can crush worry and listen to this is the only name that can crush death. Only jesus only jesus. And then Fabian says this in him. We have every scrap of good that there's anything that any graduate would be so blessed to hear. It's that that as you launch out into whatever is next in jesus you will find every scrap of good, you'll find some good and your spouse and your kids and and your favorite food and your favorite sport and your favorite wrestler and your favorite car and and whatever your favorite thing is, you'll find some good in all of those things. But every scrap of good that your soul wants the most. It's found in jesus. That's that's not preacher talk. Okay, please just ignore that I exist and hear the sentence, every scrap of good that your soul wants the most is only found in jesus and can be found in jesus baby and goes down and say this no greater joy can be found anywhere else. The solution to your fear of missing out is to be with God And then she says, this, settle this in your heart. As long as you have God, you miss nothing. As long as you have God, you miss nothing with Covid. As long as you have God, you miss nothing with cancer. As long as you have God you miss nothing with fear, worry, anger, frustration. As long as you have God, you miss nothing. And death paul said what death is gain Because I get jesus. This is our message. This is astounding hope. If we have jesus, we miss nothing. All of us have doors. We're going to walk through. You're going to walk through these doors in a minute doors out there. You're going to walk through the door. The hot dog king from somewhere this afternoon. You know, you're going to walk through the door, you're going to walk through the door of a doctor's office, you're going to walk through the door at the D. M. V. You walk through doors this week. You may walk through the door at a funeral home this week. But we're going to walk through doors and here's the thing for every single next door that any of us have in life. There is one fact that is true for every single next door that we face. There's one fact that is true. And here's that fact. One way or the other. The next thing, it's jesus One way or the other. The next thing is, jesus, Are you ready for that door? If so, then you cannot miss out. You will not miss out because jesus is king.