REMEMBERING WHAT IS OURS – 2 Peter 1:12-15
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on December 8, 2013 under 2013 |
Preached Sunday, December 8, 2013 from 2 Peter 1:12-15
Theme: Growth in the Christian life depends greatly on remembering the things that are ours in Christ.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
Now; I don’t mean that you need to have a good short-term capacity to retain lots of detailed information—although that might be a good thing to have too. And I certainly don’t mean that you should remember everything that ever happened to you in life—because, frankly, some of those things would be good to forget! Rather, I mean that you and I need to cultivate a habit of mind that enables us—in the midst of the trials and circumstances of life—to recall the great truths that God teaches us in His word about the things He has given to us in Christ, hold those things in our thoughts, meditate much on them, become stirred up in excitement about them, and put them to practical use in our lives as we should.
We need a good memory. And it’s this very crucial quality—the cultivation of a sanctified recollection of the things that are ours in Christ—that the apostle Peter speaks of in our passage this morning.
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At the very beginning of the first chapter of the tiny New Testament letter of 2 Peter—in just the first few verses—the apostle Peter makes an amazing affirmation to his readers. He tells them that through their faith in Jesus Christ—as a present possession—they now have “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). We spent some time talking about that not long ago. What an amazing thing that is to know!—that right now, all that we will ever need in order to be all that God calls us to be in Christ, and to do the things that our Lord calls us to do in His service, will be provided for us! Nothing more can be given to us than what we already have in Christ; and having Christ, we now have all that we will ever need! As the apostle Paul once put it, we are “enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge”, so that we “come short in no gift” (1 Corinthians 1:5, 7). What a great promise from God!
And then, as we saw last Sunday, we are called upon to make full use of God’s provision to us and—in faith in His promise—rise up and build upon the foundation of our faith. We’re told;
for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love (vv. 5-7).
What’s more, we’re assured that “if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 8).
But that’s when we read of the importance of a good memory. You see; simply having these things—and even hearing about them in the wonderful way that we do in Peter’s letter—is not enough. We have to put these things to use continually—throughout the course of our lifetime. And in order to put them to use while in the midst of all the demands and distractions of life, we need to actively call them to mind and remember then when we need them. To forget them, and to disregard them when we need them the most—would be detrimental to our souls. And so; Peter—after telling us all these things—goes on to say;
For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease (2 Peter 1:12-15).
How grateful we should be that Peter gave himself so faithfully and so diligently to the task of reminding his brothers and sisters of these things! How important it is, then, that we respond by truly “remembering” them!
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I used to work for a man who—among other things—taught sky-diving. He told me that before anyone goes up for a jump, they need to take an all-day class. In the classroom—somewhere on the ground, of course—they teach you how to pack your chute, how to wear the pack, and what to pull when you jump—and when to pull it; and even how to land on the ground without injuring yourself. They don’t teach that class like they do some classes—where they let you give it a try, get a little taste of things first, and then show you how you should have done it. That won’t work. There’s no such thing as ‘trying until you succeed’ with sky-diving.
Now; I’d never been to one of my former boss’s classes. But I suspect that he didn’t have to work very hard at making the class interesting. It already was. He probably held a very high classroom attention level throughout his lecture. You would have wanted to get every piece of information thoroughly in your mind—and not just in your notebook. After all, you wouldn’t have time to pull out your notes and ‘bone-up’ while on your way down. You would need to remember the basics; and be able to recall them as you needed them.
I suspect that the same is true in almost every serious field of endeavor in life, or in every line of work. There are certain basic things that are vital to remember and to be able to recall when they are needed. And if that’s true in just about every other endeavor of life (and particularly so in sky-diving), why would we think that it’s different when it comes to the spiritual life? The endeavor of walking by faith with Jesus Christ is far more important than sky-diving. If you do sky-diving wrong, the worst that can happen to you is that you’ll suddenly enter into your eternal destiny. But fail to be rightly related to Jesus Christ—and fail to build on the foundation of faith as He commanded—and it will forever determine the nature and quality of that eternal destiny. There are, then, certain things in the Christian life that it is vital to remember and recall.
I spent a little time looking in the Scriptures about this the other day; and I was surprised to find out how often the Bible emphasizes our need to “remember” the things it teaches us about our rich treasures in Christ. For example, near the end of his remarkable letter to the Romans—in which he shares with us the deep theological truths of our justification through Christ—the apostle Paul, in Romans 15:14-16, writes;
Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points, as reminding you, because of the grace given to me by God, that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:14-16; emphasis added).
Paul was confident, it seems, that his believing friends knew many of the truths he had taught them; and even that they were faithfully living them out in practice. But nevertheless, the importance of those things was so great that he felt compelled to write boldly to them and remind them of those things. He wrote a similar thing in his letter to the Philippian believers:
Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe (Philippians 3:1).
Perhaps they had heard these things before. And perhaps he may even have been coming across as “tedious” in their minds for having stressed those things again. But he took the risk of coming across as repetitive; because he didn’t want them to forget those vital things. They needed to remember them and constantly call them to mind.
Now; it wasn’t just the apostle Paul who put an emphasis on a sanctified ‘memory’. Even the Lord Jesus Christ wanted to ensure that His followers would remember and recall the things He had taught them. Just before He went to the cross, He gathered His apostles—who would be responsible for passing on to us the things Jesus said—told them;
“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:25-26; emphasis added).
Even the Lord Jesus wanted to make absolutely sure that the things He taught would be kept and recalled by His followers. And so, to insure that that would happen—after He ascended to the Father—He sent His Holy Spirit to indwell them. He gave the Spirit to the apostles who faithfully declared these things and brought them to the remembrance of Jesus’ followers. That same Holy Spirit works in us today. He takes up residence in all who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ; and I believe that one of His greatest ministries to us is that of gently bringing these great truths to our recollection and fixing them in our memory at times when we need them most.
As I read in the Scriptures, I even found that one of the very vital tasks of a pastor is that of reminding the people of God of the truths that they need to know. I hope you don’t ever get angry with me if it seems as if I’m repeating the same things to you over and over; because if I’m repeating the right things to you, I’m faithfully doing my job! Paul, for example, wrote to Pastor Timothy about the things he should teach God’s people; and told him,
If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed (1 Timothy 4:6).
And for that reason, he told Timothy;
Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching (2 Timothy 4:2).
Timothy was told to drive these truths into the hearts and into the heads of God’s people—so they wouldn’t forget them. Similarly, after writing a letter to Pastor Titus and explaining all the things that he was to teach the people of God on the ancient isle of Crete, Paul told him;
This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men (Titus 3:8; emphasis added).
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Now; that’s what a good pastor does. He constantly reminds the people of God—from the word of God—the things they must remember to believe and to do before God. And the apostle Peter was a very good pastor. He constantly sought to remind the people of God of these things. He was eager and determined—for as long as he was able to do so—to fix these truths permanently in their hearts and minds; so that they would continually recall them and put them into practice. We can see that Peter was big on ‘memory’ because of what he says in 2 Peter 3:1—a verse that, I believe, is key to understanding the purpose of this little letter:
Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder) . . . (2 Peter 3:1; emphasis added).
And dear brothers and sisters in Christ; that helps to underscore the importance of this morning’s passage to you and me. Our time on this earth is short. We have—right now—the grace from God of a brief period of time in which we are able to live for, and work for, and serve the cause of our Lord Jesus Christ. It won’t be very long at all before we will see Him. And when we do, we will be very glad that we had remembered the things that we needed to remember, and had lived obediently and fruitfully for Him!
So; this morning’s passage affirms to us that our growth in the Christian life depends greatly on remembering the things that are ours in Christ. And so; let’s look a little closer at what Peter says about it.
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First notice that we need to ‘remember’ these things . . .
1. AS A MATTER OF NEED BECAUSE OF THE EASE WITH WHICH WE FORGET (v. 12).
Peter begins by saying, “For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth” (v. 12). And when he speaks of “this reason”, he’s speaking of the importance of the things that are mentioned in verses 1-11. He is speaking of the fact that Jesus Christ is our all-sufficient Savior; and that if we are in a relationship with Him by faith, we now have the abundant resource of all things that pertain to life and godliness—all as a gift of His grace through the eternal riches of Jesus Himself. What’s more, he speaks of our responsibility to now rise up and build as we should on the foundation of faith in Jesus.
You see; for those of us who have placed our faith in Jesus, the Christian life is not a matter of searching for the resources that we will need in order to live as we should. Those resources are now already ours in rich abundance. For us, the Christian life is now a matter of resting fully on the sufficiency of Jesus Himself, and learning to make full use of what He has given us. For us, the Christian life is a matter of building on the foundation of faith with the materials that God provides and in the way that He enables.
That’s a tremendous difference of perspective; isn’t it, dear brothers and sisters in Christ? But we all-too-often forget these things. We are fallible and fallen people; and we often get caught up in the trials and circumstances of life. Our eyes are often distracted from the promises of God, and we panic in times of trial, and we turn to the values and priorities and resources of this world. In a way, we’re an awful lot like Peter when Jesus commanded him to step out of the boat. Do you remember that story? So long as he kept his eyes on Jesus, he was able to walk on the water. But the Bible tells us that, “when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid” (Matthew 14:30); and he began to sink. In a time of trial, the things of this world won’t sustain us. And its in the midst of such times that we need most to look to Jesus and remember what we have in Him.
I notice too that Peter says that the people to whom he wrote already ‘knew’ and were already ‘established in the present truth’. The things that he was setting before them right then—the truths of the gospel—were realities that they were already familiar with and were already well fixed upon. But as so often is the case, our familiarity with these things is another reason why we need to be reminded of them. We often forget these great truths because we take them for granted. We feel that they will always be there for us if we need them; and so we ignore them and neglect them. I think here of Hebrews 5:12-14; where the writer said;
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil (Hebrews 5:12-14).
Peter knew that, even when we already know these things and are established in them, we easily forget them; and still need to be reminded of them and urged to put them to consistent use. That’s why he said he was so diligent to remind his brothers and sisters of them. They so easily slip from our minds.
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Notice also that we’re to be . . .
2. MAKING FULL USE OF THE OPPORTUNITIES TO REMEMBER WHILE WE HAVE THEM (vv. 13-14).
Peter goes on to say, “Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me” (vv. 13-14). And when Peter said this, he must have been thinking of the very last conversation he had with the Lord Jesus—not long before the Lord ascended back to the Father.
Peter and his fellow apostles had met the resurrected Lord Jesus while on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. That’s when the Lord gave Peter that repeated command, “Feed My sheep.” And it was then that the Lord told Peter something startling;
“Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me” (John 21:18-19).
Jesus told Peter that he would reach old age. But He also told him that, when he reached old age, the time would come when he would ‘stretch out his hands’ and be taken where he didn’t wish to go. Church tradition has it that Peter was crucified for his faith in Jesus in the city of Rome. And when Peter wrote the words of our passage this morning, he was already an older man. He knew that he would not die of old age in a bed. He didn’t know exactly when, and he didn’t know exactly how; but he knew the time would come very quickly when he would be taken away from this earth in death.
I like the way that he put it. He said” I must put off my tent”. A tent is just a temporary dwelling place. Pull up the stakes and it easily falls down. This didn’t mean that he would cease to exist. It simply meant that he would change dwelling places. As Paul wrote; “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1). And that was what Peter expected. He would soon depart from this earth—just as the Lord had told him, and would take up an eternal residence with his beloved Redeemer. But so long as he was in that earthly tent, he thought it was right to do whatever he could to stir God’s people up by “reminding” them of the things they needed to know.
I often think of the men that God has placed in my life that reminded me of the things I needed to know in my walk with Jesus. Some of them have already departed; and I’m looking forward to seeing them in glory. Some of them are still here; but have slowed down considerably. Some of them are still going strong. I hope that I may be such a man to others—reminding those that God has placed in my life of the things we all need to remember in our walk for Christ. I hope I may continue to do so, so long as I am in this tent.
But dear brothers and sisters; pay careful heed to those who God has placed in your life to help you remember your resources in Christ! Don’t neglect them, or ignore them, or take their instruction and example for granted. Make full use of the opportunities God has given you—through the godly men and women He has placed in your life—to learn and remember the things you need to know to live fruitfully for the Lord Jesus Christ.
When you finally put off your earthly tent, and join them in Jesus’ presence, you’ll be very glad you ‘remembered’!
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But even though Peter would leave them physically, he still wouldn’t leave them without a constant reminder. He tells them, “Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease” (v. 15).
And so, finally, Peter tells us that we must be . . .
3. PAYING HEED TO THE REMINDERS THAT OTHERS—BY GOD’S GRACE—HAVE LEFT BEHIND FOR US (v. 15).
What specific “reminder” is he speaking of? Whatever else it may mean, I believe it certainly includes the very letter that we are studying. He knew that a word-of-mouth reminder wouldn’t be enough. What’s more, he knew that a similar token would be needed for those who would come after; and that Jesus’ followers, all the way up to the time of His return, would need to have a permanent reminder of the things they needed to know. And so, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he wrote those things down. God has seen fit to protect and preserve that written ‘reminder’ for us; and here we are studying it today.
In fact, it’s really surprising how often the written word of God is referenced in this tiny little New Testament letter. I find several mentions of it. Here, Peter alludes to it—saying that he is careful to leave a reminder that would remain after his demise. He speaks of it again in 3:1—saying that in two letters, he has sought to stir up the pure mind of his brothers and sisters “by way of reminder”.
At the end of Chapter 1, he speaks of the written witness of the Old Testament Scriptures to Christ; and of how
we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:19-21).
What a great ‘reminder’ the Old Testament is! And we also have the reminder of the New Testament Scriptures. As Peter says at the beginning of Chapter 3, we must be “mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior” (3:2). And at the end of the third chapter, he writes of the apostle Paul, who
according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures (3:15-16).
And what this all means is that God has provided us with a constant, reliable, ever-present, never-changing reminder of the things we need to know in the Scriptures! To be able to remember what we already have in Christ—and what we need to do about it—we need to be in the Bible regularly; and to feed daily from the word of God.
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Since we’re reading from the last verses of this little letter, look at how Peter closes it. He writes;
You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (3:17-18).
You and I will not be able to do this—we will not be able to beware lest we fall, nor grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord—unless we are careful to remember what is already ours in Christ and put it into practice!
