Remember These Things.

Opening:

It is a beautiful thing to open the Word of God on the Lord’s Day.

Introduction of the Passage:

This morning we are finally returning to our study of 2 Peter. This morning we will be in 2 Peter 1:12-15. It’s been a while since we have been in 2 Peter.

So as a little reminder, Peter wrote this letter likely to the same audience as his first letter. His purpose here is to remind them of the gospel, call them to holy living, and warn them of false teachers.

He opened his letter by focusing on the preciousness of the faith all Christians possess. Our faith is as precious as the faith of the Apostles themselves. This is not because we all possess equally strong or mature faith, because clearly there are variations in the maturity of our faith. Our faith is equally precious because of two reasons. First, all of our faith is gifted to us by God. Second, all of our faith has the same Object, Christ.

Next, Peter reminded these Christians that they should not be content with bare faith. All of us, as Christians should actively strive to add to our faith. We are all to grow in our faith. While we are saved by faith alone, that faith will never be alone. We should work hard to grow in our faith and add the virtues of the Christian life to our faith.

And now we come to our passage. So if you would, stand with me for the reading of God’s holy Word.

Reading of the Passage:

2 Peter 1:12–15“12 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. 13 Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, 14 knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. 15 Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.”

Behold, the Word of God. Let’s Pray.

Prayer:

Our gracious Heavenly Father, we ask that you would be with us this morning as we open Your Word. May it be honoring to you. And please use Your Word to sanctify us and make us ever more into the image of Your Son. We ask this in Jesus name, amen.

Text Idea:

Peter’s central idea in this passage is to explain why he is reminding the church of these things. The preciousness of faith and the knowledge that they should add to their faith was nothing new. But Peter here explains that he seeks to remind them of this continually to stir them up and ensure they constantly remember this truth.

Sermon Idea:

In the same way, I hope this message serve to remind us of the importance of truly committing these truths to our hearts and minds.

Need:

People have a tendency to become complacent and even forget things you would never think they could forget. So we must always be on the watch and be repetitious in our reminders of things that are truly important.

Transition:

So let’s dive in this morning. We can see really three central thoughts to this passage. First is Peter’s Reminder.

Peter’s Reminder.

Explanation:

He opens by saying this: 2 Peter 1:12 “12 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.”

It may be helpful to remember the context of what Peter is saying. This is still the same thought Peter was just saying in the previous verses. If you read the beginning of 2 Peter 1, Peter is telling them to remember their salvation and to always be striving to add to their faith so that they can be certain they are saved.

And then he says for this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things. In essence what Peter is saying is this. “I just reminded you of all these things regarding your salvation. Remember these things.” Peter is calling them to always remember these things.

Remember These Things.

It is, in fact, so important for Peter to call these Christians to remember these things that he says he would actually be negligent in his duties if he did not remind them about them. This is strong wording. He is basically saying that if he did not remind them of the preciousness of their faith and call them to strive to add to their faith, he would be abandoning his role.

And this is because one of the central roles of a pastor is to remind.

One of the Central Roles of a Pastor is to Remind.

I love how the puritan, Matthew Henry put it. He said that the preacher is to be a “remembrancer.” That’s an old English word that means someone who reminds another person of something. I love that word. Pastors are to be remembrancers. They are to remind their flock of things.

And that is what Peter is saying. He is saying that if he were not a remembrancer, he would be failing in his duty. He is reminding them of these central facts and realities of the faith. He is calling them to remember that their faith is precious because it was a gift from God. They did not earn it. They did not work hard enough for God to reward them with faith. Faith itself is a gift. Remember that. Christians are not to be stale and stagnate in their faith. They are to always be working. They are to work hard to add to their faith. They should always be striving to live holy and godly lives.

He is remembrancing this to them. He is reminding them of this. And that is one of the pastor’s chief roles. Pastors are to always be reminding their people of the truth of scripture. We are not to be some kind of motivational speaker. We aren’t comedians. We are simply remembrancers. That is our job. Remember what God has said and done.

And it is so interesting to note the next phrase.

Peter says “though you know and are established in the present truth.” Peter is not telling them anything new. They knew these truths.

They Knew These Truths Already.

This was nothing new. These Christians were intimately familiar with the preciousness of their faith. They knew they did not earn it. They knew it was a gift from God. They knew that they should strive to add to their faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge self control and all the rest. They knew this.

And not only did they know this, they were established in this. That is another strong word. They were firm in this. They were set. They not only knew the truth, they had internalized it. This truth was set in their lives and hearts. This is likely something Peter had preached often to these people. He had likely taught them these lessons many times. It is not new to them. But he says he will always remind them of this.

And Peter says, even though you know this, even though you are established in it, I would be being negligent in my duties if I did not remind you always of these truths.

Argumentation:

And this is so interesting. And if we are honest, it is rather counterintuitive to us. We live in an age of innovation. We are always striving for the newest things. We want something new and better. We are a culture that is so easily bored. We are so quick to move on to the next thing. As a culture we are always longing for the next. And this shows in our attention span. We have such poor attention spans today. If we think we know something, we want to move on. We are so easily bored. So easily distracted. And this is not a good thing. If Peter wrote this to us, in our day, we would be so tempted to say, “yeah, Peter, we know! Move on already!”

This is so bad is because:

We Learn By Repetition.

Now, I’m looking for some congregational input here. Out of curiosity, has anyone in here ever memorized anything?

Bible verses: How do you memorize a Bible verse? Bible memory app that forces me to repeat the verse again and again till I know it. Summer camp:

Song lyrics: How do you memorize song lyrics? Sing the same song again and again until you know it.

Phone Numbers: Remember when we had to memorize Phone numbers? Who remembers their childhood home phone number or address? How did you memorize that?\

People’s names:

All of us have memorized things. And to memorize something is simply to internalize it to where you don’t forget it. It is taking something from your short term memory and embedding it into your long term memory. We do this by repetition. Repetition forces us to internalize things. Anything you want to remember, you repeat until you remember it.

But that’s not the only reason we repeat things. We repeat things that are important.

We Repeat Things That Are Important.

Think about it. Important things are repeated. And you can actually tell what is important to someone based on how often they repeat it.

Think of work. How many of you go to work everyday? Why? Probably because it is important to make money to feed your family and give them a home to live in. Chances are, many of us don’t always want to go to work. But it is important for us to be able to provide for our families, so we daily provide.

What about eating? Eating seems to be pretty important. How many of you eat something every day? Why? Because not starving to death is important.

This is true of everything important. And we can gauge how important things are by how often we repeat things. It’s the new year. This is the time of year where everyone re-signs up for their gym memberships. Now say you encountered someone who said their goal was to get in shape. They told you all about how often they were going to work out and about this new diet plan they were starting. Then they proceed to go to the gym exactly twice that year. How important would you say getting into shape is to that man?

Kidney Donation:?

Things we repeat are things we think are important. But sadly, in the church we have mostly forgotten this. We have been influenced by the culture. We are constantly innovating. We are always looking for the next new thing. I encounter this a lot.

We Should Repeat What is Important in the Church.

How many churches have completely revolutionized their worship for the sake of chasing the newest fad. We can’t do the same thing every week. People will get bored. I hear this from pastors I know all the time. “We can’t repeat the same prayers and do the same thing each week. We want to keep people engaged.”

I think the church lost something when we got bored with traditional liturgy. I really do. We repeat what is important. This is why we repeat what we repeat every week. We pray. We sing. We open God’s Word. We do this orderly and consistently because it is so important.

Every week we:

Open by confessing sin. Because it is important to get into the repeated habit of self examination and repentance.

We sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to the Lord. Because it is important to give specific praise to God by singing His Word and faithful hymns to Him in worship.

We focus on the education of Children in the faith. Because this is important.

We dedicate multiple times of our service to prayer. Because it is important to go to God with our needs and our praises.

We open God’s Word to read it and hear it preached. Because this is the central time of directly hearing from God.

And this is something we must learn. We must do away with this idea that important things should only happen occasionally. We often use this as an excuse to “keep things special.” But that just is not true. The reality is we repeat things that are special and important. You don’t only kiss your wife once a year in order to keep it special. You should be showing your spouse physical affection OFTEN. This does not take away from the special nature of it, in fact it increases the special nature of it. It makes it better.

When I think about the implications of this passage, it is convicting for me. Peter says that if he did not constantly remind them of these very central truths he would be negligent. I as a pastor do not want to be negligent in my duties. I need to be shepherding this church by reminding you and repeating things that are important. And I have to now wrestle through how I am doing that. Are we as a church repeating the important things or only remembrancing them occasionally. Am I as your pastor forming our liturgy to constantly be reminding us of the central truths in a way that you memorize them and their importance? Are there things we should be doing more often? Are we neglecting the repeated practice of central things? This is something I am praying through and I would covet your prayers for myself and the church leadership in this.

Transition:

But we need to keep moving in our passage. Peter says he constantly reminds them of these truths. But why? What motivates Peter to do this? And here we get an interesting revelation. We learn here of:

Peter’s Impending Death.

Explanation:

Peter says this: 2 Peter 1:13–15“13 Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, 14 knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. 15 Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.”

Peter knows he is about to die. He is likely writing this letter from a Roman prison. He knows his end is coming soon. And we don’t know exactly how he knows that it is soon. He is an Apostle and a prophet so it’s not surprising he knows, but the fact is that he does know. He knows that soon he will die.

And Peter’s death is one of great interest. It is one of the most certain accounts from church history. There is very little debate over it. Peter was executed by Nero, one of, if not the most evil Roman emperor. It is likely Nero John was talking about when he spoke of the great Beast who would persecute the church. He was a horrific and evil man who hated Christians. He was responsible for many many Christian’s deaths. He would torture them and impale them alive and then light them on fire in order to light his garden at night. This man was evil like we cannot understand.

And it was at his order that multiple of the Apostles were martyred. Notable, the Apostle Paul was beheaded by Nero’s order. And Peter would soon be crucified upside down. And history tells us that Peter chose to die upside down at his own request. He did not find himself to be worthy of dying in the same manner as Christ. This would have made his crucifixion last much longer and perhaps even be more painful.

But we do not know how much Peter knew or if he knew exactly how soon it would happen. But Peter does tell how he knows he will die. He tells us that Jesus showed Peter that he would die.

Jesus Prophesied Peter’s death.

After Jesus was raised we read this account. Jesus pulled Peter aside and began asking him “Peter, do you love me?” Each time Peter said yes. To which Jesus would respond, “feed my sheep.” Finally, Jesus asked Peter a third and final time. And we read this:

John 21:17–19 “17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep. 18 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.” 19 This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me.””

Jesus prophesied Peter’s coming death. And Peter knew that it was coming. He trusted Jesus’ words. He knew he would someday die for Christ. And by the time of writing this letter, Peter knew it was coming soon.

But perhaps what is more interesting is the language Peter uses about his coming death. He says his body is a tent. This is interesting.

The Body is a Tent.

Now I don’t think any of you live in a tent. I think everyone here lives in a house of some kind. And that is because a tent is a temporary dwelling. You live in a tent when you do not have a house.

Think of Israel. For a generations they lived in tents. They wandered and traveled. From Abraham until Joshua finally took the promised land. But during that whole time they were eagerly longing for the promise land. They were longing for their permanent dwelling.

The body is the same. In a sense these bodies are tents. We will someday leave our bodies behind. None of us will live forever. We will someday leave this body to be with the Lord. And then when Christ returns and we experience the resurrection we will be reunited with our bodies. But even in that, there will be a change. It will no longer be our body stained by sin and corruption. We will be reunited with our bodies, these bodies, but in the perfect.

Just like a tent resembles a house, so also will our glorified bodies have some continuity, but be more permanent. They will last forever. No more sin. No more death. No more corruption.

Argumentation:

Peter’s handling of his impending death is truly inspiring. He is not moping over the fact that soon he will face horrific torture. He knows that upon his death his soul will leave his body to be with Christ. And he knows that someday in the future he will be resurrected. This knowledge gives him great comfort.

I often wonder how we would react if we knew that soon we would be crucified? Would we panic? Would we lose all hope and become a puddle on the floor? Not Peter. He was comforted by the reality of what happens to a Christian upon death. He was comforted by the resurrection. He knew this body is a tent. It will someday be left behind by all of us. None of us can escape death.

And this reality if frightening for so many. Death is perhaps the biggest fear all humans share. We all know that we will face death. It is the universal reality. Every single one of us will someday face death. And yet, we so rarely think about it. I think this is because confronting this reality is frightening. It forces us to move past the trivialities of our lives. To wrestle with our mortality is to wrestle with the biggest questions of all time.

Who am I? What am I here for? Did I accomplish what I was put here for? Where will I go when I die? And more than this, it forces us to confront our own personal sin. We must acknowledge the fact that we are not actually good people. We have not actually kept God’s commands. We have failed in so many ways.

This is why death is only a comfort to the Christian. The Christian is truly unique. Christianity teaches us the importance of this life while simultaneously teaching us the eternal importance of heaven.

Think of Peter’s letter so far. He spent a large portion of his writing so far dealing with temporal things. How do you live? What should you do in this life? Be self controlled. Be virtuous. Be wise. Be strong, godly, and kind. He is concerned with how we live this day to day life. Think of his last letter. He dealt with marriage. Husbands, be patient with your wives. Wives submit to your husbands even calling them lord. These are practical concerns. Husbands, work on your attitudes with you wives. Wives, be respectful in how you talk to and about your husbands. He dealt with slaves. Employees, work hard at your job.

But at the exact same time Peter is comforted in his own death knowing that as important as this life is, it is fleeting. He does not minimize the importance of this life. What he does is maximize the importance of the next life.

Peter holds a balance. This life matters. We are not gnostics. But you and I must wrestle with the eternal. We must wrestle with death. So I ask you, are you ready to die? Are you prepared to leave it all behind upon your death? Are you prepared for the inevitable that is coming quickly for you?

Can you honestly say you share the same comfort Peter has? There is only one way. Confess your sins to the Lord who made you and who died to pay for your sins. Confess your sins. Turn away from them. Accept the forgiveness offered to you in Christ. This is the only hope you have. And through this there can be peace. You can know the comfort of Christ. You can share this same hope Peter has.

Transition:

And Peter closes by expressing his concern for the church once more. While he has the ultimate comfort of salvation in death, he still maintains the balance of still seeing this life as important. He cares for what he leaves behind. So let’s look finally at:

Peter’s Lasting Legacy.

Explanation:

Peter closes with these words. 2 Peter 1:15 “15 Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.” Peter wants the church to have a constant reminder of the truths he is writing to them. It is not enough for Peter to simply preach these truths to them. It is not enough for him to simply remind them of these familiar truths. He wants them to have a lasting reminder of them, even after he died. And it is for this reason he wrote to them.

Peter Wrote to Leave a Constant Reminder to the Church.

What would you say the Apostle Pete’s greatest impact was?

Maybe his sermon at Pentecost? 3,000 people were saved from that sermon.

Maybe it was the people he healed? One person being healed simply by Peter’s shadow passing over him.

Maybe it was his leadership in the early church?

All of those were great things. But something else blows them out of the water. Not even his great sermon at Pentecost can compare. What is Peter’s greatest impact? His recorded words of Scripture. The greatest impact Peter had was the gospel of Mark (Mark likely scribed Peter’s Words), and his two letters to the church.

How could we ever measure the impact of these words? How could we ever measure the importance of Peter being used by God to write Scripture? We are studying this morning the very words of the Apostle Peter. These are the very same words he wrote to the early church. These words have been used by God to save souls, to encourage saints, and to comfort the afflicted in ways we cannot comprehend. I doubt we could even fathom the impact of Peter’s Words.

Argumentation:

He left a legacy beyond what he could even likely understand. His goal was to encourage the church to continue on in holiness even after his death. And through the power of God, he did that.

I am constantly blown away when I think about this. We are reading the exact same words written by Peter 2,000 years ago. And God is still using it to call His church to faith and obedience in Christ.

Transition:

As we ponder this text, I am amazed by the depth in such a simple explanatory passage.

Conclusion:

And I pray we take Peter’s words and his intention to heart. May we seek always to remember these things. Remember always that you are saved by the grace of God. You are not saved because you merited it. You are saved by the grace of God. Remember always that you must strive to live a holy life.

Application:

But there are two things I believe would be wise for us to ponder from this passage. First:

Remember By Repetition.

Remember, Peter says they knew these things and were established in them. He is trying to get the church to remember by repetition. So I would ask you this, what things do you need to start repeating? Repetition is how we remember things. Repetition is how we prove something is important.

May you are here and you struggle to spend time in the Bible or in prayer. These are things you need to practice. They are essential parts of the Christian life. So perhaps this is a good reminder to you that you should be repeating those practices.

Maybe you struggle to have times of prayer and worship as a family. If you are trying to train your kids in the faith, this is a great practice to institute. Start small, but focus on repetition. Read the Bible. Sing a hymn. Pray. But repetition will help you.

Perhaps its something else. I can’t really speak for all of you. I don’t know what habits you want to cultivate in your life. But if you want to grow in the faith, perhaps the best way to do that is simply to institute practices that are repeatable. Repeat the important things. Do them daily. Day and day out. This is how habits form.

But another part of this is more ethereal. Much of our worship is repetitive. It is this way on purpose. So I would challenge you to be on guard against the swing of the culture of the church in our age. Repetition is helpful. It helps us take thins from our brains to our hearts. So I would challenge you to really ponder the things we do regularly. And even ponder the things we should do regularly. This is how we take truths to heart. We repeat them. So really ponder the importance of what we do in worship. See the beauty of weekly confession of sin as a body. The wonder of our singing to our Lord. The power of hearing the Word of God read. Think of the beauty and glory of that weekly rhythm of worship.

But finally, I would challenge us all to seek to have the mind of Peter. Seek to think as he did about a very pivotal issue.

Ponder Your Mortality.

All of us will die. None of know when. It could be today, it could be years from now. But every one of us will face death. It comes for us all. Ponder this. Do not shrink away. Ask yourself:

(Expand on these)

Are you prepared to stand before the Lord?

Are you living in a way that matters in the long run?

Are you contemplating the eternal things?

Do you find comfort or terror at the thought of dying?

What will you leave behind? Peter knew he was dying and focused on leaving behind a legacy.

Christians have the truly unique ability to know we will die, and face it with peace and hope. So rest in this hope.

Appeal:

But above all, Remember these things. Faith is gift from God. Live accordingly. Live a life worthy of the salvation given to you. Commit this to memory. Never forget it. The apostle Peter was about to die, and his concern was that the church never forget this.

Let’s Pray.

Closing Prayer:

Offering:

Offertory Prayer:

Benediction:

2 Corinthians 13:14“14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.”