Remember!
Notes
Transcript
Mic
Prayer
Several years ago one of the astronauts who walked on the moon was interviewed and asked, “What did you think about as you stood on the moon and looked back at the earth?” The astronaut replied, “I remembered how the spacecraft was built by the lowest bidder.”
We as Christians can rejoice that the work of salvation did not go to the “lowest bidder” but was performed by an infinite God.
There will never be any deficiency in his work.
Our salvation is as sure as the architect of that salvation, the Almighty God who is full of grace and truth!
With that, let us look at our text for today in 2 Pet chapter 1. [ the bottom of page 1215 in your pew bible or page 183 in the skinny bibles at the back]
4 Slide
12 Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you.
13 And I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder,
14 knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.
15 And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you may be able to call these things to mind.
In this passage Peter takes a pastoral posture as he emphasizes that he will always be ready to remind them of these things.
Studies show that people tend to forget 90% of what has been said as soon as 90 minutes after a sermon . That is why I provide space at the back of the bulletin for you to take notes.
That is why I keep a journal next to my Bible so I can jot down some important passage of scripture that I read. and
that is why I encourage you to take notes as well.
God stressed the importance of reminders when He gave Israel the Shema
6 Slides (ending vs 9)
4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
5 “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 “And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart;
7 and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
8 “And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
9 “And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Parents were to remind their children daily that the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. They were to put His word on the door frames of their houses. They were to bind them as a sign on their hand and on their foreheads. The Jews took this literally, and put the she-ma in a little box that they wore on their hand and heads… but I think God meant this to be a mental exercise as He told Joshua.
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8 “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.
We are to meditate on it day and night so that we can be careful to do according to all that is written in it.
Peter gives the same advice to the recipients of Jude.
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17 But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Likewise, Paul encouraged his followers to remember.
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35 “In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
Peter was always ready to remind them of these things. and what are these things.
That we are saved by faith
Peter refers to this in the opening verse “to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours.” The verb for received is λαγ-χάνω which is a verb that implies that we have received something through no effort of our own. Our salvation is a gift to us by God’s grace through faith.
and not only this, but God has given to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. Peter is stressing to them that they have everything they need for life and to be like God.
This reminds me when Alice and I were in Haiti. I remember talking with some pastors and they wanted us to help them build a seminary to train pastors for the ministry. They had a noble vision… and so I reminded them that they already had everything that they needed.
Jesus did not need a big building with libraries of books and classrooms. There was just 1 man with his disciples. God had already given them some very good pastors who spoke the language and who were more than qualified. They already had their version of “flame courses” where young pastors could gather together to study God’s word and then return home. They did not need to do it the American way.. they needed to do it the Haitian way and God had already given them everything they needed.
They may even have some better ways. When we joined them at their main service each week, the various Sunday School classes would share what they had learned that day. … not just the children’s classes, but even the adult classes.
Furthermore Peter reminds them that they had everything they need pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us. They had the Bible through oral tradition… We have the Bible written down for us. We are saved by grace through faith.
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
and not only this We have His precious and magnificent promises so that we might become partakers of the divine nature. Think of that .… we can become partakers of God’s divine nature! Does that not just blow your mind?
God offers us to have His Spirit live and dwell within us! We can come boldly to the throne of grace! Wow! What an amazing privilege!
Peter is reminding them of all these things.
However, this is not all that Peter is reminding them of.
While our salvation is a free gift of God, .…
there are tasks, God has assigned to us .
We must repent (or turn from our sins) and begin to follow Jesus.
We must choose to place our faith in Jesus and not in ourselves.
and having chosen to follow Jesus and placed our faith in Jesus we must choose to implement that faith.
and how do we do that?
Those are the very things we have been talking about for the last two weeks.
To our faith … we need to add moral excellence… We change our behavior. We stop doing the things that we know God does not approve of and we begin doing those things that are right.
We don’t get drunk or high on drugs.
We pursue sexual purity and not fornication or adultery. We don’t sleep around.
We stop cursing and using bad language … we clean up our language.
We look for opportunities to be kind and helpful to other people.
but we do not stop there… we go on to add to our current knowledge of God.
We get involved in Bible Study
We attend church regularly. we do not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as is the habit of some.
We get involved in Sunday School, and Sunday evening services and Wednesday night.
We start reading through the Bible on our own
and then as we study God’s word, we put it into practice and that requires self-control and perseverance.
We pursue becoming more and more god-like in our behavior because as it says in
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1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;
Our goal is to become more and more like Jesus.
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3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
We practice brotherly love and agape love.
Peter says that as long as he is in this earthly dwelling he will remind them of these things and it is right to do so.
Jesus had personally charged him to “Tend my lambs. Shepherd my Sheep. Tend my sheep.” when they were by the sea after His resurrection.
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15 ...” He said to him, “Tend My lambs.”
This was no trouble for Peter… It is what pastors do.
Peter was probably in his upper 50’s if not 60’s by this time. By all counts, Peter would have known that he was nearing the end of his life. He did not have much time left on this earth and so he wanted to make sure that they were on the right path when his time on this earth came to a close.
In verse 14, Peter refers to “knowing that the laying aside of this earthly dwelling was imminent.” In this verse, I suspect he is talking about his martyrdom. I doubt that he was speaking of a natural death because Jesus had told him
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18 “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself, and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.”
Jesus had prophesied to Peter that he would die a martyrs death. and so I do not think he was expecting to go in the rapture or to die a natural death. This would fit with a date for the letter near the time of Nero’s persecution of the Christians.
He also says in verse 15
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15 And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you may be able to call these things to mind.
This may have played a part in Peter’s decision to write both 1st and 2nd Peter. Peter may also have had an influence on John Mark the author of the Gospel of Mark but who was also Peter’s assistant.
That is as far as we are going to get today.
This is a good breaking point for today’s message.
As we go into the Lord’s supper
it is a good time to stop and remember.
It is a good time to remember what God has done for us. I can remember when I first gave my life to Jesus over 50 years ago. My life was falling apart. I was lonely. I had been arrested. I had a short stint in jail. My then wife had left me for another man.. and quite frankly I was on the broad path on the the way to hell.
but all that changed when one day I walked into a small church in Venango. Ne. It was there I met Pastor Mac and his wife Bev. They had a peace and a joy that I did not have. They told me about Jesus and that you can know all about Jesus, but not know Him until you make Jesus the Lord of your life.
Since the day that I made the decision to make Jesus the Lord of My life and to follow Him, my life has become radically different.
Yes, God and Jesus are now the center of my life…
but what a change. He has given me a wife who truly loves me.
He has given us our children, and a peace that knows no bounds.
He has filled our hearts with love instead of loneliness. He has forgiven my sins and taken away the guilt. and
He has given us an even bigger and better family.. He has given us you. We have an inheritance waiting for us in heaven and I could go on an on...
Jesus also gave us the Lord’s table as a remembrance of what He has done for us.
He told us in
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19 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
Do this in remembrance of Me.
So let us take time this morning to remember how much Jesus loves us.
He loves us so much that He was willing to die for us.
Let us take time to think about how He suffered for us taking the punishment for our sins.
He didn’t deserve that.… we did...
but let us also remember that the story does not end at the cross.
On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead for our justification.
and He has given to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.
He has opened the door for us to become partakers of His divine nature!
Wow we have a lot to be thankful for.
Now before we partake of communion I always ask us to take time to examine ourselves. That is because in
1 Corinthians 11 Paul reminds us.
5 Slides (ending vs 31)
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly.
30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged.
What does it mean to eat this bread or drink this cup in an unworthy manner?
Let me ask you...
Do you have any unconfessed sin in your life?
Are you holding a grudge against anybody?
This would also apply to someone who is not a Christian… You have not repented of your sins and asked Jesus to be the Lord or the boss of you life?
Is there any area in your life where you know you are disobeying God. You are doing something that you know displeases God?
Then now is the time to confess that to God. God does not give us this warning so that we will not come to the Lord’s table, but so that we will deal with the issues and then come to the table having confessed our sin, repented from it, and are now right with God.
Now this does not mean.. you can confess it,… and then go right out and continue in your sin. This requires us to be sincere in our confession.
I am going to pause now and give you a time to pray.
A time to get right with God...
but also a time to thank God that He has saved us from our sins.
a time to thank Him that He has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness.
a time to thank God that we can become partakers in His divine nature.
and a time to renew your commitment to add to your faith moral excellence,
and to your moral excellence knowledge, and to your knowledge perseverance,
and to your perseverance godliness. brother love, and agape love.
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I am going to ask our Vice-Chair Paul and our Secretary Rebecca to come forward and assist me with the Lord’s Table.
