Sermon Tone Analysis

*Peter’s Reminder to Remember*

/2nd Peter1:12-15/

 

 

August 19, 2007

Sun Oak Baptist Church

 

 

*Introduction*

 

          A.

Please turn with me to 2nd Peter 1:13-14 and I encourage you to take out your sermon notes as well.

2nd Peter 1 is on page #817 in the pew Bible.

B.

One of the more profound experiences I have ever had was caring for a man that was literally dying.

He was in the last stages of emphysema and required 24-hour care.

A number of people in our church signed up for rotating shifts to help relieve his wife from carrying the burden of his care alone.

He was on oxygen 24-hours a day; we administered breathing treatments every three (3) hours; he had reached the point where he didn’t have the strength to get out of bed.

It was a profound experience and if you have ever had a similar one then you know that there’s something sobering…“stilling” about being in the presence of someone close to death – the things they talk about…the things on their minds.

And that’s kind of the position that we find ourselves in when we come to Peter’s 2nd epistle – the Lord had actually shown Peter that he would die shortly.

*Read 1:13-14.*

As we know from history Peter did die shortly after this letter was written.

So what did he talk about; what was important to him; what was his focus knowing that he time was short?

C.

Last week we saw his plea – his plea in verses 8-11 for Christians to be diligent in their pursuit and commitment to grow in their faith; to be diligent to keep adding  the Christ-like character traits in verses 5-7 to our lives; his plea to make our calling and election sure in verse 10; and his plea to be diligent in these things so that we might have an abundant entrance into Christ’s everlasting kingdom.

*Read 1:11.*

And this week we come to what I’m calling Peter’s Reminder to Remember.

Peter’s plea in verses 8-11 is to keep growing and his reminder is to remember.

In verses 12-15 he addresses a fundamental deficiency in human beings that goes all the way back to the Book of Genesis:  the problem of “remembering” things – the problem of our predisposition to forget.

As I read remember again the importance of the phrase “these things” that we saw last week.

*Read 12-15 and pray.*

D.

How many of us have ever lost our car keys?

How many times have we lost something around the house – or misplaced it only to find it weeks, or even months later?

How many of us have forgotten an anniversary; an important birthday; an appointment – even a bill payment?

I could go on and on with example after example of things that demonstrate the trouble human beings have with their memory, and it’s not that I’m trying to suggest that anyone purposefully sets out to forget things – I’m just stating the fact that it’s a problem we can all relate to.

1.

And here’s the problem with this problem applied to the Christian life:  our struggle with remembering things is a problem that God specifically says will directly and profoundly affect our relationship with Him.

God specifically says that our tendency to forget things will directly and profoundly impact our relationship with Him and this problem is THE problem that was foremost on Peter’s mind as he wrote this letter.

Look at verses 12-15.

He uses the word “remind” three (3) times here:  in verse 12, verse 13 and again in verse 15 – three (3) times.

Why?

Why the word “remind?”

Because he’s ringing a bell; he’s sounding an alarm; he’s holding up a sign that reads:  “Remember!!  ‘These things’ are so important in your life, they have the potential to impact your relationship to Christ so much, I’m going to do all I can to help you remember the things I am writing about.”

2.       Turn with me to Deut.

8:11 – you might want to put your bulletin in 2nd Peter because we’ll be coming right back.

Throughout the Bible God repeatedly warns us that our tendency to forget has the potential to seriously impact our relationship with Him.  *Read 8:11-14 and Ps.

50:22-23.*

3.

Now flip back to 2nd Peter 1.

We can go to passage after passage in God’s Word that issue the very same warning.

4.

We don’t have time to develop it this morning, but the reason every human being has problems remembering things is the result of the Fall.

The reason we struggle in this area of our lives is because of the Fall; it’s one of the consequences of sin.

In fact, perhaps one of the clearest demonstrations of the biblical doctrine of sin is our tendency to forget and we could go through Scripture and easily support this conclusion.

E.

What I want to do this morning is to take this problem of our memory; the very real danger of forgetting things we want to remember and unpack three (3) principles here in verses 12-15 that, if we are diligent to apply them to our lives will be a tremendous help towards guarding against the danger of forgetting the truths of God’s Word.

*I.

Principle #1:  there is a difference between /knowing/ truth and /living/ out truth.*

See 1:12.

When it comes to our tendency to forget things, remember that there is a world of difference between /knowing /truth and /living/ out that truth.

*Read 1:12.*

This is huge in the lives of people that attend church because Peter is warning us about the danger of thinking that because we are aware of (or know) a particular thing (for example thinking we are a Christian), that that “thing” is in our memory.

Now I know that’s a mouthful so let me say it again.

In verse 12 Peter warns about the danger of thinking that because we believe we are aware of (or that we know) a particular thing, that that “thing” is in our memory.

Now I had a little trouble getting my arms around this so maybe this will help – it helped me.

A.

If we can remember back to what it was like when we attended school we can get what Peter’s saying here.

1.       Think back:  we are sitting in class one day and the teacher lectures on a number of facts:  pick a subject – any subject.

As we are sitting there listening we say to ourselves:  “Oh – I know that, I remember reading that, I am aware of that” – so we don’t take the trouble to take notes.

A month or so later we are taking a test on those very facts and we find ourselves struggling to remember the very facts that we were previously so sure of.

We remember the lecture; we remember reading about the subject; but for some reason we can’t exactly recall the facts.

We are aware of them, we /know/ them to a certain degree, but the low grade on the test proved that we really did not possess those facts in the sense that Peter means here – we couldn’t live them out – we weren’t “established” in them.

2.       That’s the principle:  there’s a huge difference between knowing a truth and living out that truth, and this difference can have major consequences in a person’s Christian life.

The Bible clearly teaches that there is a world of difference between knowing what is good and doing it – between knowing a truth and being established in that truth.

James 4:17:  “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do /it/, to him it is sin.”

There is a world of difference between knowing Biblical truth and living that truth out.

3.

On his death bed as it were, Peter is warning us that a person can know the essentials of Christian growth in verses 5-7, they can be aware of them, but if they aren’t engaged in the ongoing process of adding these things to their lives and growing in them then they don’t really remember them – they aren’t established in them.

B.

So here’s Peter’s reminder:  if we aren’t careful to differentiate between “awareness” of truth versus practicing truth that truth means nothing in our lives.

Faith without works is dead – knowledge without execution means nothing.

Why is reminding us to remember so important to Peter?

One reason is that the difference between knowing truth and living out that truth is literally the difference between eternity in hell or eternity in heaven.

*II.

Principle #2:  our memories must be /exercised./*

See 1:13.

*Read 1:13.*

A.

In order to be effective and profitable our memories must be exercised and this is done by “stirring” them up.

1.

The word “stir” means to wake up or to vigorously agitate something like we would do to stir up the mud off the bottom of pond – chocolate milk illustration.

That’s the idea here:  these things are so important in the Christian life that as long as he has a breath to breathe Peter’s going to do all he can to remind us to remember; to stir up the Biblical truths these Christians already know in order to keep them and us from turning into Christian couch potatoes.

2.       God saves us in verses 1-4 and then our response in the following verses is to be diligent to keep the things he’s been talking about actively present in the center of our minds so we can live them out.

Don’t let our memory of the Biblical truths we learn settle into the bottom of our minds like sentiment settles to the bottom of a lake.

B.

There are two (2) aspects to the “stirring” here.

1.

For one, think back to the school example for a minute:  ever try to take a test without studying?

Ever try to cram for a test?

Ever try to take a test after only reviewing the material once?

When I take tests I have to review, review again, review again, and basically do everything I can to “stir up” the mud of the facts I learn in class that settle to the bottom of my mind.

The first aspect of the “stirring” here is the importance of keeping things we learn about being a Christian right in the front of our minds.

For example, if we aren’t reading our Bible everyday, keeping our nose in the Book, then truth we have learned in the past just settles to the bottom of our memories and does us no good.

The only way to keep Biblical truth “stirred up” so that it produces fruit in our life is to purpose, by God’s grace, to constantly be in God’s Word – that’s one (1) aspect of the “stirring” here.

2.

And a second aspect has to do with living in the past – it’s the danger of trying to live on memories that have settled in the backs of our minds – it’s the old saying:  how soon we forget.

We tend to think that just remembering Independence Day, 9~/11 and so on, is enough for that particular memory to make a life-long impact on us – but it doesn’t.

For example, do we still ache over what happened on 9~/11 the way we did two (2) years ago; three (3) years ago – or the day after it happened?

Sin has a way of giving us the idea that we can live under the influence of old memories, but we can’t.

We can’t live in or live on the past and yet, we all probably have met people that try to do just that.

They try to live on past memories; the memory of a successful career; the memory of their love for someone special that has died; and so on.

Someone once said this is not living – it’s “existing.”