Remember

2 Peter | 2 Peter 1:5-15

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's been a lot of research in uh recent years about how the internet uh and especially Google has changed the way we remember things. Researchers uh started noticing a pattern that when people uh when people know they can look things up afterwards or look things up later, they're less likely to actually remember it. I I've I've actually found this to be true in my in my life. It's like not that I cook anything, my my wife cooks things, but if I were to ever think about like a recipe for something, I would get it and I would make it, and then when I'd go to make it again, I'd think, how do I make this? So then I'd have to go like look it up again. And again, this has never actually happened in my real life because I don't cook anything. But if I did, that's probably what would happen. But that's that's true in in our lives. We we've become very reliant on just being like, I don't need to keep this in my brain. I I'm just gonna Google it. I'm just gonna look up look it up. In fact, studies found that people are often more likely to remember where to find information than the actual information itself. So instead of actually knowing something, we kind of outsource our memory. We think, I don't need to remember this, I can just look it up. We are constantly exposed to information. We've talked about this before in this room. And in some ways we're formed by it, but in other ways we're not. There is a lot of just passing through one ear and out the other. But the more and more and more and more and more and more and more we expose ourselves to something, it does start to form us. Truth is, there's a real danger that in the same thing is actually happening spiritually in us. What's true in terms of just our memory in general is actually maybe something that's also true spiritually for us. We hear the truth, we read scripture, we sit through sermons, but if we're honest, a lot of times, and I have to just face this as a preacher, you guys don't listen to a word I say. Just joking. Some of you, maybe not. It just passes through. Now we assume I know that. I've heard this before. I'm notorious for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard that. Let's move on to the next thing. And I wonder if that's true of many of us, whether it be in a different context or even spiritually. Yeah, yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that before. I got that part. I want to, I want to graduate to something else. I want to learn something deeper. We're actually not holding it in in a way that shapes how we live in a lot of ways. Peter is pressing into that idea this morning. And in general, he's pressing in on that idea in this book, in this letter that he wrote in general. Because the issue is not that these believers didn't know the truth. He says that they did, and we'll uncover that. The issue is that they needed to be reminded, they needed to be stirred up again by the truth to actually remember it. Last week we kicked off our series in 2 Peter, and and in Peter's first letter, he wrote to a number of churches in Asia Minor in modern-day Turkey, and there's been debate on whether or not that's who he wrote to. 2 Peter, some scholars say yes, some scholars say no, but either way, we know that he is writing to churches that he's familiar with in one way or the other, and the occasion for writing it is there are false teachings and false teachers that he needs to combat. They are persuading and tempting believers to believe untrue things about Christ and about God and about his word. And the tone of this letter is a little bit intense. It's not unlike Galatians and Paul, where Paul just kind of wants to punch everybody in the mouth. Peter's a little bit like that in this one. He just kind of, he's like, no, no, you I'm gonna hammer this home as many times and as hard as I possibly can. Verse 3 and 4, which was talked about last week, Peter tells us that God has given us, believers, everything we need to become spiritually mature, uh, which then leads us into our section today. So, in other words, when when we are truly in Christ, as we've uncovered last week, we left what we lack nothing. To say in another way, even still, is God has given us, gifted us, everything we need to be a growing and maturing Christian. Peter's not done. We're gonna do something that we don't normally do this morning, and we're gonna read the end, and then we're gonna go back to the beginning and find ourselves back at the end. So we're actually gonna start with, in many ways, the heart and the thesis statement of this entire letter, which is verses 12 through 15. So Peter says this, therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it is right, as long as I am in the body, to stir you up way as uh to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me, and I will make every effort so that after my departure you will be able to at any time recall these things. So, what Peter is doing here is he is writing to this church, but he's also writing to the church at large to say, I'm gonna hammer this stuff home. I'm going to sit tell you this as a way of a reminder, because you need to be reminded of these things often. We all need to be reminded of these often, so that even after I die, you'll be able to open up this letter and I will be able to preach it to you again. Peter finds this incredibly important. Peter's here to remind you. He's here to remind me, and he's here to remind us. He's here to say these things in such a way that we'll endure even after his death. He knows that his death is close. He knows that this will be potentially the last time he'll be able to write these folks or be able to write the church in general. And he needs to remind us of the truth and grace and calling that exist for those of us that are in Christ. He is teaching something that we already know, quote unquote. If you've been in church for really in any period of time, a lot of all of the things that we're going to talk through this morning, and in general, in some ways, what he's going to talk through in this letter is stuff that he would say, You already know this, but I'm going to tell you again. His deepest desire is to remind reminding God's people that they have access to everything when they are in Christ. But there are implications when you have access to everything. Let's jump back up to verse five. Peter says this, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. Okay, for what reason? Because God has given us everything we need as Christians to become spiritually mature, which we talked about last week with John preached on last week. Because God has given us everything we need as Christians to become spiritually mature, Paul says we have no reason not to progress in spiritual maturity. Because we have access to everything, we have no reason and no excuse not to. And there are some of us in this room, and I might include myself in some of us where we find ourselves not growing spiritually. We are not progressing. We are finding ourselves stagnant. We are finding ourselves idle. And we ask ourselves why. We have no reason to not make every effort to supplement our faith. In other words, we have no reason, because of what God has given us in Christ to not become more like the Christ who saved us. When Peter says effort, this word can be translated as earnestness. So which means with like severe can or sincere conviction. In other words, Peter believes that believers must take this seriously. And he describes what looks like a chain or a ladder in all of these, and then this, and then this, and then this, and then this. They're all connected together like a chain. But because of Christ, we we we the he lists these attributes that we ought to make every effort to embody. And the truth is we are a church that believes in God's grace. Are we not? Yes, we are. We believe that salvation is a gift from God. We didn't do anything to earn it, we didn't do anything to achieve it. We didn't, we we are dead in our sin. We are lost, Scripture says, but because of Christ, we can have salvation, we can be saved. He freely gives it, and we can accept it by, and we can receive it as a free gift through the power of the Holy Spirit. Okay, now that we're on the same page about that, many Christians mistakenly believe that we that God does everything to make us a child of His, and so that means that we don't have to do anything at all, period. So many Christians mistakenly believe that God will then do everything for you once you are his kid. God did everything to save you, and now for you to spiritually mature, you don't have to do anything. God will just do it all for you. There's some followers of Jesus that think God has gifted me salvation and I lacked nothing when I am his, therefore I don't have to do anything. I don't need to effort anything, I don't need to have that earnest, sincere conviction. Peter is telling us this is a mistake. And he starts with faith. That's the first link in the chain. The foundation of any Christian's life is faith. It is a gift that God gives us to believe and put our trust in him. It is built, but it is a gift, but it is a muscle that needs to be exercised as well. It is a response to God's calling to know him and know Jesus, his son. And James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us of this truth in James chapter 2, that faith is the foundational virtue of Christianity, but it is worth nothing if it doesn't grow. If it doesn't lead to action. It's interesting, it's the same word that he used previously in verse 3. He says, His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, though through the knowledge of him who called us to be his to be his own glory and excellence. That's the same word: virtue, goodness, excellence. The idea here is moral excellence, or maybe a better way to say it is the courage to do what is right. Faith is our foundation. We build upon that with the courage to do what is right. A Christian is someone who actively does what is right and virtuous. A Christian is someone who isn't passive about what is morally right or excellent. A Christian is not passive about what is good. He or she actively does what is good, virtuous and excellent morally. Peter urges Christians to be people who are earnest in their pursuit of faith and is actively seeking to do what is right, and then added to this is knowledge. When Peter says knowledge here, he's not thinking about general knowledge or even just general understanding of God. He assumes these things. Knowledge obviously has an application in many areas of life, but he needs something different. This is more than information that he's talking about here, this is discernment. It's about knowing how to live in a way that is God-honoring. Knowing things about God is not what he is talking about here. Peter's describing an idea where someone knows God and knows what God asks of his people and his world, and then knows what to do in all these different situations. We are faced with different situations constantly in life. And what Peter is getting at is here is that we would grow in our knowledge, we would grow in our discernment, we would earnestly seek to be as discerning as we possibly can, knowing that we live in a fallen world, but we are agents and ambassadors of the king. We need the ability to discern what is best as believers, as followers of Christ. To be able to discern what is right and what is wrong, and then take action to do something about it. To faith, goodness to goodness, knowledge to knowledge, self-control. Obviously, self-control is one of the fruits of the spirit that Paul lays out in Galatians. It's one of the things that is produced by faith that is lived in the spirit as opposed to the flesh. He outlines that. When we are living our life according to God's ways and not our own, one of the things that is produced in our life is self-control. We have a mastery over our desires as opposed to the other way around. We all have desires. We all have things that we want to do, we all have things that we have tendencies towards. We all have that. For many of us, it's one thing, for others of us, it's another thing. But but to allow our desires to control us means we have no self-control. But if we master our desires, we are people that are self-controlled. We are people of appetites. We all have appetites. And we like to feed those appetites. And what Peter is calling us to here is a mastery over our appetites. There's also specifically the idea of self-control sexually speaking. That is a different kind of strain, but he he he does talk about that. We we live in a culture of indulgence, and Peter is telling us that followers of Jesus ought to actually fight against that, actively fight against that. We are people who have dominion over our desires and we're not subservient to them. He says, and to self-control add steadfastness. Another way to say this is endurance. So, in many ways, what he means by this is you practice self-control and you keep practicing self-control because once you feel like you've got something mastered, the enemy will send you something else, or your own flesh will do it to you. Enduring through the trials that will keep coming. It's not one thing, it's another. There will be trials of many kinds in our lives. There will be opportunities to practice self-control. And the mark of those who belong to Christ are ones who can endure, who practice self-control, and then practice self-control again. And again, and again, and again. Now, in many ways, these are things that are all about kind of the inner self, spiritual formation from the inside out. And he makes a slight turn, but not a full turn here with his next, and it's more about the orientation of a person. So the next thing after endurance is godliness. So this is all has to do with our worship and our devotion. What are we devoted to? Who are we devoted to? We're to work at making God the center of our lives. As the forerunner of Christ John the Baptist said, Jesus would increase and we would decrease. This ought to be our prayer and our position. We are to work at breaking down the idols in our lives through prayer, scripture reading, worship gathering, serving others, etc. We all have different idols. If we are honest with ourselves, most of the time when we wake up in the morning, we are serving the idol of self. And Peter tells us to actively fight against that. That our devotion should be to Christ and his kingdom and not our own. Then Peter takes aim in our relationship, so he says, brotherly affection, we must grow in our affection and care for each other in the church. And from brotherly affection, he turns to love in general, agape, broader, self-sacrificing love. We love others, we love our enemies, we want what is best for others, even if it comes at cost to us. Just like Christ loved his church, loves his church. So Peter finishes this chain and then says this in verses eight and nine. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. There is a sense in which Peter believes that they possess these qualities, but he is challenging them to increase them, to keep increasing them. So in verses eight and nine, they're contrasts of the same thought. So in essence, Peter is saying, when you possess these attributes and increase them in your life, you grow spiritually. When you are continually formed into the image of Jesus, then you will be effective, you will be useful, you'll be able to bear fruit. These are the qualities that God desires for us all to have and grow in, and we have been given the Holy Spirit to move and grow us in these things. So that when we will be the kind of Christian that isn't idle or stagnant, as maybe some of us feel in this room. This is what Peter's getting at when he says, keep you from being ineffective. When you are truly in Christ, you will grow, you will bear fruit. Your life will produce the fruit that God desires in your life, and you will be the kind of person that can be used by God. You will you will become who finishes you will become someone who finishes their earthly life well. You'll be someone who seeks the face of God and who seeks to serve and care for others, even if it costs you sometimes. In contrast, if you don't grow in these qualities, verse 9, for whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sin. So he says, You're so nearsighted that you're blind. So if if I understand, nearsighted means you can kinda see, and blind means you can kinda not. So which is it? Nearsighted or blind? The image Peter is painting here is of a nearsighted person who squints and blinks so much, it's like they have willfully closed their eyes and therefore become blind. This person is idle. This kind of person won't be able to bear fruit. This person has made themselves spiritually blind. This is what Peter means when he talks about the second part there in verse 9, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. When you don't grow spiritually, there is a sense in which you have forgotten that you're saved. You have forgotten that you've been born again. You have forgotten that you are a new creation in Christ, and even more, you have forgotten who Christ is and what he has done so that you can have this new life. There is a willful closing of the eyes to the point that you it it it seems as though you forget that you have been cleansed of your sin. And so you don't act like someone who is. So to break this down to its simplest form. This chain in verses five through seven is not a goal for us to shoot for. It's a diagnostic tool. I think sometimes we read this and we're like, man, I'm I'm not I'm not very good at any of these things. I struggle with all of these things. And that's true for me. Like that's true. But what this is, it's not just not just a goal to shoot for, like, I need to be better at this, I need to be better at this. It's a diagnostic tool. So, in other words, are these pres qualities present and are they increasing? And the issue is not just effort alone. It's actually, Peter says, we're forgetting the gospel. We're not growing in these things, and our faith feels stagnant because we're forgetting the most basic thing. So then Peter draws a conclusion here in verses 10 and 11. He says, Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. Now, this is coming from Peter. If you're familiar with Peter's life, Peter fell big time. Peter fell hard. He's sitting face to face with Jesus, and Jesus predicts that somebody is going to betray him and deny that they knew him. He says, Peter. And Peter's like, I will never do that. I would never do that. No, Lord, you must be mistaken. I would never deny you. And Jesus is like, well, there's going to be this rooster, and when he crows three times, you're going to. No, no, never. And then he denies Jesus three times. And a rooster crows and he goes, oh no. Completely fell. And he's telling you, you have access to everything in Christ. And that means you have a responsibility to grow spiritually. And I want you to. I don't want you to fall. I have fallen. So it says, if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. Now this can sound a little confusing. Let's see if we could bring some clarity. This verse is not describing earning your salvation. Peter is actually talking about demonstration. He is encouraging the reader to validate or demonstrate an inward truth through apparent growth. As the believer continues to exercise, as we as believers continue to exercise these spiritual muscles, we will walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, as Paul would put it. Keep in mind the intent of this letter, these false teachers who are teaching doctrine that is false and untrue and leading people astray. And in many ways, Peter's saying, if you truly grow spiritually, if you genuinely practice these qualities, if you draw close to Christ as Christ draws close to you, you will be kept from falling or embracing these false teachings that will lead to destruction in your life. And if you believe them too much, if you believe them fully, it will lead to ultimate destruction for you. So I'm telling you things to keep you from falling prey to this. Verse 11, for this, for in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Linking verse 10 to verse 11 and everything that we've covered before, Peter is depicting a picture of finishing well, not just barely making it. There's also a deep recognition of the eternal kingdom that all Christians must continually have perspective of. It is a kingdom, Peter says, of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Peter says, Lord, he's saying all authority in heaven and on earth is given to Christ. This is something that Jesus actually claims about himself before he ascended. And then he calls Jesus the Savior, meaning by God's grace in Christ, Jesus saved all of us, all of creation, from total destruction. He made a way where there was no way. And all of this is his. Again, Peter wants this to be a reminder so deeply that he's like, I gotta write this down so that even after I die, you'll still be able to come back to this and read this. And the truth is, Peter isn't teaching anything new. None of this is new. I intend to always remind you, though you know them and are established in the truth. He says remind multiple times in these verses. He's reminding them of foundational truth. He's reminding them of the access that they have to God and his life and godliness. Peter says that we have access to all of it. The promises that we have to take hold of are as we were reminded of last week. We have access to all of it. But we don't all experience it the same, do we? Remember, Dallas Willard says grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. So this is the movement. Because God has given us access to everything, we ought to make every effort to grow into maturity by remembering these truths. Peter's answering, if grace has saved us, what does growth actually look like? I can tell you for one thing, it is not passive. The chain has shown us that. The reality is that spiritual drift, which many of us experience and might be experiencing now, spiritual drift is not usually, is usually not a knowledge problem, it's a memory problem. This is why Peter says in verse 13 that his desire is to stir you up, is to stir us up, which means to wake up, to shake, awake, and rouse into action. Peter's reminder here is for those of us who are in Christ, it's not just a reminder like repetition of information or a passive review. No, no, no. This is an activation. This is what Peter is saying. He believes that right remembering will lead to renewed obedience and effort, as described here in verses 5 through 10. Remember verse 9. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Forgotten he's been forgiven. And cleansed and made new. Peter is helping us see that forgetfulness leads to stagnation and reminders leads to growth. The reason we don't grow is not because we don't know what to do, it's because we've forgotten who we are. You forget that you've been cleansed, you forget that you've been called, you forget that you've been given everything. Like it says in verse 3, we forget this, and when we forget this, effort fades and discipline wanes. This is what Peter's doing. He desperately wants to remind us of the gospel, to remind us of what God has promised us because memory fuels identity. Peter is constantly pulling back to their identity, called, chosen, cleansed, kept. And Martin Luther says this we need to hear the gospel every day because we forget it every day. This is why this matters so much. When we are stuck in sin, when we are spiritually stagnant, when we are lacking the motivation, instead of just saying, I gotta try harder. Ask yourself what you've forgotten. What have I forgotten? Have you forgotten the cost of your cleansing? Have you forgotten the power that has been given to you? Have you forgotten the future that has been promised to you? Peter's close to the end of his life, and he just said these all as he just said in these verses, and he isn't teaching them any new theology or doctrine. He isn't trying to help them unpack deep mysteries. Again, those are worthy pursuits, but what he's doing, what he feels burdened to do is embed what they already know even deeper into their memory. We don't drift towards spiritual maturity, we drift away from it. And the difference between drifting and growing is often just remembering what is true. Let me say that again. And when we remember, we over we are overcome with gratitude, and obedience flows from that gratitude. In the late 1800s, a German psychologist named Hermann Ebbinghaus identified something called the forgetting curve. He'd memorize these lists, they were kind of meaningless lists, but he would memorize them, and then he would track how quickly he forgot them over time. So what he discovered is that we naturally forget information very quickly unless we intentionally revisit it. So often losing the majority of it within just days. But his research also showed something hopeful. So when we when we regularly return to the same information, even briefly, we dramat we dramatically strengthen our ability to retain it. So in other words, what what it's what isn't revisited when what isn't revisited is forgotten, and what is repeatedly remembered becomes more permanent. Moving from something we once knew to something that actually shapes how we think and live. So again, Peter isn't saying try harder. He's saying remember better. Remember what you already know. Better. Don't forget. When you forget you've been cleansed, you stop growing. When you remember who you are and what Christ has done, your effort comes alive again. The Christian life is a life of intentional remembrance. Baptism, communion, preaching, scripture reading, prayer, church services, serving others. We have to fight against forgetfulness. We wake up and we forget who God is, who we are, and what really matters in life. We have to fight for remembrance. We're going to come to the Lord's table after this sermon because we are fighting to remember what Christ has done for you. What Christ has done for us. Because we forget. We get bogged down in our own desires. We get bogged down in all the, like because we forget. We forget who we are and what Christ has done for us. We forget. So don't just try harder to be a better Christian. Just remember who you are. When I say remember what is true, I'm not talking about generic truth. I'm talking about remembering that you were dead in your sin and Christ made you alive. That you were guilty and Christ cleansed you. That you were powerless and God has given you everything you need for spiritual maturity. You don't make every effort to become someone new. You make every effort because in Christ you are already someone new. The reason we stop growing is not because we need more information. It's because we forget what Christ has already done for us. We forget we've been cleansed. We forget we've been called, we forget we've been given everything we need. We forget those things. And Peter says, Stop forgetting, just remember. Remember who you are. The difference between drifting and growing is often just remembering what is true, but it's not just any truth, it's gospel truth. When you remember what Christ has done, effort comes alive again. Obedience starts to make sense, and growth begins to happen through the power of the Holy Spirit. The difference between drifting and growing is often just remembering what is true.