Remember This!

2 Peter chapter 1 verses 10 through 15. I remind you of these things, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have, I think it right, as long as I am in this body, 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 may be able at any time to recall these things.

Let's pray. Father, by your grace you have granted to us everything that is needed for life of godliness. Lord Jesus, by your righteousness we have standing before the Father. Holy Spirit, as our comforter and guide, we pray that even in this hour you would remind us of the truth that you've revealed and made known to us as you have regenerated our hearts and made us alive in Christ and opened our eyes to see, our ears to hear. Keep us watchful, keep us alert, keep us faithful as we long for the day when we will stand in the presence of our Lord. It's in his precious name that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. Where were you on 9-11? You know, most of us, maybe a few ones that are under 20 don't, but most of us remember that awful day.

Libby and I were in a U-Haul traveling from Newton Grove, North Carolina over to Nashville, Tennessee and we first heard of what was happening on the radio. Later on saw those gripping images as the towers were falling. There are other days that stand out in our memory. Days like 9-11 are easy to remember. Some of us who are a little more senior remember the day that President Kennedy was shot or when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Some things stand out in our memory, others tend to fade. In fact, we have a tendency to forget, don't we? Martin Lloyd Jones is of the opinion that the biblical doctrine of sin is more clearly demonstrated and manifested in this matter of memory than perhaps in any other respect. We always tend to forget the things that we want to remember and conversely we forget, we find it impossible to forget things that we want to forget, wish we could forget.

That's a part of what sin has done to the human race. In our text tonight, the Apostle Peter says, I intend always to remind you, to stir you up by way of reminder. He says that you may be able at any time to recall these things. He wants to stir up our memory. He's not teaching some new thing, he is calling to mind things that we know, things that have already been known and are established in our lives. The truth that we have, he says, encourages diligence and eagerness to be certain of our salvation and he points us to the ultimate reward of our entrance into the Kingdom, the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There are some key words in this passage that open up the message for us, I think, a little bit. If you look back in previous verses that we've looked at before, verse 8, he uses a Greek word there that he actually uses five times in the next eight verses. He speaks of these things, these qualities, these things. It's one Greek word that he uses over and over and he points to the necessary effort on our part and diligence and urgency in making sure of our salvation.

He uses words like always and at any time to point to the fact that this is something that is ongoing. It's a practice that we need to continue. He reveals that the Lord has made it clear to him that his time on earth is short, that he will soon be going to be with the Lord and he wants to make sure that this final message gets through. So what is this urgent, all-important message? What must we do? What are the things that we must give attention to and be diligent about?

How can we fulfill this task and what will be the result? As we look to the text, the first word, of course, is the word therefore. This word points us back to what has gone before in the letter. It points us at least to verse 3 where he says that God's divine power has granted to us all the things that are needed for life and godliness. He points to the action that God has taken, what God has done for us.

Everything that we need to live godly lives has been granted us by God. In fact, he may be pointing us all the way back to verse 1 where he says that the recipients of this letter have obtained faith by the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And not only does this point us to what God has done, but this word therefore points us back to the things that he requires us to do. In verses 5 through 7, he talks about the fact that we must work at this matter of salvation. We must make every effort to supplement our faith, to supply our faith with these things that he's pointing to. It parallels what Paul says in Philippians 2 when he says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who is at work in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.

So God not only does for us, God also works in us, through us, enabling us to work out what he has worked into our lives. This therefore also points us back to verses 8 and 9 and here we find both a promise and a warning. We have a promise that if these things that he's mentioned are in us and growing and increasing in our lives, then we will be fruitful and not ineffective.

But there's also the warning that whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he's blind. Therefore brothers, he says, because of what God has done, because of what we must do, what we are called to do, therefore make your calling and election sure. So coming to the text then, let me share first of all a divine command that is to be followed, to be obeyed. Verse 10a says, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure. Now calling and election of course are God's work. It is God's redemptive act. This is something that God has done and if you look at this in the Greek text, there's an interesting little matter there that these two nouns are joined together by a single definite article.

Scholars of Greek tell me that that means that they are practically synonymous. They are a package deal and that is true. You know, we hear a lot in our day about bundling things. You get your internet and you get all these things that you bundle together, your internet and your cable or you get your home insurance and your auto insurance, you bundle things. Well, salvation is a bundle.

It's a package deal. What God begins, he completes. The ones whom he elects, he calls and he justifies and he glorifies and he sanctifies and it's all a part of what God does.

He accomplishes this work and we can make our calling and election sure because of the fact that our assurance rests not in what we do but what God does. At the same time, we have a responsibility. We have a command that must be obeyed. We have this action that we are to take, that we are responsible for when he says we are to be diligent. That's the command, to be diligent. The word is a word that has the idea of speed and urgency and eagerness. It also includes the fact that this is labor.

It's an endeavor that's difficult and hard. So let me point out something interesting in the Greek here. I'm not a Greek scholar but it fascinates me what God has done with this language in giving us his word and you may ask, well, why are we getting into the weeds of grammar? Well, because of the beauty and the precision of God's word as he's given it to us in the New Testament, this command to be diligent is in what is called the aorist, active, imperative tense.

Those three aspects are important. First of all, it's in the aorist tense. This points back to something that happened in the past.

One scholar explains it this way. He says, if a word is in the aorist, active, imperative tense, it means that the action that the verb is describing is the result of something that happened in the past and gives rise to the action that you're commanded to take in the present. The aorist, active, imperative means that the response is fitting for what happened before.

So Peter is pointing us back. He says, therefore, be all the more diligent because of what has happened in the past, because you've been born again, you've been created in Christ, you've been indwelled by the Holy Spirit, you've been set apart for the virtues of Christian life. Because of all that God has done, then you do this. You be diligent to make your calling and election sure. Not only is it an aorist tense, it's an active verb, and that means that the subject is doing the action.

This is not something that's done to us. This is something that we are commanded to do, something we must do. It's imperative.

It's a command. And so we must obey. Now, the Greek language is fascinating.

I wish I had taken advantage of some of the opportunities I had and learned more of this. But one of the things that I find in this Greek text here is that when it says make sure in the Greek, that's put at the beginning. It's emphatic. This is something that you must do is to make sure. The word has an idea of stability and steadfastness and firmness.

We shouldn't be on emotional roller coasters about our salvation. We need to be certain and sure and firm in this. It's not just that we have assurance, but we work at it. And there's an urgency to do it now, be diligent, all the more diligent to make this happen. So how do we work at this?

How do we make sure of our calling and our election? The second thing I would point to is the biblical conditions that must be fulfilled if we are to do this. Of course, everything that's required of us is grounded in the fact that God has already worked. God's redemptive act in Christ is the ground for all of this. And Peter is addressing believers from the very beginning of this letter. He addresses those who have faith, those who are believers, those who are in Christ, and those whom God has given what they need to live godly lives. So there are some things that we must do. If we look back at verse five, he's already started giving us some of these things that are necessary for us. In verse five, he says that we're to make every effort to supplement, to supply to our faith these virtues that he lists there in verses five through seven. It's the same word that he uses in verse 10, when he says make all and make every effort, be all the more diligent. And so we are to do these things. We're commanded. In the latter part of verse 10, he uses another word that's important here. He says, if you practice these things, this is a word that is in present tense, which in the Greek means it's something that's ongoing, it's continuing. It's not just a one and done.

It's ongoing. It's something that we must give attention to. It implies something that happens daily. It reminds me of what we're told in Hebrews 3.13, where we're told to exhort one another daily. We need to be reminded of these things every day. And so in the latter verses of what we read, Peter says that he wants us to be able to recall these things and to remember these things, to be reminded of them.

The word that's used there in the Greek is the word from which we get our word mnemonic. It talks about things that assist us in memory. So being reminded, being stirred up on a daily basis, what are the things that we can do to stir up the reminder, the remembrance of these things in our lives? First thing I think is we need to realize that we're asleep. We tend to go to sleep. We tend to not be alert. We tend to not be watchful.

And so this word that he's using here about stirring up has this sense of becoming fully awake. We need to be aware that we tend not to be watchful. I wonder if when Peter wrote this, he remembered himself in the garden when Jesus came and they would all fall asleep.

And Jesus said, could you not even watch for one hour? We tend to fall asleep. We tend to be forgetful. And we need to realize that we are in danger because of that. We need to realize our need of the body. We need to be encouraging each other and exhorting each other. We are told in Hebrews again that we are to consider how to stir up one another to love and good works and not neglect the meeting together and encouraging one another.

And all the more so as the day approaches of Christ coming again, realize the need that we have for each other. We need to realize the danger that we're in. We face a difficult foe, an enemy. The devil is subtle and wily.

Paul uses the word in Ephesians. He talks about the schemes of the devil. We need to be aware that we are facing a great enemy. And he really is out to get us.

Peter in his first letter talks about how he's like a roaring lion prowling about for someone that he can devour. The devil is subtle. Sin is deceitful. We are warned in Hebrews that we should exhort one another daily because if we're not being warned, if we're not being awakened and then reminded on a daily basis, then we tend to become deceived by sin and because of that, hardened because of it. So we need to be aware of the deceitfulness of sin. And just as an aside here, our culture is such that we find it difficult to encourage and exhort one another on a daily basis, don't we?

We come together on Lord's Day and on Wednesday nights, but at other times we are scattered in a city and sometimes we don't even see each other between Sundays and so it's not conducive. The only place that that kind of daily exhortation can really happen is in the home, in the family. And that is vitally important in our day that we make sure that daily we're encouraging and exhorting one another in our homes. Another thing we need to do is to realize the depth of our own depravity. Yes, we're at war with the devil, we're at war with the world system, but we're also in a battle with our own flesh. Paul the apostle put it this way, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. We have that struggle, that battle going on. We need to realize that our whole nature apart from Christ is at war with God and his ways. We really are in war.

We need to realize that. We don't wrestle with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We are even at war with ourselves. James says that war comes from within, from our own desires, our passions are at war within us. And so we must wake up to the fact that we're in constant danger.

We can so easily forget. We need to hear the gospel every day. We need to tell ourselves every day, be reminded and remember these things that we already know and be encouraged to wage the war, the battle that is ours. And so let's look then at the apostle's commitment to be faithful in reminding his readers. His purpose is to remind them and to help them to remember what they know and to bring it to mind in such a way that at any time they can recall these things and be encouraged. This points to the fact that we have a duty as believers to encourage each other and to remind each other and to point each other to the truth.

And this is something that is an enduring and ongoing purpose. Peter uses words like always, and as long as I'm in this body, he's committed to making this a part of what he does for his fellow believers, as long as he's here. And in fact, he says, even after my departure, I want you to be able to recall these things.

And that's why I'm writing to you. Peter knew that he was in his last days and that soon he was going to be putting off this tabernacle of the flesh and going to be with the Lord. And he wanted these believers to be able to recall these things at any time. And so his final instruction, his last words are, remember this, be reminded, recall these things.

What were these things? What are the things that we know that are already established in our hearts and lives that we need to be reminded of? Well, we're sinners in the sight of God, and yet we've been granted right standing through Jesus Christ. His divine power has granted us everything that we need to live lives of godliness before him. He's granted us his precious promises, and through these we are able to become partakers of the divine nature. So we should make every effort to supply our faith with virtue and knowledge and self-control and steadfastness and godliness and brotherly love and affection. These things should be ours, should be in us, and should be growing and increasing in our lives. And so Peter says, remember this, recall these things and practice these things.

This is how you make your calling and your election sure, by being reminded and practicing and recalling the things that you already know that are part of your life that are established for you. Well, finally, just consider for a moment the glorious consequence of all this, that we can just feast on and relish and enjoy even now in this life. It is daunting to consider the perfection to which we are called as believers. Even you take one little thing like what we're studying in our Sunday School lessons about being peacemakers, that's hard. It's daunting to think, I can't react like I want to in my flesh.

I've got to be Christ-like in dealing with conflict with other believers. No one reaches the goal in this life, but we are to strive toward that perfection. Even the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, he said, not that I've already obtained or I'm already perfect.

I do not consider that I've made it my own. We don't ever get there all the way. We never achieve sinless perfection, but we shouldn't be struggling with the same sins to the same degree year after year after year. We should be growing in these things and they should be increasing in us. The Christian life is hard work. It's a struggle.

It's a war, but the reward is glorious. We can come to know more and more and more of Christ and the wonder of who he is, of the glory of what it means to walk in his way. We can grow and these things, these qualities can be ours.

They can increase and develop in us. And if that's true, if we are practicing these things, as he says there in the latter part of verse 10, we'll never fall. Will we stumble along the way? Of course, but we'll never ultimately fall. The psalmist back in Psalm 37 said, though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down.

Why? Because the Lord upholds him. When you belong to the Lord, he sustains, he keeps, and you'll never fall.

In fact, he says that if you practice these things, you'll never fall. For verse 11, in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that's the best of all, to be with Jesus. That's what Jesus prayed for in John 17 when he prayed for his disciples and also for you and me. He said to the Father, I'm not just praying for these, but for all those who will believe because of their word. And he prayed this, Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory. Another little touch of grammar here.

This is passive here. It will be furnished to you. It'll be provided for you. This entrance into the kingdom is not something we climb up and grasp. This is provided for us and it is richly provided, abundantly so. It's not dependent on how well we grow in the faith or how diligently we practice these things, these virtues, or how faithfully we recall the truth and how well we are reminded each day to do these things. We must do them, but ultimately our life, our eternal life rests on the grace and mercy of our Lord. We're like the thief on the cross.

We only have one hope and it's in Christ. And that thief in repentance and faith cried out to the Lord, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. The Lord responded, today you will be with me in paradise. I have confessed that over the years as I've read that, many times I've focused on the fact that he said it's going to happen today and you're going to be in paradise. But it struck me as I read this this week, it'll be paradise because I'll be with him. Today you will be with me in paradise.

Brothers and sisters, we must be diligent to make sure of our calling and election. Run to Jesus. Cry out for mercy. His mercy is everlasting. He will forgive. He will richly provide an entrance into the eternal kingdom. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. That's what makes it heaven. That's what makes it paradise.

That's what makes it the eternal kingdom. Let me close with the words of an old hymn. It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ.

One glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow will erase. So bravely run the race till we see Christ. Practice these things.

Do these things. Let them grow in you and you'll never fall. And an entrance into the eternal kingdom our Lord will be given to you. Let's pray. Father God, we are overwhelmed with your love and your grace and the joy which is before us. That one day you who are able to keep us and to make us stand, you will present us to yourself in your very presence, not in fear but with great joy. And Lord, our greatest joy will be that we see you face to face. Thank you that you have loved us with an everlasting love, that we are kept in the palm of your hand and nothing can ever snatch us. Be glorified in us as we rest secure in what you have done and obediently follow your command. We pray in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen.