SERMON: Remember These Things

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon. And we pray that as we declare the word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith and you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's word and may the Lord be with you.

Peter’s Second Epistle and Its Call to Remember

Our sermon this morning is coming from the second general epistle of St. Peter, chapter one. For the sake of context, I intend to read through the whole chapter. I'll be preaching specifically on verses one through 17 will be the source text for the sermon.

Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.

That by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue, and to virtue, knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, and to temperance, patience, and to patience, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity.

For if these things be in you and abound, they make that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

Wherefore, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

Wherefore, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this, my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me.

Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For he delivered, I'm sorry, for he received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice to him, when came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

And this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word, a prophecy, where unto ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.".

It's the word of God. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for blessing us with your word. We pray that you would please now enliven our hearts. And again, guard my tongue. You promised us that your word will not return void.

And so we trust you in that. And we pray that you would use it to sanctify us. In Jesus's name, amen. So in going through this first chapter, Peter starts out in a typical apostolic way of introducing himself.

Saying, hey, I'm the one who wrote this letter to you, Simon Peter. And he lays out his authority to do so. This letter was not written to a particular church, or one particular group of people that he had been to and fellowshiped with.

And think of Paul's letter to the Galatians or something like that, right? This letter for hundreds of years, probably, well, over a millennia, was referred to as the second Catholic epistle of St. Peter.

Catholic simply means general or universal. And so that's what this was. This is what we call today an open letter, right? To the entire church of all time militant. So this is to us today. We can take every bit, pardon me, every bit of this epistle personally, to heart.

He tells us that he's writing this based on his authority as an apostle, as a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. And he's writing it to those of us who have obtained like precious faith through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

And the first thing that he does after identifying himself is he provides to us or pronounces over us grace and peace, grace and peace. That's what we have. That is the, that's the Christ unto whom we approach this morning to worship.

Grace and peace to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Then he goes on to say that through his divine power, meaning Jesus's, he gives to us everything that pertains to life and godliness.

Christ Supplies What We Need for Life and Godliness

There is not a thing in your life that you go through or that you will ever go through that this book does not provide some principle, if not solution, pathway through which to navigate the issue. No other book does that.

There is no other God out there. It's Jesus Christ and he was the word of God in the flesh. And we have been given by his divine power, everything that pertains to life and godliness. Now he says here that we, this is given to us that we might be partakers of the divine nature, the Holy Spirit in us.

It's not that we will ever be divine. We are partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And we look at that and we think, okay, he's talking about sanctification here.

And that we are, the corruption of the outside world out there, we've escaped that. That's not exactly correct view. By using the word through lust here, he's talking about a heart issue. That indicates intent.

So he's not warning us about the world out there. We already know that's gone. He's warning us about the world in our hearts. Our desires, lust is just an older English word for desire. It's the thing that's inside of us that desires sin.

Faith and the Addition of Christian Virtues

Now he says that we have escaped already. The question is how? Well, the very next verse, we've escaped through faith. But that's the beginning point. The faith is a gift of God, right? It's not something that we work for.

Our salvation is a gift. It's not of works, St. Paul said. And Peter says here, having escaped and beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue. He says, add to your faith virtue, giving all diligence.

And all diligence is going to apply to the seven things here that follow, because he tells us to add seven things to our faith here. What is virtue? Virtue, the word here, the Greek word, I don't quite know how to pronounce it.

It looks like arete, right? But it's A-R-E-T-E. And what it means is, how it's most commonly used, is a moral goodness, right? Now that is according to Alexander Cruden. He wrote a concordance similar to Strong, Dr. Jim Strong, James Strong wrote another one.

19th century, they both agree on that. But then Dr. Strong also says that it can be used to indicate manliness, valor, or excellence. So moral goodness, that's what we're talking about here. So add moral goodness to your faith.

Knowledge of God Guides Christian Conduct

And to virtue, knowledge. Knowledge is a prerequisite for prudent action. If there's anything, something happens, how are we supposed to respond as Christians? Well, according to knowledge. Those of us who are husbands in the room, how are we commanded to dwell with our wives?

According to knowledge. This is where we go back to everything given to us that is pertaining to life and godliness. This is the knowledge, it is the knowledge of God that we are to add to our faith. We don't just simply say the sinner's prayer, as it were, and then we just move on with our lives.

And we don't read our Bibles, and we don't study theology, because that's boring and dry. We don't seek God every day, we don't spend time in meditation and prayer. No, you must. Christian, you absolutely must.

Because the more you know him, the more gracious you see him, or you see how he is. The more you know him, the closer you are to him, the less power that sin has, I promise you. I mean, I've been throughout my life on both sides of this scale, and sometimes you're here, sometimes you're here.

When you are close with the Savior, and of course, he doesn't leave us, right? We walk away from him, and then we feel shame and guilt, and the devil piles it on, and he's the accuser. Albeit, our sins have been forgiven in Jesus Christ.

He died for them 2 ,000 years ago, and the Scripture even indicates, before the foundation of the world. So, in the eternal, this is a done deal. But in the human, we live according to what we can see, and hear, learn, study, read.

You will know him better, and you will have far more peace in your life for it. Now, add to your knowledge temperance, he says. Now, the Greek word that's used here essentially means self-control. That's what temperance means.

Self-Control and the Spirit’s Help

It's the same word that Paul uses in Galatians 5. Have self-control. I tell our children, I have told them since Ethan could understand me speaking, and someone told me this when I was a kid, probably my father, I don't remember exactly.

But I tell them all the time, if you don't have self-control, someone else will control you for the rest of your life. Now, that's humanly speaking, right? To a Christian, if you don't have self-control, that's a gift of the Holy Spirit.

What's happening here? And if you find yourself lacking, God says, ask him, beseech him for it. He's not a disdainful father who just wants to sit there and make you beg and be like, no, he gives abundantly, ask him.

Patience Through Temptation and Discomfort

The next thing it says here is add to your patience. No, I'm sorry, add to temperance, patience. Patience is long-suffering. It is, the idea is that you're willing to endure discomfort for a time to please your God.

So you think of Jesus saying, take up my cross, or take up your cross and follow me, right? There's also sort of a soldiery type, a militaristic sort of feel to it also, that soldiers for millennia always have experienced and learned how to suffer for the sake of their commander, to suffer, to have discomfort for a time, whether it's sleeping on the ground or going without food or water or heat or cold or whatever it is.

The point here is when you find yourselves in the individual sins that you are particularly given to, and we all have them, right? You know, you might look at someone else's sin and say, oh my goodness, I would never do that.

Okay, you may not, because you're not particularly given to that sin, great, what would you do? Because that's yours. So when you find yourselves in the throes of the temptation of whatever that is for you, I know it feels uncomfortable, I know it's miserable, I experience it too.

Suffer the discomfort for just a little bit. It will pass. Paul said that there is no temptation that has taken you except what is common to man, but God is faithful that when, I just lost it, that God is faithful that He will also provide a way for you to escape so that you may bear it.

So just endure that discomfort for a few minutes. Busy yourself, go do something else. Shut your mouth and don't say that. You know, walk away. Whatever it is, long-suffering. The next one here is godliness.

Godliness, Brotherly Kindness, and Love

It's holiness, is what the word here is. It's, you know, it's an otherness, you know, to become more like God, to become more sanctified. And then brotherly kindness, which is a mutual affection among the children of God.

We have a mutual affection, one for another, we're commanded to add this to our faith. And lastly, he says charity here in the Old English. That word means love. The Greek word was agape, I'm sure we've all heard that, it's the unconditional love that we are commanded to have.

It broadens, not just amongst ourselves, it's not the brotherly affection only, it broadens the idea out to all of mankind of going out and embracing all of them. Now in all of this, Peter agrees with James in 2 .26 when he says, faith without works is dead to the extent that Peter here is saying, add these things to your faith.

Diligence, Calling, and Election

And he says, if you do these things, you shall never fall. But if you don't, he clearly states, the individual that doesn't is blind, and he's forgotten that he was purged of his old sins. So, wherefore the rather, he says, give diligence.

So rather than those who are blind, right? He says, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, to make it certain in your hearts, pursue it, chase it. And this idea of diligence is an exertion.

Think of like a sporting event, right? Teams are playing football or whatever they're playing or somebody's lifting weights. You know, there are certain noises that come out of people who are exerting themselves physically, right?

Grunts, groans, yells, whatever. This is spiritual diligence, or I'm sorry, this is a spiritual exercise. Like this is an exertion or it ought to be in each one of us. There ought to be, I don't know, I guess spiritual moans and groans, if you will.

You know, like there should be, this should be a visible exertion that at least you yourself can observe. And why, why do we, why are we adding these things? And it is so an entrance will be ministered unto us, which means supplied to us.

An entrance into heaven. And it says here that it is an entrance ministered to us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom. So it's something that is given to us, not something that we are taking. Now, as we go through all of this, I struggled greatly with this passage when I was a younger Christian.

Faith, Works, and God’s Gracious Work

Because my theological school of thought that I was in at the time did not allow me to say that Peter, what Peter says here, of adding these seven things to your faith to be saved. And I thought, oof, or to be sanctified, to be holy.

And I thought, oof, you know, this is rough because, you know, Paul tells us that, you know, we're saved by grace through faith and that not of works. How do I reconcile these passages together? I assure you, they reconcile very, very nicely.

They dovetail nicely into each other. These things, faith included, they're gifts of God. All of them. I assure you that it is not the apostles intent here to encourage us to pick ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps, pull ourselves together, do better, right?

I think just purely through the strength and the resolution and power of your own free will, make it happen. That is not what he's saying here. I love, you know, there have been a few theologians over the centuries who have held that position.

I do not. I think, God forbid, that that be what they hold. I think that's a heresy. And I agree with, rather, with what Calvin indicates on this passage that he says, which I'm going to, forgive me, I'm gonna read it because I don't want to mess it up.

And it's kind of funny, anyway. He states plainly that the perpetual doctrine of Scripture is opposed to this delirious notion. For it plainly testifies that right feelings are formed in us by God and are rendered by Him effectual.

The apostle is nowhere in here asserting that these things are within our innate power to achieve, but he is describing what we ought to have and what ought to be done. I thought it was kind of funny that he called it a delirious notion because some of the men who were holding that notion were reading him writing this.

So, like, they were alive at the same time. Anyway, anytime, as we are looking at this as Christians, anytime the godly examines ourselves, examine ourselves, it is always that we find that we fall woefully short of the glory of God.

Self-Examination and the Fruits of the Spirit

Says have self-control, I don't have self-control. Does have knowledge, I don't have enough knowledge. Be temperate, I'm not temperate enough. Love, charity, not as much as that says I should. However, I want all of you to realize that that is expected and normal because you're sinners and the Holy Spirit is in you, you've been saved.

And so, of course, you recognize your sin. The unbeliever doesn't recognize their sin in the same way that we do. It doesn't happen. We're commanded when we see ourselves falling woefully short to come boldly before the throne of grace that we might find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4 .16. I think the truth of this passage is that Peter is simply reiterating to the Catholic church at large the same thing that Paul taught the Galatians in Galatians chapter five, the fruits of the Spirit.

The things that Paul told them to chase after, to desire, to, what's the word, polish, to try to get better at kind of a thing, to pray for. It's simply that. I mean, you guys remember the fruits of the Spirit.

If you'd like to turn there, it's Galatians chapter five, verse 22. But Peter says virtue, Paul said goodness. Virtue is, remember, moral goodness, the word. Peter says knowledge. Well, Paul tells the Corinthians that the knowledge is a gift of the Spirit.

And that's in 1 Corinthians 12 .8. Temperance, Peter says. So did Paul, temperance, same word. Peter says patience. Paul says long-suffering. Peter kind of wins on this one. He says godliness, right?

He kind of encompasses the whole thing. Well, Paul says some specifics. Meekness, gentleness, joy, and peace. Remember, Jesus said he commanded us to take us, take to us his yoke upon ourselves because he is meek and lowly at heart.

And then lastly, charity, which we talked about. Peter says charity. Paul says love, same, same. Now, Peter goes on to tell us that as he is writing this, he's close to his death because the Lord told him so.

Peter’s Eyewitness Testimony of Christ’s Glory

The Lord showed him that he was about to be martyred. So this would put him, if I remember correctly, it's like 70-ish, 60 to 70-ish. And I think that's the number that historians have put on it, age.

And this is what is on his heart as he is approaching the time to leave this world is that we would be put in remembrance of these things. These seven things, guys. Remember this, remember this, remember this.

He commands us to have these things always in our remembrance. And then he stirs us up to remind us why we are to have these things in our memories. It's because we're not following a cunningly devised fable here, he says.

This isn't something that someone made up like so many other myths around, religious myths in the world or whatever, fairy tales or whatever they are. We're not following that, he says. They were eyewitnesses when they were in the Holy Mount.

Do you guys remember where that was? It was at the transfiguration, right? Oftentimes when you read Holy Mount, you think Sinai, right? It's not. This is when Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, and they heard the voice of the Father say, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased, hear ye Him.

And this is what he's telling them. He said, look, we're eyewitnesses of this thing. This is our more sure word of prophecy. We saw it, we heard the voice from heaven giving honor to the Son. The Holy Mount there, the idea of it was the same idea, just so you know, just as an aside, same idea of when Moses appeared, or when God appeared to Moses in Myrningbush, and Moses went to see it, and God stopped him.

He said, take your sandals off your feet, you're on holy ground. It's not the ground in and of itself. It's wherever God is, there is holiness. So because Jesus was transfigured on the Mount, he was called the Holy Mount.

It's not like you go there now, it's some special dirt, right? It was when God's presence is there, the place is holy. So as brothers and sisters, as you go out this week, be diligent to make your calling and election sure.

Practicing the Virtues Throughout the Week

Meditate on it frequently. Think of it much, pray on it a lot. Exert yourselves, and me too, in adding these seven things to our faith. You know, review them throughout the course of the week. Hey, where can I fit in virtue today?

Where can I fit in patience today? And it's not just for the sake of some fleshly physical exercise, or some pat myself on the back. Trust me, you're wicked, you don't deserve a pat on the back. These are fruits, and they're gifts from God.

When you receive them, it brings much peace and joy. Exert yourself in pursuing them. Meditate upon them, pray that the Lord would grant them to us in abundance for his glory and our good. Let us pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for your spirit. Thank you for sanctifying us by your grace, and for providing so richly for us, and granting us sinners redemption and peace. Thank you for your word.

Thank you for the ability to publicly worship you without fear. In Jesus's name we pray, amen.