Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Well, we are a forgetful people. I hear that this gets worse with age, I'll let you know. And even with the best of intentions, and even under the most favorable of circumstances, and even with the most interesting of information, we end up forgetting a tremendous amount of what we hear and what we see. We remember a small, small fraction of the truth that we bring in.
There have been multiple studies and various studies done over the course of time, and even in our modern era, to determine how much we forget over how much time. And this might shock you, but hear me out to the end. There is a direct correlation between the amount of time that passes and the amount that we forget. The more time passes, the more we forget, or the less we remember, however it is that you want to sort of do that curve. There was a study back in the 1880s done by Hermann Ebbinghaus, and this led to what is called the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve. He did this over the course of five years. And other studies have kind of confirmed what Ebbinghaus figured out and realized—that there is a direct correlation between the amount of time that passes and the amount we forget.
Now that might be something that seems so patently obvious that it demands ten million dollars in a government study just to tell us what we already know. And that would be true; it is patently obvious. But the statistics of how much we forget and how quickly have kind of kept consistent over the many years and over many studies. And these statistics I find interesting, and here are a couple of them. After a presentation or a sermon, for instance, if you ask somebody what they heard immediately afterward, our recall is pretty good. Our recall is nearly perfect of everything that we have heard. After one day, our recall goes down to 20 to 50 percent of what we heard, which means that in twenty-four hours, we forget 50 to 80 percent of what we heard. After seven days, we have 10 percent recall from a presentation or a sermon. And after thirty days, 2 to 3 percent recall. So basically, after thirty days, you have to be retold or relearn everything that you were told thirty days prior. Your recall is essentially nothing after a month. Unless you do something to sort of nail those truths down and do something to fix them into your heart, into your mind, into your soul, if you just hear the presentation and let time pass, thirty days after you hear the presentation, you'll basically forget everything that you were told.
Now, much of this is tied to a number of varying factors, and I acknowledge that. The interest of the material, whether the material that you're hearing is interesting or not, obviously plays into that. The dynamics or ability of the communicator obviously plays into that. Whether you are tired or alert obviously plays into that. And how interested you are in the presenter, if you have a personal connection, that plays into it. But adjusted for all of those factors, those statistics are basically true. Much of what we hear, we forget.
Now, I find that my recall is fantastic for movie lines, eighties music lyrics, pop culture references, football trivia, but for all the things that matter most, all the eternal things, I find that I have to be reminded time and time and time again of the things that I know to be true. All of the garbage that will be burned up is locked in here from now till forever. I can speak it in my sleep. But all the essential truths we need to be reminded of.
Peter was aware of this, how prone we are to forget the truth and the implications of the truth. And that is the subject of our passage this morning, 2 Peter 1:12–15. As we read these verses, I want you to notice the references that Peter gives to calling things to mind and remembering them. Second Peter 1:12—here's our passage.
12 Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been strengthened in the truth which is present with you.
13 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 indicated to me.
15 And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind. (LSB)
Verse 12, ready to remind; verse 13, by way of reminder; and verse 15, call these things to mind.
Now sprinkled into those four verses are also a couple of references to Peter's imminent death. Did you notice that? He says in verse 14 that he was going to lay aside his earthly dwelling. And in verse 15, he refers to that as “my departure,” my leaving. Peter was aware that his death was imminent. And here we have in this Epistle something of Peter's purpose statement for the book, as well as something of Peter's probably final recorded words. At least we do not know of anything that Peter said or wrote after this Epistle.
So here we're going to look at these three verses, and we're going to notice three reasons why we need to be reminded of the truth. Peter, in his closing days, his closing hours on this earth, just wanted to remind people of what they knew to be true. And there are three reasons why we need to be reminded of the truth. In verse 12, because the truth strengthens us; in verses 13–14, the truth stirs us; and in verse 15, the truth will sustain us. It strengthens us, it stirs us, and it sustains us.
So verse 12, the truth strengthens us. Let's read verse 12 again: “Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been strengthened in the truth which is present with you.” Your version may have established there. I chose the word strengthened for the point, because that's how the LSB translates it, “strengthened.” And it also begins with the letter S, which makes the outline really convenient. Peter is describing here the ongoing and continual and future work of reminding the people of God of what they knew to be true. In verse 12, he was always ready to remind them. In verse 13 he says as long as I live, as long as God should give me breath, this will be my work. He would be diligent, verse 15, so that after his departure, they would call these things to mind.
Now, there is something of an awkward construction in verse 12 because Greek scholars tell us that in verse 12 Peter uses a future tense verb along with a present infinitive, which is a very rare way of using those verbs in verse 12. And so it causes people to wonder, is Peter talking about something he was going to do in the future? Is he describing the letter he was writing here? Or was Peter describing another letter that he would write them sometime in the future? It seems best to understand that what Peter is saying is, “Look, I'm reminding you now through this letter. And as long as I live, I will continue to just simply remind you of what you know to be true. And I will be diligent so that this letter finds a wide circulation so that even after I am gone, this may serve as a reminder to you.”
Such was Peter's love for the truth. Such was his love for the truth that he just wanted to remind people of the truth. And in the dying words of an apostle, “I just need to remind you of what you know.” That's it. Nothing dynamic beyond that. No special truth, no special insight, just things he had already told them, things they already knew to be true, things they had already heard, and he just wants to remind them of them. He knew the power of being reminded. And as long as God gave him breath, he would speak—speak the truth and just simply speak to remind people of the danger of false prophets, the need for spiritual diligence, the faith that has been once for all delivered to the saints. And this entire book does that very thing and serves as a reminder of those truths. Peter's goal was a modest one, just to remind them of what they knew to be true, to bring it back to their mind, to the forefront of their thinking.
We forget how much we know, and we tend to forget the things that we do know, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, but we do tend to live sometimes as practical amnesiacs. Though we know it to be true, it has been spoken to us, we have learned it, and we have put it away in our heart at some point in time, in the living out of those things, we live as if we didn't know these things to be true, which is all—that's all sinning is. Sinning is just living like we don't know what is true. My fear and anxiety over certain things is just me forgetting practically that God is sovereign and that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and that He's working all things out for my good. My worry and anxiety is nothing more than me living like a practical amnesiac, as if I don't know who God is and I don't know what God has promised. Every act of sin that we commit is us simply failing to remember what we know. It's forgetting it.
And so the goal of a Christian preacher, the goal of a Christian disciple maker, a faithful Christian, is just to remind people of what they know to be true and to spend our lives doing that. Michael Green in his commentary on 2 Peter writes this: “Such is the sometimes willful forgetfulness of the human heart that one of the prime functions of a Christian minister must be to keep the basic facts of Christian truth and conduct always before the minds of his congregation.” And the apostles understood this. Paul—Philippians 3:1: “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me.” I already told you this, and now I'm just writing it down, Paul says.
Romans 15:15: “But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God.”
Second Thessalonians 2:5: “Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?”
Second Timothy 1:6: “For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.”
Second Timothy 2:14: “Remind them of these things, solemnly charging them in the presence of God not to dispute about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.”
Titus 3:1: “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed.”
Jude 5: “Now I want to remind you, though you know all things, that Jesus, having once saved a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.”
And look at 2 Peter 3. Turn over a page or two in your Bible. Second Peter 3:1: “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.”
Just time after time after time we need to be reminded, we need to be told the things that we know. Our great need is old truth preached to our hearts. That is our great need. Old truth preached to our hearts. We don't need new revelation. We don't need a new vision. We don't need a new prophet. We don't need a new prophecy. We don't need any new or unique or clever takes upon the truth. We don't need to take the old truth and dress it up and make it fancy and appealing. We just simply need the old revelation, the Word of God spoken again to our hearts, again and again and again, the same truth, because we are forgetful people.
Just the first eleven verses of 2 Peter 1 have served to remind me afresh of the need for spiritual diligence. It has reminded me that we are to make all diligence, to apply all diligence, to make our calling and election sure, to pursue these things passionately, all the virtues listed in verses 5–7 of this chapter. How much diligence is necessary? Do we just read those and sort of have an apathetic approach to living that out and walking in those truths, or are we really pursuing those qualities? Peter has wanted to remind us that we need to, with increasing love, with increasing diligence, apply these truths to our heart.
The Spirit of God has a way of taking the Word of God, which has always meant what it always meant, and applying that and speaking it to the heart of each and every new generation. I don't need a new revelation of God's will for me. It has been revealed in Scripture. All I need is to be reminded again of what God has said even though it was said two thousand years ago. When spoken, preached, read, and taught, it says the same thing to me that it said to the previous generation and to the generation before that. I don't need anything new because God has not changed, truth has not changed, my need has not changed, the world has not changed, and God's redemptive plan has not changed. So all I need is that old truth preached to me. And guess what. If the Lord should tarry for a hundred years, my great-great-grandchildren will need the same thing that I need. And what is that? It's just to be reminded of what is true and to have that truth applied to the heart in powerful, potent, and diligent ways. We just need to be reminded because we are a people who forget.
This, by the way, is the value of Bible reading, Bible preaching, Bible teaching, Bible memorizing, Bible meditation. It’s to have the Word of God just wash over your mind and your heart again and again to remind you of what you know to be true. You may wonder, “Why is it that we still gather together on Sunday mornings and we just listen to preaching?” Well, we don't just listen to preaching. We do listen to preaching. Why do we do that? Hasn't everything that can be said about this book been said already? I think it has. And most of it's been recorded already and written down already. And if you think that my job is to present to you something new, something flashy that's going to surprise you and shock you that's never been heard before, you can attend here for the next thirty years and you're going to be sorely disappointed because there is nothing that I could say that has not been already said. There's no truth that I can give that has not been already proclaimed, already exegeted, already written out, already recorded for you, for me.
So if it's all been said, then why do we even bother showing up? Because the means of God's grace to His people is that we gather together for worship, that the Word of God be proclaimed, and that as we sit under that, not just you but also me sitting under the Word of God, that that has its effect in us, which is to remind us of what we know to be true. That is our sanctification, that is our preservation from error, and that is what keeps us diligent in our spiritual pursuits because we are a forgetful people.
Don't—speaking of forgetting—don't forget 2 Peter 1:9. Look what Peter says. “For in whom these things [that is, the virtues of verses 5–7] are not present, that one is blind, being nearsighted, having forgotten the purification from his former sins.” How do you avoid forgetting your purification from your former sins? You are reminded again and again, and by that you are strengthened in your faith, strengthened in the truths of the gospel, strengthened so that false teachers will not deceive you, strengthened so that wolves in sheep's clothing will not exploit you, and strengthened in the truth which you already know so that you may be grounded and established in it.
The word strengthened here is a word that can be translated as “established,” and either established or strengthened—either one of them is a good translation. It means to fix or to establish something in place, to make it fast, to secure it there, and to make it resolute and firm. So Peter's concern is that we would be made and strengthened in the truth and that the reminder of that truth would continually do the work of establishing us in it. This is very complimentary of Peter to say to his readers when he says that they “have been strengthened in the truth which is present with [them]” (v. 12). He's essentially telling them, “Look, I know that I'm not saying this to a bunch of ignorant rubes. You know the truth. You've heard the truth. And now in my final days, as I'm about ready to lay aside my earthly tent, the only thing I can do is just remind you of what you already know, and say you have been established in it, now continue to be established in it.”
Even those who were taught by an apostle needed to be reminded. So how much more you and I? Never once walked with an apostle. And if those who were taught by Peter needed to be reminded of what they already know, then you and I need to be reminded of what we already know.
This truth is the truth that strengthens us in the faith. It strengthens our diligence, our resolve, our holiness, our spiritual pursuit, our discipline, and our discernment so that we are not led astray. In chapter 2 of this Epistle, Peter says, as he describes the false teachers, that they have “eyes full of adultery and unceasing sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed—they are accursed children” (v. 14). False teachers entice people of unstable souls. How do you get a stable soul? You are established and strengthened in the truth. That is how you guard against false teachers. We need these reminders because the truth strengthens us.
Second, because the truth stirs us. 2 Peter 1:13–14: “I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has indicated to me.”
Now, before we consider how the truth stirs us up, I want you to notice Peter's statements about his impending death. He says, “The laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent” (v. 14). That term earthly dwelling is only used three times in the New Testament, twice here in this passage and then once in the book of Acts. It describes a tent or a dwelling place. It is not the common word that was used for tent in the New Testament, and it is certainly not the common word that is used for earthly body or the body. It's used that way figuratively here of the human body.
Interestingly, that word was used in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament texts that Jesus and the apostles were familiar with. It's used in the Septuagint to translate the word for tent or tabernacle, a temporary dwelling place like the patriarchs used when they lived in tents and wandered around the land of promise. It's the word that you would use to describe a dwelling place like a temporary shelter, a place that a sojourner or a traveler or a foreigner would stay, and it's not a permanent residence. It wasn't intended to be a permanent residence.
It's informative that Peter would use this word since he refers to his readers in the first Epistle as exiles—written to exiles—and he refers to them in chapter 2, verse 11, of 1 Peter as sojourners and exiles. In the most straightforward manner possible, we are nothing but passing through, and these bodies in which we live are just tents that we will lay aside eventually. The body is a tent for the soul, a temporary dwelling, and it gets worn and tattered with age, or so I hear. I'll let you know. And eventually all of us here will lay it aside just as Peter describes it. Every last one of us will lay this tent aside.
Paul describes the same thing using different words in 2 Corinthians 5:1 and following. Paul says this:
1 We know that if the earthly tent [it's a different word than Peter uses, but he's communicating the same thing] which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For indeed in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven,
3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked.
4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. (2 Cor. 5:1–5 LSB)
Paul's describing there his longing to lay aside his earthly tent, not because he longs to be naked—by that, he's not talking about physical nakedness. Not that I long for my spirit to be without a body, Paul says, but because that is the necessary thing for the body to be resurrected and for me to be clothed with my eternal body. That's his point in 2 Corinthians 5. So we long to die, not because the spirit wants to be free—that is a pagan idea. That's pagan Platonism. But we long to pass out of this body so that we may be clothed with a body which is eternal, the resurrected body. And to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:50, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” So this body of flesh and blood, like a tent, needs to be laid aside.
Peter's imagery is really that of a tent which just collapses and then is folded up and put away. That is a rather peaceful and quaint way of describing death, isn't it? Do you think of death that way? Just like the folding up of a tent, it collapses, and the inhabitant moves on. What a peaceful picture of death. For the believer in Christ, and listen, take note of this, that is death. It's just a tent, and you're leaving a tent and you're going someplace else, and eventually you will get a body not made with hands, fashioned by God, a resurrection body that will never perish. The believer steps out of this realm and into the realm of Christ.
Peter describes his death in verse 15 as departure. It's the Greek word exodus. Just leaving, like you leave one country, go to another, leave one building and go into another, leave a tent, go somewhere else. It's just the laying aside of my earthly tent. It's just my exodus. And the Lord Jesus had made this known to Peter that he was going to die. And in fact, I think that Peter here is alluding to what Jesus promised him in John 21:18–19:
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.”
19 Now this He [that is, Jesus] said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. (LSB)
Peter was young, relatively speaking, probably close to thirty or in his thirties when Jesus spoke those words to him. And now Peter is writing this in his sixties. And remember, Jesus had given him an indication not just of when he would die but also what type of death he would die. He said to him, “When you were young, you did this. And when you are old, this will happen.” So Peter knew it's not going to happen right away. When I'm old, this is going to happen. Well, now Peter's old. I don't mean to insult any of you who might be in your sixties, but now Peter is old relative to what he was when he was much younger. And he is reminded of what the Lord Jesus had made known to him. Somebody's going to stretch out your hands and take you where you do not wish to go. And according to tradition, Peter was crucified upside down.
His words here add a sense of urgency and import. And it is probably safe to assume that most of Peter's readers would have been familiar with Jesus's prophecy even though John was not written. That is not something that would have been kept from anybody. So people who knew Peter probably knew that Jesus had spoken those words to him and that Peter had already been told how he was going to die and likely at what time period he was going to die. So they would have known what Peter is describing here.
And this adds a sense of urgency and importance to his words because these are the closing sentiments of an apostle, and not just an apostle but one of the key three apostles in the early church. These are the last recorded words of a giant of the faith, and he is simply saying, “I'm reminding you so that you would be strengthened by the truth and stirred up.” That's in verse 13: “As long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder.” That word means to wake up or to rise from a sleep or slumber, to arouse somebody from a sleeping state. In 2 Peter 3:1, Peter said, “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder.”
That is the work of the Word of God, by the way, not just to remind us and strengthen us but to stir us up. Preaching and teaching is intended to stir us to action. When we hear, and I include myself in this, the Word preached or the Word taught and we are stirred to action, if we do not take action and apply what we are taught, we callous our hearts and our minds, we callous our souls to the truth. And we begin to get used to just remaining callous to it. To hear good teaching, to hear good preaching, to hear the Word of God applied and then to not do anything, you get used to that, and it just builds up a callous so that after long, the Word of God doesn't stir you at all. That's the danger of not applying truth when we hear it.
The goal of preaching and teaching, whether you are preaching it or whether you are listening, is to stir the heart and the mind, to incite the soul to work, to inflame within us holy affections, holy desires, and to stir in us a love for Christ and a love for His truth. Because Christians, frankly, we can fall into a spiritual state of slumber, get lazy in our Bible reading, lazy in our prayer, lazy in our battle against sin, apathetic toward righteousness and holiness and truth, and the regular diet of the Word of God is intended to stir our hearts. Picture like a pot of soup that you stir up with truth, and then if you pull the truth out of that, eventually that will stop and everything will settle down. We need to be constantly stirred, constantly stirred, so that we don't burn on the bottom and become horrible-flavored, burnt soup. We don't want to be burnt soup; that's the point of the analogy. So we need to be constantly stirred by the truth lest everything settle down and we just become apathetic and inert.
And it is a lot easier to just continually be stirred by the truth than it is to try and stir it up once it all gets settled down. The regular diet of the Word of God, the reminders of what we know brought afresh to us, stirs our affections and our desires and our actions. And simply to stir us up to diligence, that is Peter's goal. So we should pray regularly that the Word of God would stir us. We should come to church ready and eager to be stirred to holy affection, looking for, listening for what it is that I can walk away with and apply and do so as to diligently pursue all of the character qualities in verses 5–7.
We need to be reminded of the truth because it strengthens us, because it stirs us, and lastly and finally, and this won't take long, verse 15, because it sustains us. “And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind.” Peter was looking to the future. He knew there would be a time when he would be absent and he couldn't visit this flock anymore, he couldn't write to this flock anymore, he couldn't spend time with them anymore, he couldn't have them come and join him anymore, he wouldn't have any opportunity to have any impact or any input into their lives, except by way of the legacy that he would leave behind. So Peter says, “I will also be diligent [future tense] so that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind” (v. 15). Because of verse 15, we have this book. Peter was diligent to put all of this down, to write it and to deliver it, and to see that it was spread abroad so that long after he has died, nearly two thousand years now after he has died, we have these things called to our mind and we are stirred to holy affection.
What would sustain these believers in the future? New revelation, new prophets? None of that. Just the old truths spoken again, delivered again, so that the people of God may be reminded. It's the same truth. It diligently sustains us today, strengthens us today, and stirs our affections today.
Now let me close with one final observation. Peter saw himself as a servant of the Word and of the truth. That, I think, is the highest accolade that anybody can be known as—a servant of the Word and of the truth. And that is not to suggest that Bible idolatry is the path to greatness, that it's the Bible we serve, it's the written text, it's a piece of paper with ink on it. That's not what I mean by that. I mean, the truth of God incarnate in Christ, the truth of God proclaimed from His Word, the truth of God revealed in His Word. We are servants of that Word because it is by that Word that people are made to know who God is, they are made to know of their need for Christ, they are made to know the gospel, they are sanctified by that truth, they're built up by that truth, they're equipped by that truth, and we serve by that truth. So to be known as servants of the Word of God and truth, I think, is the highest compliment.
And that's something every one of us should strive for. We should see ourselves as rememberers. Rememberers. Matthew Henry used an old English word, remembrancers. I didn't even know that was a word, remembrancer. I thought, “Well, that's clever.” I put it into my Word document, and I didn't get the little red squiggly line. And I thought, “That's obviously a word.” Matthew Henry didn't make that up. We're just remembrancers. Our job, our role, our path is just a call to remembrance of what has already been recorded, to remind people of what is true. Therein lies our sanctification, our preservation from error, and our progress in spiritual virtues. Our role as disciplers, as teachers, as evangelists, as friends, as counselors, and as preachers is simply to stir up God's people by way of reminder. By this, we do good to people, to remind them of His truth, to remind them of His precepts, to put in the mind and in the hearts of others the truth of God and to speak the truth that strengthens and stirs.
Matthew Henry said this—and he doesn't use the term remembrancer in this quote, but this is a good quote as well. Matthew Henry says this:
And, if the people need teaching and exhortation while they are in the body, it is very meet and just that ministers should, as long as they are in this tabernacle, instruct and exhort them, and bring those truths to their remembrance that they have formerly heard, this being a proper means to stir them up to be diligent and lively in a course of gospel-obedience.
This is the proper means to stir us up to live diligently and lively in the course of gospel obedience. We are a forgetful people. So let us receive the truth with ready hearts. Let us be ready to heed and obey that truth that we may be strengthened by it, that we may be stirred by it, and that we may be sustained by it until we lay aside our earthly tents and depart and be with Christ.