A Word in Season: Ministerial Diligence (2 Peter 1:12)

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If you belong to a faithful church, and if you have the privilege of sitting under a faithful ministry, the chances are that when you go to gather with God's people on the first day of the week, you will hear things that you already know, at least in some measure.

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I'm not talking about a preacher who's just recycling his sermons, a man who's too lazy to bother finding anything new or old to bring out of the treasuries of God.

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I'm talking about a man who is concerned to make sure that even the things that you already know and are assured of, the things in which you're already established, are continually driven home into the depths of your being.

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That was the Apostle Peter's pattern, as he writes in 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 12.

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For this reason, he says, I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth.

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Yes, I think it is right, he goes on, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly

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I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover, I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.

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Why is the Apostle so insistent? What is this reason that he gives why he's going to keep on covering some of the same territory?

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He wants them to be even more diligent to make their call and election sure, so that if they do these things, and again you've got to go back into the chapter to see what those are, that you will never stumble, for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our

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Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. In the context, the Apostle is talking about some of the basic doctrines and practices, the elements of the faith and life that underpin everything in true

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Christianity. He is saying, in short, that he is going to go on teaching the first truths and pressing home the first duties, in order that God's people may go on pressing toward heaven.

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They need to be faithful, they need to hold fast, they need to believe and behave in such a way that under God they will at last arrive in that everlasting kingdom.

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And because Peter has that in mind for them, because he is so profoundly concerned for their faithful going along the way to that glorious destination, he is not going to be negligent to remind them always of those basic truths.

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Now by basic we don't mean shallow, we don't mean simple necessarily, but fundamental, the great priorities of Christian believing and living.

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He says, you know them, you're established in them. You might have thought he'd therefore say, well you're already past that then, so let's move on to some more interesting or useful things, let's add a little adornment, let's put on a little decoration.

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But no, he says, I'm going to go back, I'm going to relay those foundations, I'm going to re -establish those central doctrines,

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I'm going to press home those basic principles of Christian living. So if you belong to a faithful church and you have the privilege of sitting under a faithful ministry, when you go to God's house on the

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Lord's Day, when you gather with God's people to hear the word preached, I hope that you'll hear many of the same things.

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I hope they'll come with liveliness and freshness, I hope a faithful minister will do all that he can to ensure that he is covering the whole council of God, but I believe that if he's going to be diligent, he will go on rehearsing those basic principles of faith and life, by means of which

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God's people, being sustained, are carried forward toward the glory which is to come.

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This is not carelessness, this is not thoughtlessness, this is not shallowness, certainly not laziness.

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If he cares for your soul, if he wants you to make your calling and election sure, if he knows that if you press along the right course in the right way you will not stumble, that you'll receive that entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our

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Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, he will, while there is breath in his body, keep going over those central truths of God in his grace toward us in Christ Jesus, of the mercy that we have received, of the life that we live as those indwelt by the

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Spirit, and what it means to go in that course toward heaven. So let us go, let us hear things that we know and in which we are established, that we may press on in the