Recalling The Most Important Details 2 Peter 1:12-15

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One of the greatest blessings in life is something that we don't often think about There's so much we take for granted and what
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I have in mind is The capacity in our brain to recall details from our lives
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Think about your life and what you remember You can think all the way back to your earliest childhood memories
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This includes your early school years That sweet time you had with your parents and your siblings and your relatives and your early childhood of friends
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During your school years you can remember family vacations You can remember losing teeth
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How special Christmas morning was? You can remember the summers that you never wanted to end with your friends.
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I Remember those summer days on Phelps Island in Mound where I lived. I Remember sleeping in till 10 o 'clock sometimes later
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Calling my friends up meeting at the park where we played home run derby Then I remember how we rode our bikes to Super America and later on got a fountain drink there and ate
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Subway. I Also vividly remember my favorite year of my life 2013 the year
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I met Brianna My life was super busy at this time because I was in seminary
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Coaching track working security and I was also a competitive runner training and running road races regularly
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What was most on my mind during this time was finding time to spend with Brianna and I had to become creative to find time
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But when we found time how sweet was that new love we experienced those were the days and I can recall them because of the gift of memories that God has given us
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You also remember your wedding day as if time stood still
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You remember the birth of your children? you remember the highs and lows of marriage and the highs and lows of raising children and The highs and lows of every year that has gone by You can also remember the most important memories the memories of your first encounter with God You can remember going to church
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You can remember the pastors you had you can remember those adults in church who first taught you about Jesus You remember hearing the truth concerning the things of God You remember the time you first professed faith in Christ You remember your baptism and you can recall the work that God has done in your life over the years
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What a gift is the mind that God has given us that is able to recall the numerous details in our lives but one of the worst aspects of the fall is
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That people lose their capacity to remember Diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia where a person's mind begins to go and sometimes it is so severe
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That the person cannot remember his family or even his own identity
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This may be the cruelest disease there is But to have our memories what a gift it is to recall the details of our lives
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Now this morning as we continue our sermon series through 2nd Peter The Apostle Peter talks about the memory and Specifically he is going to call us to remember the most important information
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That we have in our minds that comes from the Word of God So at this time,
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I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me in a second Peter We'll be looking at verses 12 through 15 of chapter 1
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The sermon is titled Recalling the most important details
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And I'm going to begin By reading the text 2nd Peter chapter 1 verses 12 through 15
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Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities though You know them and are established in the truth that you have.
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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
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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
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Here's our big idea what this text what the sermon is calling you to do Recall frequently and firmly the life -giving truths of Scripture And we're gonna see two disciplines how in this text, but before we jump in Let me give you a little recap of where we were one week ago we looked at verses 8 through 11 and in these verses
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Peter talked about the all -important topic of Assurance of salvation.
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How do you know that you are saved? What we learn in these verses that we is that we are to examine
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Ourselves to see whether we are truly saved and we can know that we are truly saved
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The way that we can know is that we are bearing godly fruit in our lives
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All genuine believers have certain marks of faith and we should be eager to see that these marks describe us and We looked over these and I'll give you a little overview here
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First John the letter first John was written to tell us how we can know that we have eternal life and there's four
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Marks that tell us number one is that genuine believers have sound doctrine Number two is that genuine believers have a special love for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ Number three is that genuine believers hate their sin.
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It doesn't mean they don't sin, but that they hate their sin Number four is related to number three as genuine believers hate their sin.
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They do see some growth and holiness over time So Peter and other writers of Scripture tell
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Christians to examine themselves to see if they truly belong to the Lord The Lord wants us to have assurance of salvation and we should be eager to examine ourselves to see if we should have assurance
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Now this leads us to our text this morning that we've already read and introduced But now we're going to zero in on and I'm gonna begin by looking closely at verse 12 where once again
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Peter writes. I Intend always to remind you of these qualities though.
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You know them and are established in the truth that you have In the previous sections as I have explained we saw
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Peter described Christian qualities in verses 5 through 7 Peter described eight godly qualities and in verse 8 he wrote that if these qualities are yours and are
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Increasing they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our
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Lord Jesus Christ These qualities as we have seen are found in the scriptures as verses 3 & 4 instructed us
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Verse 3 told us that the Word of God gives us everything that we need to know to live the life of faith
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Now in our text that I've already introduced in the introduction We have a new component to this
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It occurred to me as I was looking at this that if we really want to understand What our lives on earth are supposed to be all about We need to live out the first 14 verses of 2nd
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Peter 1 What Peter tells his readers and us in verse 12 is that he intends to remind them of these qualities
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What this means is that when Peter is around them or writes to them? He is going to constantly tell them to meditate on the scriptures and to live out the commands of scripture
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That tell a Christian to grow in godly living by the way, when
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I say meditate on Scripture I take this language from the psalmist in Psalm 1 and verses 1 & 2 where he writes
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Blessed is the man who walks not in the council the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers
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But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law. He meditates day and night
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The word meditate in our day has been hijacked In our day, it's used in the context of what
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Eastern religions do They empty their minds in order to release the stress that comes from Desires and thoughts, but the
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Bible tells us to do the opposite We do have lots of thoughts that make us anxious and stressed
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But the solution to rid this anxiety is not emptying our minds it is to do the opposite it's to fill our minds and Specifically to fill our minds with the right things
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Namely the Word of God Let's continue with Psalm 1 when a man or woman meditates on the
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Word of God Taking it deep into his or her heart The result is described in verse 3 he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and Its leaf does not wither in all that he does he prospers the
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Lord compares a believer growing in his faith growing in love for the Lord Growing in holiness as a tree planted by streams of water
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Does this describe you are you someone who always
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Stays the same or do you see growth in your life? When you look back to five years ago, do you see yourself is not growing in that time or do you see evidence of growth?
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There was one author I was reading a couple years back That said if we are living the way
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God has called us to live We should we should be embarrassed of who we were five years ago
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This is true there might be things we used to say to our spouse that now we think
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I can't believe I said those things It may be that you used to get angry quickly, but now you are slower to anger
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It may be that five years ago you would find yourself lusting after the opposite sex not your spouse
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But you are now much stronger in that area It may be that you had a problem spending beyond your means
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But now you only make purchases if you have the money to buy a certain product
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It may be that you used to doubt God regularly, but now your trust in him has been greatly
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Increased it may be that used to lack courage but now you have grown in courage as you have grown in the fear of the
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Lord as I say these things you may be saying Wow, I have a long ways to go
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But don't be discouraged Rather set your heart on taking steps of growth in the areas where you have a big struggle with sin
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But what Peter is telling us in verse 12 is that we need to constantly Remind ourselves and others of the importance of continuing to grow
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What this means is that we need to be able to speak into the lives of one another Peter would come to these people and say are you being diligent in your effort to grow in the
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Lord as He told them in verse 12. I intend to always remind you of these qualities
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What this means is that he isn't telling them anything new But the things they already know as Peter says in the second verse 12
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You know them and are established in the truth that you have Why is it that we tell people to continually read the
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Bible? This is so because we need to be continually reminded of what it says if the
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Word of God is fresh on our minds Then the Holy Spirit is going to use that in our lives to remind us to live out the truths of Scripture This is what
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Romans 12 1 tells us to do We are to be Transformed by the renewing of your mind when you come here on Sundays You know occasionally you'll learn new things
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But you will also hear many things that you've already learned There might be some things you hear every single
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Sunday. You might be saying why why do you keep telling me these things? I remember having a conversation with a lady one time
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When I was working security, in fact security it opened up lots of opportunities for conversations because it wasn't that hard of a job
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So I had lots of time to talk to people and what happened was This lady told me how much she loved
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Joel Osteen, you know in his positive messages You know he never talked about sin he never talked about judgment.
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He never talked about hell. He never talked. He never really opened the Bible But what she said was
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What I told her is you know what we need it We need to talk about Jesus Christ and him crucified and she told me
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But the people have already heard that they need to hear something new You know and that's not biblical at all for her to say that that's what people think give me something new
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As you come to this church, you're not gonna get things new you're gonna hear the same things over and over and over again
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You know not to say you won't learn something new every Sunday, but but you get my point Remember what
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Peter told us in first Peter? to 11 I Urge you as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful passions
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Which wage war against your soul? We prepare ourselves for the age to come by putting to death the sins in our lives and Reflecting the
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Lord more and more day by day as we live out what we know in his word
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Peter understands the importance of reminding his readers about this as he writes in verse 13 I think it is right as long as I am in the body to stir you up by way of Reminder is in other words as long as he is still alive as long as his soul is still in his body
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He is going to stir them up by way of reminder and this sounds like a verse that's written on the wall downstairs
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That verse is Hebrews 10 verses 24 and 25 Let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works
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Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some But encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near We need to encourage one another in growth included in this is speaking into each other's lives a healthy church environment and healthy friendships and Healthy family relationships are those where we can speak into each other's lives
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Listen to these words in Proverbs chapter 9 verses 7 through 9 Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse and He who approves a wicked man incurs injury
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Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you Reprove a wise man and he will love you
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Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser
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Here's a spit. Here's a measure of spiritual maturity and ask yourself this When someone offers you correction
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Do you immediately get defensive? Do you immediately reject it and even despise the person for offering the correction?
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Or do you take into consideration? What was said I think
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I told this story before When I was younger early 20s
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I Walked into my apartment complex and sometimes they would put these wise quotes and sometimes they were kind of silly
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But this one was actually really good It said the truth is most of us would rather be crushed by praise
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Instead of saved by criticism that powerful The truth is most of us would rather be crushed by praise
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Instead of saved by criticism. We need to say hard things to people sometimes
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For them to understand the danger that they are in The path they're going down And people say well, it's not loving
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It is loving We live in a culture that doesn't understand what love is We need to say hard things to people because we love them
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Because we don't want to see this and you might be the only person in someone's life who's willing to do that We need to understand what true
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Christianity is Okay, because this is not Often the experience that that is out there
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We love people by telling them the truth. Okay now we need we do need to look at the plank in our own eye.
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Yes We do need to do that But if we see something where someone is in danger in some way we need to tell the truth
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Faithful are the wounds of a friend proverb 17 26
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Sorry 17 6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend if someone's just gonna keep doing it keep doing and keep doing keep doing this thing
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Who's gonna actually tell the person? You need to change Fools brush off what is said and even look down on the person who offers the correction.
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Well wise people are thankful Thank you for telling me that I didn't see this in my life
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Thank you for telling me that I want to look at this I want to prayerfully look at this and Move in the right direction in this area if I see with what you're saying is correct
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But Peter's exhortation to us is to remind each other what the Bible teaches the goal of all of our lives needs to be to grow in godliness and what needs to take place are reminders of what the scripture clearly
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Communicates we need to hear it again and again and again It needs to be fresh on our minds and the spirit is going to use it in our lives as it's fresh on our minds
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So the first way how you are to recall frequently and firmly the life -giving truths of scripture is
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By reminding ourselves and others to live out our faith more and more
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Okay, so just as Paul's reminding them We need to remind each other and ourselves teach ourselves first and then teach others reminding ourselves to live out our faith more and more
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The second way how and this is the there's only two points this morning The second way how you were to recall frequently and firmly the life -giving truths of scripture is by preparing others
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To live out the essential truths of the faith After we're gone Yeah, we'll see this in verses 14 and 15 since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon as our
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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
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When I introduced this letter three weeks ago, I explained that Peter wrote this letter not long before his death
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Then we learned that Peter died at the hands of the Roman Emperor Nero at about 67 or 68
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AD So Peter is more than likely writing this from Rome and he knows that his exit execution is on the horizon
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Whenever you read or listen to someone who knows they are going to die. There's a certain urgency to their words
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There's an urgency to prepare the people they love to know the most important things
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So that these loved ones will be Prepared and blessed after the person sending the message is gone
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This is what Peter is telling his readers He knows that the putting off of his body is soon.
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He knows that his death is not far off What he says is that the
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Lord Jesus Christ has made this clear to him We might think does this mean we can know the day we are going to die
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Sometimes we can because the doctor might tell us We have six months to live
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And sometimes it's weird sometimes you hear stories about someone it's almost like they knew I you know, I don't know
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I mean, we don't want to look too much into that. But sometimes the Lord is preparing people in some providential way
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Their time is short and then they die But truly we don't know the exact day.
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We are going to die But Peter had certain knowledge from God that we don't have
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Peter was told by Jesus The way he was going to die Not long before Jesus ascended to heaven.
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Jesus told Peter in John chapter 21 verses 18 and 19 Truly truly
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I say to you When you were young You used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted
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But when you are old You will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go
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This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God As I mentioned three
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Sundays ago the church historian Eusebius Who was alive a couple hundred years later?
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Recorded that Peter was martyred by Nero and specifically he was crucified upside down because Peter refused to be crucified the way that Jesus was crucified as Peter writes this letter
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He is approaching that fateful day That would be an incredibly difficult day, but it would also be a day
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Where he would glorify God through his death Peter can see the writing on the wall
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And he knows that day is coming With this knowledge Peter gives these important instructions for them to carry out after he's gone
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He loves these churches. You can see that in Paul's letters. You can see in Peter's letters they love the people that they are looking after and They want them to be instructed properly
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So they tell them these important truths and that's what Peter is doing here
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And the important instructions that Peter gives are what we highlighted in the first point
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Believers are to know the word let it plant deep into their hearts, and then they are to live the word
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Know the word love the word and be disciplined to live the word.
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That's the Christian life in a nutshell This is what Peter is telling them Peter reinforces this in verse 15 where he writes
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I will make every effort effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things
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And I can't talk about Memory without talking about the importance of us memorizing scripture
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Do we know the Bible? What if we don't have access to a Bible what if a day comes where they burn all the
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Bibles and we can't get It on the internet and it's all down to our memories. How are we gonna do?
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We need to have the Word of God is stored in our hearts Where we can gather together and say okay.
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What is what does this say in John? what does this say in Matthew and and we can come together and Understand the
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Word of God and and you're gonna have many times in your life where you're not gonna have a Bible with you What did
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God say about this? If you've already memorized it and taken it to heart how effective the
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Lord's gonna use that in in your life I was very blessed because I was in Bible quizzing
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From eighth grade all through my senior year of high school. I memorized chapters and chapters of the
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Bible And I actually did it for the wrong reasons back then by the way, I was competitive.
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I wanted to win You know, I mean to be honest with you And and I did well
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But now all those trophies were we've given away. I mean I it was all like what's the point? But the
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Lord what I meant for evil God has meant for good because I have all these all these verses in my mind that the
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Lord is now using in my life so Peter here
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He's making every effort So that after his departure that these people that he loves would be able to at any time to recall these things
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So so he's not wasting his time as his death nears. He's making the best use of his time
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And what an application to us? None of us knows how much time we have
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You know Greg talked today about the scare that Josie had I mean that could have been the end and and thank the
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Lord it wasn't None of us knows Something could happen to any of us this week.
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I was watching. I don't watch the news really but I saw this this headline this week nine people died in Wisconsin in a semi hit this van nine people and some of them were children
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None of those people started that day thinking I am going to die But it was that was the end we need to prepare ourselves to die no matter how young we are and it may be that Christ comes
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Not far down the road, but we also know that God is patient Christ's return might be delayed longer
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It may be that we may die before his return We need to live like our death is just around the corner
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What do our children need to know before we are gone? What do others in our family need to know?
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What do our friends need to know our neighbors as a pastor? What does your congregation need to know?
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Every Sunday, I preach it might be my last I Don't know what the future holds
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None of us are guaranteed tomorrow what do those in our care need to know as We have seen they need to know the word
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They need to love the word and they need to be disciplined to live the word And some of you have listened to Mark's music at least on a
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Sunday You've heard Mark's music and some of you have heard the CD that That was made a couple years back
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That one of the songs that Mark sings is a song called grandpa was a farmer
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In fact at our harvest festival He's saying this very song and it's it's one of my favorites.
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I love this song The lyrics of that song highlight what Peter is saying in these verses
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Listen to these words This is a this is a grandson describing his grandfather.
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He took us to church on Sunday He taught us how to pray. I'll never forget the words that grandpa say he said youngins
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Don't forget where you came from. I have a hard time doing this without singing it. Don't forget that God's been good to you
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He says be proud to be raised in the country. Okay, I'm not gonna Yeah Yeah, and he even says he even mentions the country stand up for the good old red white and blue I mean patriotism is on attack and and I part of me is like, you know
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What that's very it's a very Christian thing to say because our country was built on biblical principles as we stand for the traditions of Our country.
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We're actually standing for the Word of God. They're not disconnected And then he says it won't hurt to get a little dirt on your britches when you go down to the woods and pray
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Youngins, don't forget where you came from where I'm going when you meet me there someday this grandson is
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Describing the words that his grandpa told him that he never forgot What an amazing legacy this was
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The legacy that's passed down from one generation to another the legacy of following Jesus Christ This is what we are to pass on and it's not just in words as in actions as we watch
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My grandfather was a very quiet man, but I watched him and that's a legacy that he passed down Our children and our grandchildren will remember us for a lot of things
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But right at the top must be that Christ was our Lord Savior and treasure and He if he is their
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Lord Savior and treasure There will be a great reunion one day So may we live telling our loved ones the most important thing so that when we are gone
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Our words will carry on long after we're gone So let's summarize this as we close the big idea recall frequently and firmly the life -giving truths of scripture in this text we have seen two disciplines how
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By reminding ourselves and others to live out our faith more and more and as we have just seen by preparing others
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To live out the essential truths of the faith after we're gone The memory is such a wonderful gift that the
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Lord has given to each of us We can store lots and lots of information in our minds but the most important knowledge we have is the scriptures
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May we do as the psalmist said in Psalm 119 verse 11. I Have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you by his grace
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May we daily recall the Lord's teachings and live lives pleasing to him now next
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Sunday Peter once again talks about the scriptures, which has been such a focus of this first chapter
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This time he focuses on How were the scriptures produced so that we can truly hear the
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Word of God? And we'll look at that next Sunday. But this time let's bow our heads in prayer Father in heaven, thank you for the gift of the mind to be able to recall things we can recall the the sweet memories of life and Say, thank you for those memories.
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We can recall the hard things of life And you have a purpose Us recalling in those hard things
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But the best use for our minds is to recall the most important things and that is the
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Word of God So help us to recall the Word of God in our lives so that we can love it and live it out with discipline to glorify your name
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To bless ourselves and to bless others And we ask this in Jesus name.