2 Peter, 1:12-15
Vern Peterman · Apr 29, 2007
1 & 2 Peter (2006-07), No. 30
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492602594143

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

A few weeks ago you asked a question about what we might think of ideas for different classes. And the thing I was thinking about, there's so much material sometimes you don't really get a chance to interact and respond to it. I got the impression if you put together some kind of a table with the different teachers that taught different things and just had an interaction thing for three weeks or whatever was appropriate. A lot of these different classes have some interaction and interface with them somewhere. It would be interesting to just throw the questions open and bounce it around for three or four weeks.

I want to take that into consideration because that's certainly something we like to have in these electives. And it's one of the reasons why we have the electives where we have smaller groups and a chance to interact and ask questions, make comments, make observations, things of that sort.

I'll let you know that we have decided to go with a Sermon on the Mount, July through September. But we also do have opportunity for more of what you're talking about, just some interaction on different things. One of the things that we've done sometimes with the Bible study so far, we've done it a few times with the Thursday night Bible study that Mike has led. When he has been gone, we've had a kind of a Q&A. night as a substitute during that time, and that's a good interaction time. We will also have some kind of open-ended time towards the end of this class, and that'll be an opportunity for that.

But I think your point's well taken. A lot of times, you know, questions, interaction, discussion helps kind of, if there are areas where there's still some fogginess, if there are areas where you say, that's great, but it just leads to another question, then you'd be in a chance to cover that. Other thoughts? No? Okay.

Just to clarify for that, if there is a Q&A time where we have this open-end time, it's helpful if you can send the question ahead of time, if you have email or call in. Yeah, call or something. I have a question, it is this. And that gives him an opportunity to prepare if there's anything that isn't already in that. Yeah, something else that may be helpful. And it's something we haven't had quite so much of a pattern of late.

When we were going through the book of Revelation, one of the things that I wanted to be sure to do is have people ask questions. So we actually made it a point to get cards in the pew rack so that people could write questions and either hand them to me or even drop them in the offering box or in some way make sure those questions get out there. So I guess part of what I'm thinking is take the initiative in whatever format is available to get the questions there. The other thing that, you know, as the teachers get together and plan, and we last met a couple of weeks ago on Sunday after church, that we can be thinking about what are some formats that we can offer that help, you know, encourage and provide for the interaction and questions and follow through discussion.

So that's something for me to continue to ponder and I'll pass it along to the rest of the teachers too. Yeah? Nancy makes a good point. Feel free to call or email whatever format works best for you during the week. Yes, Marilyn? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Marilyn's point, I'll catch you in a minute, Tom. Hold on to it, okay?

Marilyn's point is that people, if you ask questions in the private interaction, then misses out on what other people might be thinking and they might benefit from that. One of the things that at least I try to do is to bring the question, and I might not even raise the question that so-and-so asked it, but I'll try to bring the question into the discussion the next time we meet. And that's one way to have what started off as a private conversation, as long as it's not something that needs to stay private. be brought over into the group discussion. And your point's well taken, because that's a valuable thing. Usually, if somebody's asking the question, they're not the only one.

And you're right about that. Now, Tom. My thought is, if everybody's just about to save their nickels or their dimes, and then just have a free dinner night for a burn. The improv humor is really rough, you know. Okay, thanks, Tom. All right, let's take a look at this 2 Peter 1, 12 through 15, and before we get to that, I've got two things to bring up first. How about that? Let's start off the first one.

Do you remember in today's passage in 2 Peter, that's 2 Peter 1, 12 through 15, is the long-standing and broadly applied biblical principle of reminding and remembering. And I say that long-standing and broadly applied is reminding and remembering goes all the way back to the book of Genesis. And the reminding and remembering is continued as a pattern all the way through to Revelation. Reminding and remembering and calling to remembrance is an exceedingly biblical thing to do. And that is a lot of what Peter is pointing on here.

You think about in Genesis, what things took place that had the point of reminding or remembering or bringing to remembrance? Can you think of some things? Genesis and Exodus. The Passover would be one, right? Out of Exodus. Do this as a remembrance. Keep doing this every year. Why? Look back to how the Lord set you free from bondage of Egypt. Right. Good point. Others? Pardon?

The Lord's Supper. This was really, as we covered a few years back now probably, it was a hand-off. Here is the Lord observing the Passover with a group of Jewish men who understood the Passover well after 14 centuries of remembrance. And yet what was happening, it was also a hand-off to the church. I'm going to observe the Passover, and in doing so, institute the Lord's Table or the Lord's Supper. Do this in what?

Remembrance. So this is a long-standing pattern. When Peter goes into this reminding and remembrance and calling to remembrance, he's not just starting something or getting real cranked up because they forgot. He is doing something that's a long-standing pattern. We have some bullets here in your handout. We've got the Passover.

We've got the Jews to remember they were slaves in Egypt. And by the way, while we think of the Passover, one of the reasons for the Sabbath day was to take that day to remember that they were slaves. Isn't that something? To take the day to remember they were slaves.

The name Deuteronomy means second law. It's a repetition in a great part of the law. Why? Reminder. The apostles and their associates often reminded or asked the ones they wrote to to call to memory certain key things. And Paul did it, Jude did it, and Peter's going to do it here. Reminding, reminding, remembering.

Now, one of the other things that is stated in scripture is not just the reminding and remembering, but stating something that it's believed or assumed or even known that the people already know. Not just to call it to recollection and stop, but to use it as a basis to build on something else. And we give examples here in Romans 6, 6 and 6, 9. The meaning of knowing there is because you know. Knowing this. It's a because you know is the structure of the Greek there.

What is Paul going to do? He's going to build on what they know. So that's another aspect of the reminding and remembering. It's not just looking back. We're going to go from what you know and remind you about that point in order to build on to the next thing. Let's look at second page here.

For the last time, he says, well, maybe not. There are several indications in this passage of 2 Peter that Peter knew in some way that these words were among his last. Think about this. What do people say? What kinds of things do people say when they know that what they've got to say is among their last things? Do they say, gee, the weather's nice today? What's that?

Yeah, Tom? Yeah. All right. The Walter Brennan quote. Yeah. All right. What else? Important things. What tends to happen is all the superficial stuff, the mundane, the everyday stuff tends to just fall through, doesn't it? If we have a sense that, hey, I'm saying my last words, we tend not to just remark that, you know, my socks have a hole in them or something. We don't bring in the mundane, we bring up the important, don't we?

And that's what Peter is doing here, and it's interesting, he drops several hints here that he is seeing his last days, and he somehow has a sense of it. We don't know quite what that means. It may be simply that he's been an apostle for a while, and the Lord Himself, in fact, told him, Peter, here are some facts about the way you're going to die. And it may be that he kind of sees those things converging. It may be also that he has had some revelation directly from the Lord about it. But however he knows, it's clear from this passage, he's dropping significant hints. Yes, Doug. Yes. OK. Yeah, Peter, Doug brings up the fact that Peter may well be older here and that, aside from anything else, would tell him, hey, my clock's running out, the hourglass is running out of sand, however you want to put it.

That there may be some indications there. It could be age, that and a combination with looking at circumstances, possibly a revelation from the Lord. All those may be valid factors that are, because he doesn't say how he knows, but it's clear that he knows.

And I think that's something to think about. What he is writing here is not wimpy stuff. What he is writing here is not stuff that's just kind of, hey, I think I'll write something. Just killing time. No. He's got something very significant to say. Okay, here's the second Peter passage here. Got it up on the screen. 2 Peter 1 12-15 I'll read it here and then we'll go into the details.

Therefore I will always be ready to remind you of these things even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you. 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 made clear to me. And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure, you will be able to call these things to mind." You see the reminding pattern there in these verses? And also the multiple indications that Peter has some idea that his life is drawing to a close.

We okay so far? I haven't blown any circuits. Okay, alright. Let's take a look here. The thing we want to look at, what are these things? Remind you of these things. What things? Yeah, everything you have to dare for. They are the things that Peter had just said to them in the prior verses. The verses that Gene has taught us through here in the first eleven verses. And these are things, and notice here, the very opening point in this passage we've read and studied so far, after Peter gets through saying, Hi, I'm Peter, and I'm writing to you again, he talks about, these are the things, about God's provision of absolutely everything for life and godliness by His divine power. Got that? everything for life and godliness by His divine power.

He doesn't come on to them and say, guys, you've got to get doing it and work hard, and get under the law. He doesn't do that, does He? What He does, He starts off Just laying it out. Look guys, I'm going to tell you some things, but let me just get it clear right at the beginning.

This is all by God's empowerment. You have everything by God's power. By God's power. By God's power, okay? Pertaining to life and godliness. Everything I'm going to tell you here, I'm not telling you to do it by your own strength. I'm not laying out a law for you. for you to do, and then report back to God how you did. Well, think about that. Is he operating in the flesh when he says, I'm going to be diligent? No. First, how do we know that?

One is, this is what kind of writing? This isn't on the opinion page, right? This is inspired writing. It's not just on the opinion page of the newspaper. This is inspired writing from God, so that's one point. What is another point that makes it clear he's not talking about, okay, I'm just going to be a legalist here and pound it home by my own efforts and I'll make this happen. What else do we know? What had he just told them earlier in the passage? by His divine power. So He is not contradicting that point in saying He is going to be diligent. His diligence will be by God's power.

Yes, Mary. I just heard something last night. It's in a book that I'm reading. It says to pray like I've heard a phrase something like that Yeah Which is a sort of a quick reversal and I think it's intended to I get a truth across. The one stumbling point I think in that expression, you know, it sounds like, you know, we're going both ways. The one stumbling point with that impression is that ultimately, while what we do on the outside may look like great effort, it may look even like effort to the point of exhaustion.

It is clearly God's empowering that is intended to accomplish these things. It's not my life. And so the expression that you bring up, and I have crossed paths with it, is fine so far as it goes, as long as it's not misunderstood that somehow it's God's effort and my effort. It is His empowering and His doing. Well, walking in the Spirit or being diligent about things is not... This is such a difficult thing to communicate, isn't it? It's recognizing that everything we do must be with our focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes. And, you know, Paul... Paul worked. Paul walked. Paul traveled. He made tents. He did various things. And they looked like his efforts. And he certainly had to be obedient to that. And that's part of it.

Diligence is obedience. And it's not obedience under the law, but it's a saying, Lord, I want to do your will. I want to walk in your power. I want your life to be lived through me. Yeah. Nancy's bringing this point out, that this is the Lord's doing through us. And think about this. Peter has made the point here, before he starts saying, you know, add this to this and do this and do that, he starts off with, you have been given everything by God's divine power, for all that pertains to life and godliness, by His empowering. Think of this, here is Paul. He writes to the Church of Colossae. And by the way, as far as we know, he hadn't been with that church. It was one of these personal contacts. And so he's writing to the Church of Colossae. The last two verses of the first chapter of the book of Colossians, he says, we teach and admonish every man. And he says, every man, you know, twice.

And he starts off the next verse, verse 29, after talking about teaching, and he says, to this end, I labor, and he uses the word kapia'o, it means labor to the point of exhaustion. So here's, I think, probably the point that the expression that Marilyn brought up is trying to make. On the outside, this thing looks like, boy, that guy is working himself to death on this thing. So here's what Paul says, to teach and admonish every single person, I labor to the point of exhaustion. And then he says, and I strive, and he uses the word agonizomai. Okay, we have our word agony, and it was an athletic term. I strive with an athletic level of effort in my doing so.

As, and then the next part of the verse, as God is the one who is working mightily within me. Is that something? On the outside, if you looked at Paul, you'd say, man, that guy is really working hard. He's putting a lot of effort into it. But what does Paul acknowledge right at the outset?

Right there. He doesn't wait until later. He doesn't put it off. He doesn't say, well, I've said that somewhere else. He says, all the while, this exhaustive, athletic level of effort comes about because of God's empowering. He's the one who does the work, not me. And I agree, Cadence.

Here, we give a couple examples in Philippians 4, 9, and 2, 12 through 13. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things. By the way, each of those learned, received, heard, and seen are all active voice, so that it's not just a receiving, you know, you sat there and got it from us. It's active voice, you actively learned, you actively heard, etc. Practice these things, and that's an imperative you've got to do.

But guess what? And the God of peace will be with you as you do so. God Himself will be one with you as you do these things. It will be His accompanying you as you do it. The other passage there in Philippians we have, So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, and not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. We covered this in studying Philippians a few years back. I won't go into detail on it. But here, interestingly enough, this sounds like something you've got to do, doesn't it? Uh oh, is Paul getting legalistic? Is this a problem? Well, but what does he say?

For it is God who is at work in you. The working out of your salvation, not working for, the working out of your salvation is every step of the way, by God's intent, to be His working through you and in you, not yours to do and report back when life's done. Yeah, Tom? Yeah, that's right. It is the Lord's doing. It is Him to whom we are to look. It is not ours to do by our own best efforts and then come back to God and say, how am I doing?

Yeah. Norm? There's a radio program at 7 o'clock in the morning on Sunday mornings. Yes. And I just have it on for noise. Yeah. Which is probably the best way to listen to it. There's two fellows and they're But they chatter back and forth. But this morning, the first time I heard this, and I guess I've been doing it for a month, they are giving away household furniture to a mean family. And their reason for this is that this family, and these are two men supposedly of faith, that are giving away the furniture because this may be the only time in their lives they've ever seen a blessing.

And I thought that to be curious by both nature and beauty. Yeah, yeah. There is just an important perspective to have here. in terms of how things get done in our Christian lives. There are lots of good things to do. I remember I shared off and on how the first 15 years of our marriage, I was not a human being. I was a human doing. And Nancy endured it, for which I'm thankful.

There is a recognition at some point that, hey wait a minute, just doing stuff that's on the list of good things to do is not what God has in mind. God is not pleased for us to simply go out and do lots of stuff. We're not accumulating merit. We're not earning heavenly brownie points. We, by God's intent, are to be the treasure in earthen vessels, his treasure. He is the treasure, we're the earthen vessels. We are the ones to be used of him by his life.

Okay, let's take a look at the top of page three. So here he's acknowledging, you already know this, even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you. Now notice here, He's confirming what the believers already know. He acknowledges that you know these truths. But further reinforced, think about that. We talked earlier about the Bible having a pattern of reminding. What's the value of reminding? What's the value of reminding and bringing to remembrance? Even the Lord's Table. What's the value of reminding and remembering?

Keep your direction clear. Okay, good. What's that? All right. We're so easily distracted. Yeah, that's that's true. Nancy will particularly testify. I'm easily distracted. All right. Yes, Tom. Ah, reminding for long term memory. What are the things that we remember? Sometimes that might drive us crazy what we remember, but what are the things we tend to remember? Things that are repeated. Yeah, good point. It's the things that are repeated that we tend to remember.

What else? Things that were long ago. Things that were long ago. Interestingly enough, we may have a tough time remembering something that happened this last week and yet have a clear, crystal clear memory of something that happened decades ago. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, our mind gets cluttered, but there is a kind of a selection and even things that are from time back we might remember. Why do we remember those things from long ago?

Ah, they're impacting. She said emotionally impacting. Things that strike us and we say, whoa, this is significant. And so what's Peter trying to do? He's trying to bring forth these things in the kinds of things we remember and actually bring out all the various points that you brought out here. You may have heard this a long time ago, but it's still good to bring it forward. It's still good for me to repeat it. It is also something that I want you to be emotionally impacted by and in every other respect, certainly spiritually impacted, right? Okay. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

This first phrase you already know, interestingly, is a perfect active verb. It's perfect tense, as we brought out before. This is chopping off the head of the carrot. It's completed past action, ongoing results into the future. It's perfect tense since the believers have known completely in the past, they continue to know it now. It says, you guys have already known it in the past, and you continue to know it now. Further, the active voice says that they know because they actively learned in the past, about that.

And it's interesting, we tend often to think of learning as some sort of, you know, we just sit there and soak it up. Frequently, and this is case in point, the apostles, and by the way, that Philippians passage we looked at in the prior page, same thing, the apostles often, often, wrote about learning and hearing and taking things in actively. And this is an example of just that thing. That our learning as believers is not to be a sort of a, just lay on the lounge chair and soak up the spiritual rays and see what soaks in. Instead, active learning is what is clearly conveyed by the apostles. Okay? This kind of knowledge also is not an experientially known truth, but one of objective truth presented to the mind. Next, have been established. This is a perfect, here's a switch, perfect tense, but a passive verb. What do you mean by that?

Just like the other, a completed past action, but the being established is not the hearers or the audience is doing, It is something that's accomplished by the Apostles and by the Lord Himself. The Lord is the one who does the establishing. Isn't that interesting? It is from this piece of truth here, the Lord is the one to establish you even though we are to be actively learning. Isn't that something? The Lord is the one who does the establishing. even if we're the ones who actively learn. And it is God's intent that we be the ones who actively learn.

Alright, that's a key point. This kind of establishment includes personal experience. So that's something else. It includes personal experience. The first you already know does not include personal experience. So there's two distinctions, passive and active voice and the not personal experience in the first part of you already know and including personal experience and you have been established.

Tom? Yeah, through it all I'm learning. That's what Thomas brings forth. Interesting, through it all I'm learning. So that's the experiential process, right? And that's the establishment that's taking place. How about, is present with you? Peter here is emphasizing the present ongoing character of the things which they've already learned and have already been established in. Even expressing the nearness and reality of those truths. So the truths are not just something You know, this is an objective thing and poke it in your head and it'll have some reality sometime. He says, these truths that you have learned actively, and I know you already know them, these truths that the Lord, and by use of the apostles, and that's true even with us, by the way, by use of the apostles, the Lord has established the believers in these truths. He says, it's near to you. It's close. He says, I know you have these truths close at mind and heart. See that? They're not far off.

What would it be like, how would you describe a believer to whom these truths were far off? They were kind of an objective truth out there and they just stayed there. How would you describe that kind of thing in a believer? It seems like those are the believers who are striving in their own effort. The truths have not been brought home to heart. It might be plagued by worry because the truths have not been brought home.

Ascending Christians? They kind of give a nod to it, right? The Christians who say, yeah, I believe that stuff, I think. Somewhere out there I do. No. These are truths that are brought home to heart, aren't they? These are truths that are brought home to the point where, yes, I know it. And Peter starts off with what you know in your mind. But he says, these things that I'm reminding you about, they're also near to you. You have been established by the Lord through experience, a learning that the Lord brings about. And so that is there. And so these are not just hypothetical truths. They're not things that you just put on a page or put in your hard drive and say, that's it. They're things that are brought home. Yes, Doug? Yes, yeah, head knowledge, not heart knowledge. Good point. You know, the difference between here and here. Yeah. All right. I consider it right.

What Peter is considering right was to stir them up by way of reminder. That's his thought there. The words there imply a sense of duty. It is right not just some sort of hypothetical moral judgment, but I have a sense of duty about it. Isn't that something?

Here, Peter has told them, God by His divine empowerment has given you everything pertaining to life and godliness, and at the same time, he has a sense of duty. Is he to carry out that duty in his own strength? No. He has already told them, This sense of duty does not come upon me as a human being to carry out because God's going to hold me to it and that's all that counts. But the sense of duty comes with an understanding that God has empowered me to do these things, even to carry out that sense of duty. Isn't that something? Now, the King James has it in a reverse, in a negative term, I will not be negligent. Okay, earthly dwelling.

Peter uses this word, skenoma, in verse 13 and again in verse 14. It's a word used in only one other place in the whole New Testament, and that's in Acts. We quote it here in Acts chapter 7. Our fathers had the tabernacle, skene, which is a related word, of testimony in the wilderness. And then the last part in verse 46, Peter saw his earthly body as a dwelling place for God.

How about that? Well, I've got this dwelling place for God right here, this tabernacle. So he didn't just use it as, I've got this little thing and it's hanging around and it's made of thin material. No, it's beyond that. He says, this is a temporary dwelling, but it is a dwelling place for God. Isn't that something?

His perspective in writing is, I'm writing to you as God's dwelling place. Now, do you and I as believers have reason for any different perspective? No. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth in chapter 3 and chapter 6. He said that they were individually as believers, as chapter 6 I believe, individually as believers attend a temple for the Lord and they were also corporately a temple of the Lord.

Okay, yes. Yes. Yes, it was a temporary just like the tabernacle in the wilderness was temporary. Yeah. Yeah, Jack makes the point. This is a temporary dwelling. It is, as we pointed out, the dwelling of the Lord. And also, the Lord has laid these things out that he's conveying to the believers there.

How about this phrase, to stir you up? Now, what do you think of when you think of getting stirred up? What's that? It might be angry. That's one way in which we use the term stirring somebody up. What else might we think of when we think of that? Pardon? Odd and inspired, right? Odd, not O-D-D, but A-W-E-D, right? Okay, Steve? Yeah, good point. Steve brings this up.

We live in a day when we have a lot of hype and motivational speakers. And think of it, we've got the expertise and the technology to really crank that up even more so than any past era. We have the ability through today's technology to spread that out, to edit and enhance. And so our... Pardon? Yeah, subliminal messages. I mean, there's all kinds of ways you can convey it. How is what Peter is doing different from that? Why is it not just hype? Why is he not just kind of getting them cranked up? What's the difference here? What do you think? Ah, it's the truth. Okay. Pardon? Yeah.

One of the things if you listen to any of these motivational speakers, and I've heard a few of them, I don't go out of my way to listen to a lot of them, but if you hear any motivational speakers, one of the things that they will frequently do is they're looking for frequently a human emotional response.

And looking for that kind of reaction out of the people, and everything is geared in that direction. And what Peter is talking about, does Peter's appeal include emotions? Now, Peter is not saying, you know, you must be unemotional automatons, okay? No. Instead, what is he doing? He's zeroing in on, this is the truth and it's not just truth for here and now. And it's not just to make you better people and make you rich by tomorrow morning. It is eternal truth. This is truth that lasts beyond a lifetime.

Yes, Steve? I think even though it's truth, techniques really pervade from speaking, into music, into all kinds of facets where people are very good at, in their style of manipulating truth. Yeah, Steve brings up this. Keeping the discernment there. Okay, keeping the discernment there, manipulating Frequently a lot of today's motivational and presentation technology is focused on manipulating people and looking towards other ends than the truth.

Tom? Yeah. I think the note that you have here on the handout, the Greek word often has the idea of awakening someone. When you wake someone up to a truth or something like that, they have to really engage their mind. It's not like just waking up and you get the article and you have that first cup of coffee. But actually engaging my mind and being aware and as I think Steve said, discerning this is the truth.

Not just swallowing somebody's ideas but looking at what the Yeah, this is this Nancy's making a focus here that kind of addresses when we say to stir something up or stir somebody up, we oftentimes have included within that several different nuances that it might mean.

Here, particularly, Peter is not looking to get people real angry. He is not looking to focus on the hype. and things of that sort, he's not simply looking for an emotional response, but he is looking to have them be quite aware of all of what's happening, quite aware of the eternal significance of what is being said.

Yeah, Tom? In other words, stirring up is not agitation properly. Ah, good point. It's laying the facts in front of you, not in an unemotional way, but not in an excessively Okay, this is not propaganda. This is not simply trying to appeal to emotions. Not that he is not including emotions, but he is wanting to get them to respond to what's laid out here as the truth.

Okay, now let's take a look at page 404 here. knowing that laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent." Now here he's being pretty clear. I'm about done here, folks. The sand's almost gone through the hourglass. "...as also our Lord Jesus has made clear to me." This may indeed be what we see reflected in John chapter 21, verses 15 through 19, where the Lord gives Peter some indication about his death. And he may be saying, you know that time the Lord talked about I'm getting there.

I will also be diligent. He says he'll be diligent. This is a word that Gene has brought up to our attention before. Spoudazzo. It was used rather consistently by the apostles for keeping at and keeping on. It is a continuing, returning to the same kind of action because that continual character is important. Keeping at and keeping on. Peter was urging his readers, and I use a couple of words here, to be consistent and persistent in putting the truths into action. Consistent and persistent.

2 Peter 1.10, here's one that Gene had brought before us here. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you, for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. And Peter urged them later in this letter to be diligent. So he's being diligent, and he's urged them, and he will urge them.

2 Peter 3.14, Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, spotless and blameless. Can you think of some things where diligence and an awakened attention to something is important? What are some things in life where that's important?

Pardon? Music, right? Yeah, it's just kind of random noise. Oh, I think I'll squawk now, right? Okay. All right. How about driving? Okay. Oh, 10, 15 seconds now, I think I'll look through the front windshield. You'll see where I am. You know, that's not going to work so good, right? We drive by faith, not by sight? No. That didn't quite work. No, a diligence in certain things is absolutely necessary. And if we find a lack of diligence is sometimes not only not desirable, but sometimes not even survivable. You can't just float off and expect to go through this experience.

I remember one time I was coming down a mountain road at a pretty good clip. There was a turn at the end of a long downward straight stretch. It was one of those things where you remember it after decades. Nancy and I weren't even engaged yet. I remember going down to the bottom part there and getting into this steep turn. I was looking down and thinking, I'm going about 60 on this little bicycle here. As I hit the turn, there was a ripple in the pavement.

And that isn't a time to go gazing off and say, oh, that's a nice tree. Oh, what a beautiful cloud. No. Well, you better stick with it. And there are times like that. Peter was laying out here. This isn't a good time for you guys to go floating off. You've known some things. You have been taught by the Lord with some things. I want to bring to awaken fresh attention. about these truths.

And here's where he finishes it off. I'm sorry, what? What's that? Tell us what happened on that curve. Well, I went up in the air, went a little farther out after I landed and continued on. But a little bit of inattention at that moment. And I might not have, I might not be speaking to you here.

At any rate, that at any time after my departure, you will be able to call these things to mind. What is he looking for here? He says, the Lord's going to take me home. I'm quite sure of it. When I'm gone, I want something to continue after I'm gone.

And what I want to continue is I want these things to be continuing in your mind when I'm out of here. I want to pass it on. so that you will have something that you will live by, that you will maintain a diligence, you will have a fresh, awakened understanding of these truths. Truths that you've had placed in your mind, truths that you have, by the Lord's doing, learned in your heart. I want those to be fresh, I want those to be clear, I want those to be remembered when I'm gone. because the Lord has continuing purpose for you to be here, even when He's called me home.

See? He doesn't say, hey, look, I don't care about these folks. I'm out of here. I'm going to be gone. I won't know the difference. No. He says, I care intensely about how you will do in your walk with the Lord, and how you will do moment by moment by moment. I want a fresh, awake awareness. of all these truths. Reminded, deeply seated, you have a sense of what's important. They will be brought to mind because they are important. Yes, yes. Doug's point, it's a love attitude. He does this because he cares so deeply about them.

What had the Lord told them? We referenced this John 21. What had the Lord told them? Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Shepherd these people. You do it. That's what I want you to do, Peter. And Peter didn't forget, did he? He cared for the Lord's flock. The lambs purchased by His blood. Let's pray. Lord, as we've looked at this passage, oh, how wonderful. Oh, how rich. You're maturing in this guy, Peter. This impetuous fellow, Peter.

This fellow who would learn from certainly even public mistakes made in his life. And Lord, we long to learn from them as well. And to do as Peter has urged, that after he's gone, and certainly for centuries he has been gone from here, that these would be truths that we would remember. We pray that they would be brought fresh into our minds, that they would have a new awakening, that the significance of them would not fade. And we ask that you bring them home to our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.