Aug 3, 2022
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
August 03, 2022
Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though
you know them and are established in the truth that you have. 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 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.
2 Peter 1:12-15
Certainly one of the great disciplines of the Christian life is that
of remembering. You can go back through the Old Testament looking for
the word remember. You may find it up to 70 times: Remember the Sabbath
Day; remember God’s Word; remember your creator. Going back to the
Exodus: Remember what I did, I delivered you from bondage .You have the
emphasis in the Old Testament: Remember, Remember, Remember. God was
saying, “Don’t forget; don’t forget who I am and don’t forget what I
have done for you. I made you and I saved you.”
When we come to
the new covenant God still wants us to remember. He has given us the
Lord’s Supper, Remember Me, and he has given us the Lord’s Day.
Allistair Begg is quite correct when he says that we have two memorials -
The Lord’s Supper to remember the death of our Lord; the Lord’s Day to
remember the resurrection of our Lord. Two great memorials in our New
Testament Bible. God doesn’t want us to forget. He doesn’t want us to
forget the death of his son and he doesn’t want us to forget the
resurrection of his son.
We can make an argument from the greater
to the lessor. If we can forget what Christ did for us by his death and
by his resurrection, than we can forget anything. If we can forget the
greatest of truth, the greatest of events; if there is potential for us
to forget what Jesus did for us than we can forget almost everything.
Here is the humbling truth, we have hearts that are prone to wander, and
we have minds that are prone to forget. That is one of the effects of
sin, the wrong kind of forgetfulness.
Look at what Peter says
here. He is telling them I am going to keep reminding you lest you
forget. I intend to put you in mind as long as I am in this body to stir
you up by way of reminder. He speaks of his departure hoping they will
never forget what they heard from his lips.
A faithful, biblical
ministry will constantly be putting God’s people in mind of truth that
they have heard before. We will constantly be putting God’s people in
mind of the great truths of the gospel, regularly, frequently.
Dr.
John MacArthur tells the story of 25 years of public ministry at Grace
Community Church in California. He said, “There was a turning point in
the summer of 1980. I took a three month sabbatical and I wasn’t even
sure if I was going to come back. I felt I had taught my congregation
all I knew and I was boring them by reiterating the same old things.
During that summer the Lord taught me a spiritual truth that revitalized
my ministry. He showed me the importance of reminding believers of the
truth they already knew. As I read and studied 2 Peter 1, I realized the
Lord had called Peter to the same ministry. The more I thought about it
the more I realized such is the ministry for us all. Put them in mind.”
Why? Because we can easily forget. That’s the problem. We are
always in danger of forgetting. He has given us the Lord’s Supper; he
has given us a Lord’s Day to keep on remembering.
We can’t
forget the importance of prayer. Spurgeon has a book titled Only a
Prayer Meeting. He calls upon pastors to remind their people frequently
of the importance of a prayer meeting. Spurgeon said, “The prayer
meeting is to be the heartbeat of the church.” Listen to what Martyn
Lloyd-Jones said, “Prayer is to beyond any question the highest activity
of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his
knees he comes face to face with God.”
We need to be reminded of these things. I am going to remind you of the importance of prayer
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