Stirred Up Or Settled Down

An expository sermon from 2 Peter 1:12-13

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

2 Peter chapter 1, and we've made our way up to verses 12 and 13 today, and we're just taking a bite at a time and chewing it up and getting all the good out of it. And so today we come to verses 12 and 13. And it says, Wherefore, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it is meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we do thank you so much for your word. We thank you for your Holy Spirit who indwells us as believers, who illuminates the word for us, helps us to understand, advocates your case in our heart, and of course pleads our case before your throne. Father, let's pray and ask today that you would help us to see the urgency of this text and that we would realize, Lord, that there was a lot writing on us remembering these things. And so, Father, I pray and ask that you would stir us up today through the preaching of your word that we might go out and do the work you've called us to do. In Jesus' name, amen. There is a sense of urgency as the imprisoned apostle writes this letter, and uh and it can be detected in these verses. And so just back up with me for a moment and realize that it's the apostle Peter, who was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, and this is some 30 plus years after Christ has been crucified, that he is writing this letter, and historically he is writing it from a Roman prison, and he is writing it shortly before his impending execution. And so, if I am just trying to process and fill in the blanks, uh, we know that the Caesar who is now in power is a guy named Nero. He is beginning to turn up the heat on Christians. He is beginning to execute them. He is the one who had the Apostle Paul executed. And while Peter may not have his execution date yet, he knows the chances of him getting out of this prison alive are very slim. And so he is writing this letter to fellow believers to address some of those important things. When you think about it, in his lifetime, Peter has seen the birth of Christianity. He saw it birthed on the scene with Christ, and then he saw the spread of the gospel as it as it resonated out from Jerusalem outwardly, and he saw the growth of the church as it's being planted outside the borders of Israel and it's reaching into Asia and into Africa and into Europe, but he has also seen the enemy attack, and he's also seen some brothers fall. And with that in mind, he wants to address what he thinks are some of the most pressing issues we're going to face as Christians. If I could paraphrase it, it would sound something like this. He says, these things are so important because of the eternal ramifications that I must not neglect my responsibility to constantly remind you of them. Even taking into consideration that you are aware of them, that you know them, that you may even be living them, I believe it is absolutely right and necessary for me to remind you about these things. In fact, as long as I am alive and have breath in my lungs, I will do everything I can to stir you up, to wake you up, and to shake you up by calling you to remember these things. I think that kind of summarizes the feel of these verses of what Peter is writing. And it sounds dramatic, I know. But let's look at it from Peter's perspective. Maybe he's seeing something that we're not seeing. First of all, Peter sees a personal responsibility for their growth. He begins by saying, I will not be negligent. That implies that he has a personal responsibility. If he does not do this, he is neglecting a responsibility that has been assigned to him. I previously highlighted Peter's use of the word diligence in this letter. We find it verse 5, verse 10, and then chapter 3, verse 14. But negligence is entirely different than diligence. Remember, diligence means that you put in your best effort. And the fact is, you could fulfill your duty without diligence. We probably see it all the time when we go to work, don't we? I mean, they're doing their job, they're just not doing it diligently. Well, negligence means that not only are you not putting in your best effort, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. And so Peter's not saying I'm going to give all diligence this. He's saying, if I don't do this, I am being negligent. And I am not going to be negligent on this personal responsibility that was assigned to me by God. You see, God has placed the responsibility of spiritual leadership on those he calls to preach his word. There's a responsibility that is placed on them because they are essential to God's plan. Now listen, I know that sometimes people feel like they could take or leave preachers. I felt that way myself. There's a few I could do without. Listen to Ephesians 4, 11 and 12. It says he gave some, this is speaking about Christ, he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers. Why did he give them to the church? For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Speaking the truth in love that you may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ. See how these are part of God's plan for our growth? God wants us to grow spiritually, and he gives us the ingredients that we need. We need the word, we need the Holy Spirit, we need the fellowship of believers, and we need preachers. Peter's fellow apostle Paul understood the gravity of the assignment when he wrote this: for though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for necessity is laid upon me. Yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. And all I can say is, thank God that Paul didn't neglect his duty. How many of y'all have been helped in your growth by Brother Paul? Right? Well, every one of us. Because he wrote half of your New Testament. Aren't you glad he saw his responsibility? That he wasn't negligent to do his diligence, that he didn't just waller while he was in prison and get into a funk and say, I can't do anything from here if I can't be out preaching. Aren't you thankful that he took and put pen to paper and he allowed God's Holy Spirit to inspire him to pen these words? It's very evident that he is helpful to our spiritual growth. This is not just the responsibility of apostles. We understand those apostles had a special dispensation that was given to them as the foundational stones of the church and writing the New Testament for us. But it's all who answer the call to God's call to preach. Hebrews 13 says, Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls, as they must give an account that they may do it with joy and not with grief. That's not talking about apostles. That's not talking about prophets. That's talking about pastors. That's talking about those who shepherd the flock. And God says they are going to give an account. They're going to give an account for their spiritual responsibility in the church. I point that out to you to really just bring this to your attention that if this is the God-given assignment, and if God is going to hold all of those who, like me, have answered the call to preach, if he's going to hold us accountable, well, doesn't that speak to the importance of it? Doesn't that make you and I look at it and say, whoa, wait a minute, there's something important here. I mean, if he calls people to this and he's going to hold them accountable for doing this, then this is important. But what is this? What is it that Peter is saying exactly? Well, we're clued in by that familiar phrase in verse 12, these things. Remember, we've seen it before. If you haven't marked it in your Bible to encourage you, you find it in verse 8, verse 9, verse 10, verse 12, verse 15. These things, these things, these things. Add to your faith, these things. And what he is talking about really is the foundation and formation of our faith. He has laid out that Christ is the only way to be saved, and that once we get saved, he's the foundation, and we're to add these things to our Christian life so that we grow like him. He is talking about the gospel and growth. He's talking about salvation and sanctification. He's talking about Christ and Christ's likeness. He's saying, these things are so important that I have a personal responsibility to do my very best to help you grow in these things. And since he says he's putting them in remembrance, did you notice that? I'm going to put you in remembrance. I'm going to cause you to remember. Well, that tells us that this is not new information. This is actually the fundamentals of the faith. That this is those things that they have heard before, that they do know, that they're familiar with, but he is saying they must be repeated. One of the plagues of contemporary Christianity is that we're always trying to find a new way to do what God has called us to do. And I'm telling you, I'm not against new ways and new things, but there's some things that cannot be improved upon. The word of God cannot be improved upon. The proclamation of the word of God cannot be improved upon. Simply opening up your mouth and telling somebody else about Jesus Christ cannot be improved upon with an app or any other device. It is best done from person to person. And so we need to realize that some of these things are fundamental to the faith, and we need to keep remembering them so that we can keep practicing them. But why do they need to be repeated? Well, secondly, Peter sees a persistent risk to their growth. The second half of verse 12 says, though you know them and are established in the present truth. We would probably start that phrase by saying, even though you know them. What he is saying here is that even though they know these things, that he needs to reinforce them, that they need to be repeated. He's acknowledging that they have heard them, that they have learned them, that they do know them, that they may even be walking in them. And he must keep repeating them. Why? Because he knows, and listen to me on this, he knows that being grounded can easily become being settled. We want to be grounded, don't we? He says you're established in these. We want to plant our roots in the soil of the gospel. We want to have some things that are nailed down. We want to have some convictional beliefs that are non-negotiable. But what we don't want to do is become sedentary. What we don't want to do is just kind of settle down and say, Well, I've got all of that. I don't need anything else. Or I've got it all in my head, and I don't need to go out and do any of it. Peter understands that there is this danger. You see, he's been around long enough to know that we have a tendency to become complacent in our Christian life the further we go along. If we were to chart the trajectory of the Christian life, it would begin with an upward spike, right? We get saved, and man, we're falling in love with Jesus, we're hearing the word, we're all juiced up, and we are just climbing and growing. And then it kind of plateaus. Oh, we we haven't dropped off. It's not like an EKG with the up and down, but we've kind of plateaued. And then, sadly, sometimes it's followed by the ever so subtle decline. And it may not be noticeable at first, it may not be perceptible, but if you were to step back and look at the panoramic of that chart, you would find that your Christian faith has been slowly tapering down. I find this confirmed in Romans 13. That's not just the cynical assessment of a pastor. Romans 13, 11 says that knowing the time that it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Think about that verse for a minute. What he's saying. Our salvation is nearer than when we believed. So he's saying, you believed sometime back here, and some time has passed, so that you seeing Jesus is nearer than it was before, right? So we're getting the picture. These people have been saved a little while. What's going on with these people in Save Law? Well, they've gotten spiritually sleepy. And the verse says, it's high time to awake out of your sleep. We know that he's not talking to people who are physically asleep. He's talking to people who are spiritually drowsy. It actually reminds me of the night before Christ was crucified, and he took his disciples to the garden with him. And he called on three of them and he said, Would you watch and pray with me? And Jesus comes back and he finds them asleep. Not one time, not two times, but three times he has to come back and wake them up. Could you not watch one hour with me? And he tells them again, watch and pray. And three times this happens. And do you remember what his assessment is? His final assessment. The spirit is willing. But the flesh is weak. Do you think you've conquered your flesh? Do you think the flesh is a non-issue for us in the 21st century? Or do you think that our flesh is weak too? That we have a willing spirit, that we want to serve the Lord, but I look at my life and say, I'm not doing as much as I would like to do. What's the problem? Well, I've allowed my flesh to hinder my spirit. And the Bible says it's high time to awake out of sleep. And that, my friends, is the persistent risk. It's the persistent risk. That you and I just kind of plateau and we go from grounded to being settled and we start a slow decline, and we're just, I mean, we look back. We used to do a lot more, we used to be a lot more excited for the Lord, but now you know it's kind of just flowing gently downhill. That's the persistent risk that Peter sees for all believers. And then finally, Peter sees a preacher's role in their growth. Peter had a personal responsibility. He's an apostle. He's not telling other shepherds what they're supposed to do without pointing the finger back at him and saying, listen, I, as long as I'm in this body, I'm going to stir you up. And so, yes, he's got a personal responsibility. He sees the persistent risk, but then he also sees the preacher's role. He understands that God has called more men than just him to preach the word, and that there is a role that they play in the spiritual growth of believers. Verse 13 says, Peter says, Moreover, I think that it is only right as long as I'm in this body to stir you up. That's what he's saying. I think it's only right as long as I'm in this body, this tabernacle, this tent, this temporary housing of the flesh to stir you up. That word stir up, I like that word. It means to awaken or even to agitate, to stir up, just the way that we use it today. And I'd like to give you two scriptural examples of this that I really hope will serve as hooks for you to hang this on. The first one comes from Mark 4.38. And it's when Jesus and his disciples are crossing the sea and a storm blows in, and Jesus is asleep. And it says there that when the storm came, that he was in the back of the boat, asleep on a pillow, and they awake him and said, Master, don't you care that we are about to perish? Now that word that's translated awake there is the same Greek word that is translated stir up in Peter's letter. And so I want you just to imagine with me for a moment. Do you think that they gently Jesus Jesus? Or do you think it was like, whoa, hey, we're about to drown! Don't you care? We're about to go under. Will you wake up? Which end of the spectrum do you think it was on? Yeah, it was on this end of the spectrum. Right? Stirring him up, awake. And so what I want you to see is that that's what preachers are supposed to do for us. And listen, you know, I've been a preacher for quite a while. And I've had a lot of conversations about preaching and preaching styles and preachers and what people like in preachers and what people don't like in preachers, and some people like the loud preachers, and some people don't like the loud preachers. Listen, one of the definitions of preaching is truth through personality. God didn't make preachers cookie-cutter. We're not all the same. And so my responsibility is not to imitate Adrian Rogers or anybody else. It is to preach God's word through the personality that he gave to me. So sometimes I'm going to be loud, sometimes I'm going to be quiet. I know that I am a bit intellectual. I like learning and understanding what the word is, and so I put an emphasis on that. And so it's not about style that he's talking about. He's talking about the content that is shaking people up, and he's saying, that's what preachers do. They shake you up. Now listen, when I'm asleep, I don't like to be woke up that way. And chances are, when we're spiritually drowsy, we don't always love it when the preacher wakes us up that way. But there's another scriptural example of this that I find quite amusing, and uh I'd like to share it with you. It comes from the Old Testament, 1 Kings 21 25, and it says. There was none like Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up. Well, that paints a picture, doesn't it? I mean, it really is a different picture than the picture of Jesus getting woke up on the boat. But it's the same concept. She stirred him up. I remember over 30 years ago I was a loader at Lowe's. One of the worst jobs I ever had. Because, let me tell you why. It's not because Lowe's is bad. It's because by the time people got back to the loading dock, back when we had the loading dock, they were tore up. They were just ticked. They had been there longer than they wanted to be there. They'd spent more money than they wanted to spend. And they took it out on the loaders. And so I remember one time there was a guy who got mad and really just lit into me and yelled at me because we hadn't gotten their appliances out fast enough. Let me tell you how they used to do appliances in Lowe's. I think it was before OSHA was formed when I worked there. But they placed them, like you would go in, and you know those big metal shelves that go all the way up to the ceiling? They were on the top. They were on the top shelf. And what you had to do is get what we called a cherry picker. And so it wasn't the forklift room vroom that you raise it up. No, the whole unit raised up with you. And you would strap yourself in with a safety rope. And then you would get and wrestle that appliance off of the top shelf onto the cherry picker, and they didn't put up the little cones and the belts across the aisle. So you'd have somebody standing right underneath you that if you drop it off of there, chances are they're not going to have a good day. So I'm just saying, it wasn't always easy to get those appliances quick. So he got mad and he tore into me and we got those appliances out there, and before it was gone, he apologized to me. And he says, I'm sorry, buddy. It's like I know it's not your fault. He said, but my wife got me stirred up. And I didn't fully understand that until I got a wife of my own. Can I get a witness? A wife knows how to stir up. And that's the word that God uses there. The point is that to make progress in your Christian life, it requires that you be reminded to do what you already know you're supposed to be doing. Can I say that again? To make progress in your Christian life requires that you be reminded to do what you know you're already supposed to be doing. Rarely are you going to come to church and hear me tell you something that you're supposed to do that you didn't know you were supposed to do. You knew it. You're just not doing it. And it's not always a gentle reminder. Sometimes it is a bit abrasive. Sometimes it does confront us. Sometimes we're pretty comfortable in our twilight, and we don't want to be agitated and stirred up and awaken. Because we all have a tendency to settle down into complacency. And we need to be stirred up. Recently, I needed to do some touch-up painting, and so I got the paint can out and I dipped the brush down in it and I swiped it on the wall. And it did not look like the paint that was on the wall. And I looked down into the can and there was like this oily film on the top. And then this, all the pigment was like down in the bottom. And so it wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. And so I grabbed a stick and I stirred it up. And then when I dipped the paintbrush in it and painted on the wall, it covered perfectly. It was a perfect match. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. And I realized that all the ingredients were there. Nothing was missing. But they had settled. And they needed to be stirred up. I would say that that's not just true about paint, but that's true about us. It's not that when you settle down that you've lost something. You haven't lost your salvation. You haven't lost the Holy Spirit. You haven't lost your sanctification. The ingredients are all still there. They just need to be stirred up because look at the picture of the paint. The paint doesn't work if it's not stirred up. All the ingredients are there, but it doesn't cover the spot. It doesn't match the other paint. And the same is true with us as Christians. If those ingredients aren't stirred up regularly, then we're not going to do what we're supposed to do. We're not going to look the way we're supposed to look. We're not going to live the way that we are supposed to live. And so I would ask you, what about you? Are you settled down spiritually? Do you need to be stirred up? You have all the ingredients. Maybe you just need to get it stirred up a little bit. Would you bow with me? As we bow our heads for just a moment this morning. I really want you to think about this. I want you to be honest in your self-assessment. I'm not asking, are you a terrible sinner or have you wrecked your life? Or are you far, far away from God? I'm just asking you, do you sense that you've settled down a little bit in your Christian growth? Has there been a plateau? Is there maybe an ever so subtle decline? If that's the case, my friend, then all you need to do is be stirred up again. You've got it all. You've got the faith in Christ, you've got salvation, you've got the Holy Spirit. But maybe you just need to be stirred up again. Awaken out of your spiritual slumber so that you can do what God has called you to do. If that's you today, then don't resist it. Invite it. Ask God to stir you up and to stir your spirit so that you can be everything you want you to be. If here today you never trusted Christ, you don't need to be stirred up. You need to be saved. You need to turn your heart to Christ, repent of your sin, believe on Jesus, and be have your sins washed away. Oh my friend, and when you do, you will not believe the spiritual growth that comes into your life. And so if you're here today and you need to make a decision, would you do business with the Lord right now? Dear Lord, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for the way it does stir us up. So thankful that Peter did not neglect his duty and Paul did not neglect his duty. And I pray for me and for all my fellow preachers that we would not be negligent in our responsibility to preach your word, to stir people up, to confront those things that may not be comfortable confronting. And Father, I pray for your people that they would receive it, that they would understand it, that it's not an inconvenience when they are awakened out of spiritual slumber. Father, I pray that we would just be the most effective that we possibly can be for you until Jesus comes back. And I know, Lord, that it requires us being stirred up to be effective like that. So stir us up today, stir us up tomorrow, stir us up week after week after week. Help us not to settle down one bit in our spiritual walk with you. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.