Grow in Remembrance

It is easy to get the idea that what the writers of the New Testament were saying to the churches that they were writing to was totally new. That is, that it was a message, a teaching, that they had never heard before. But as we read the New Testament carefully we find that nothing could be further from the truth.

The reality is that, when it came to issues of doctrine in particular, we find that the New Testament letters were written to people who already knew the truth that the writer was saying. And so, we read in 1 John 2:21:

I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and you know that no lie comes from the truth.

And Paul said in Romans 15:14:

I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

That is, you already know what I have just said well enough to teach it to those around you.

And Jude said in Jude 1:5:

Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, that the Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

In other words, what Paul, or Jude, or John were writing to these particular groups of Christians were simply the truths that these people already knew, already believed, and had already put into practice.

And the same is true for Peter when he writes in 2 Peter 1:12:

Therefore, I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you.

Peter here clearly says that these people already know everything that he has said. Nothing that he says is new to them.

And because these Christians all knew the truth, were established in the truth, and, on the whole, were living the truth, the main purpose of many of the New Testament letters was to help the people to "remember the truth". That is:

To remind them of what they believed.
To remind them of how what they believed should impact upon their ongoing faithfulness to Jesus.
To remind them of how what they believed should impact upon how they lived.

For right after Paul told the Romans that he knew that they were:

full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.[1]

He then says in Romans 15:15a:

Nevertheless, on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder.

That is, I have written to you in order to remind you of the truths that you already know, so that you will continue to live in the truths that you already know.

And in Paul's instructions to both Timothy and Titus about what their roles as pastors, as leaders of the churches in Ephesus and Crete were to be, he said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:14:

Remind them of this,

Remind them of what? Remind them of 2 Timothy 2:8-13:

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

And so he continues in verse 14:

Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.

Remind the people of what they know, so that they will continue to live out the truth of what they already know.

And he said to Titus in Titus 3:1:

Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work.

Paul says they already know that as followers of Jesus Christ that this is how we are to live. But remind them. Keep this truth before them, so that they might continue to live as God desires them to live. And, as we have seen, Peter said in 2 Peter 1:12:

Therefore, I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you.

This act of "reminding believers of the truth" is, in fact, part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, for Jesus said in John 14:26:

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

The Holy Spirit will remind you of what Jesus said:

so that you can always keep what Jesus said before you,
so that you can believe what Jesus said,
so that you can do what Jesus said.

But why does the New Testament have this emphasis on "reminding them"? I guess, mainly, because we so often, and so easily, forget. Not so much that we forget that something happened, although that is also true, after all, who here has ever forgotten their spouse's birthday, or your wedding anniversary?

But Paul, Jude, Peter, and John wrote to remind us because we so easily forget the importance, the significance, the life changing power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Peter says in 2 Peter 1:9:

For anyone who lacks these things is nearsighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins.

They have forgotten what God has done, and so they do not “grow” in Christ, as 2 Peter 1:5-8 says:

For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And if the do not, then they are shortsighted, they are blind, and they have forgotten what God has done for them.

Or, perhaps, we get so caught up in the day to day, or overwhelmed by the pressures of life, that we forget our priorities, we forget what is truly important. And so, Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:13-15:

I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory, since I know that my death will come soon, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has 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.

I will always remind you of these things, I will "refresh your memory", I will bring these great truths back to you so that these truths will be clear and certain in your minds, so that you will always know these things, so that, even when I am dead and gone, you will remember the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so that you can live the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that is one of the reasons why we have the Bible in the first place, so that we can always have the word of God before us, to teach us, to guide us, to correct us, to reveal truth to us, and to keep us from error. We have the Bible in order to "remind us" of all that God has done for us in and through Jesus Christ, and the difference that this should make in how we live our lives.

And so, on the one hand, as we saw last week, we need to grow in our understanding of the Gospel. We need to grow and become mature in our understanding of who Jesus is, and what Jesus has done. But we also need to be reminded of the truths that we have already come to know, because the truths that we have already come to know are our foundation. Our bedrock that we build the rest of our understanding of the Gospel upon. They are our bedrock, upon which we build our theology (which simply means what we believe about God). They are our bedrock for our ethics, our conduct, and our decision making.

For when Peter, John, Paul, and the writer of Hebrews talked about Jesus being "God", they did not abandon their understanding that:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.[2]

No. Instead, they kept that understanding that there is only one God,[3] and they built upon that understanding, while at the same time realising that Jesus is God in the flesh. And it is through keeping their foundation in the oneness of God that kept them from saying that there were numerous gods, and it is through growing in their understanding that Jesus himself is God, that they grew in their understanding into what we now call The Doctrine of the Trinity.

If they had "forgotten", or "ignored", what they already knew (that there is only one God), if they would have abandoned the revelation of God that they already knew and understood, (the fact that there is only one God), then they probably would have said that Jesus is one god among many gods, just like the Romans, Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, and Egyptians. And in so doing they would have abandoned the truth of Christ and gone into error.

We need to be reminded of the truth that we already know, so that we can remain fast, certain, steady, grounded in the truth that we already know, so that as we seek to grow in our understanding of Christ and the Gospel we do not abandon the fundamental truths of the Gospel.

And that is one of the things that we do during our time of communion, for we read in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

In other words, as a "remembrance", our time of communion is taking us back to our foundations. Back to the fundamentals of our faith. Back to the bedrock upon which the entire Gospel rests:

That Christ died for our sins.

Back to the fact that:

the blood of Jesus [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin.[4]

And we do this because, through being constantly reminded of our foundation, being constantly reminded that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us, this act of "remembrance" keeps us grounded in the truth, focussed upon the truth, faithful to the truth.

It is a great danger in our society that some people always seem to want the "new". The "innovative". The "different". The latest "fad" or "craze". Modern society is often just like the people of ancient Athens that Luke talked about in Acts 17:21:

Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

The new. The innovative. The different.

We're tired of the old, let's see if someone can tell us something new to follow. Something new to believe. Something new to devote our lives to.

They are like those in 2 Timothy 3:7 who were:

always being instructed but can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Always growing in their knowledge but abandoning the foundation that their lives were founded upon.

And that is also a great danger for us as Christians. The danger that says:

I know all of that, so teach me something new! Teach me something different! Teach me something that I have never heard before!

For that attitude opens us up to being like Paul warned in 2 Timothy 4:3:

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine,

That is, they will not put up with the foundations of the faith.

but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires.

In their quest for the new, the different, the innovative, people will abandon their foundation and seek only their own desires. They will seek only what they want to hear. And in so doing, they will abandon the truth of Christ for a lie.

At theological college, one field of study that we had was Systematic Theology. It was never my favourite area of study, although in the goodness of God, he enabled me to do pretty good at it. But one thing that I noticed as we studied theologians, and the historical development of our understanding of God, Christ, and the Gospel, is that people usually ended up heading down a wrong path when they abandoned, when they left behind the foundations of the truth of God as found in the Scriptures. I could almost guarantee it. When they abandoned one particular truth of God, they went off into all sorts of error.

And so, on the one hand Peter tells us that we are to:

grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.[5]

To gain a greater grasp of all that God has done for us. To gain a greater understanding of all that Jesus is, and all that Jesus has done.

But on the other hand, we are also told to "remember". To hold on to our foundations. To hold on to the truths of God as revealed in Scripture. To not abandon the truth of God for some new idea, philosophy, or theology. And, by the way, most "new theologies" are just "old theologies" put into new packaging.

And this is why we emphasise the Bible on Sunday mornings in our readings and in our preaching. Those times where we look closely at what the Bible says, instead of going off into what "I think". Because the foundations of our faith are not about what "I think", they are about what God has revealed.

We look at what the Bible really says so as to remind ourselves of our foundation, the solid rock of Jesus Christ. To look at what the Bible really says, so that we can know the character of God, the purposes of God, the will of God, so that we can adjust our lives to the ways of God and follow him.

This is why we encourage people to read their Bibles, to think about what it says, what it means, and how it applies to their own lives. And if you don't have a Bible, just speak to us, and we will give you one, because the Bible is the most important book that you will ever read.

The Bible is important because it reminds us of who we are, and where we come from.

The Bible reminds us of how the world got into its present state, and what our greatest need in life really is.

The Bible reminds us of eternity, of accountability for our own actions, and it reminds us of judgement.

And, thanks be to God, the Bible reminds us of what God did about it all, for the Bible reminds us, it informs us, it teaches and instructs us about Jesus, the Son of God, and God the Son, who came into this world as a baby. Grew up to be a man. Lived a life of perfect love for God and perfect obedience to God.

The Bible reminds us about how Christ died on the cross, and through his perfect obedience, he carried on himself the punishment for our sins, our wrongs, our failings so that we can be forgiven.

The Bible reminds us that on the third day Christ rose from the dead.

The Bible reminds us, it keeps before us constantly, that Jesus is coming back soon.

And the Bible reminds us that:

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.[6]

And:

whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.[7]

And the Bible reminds us that if we:

Believe on the Lord Jesus, [we] will be saved.[8]

And so, Peter, John, Paul, Jude, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all write to us to remind us of the truth of Jesus, so we can build our lives on the truth of Jesus, so we can follow Jesus.

Do you know why the Reformation under Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and so many others was so powerful, so lasting, so transforming? Because the Reformation was built upon:

What does the Bible say?
What does the Bible mean?
What does it mean for my life?
And what does God want me to do in response?

The Reformation was powerful and lasting because it reminded people of the foundations of our faith: Christ. Grace. Love. Mercy. Repentance. Faith.

And so, even though these people that Peter was writing to were:

Firmly established in the truth.[9]

He wrote to them anyway, because he always wanted to "refresh their memory", to remind them of the greatness of this salvation that we have in Christ, so that they would never forget Christ, but always cling to Christ: their foundation, their rock, their saviour.

When the Christians in Corinth began to deny the possibility of a resurrection from the dead, which was what one strand of Greek philosophy said, what did Paul do? He reminded them of the foundation:

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.[10]

Paul told them, “That is your foundation, hold fast to that".

And Jesus said in Matthew 7:24-27:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!

We all need a foundation for our lives. Something that we base our lives upon.

What is your foundation? What are you basing your life, your hope, your future, your eternity on?

Let me remind you about Jesus.

Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great: He was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.[11]

And on this foundation, this rock of Christ, we take our stand.

[1] Romans 15:14

[2] Deuteronomy 6:4. NRSV, “the Lord alone”.

[3] Romans 3:30; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 4:6; 1 Timothy 2:5; James 2:19

[4] 1 John 1:7b

[5] 2 Peter 3:18

[6] John 3:16

[7] Romans 10:13

[8] Acts 16:31

[9] 2 Peter 1:12

[10] 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

[11] 1 Timothy 3:16

Grow in Remembrance

The reality is that, when it came to issues of doctrine in particular, we find that the New Testament letters were written to people who already knew the truth that the writer was saying. And so, we read in 1 John 2:21:

I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and you know that no lie comes from the truth.

And Paul said in Romans 15:14:

I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

That is, you already know what I have just said well enough to teach it to those around you.

And Jude said in Jude 1:5:

Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, that the Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

In other words, what Paul, or Jude, or John were writing to these particular groups of Christians were simply the truths that these people already knew, already believed, and had already put into practice.

And the same is true for Peter when he writes in 2 Peter 1:12:

Therefore, I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you.

Peter here clearly says that these people already know everything that he has said. Nothing that he says is new to them.

And because these Christians all knew the truth, were established in the truth, and, on the whole, were living the truth, the main purpose of many of the New Testament letters was to help the people to "remember the truth". That is:

To remind them of what they believed.

To remind them of how what they believed should impact upon their ongoing faithfulness to Jesus.

To remind them of how what they believed should impact upon how they lived.

For right after Paul told the Romans that he knew that they were:

full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.[1]

He then says in Romans 15:15a:

Nevertheless, on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder.

That is, I have written to you in order to remind you of the truths that you already know, so that you will continue to live in the truths that you already know.

And in Paul's instructions to both Timothy and Titus about what their roles as pastors, as leaders of the churches in Ephesus and Crete were to be, he said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:14:

Remind them of this,

Remind them of what? Remind them of 2 Timothy 2:8-13:

The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

And so he continues in verse 14:

Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.

Remind the people of what they know, so that they will continue to live out the truth of what they already know.

And he said to Titus in Titus 3:1:

Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work.

Paul says they already know that as followers of Jesus Christ that this is how we are to live. But remind them. Keep this truth before them, so that they might continue to live as God desires them to live. And, as we have seen, Peter said in 2 Peter 1:12:

Therefore, I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you.

This act of "reminding believers of the truth" is, in fact, part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, for Jesus said in John 14:26:

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

The Holy Spirit will remind you of what Jesus said:

so that you can always keep what Jesus said before you,

so that you can believe what Jesus said,

so that you can do what Jesus said.

But Paul, Jude, Peter, and John wrote to remind us because we so easily forget the importance, the significance, the life changing power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Peter says in 2 Peter 1:9:

For anyone who lacks these things is nearsighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins.

They have forgotten what God has done, and so they do not “grow” in Christ, as 2 Peter 1:5-8 says:

And if the do not, then they are shortsighted, they are blind, and they have forgotten what God has done for them.

Or, perhaps, we get so caught up in the day to day, or overwhelmed by the pressures of life, that we forget our priorities, we forget what is truly important. And so, Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:13-15:

I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory, since I know that my death will come soon, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has 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.

For when Peter, John, Paul, and the writer of Hebrews talked about Jesus being "God", they did not abandon their understanding that:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.[2]

We need to be reminded of the truth that we already know, so that we can remain fast, certain, steady, grounded in the truth that we already know, so that as we seek to grow in our understanding of Christ and the Gospel we do not abandon the fundamental truths of the Gospel.

And that is one of the things that we do during our time of communion, for we read in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25:

In other words, as a "remembrance", our time of communion is taking us back to our foundations. Back to the fundamentals of our faith. Back to the bedrock upon which the entire Gospel rests:

That Christ died for our sins.

Back to the fact that:

the blood of Jesus [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin.[4]

And we do this because, through being constantly reminded of our foundation, being constantly reminded that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us, this act of "remembrance" keeps us grounded in the truth, focussed upon the truth, faithful to the truth.

It is a great danger in our society that some people always seem to want the "new". The "innovative". The "different". The latest "fad" or "craze". Modern society is often just like the people of ancient Athens that Luke talked about in Acts 17:21:

Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

The new. The innovative. The different.

We're tired of the old, let's see if someone can tell us something new to follow. Something new to believe. Something new to devote our lives to.

They are like those in 2 Timothy 3:7 who were:

always being instructed but can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Always growing in their knowledge but abandoning the foundation that their lives were founded upon.

And that is also a great danger for us as Christians. The danger that says:

I know all of that, so teach me something new! Teach me something different! Teach me something that I have never heard before!

For that attitude opens us up to being like Paul warned in 2 Timothy 4:3:

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine,

That is, they will not put up with the foundations of the faith.

but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires.

In their quest for the new, the different, the innovative, people will abandon their foundation and seek only their own desires. They will seek only what they want to hear. And in so doing, they will abandon the truth of Christ for a lie.

And so, on the one hand Peter tells us that we are to:

grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.[5]

To gain a greater grasp of all that God has done for us. To gain a greater understanding of all that Jesus is, and all that Jesus has done.

This is why we encourage people to read their Bibles, to think about what it says, what it means, and how it applies to their own lives. And if you don't have a Bible, just speak to us, and we will give you one, because the Bible is the most important book that you will ever read.

The Bible is important because it reminds us of who we are, and where we come from.

The Bible reminds us of how the world got into its present state, and what our greatest need in life really is.

The Bible reminds us of eternity, of accountability for our own actions, and it reminds us of judgement.

The Bible reminds us about how Christ died on the cross, and through his perfect obedience, he carried on himself the punishment for our sins, our wrongs, our failings so that we can be forgiven.

The Bible reminds us that on the third day Christ rose from the dead.

The Bible reminds us, it keeps before us constantly, that Jesus is coming back soon.

And the Bible reminds us that:

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.[6]

And: