The Scripture reading for this Sunday is 2 Peter 1:12-21.
Parts of the service this Sunday will focus on World Renew and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and not necessarily on this passage. Along with other CRC churches in Canada we will collect an offering for the ministry of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and we will use a confession and assurance litany provided jointly by World Renew and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. If you would like more information about the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, you can check out their website here.
In the past few days, Phoebe and I have been playing her memory game. We lay out the 20 cards facedown in a rectangle and we then take turns flipping over two cards at a time hoping to find a match. The rule is that if we have a match we get to go again. For a three-year-old Phoebe is actually quite good at memory, but there are times that I have to remind her (or refresh her memory) so that she will get a match.
The other night we were playing and the second card I turned over was a cow. Now, in her previous turn she had turned over the other cow and she remembered that so right away she turned over the cow I had just uncovered and then looked at the rest of the cards.
“Where is the other one?” she asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said … although I did but I was trying to get her to remember, “do you remember what ones you turned over last turn.”
She pointed to them. “These ones.”
“Okay, so one of those is the cow …”
“OH! Here it is!”
All she needed was a slight reminder – a refreshing of her memory – so that she could remember where the cow was. But without that reminder, it is just as likely that she would have picked any random card, flipped it over, and it would have been my turn.
That, in an innocent way, shows the importance of reminder. So many times we think we know things, we think we have our to-do list in our heads, we make plans to be somewhere, … and we forget. But deep down, when it comes to our faith, we need reminders too. Sometimes we need to be reminded that God loves us, that He forgives us, that He died for us, even that He is real. Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are His children (and that means we should act like it).
Near the end of his life, the Apostle Peter set about reminding the early Christians about who they were so that they would take their faith seriously. In that time, people were already questioning the likelihood of the Gospel, calling it a myth rather than a historical account. People, too, were questioning whether Jesus fulfilled prophecy or if the Gospel and Epistle writers simply forced those connections.
In the midst of all the questions Peter sets about reminding them of who they are and what they believe. They are God’s chosen children. They believe the true Gospel and not a myth with no basis in reality; a corroborated eyewitness account of the Messiah from those who saw Jesus’ glory and witnessed the prophetic message fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
Peter reminded them that the message he proclaimed was true, despite other’s claims that it was a myth. He reminded them that Jesus was and is the Son of God. The early Christians needed that reminder when they kept hearing from others that the Gospel wasn’t true … it couldn’t be true … and it’s one that we need too. Sometimes we just need to be reminded that the Gospel is true, that Jesus is who the Bible says He is, and that by God’s grace His blood saves us through the gift of faith. That reminder is important for us to hear every day. It puts our focus upon Christ, it brings us back to who we are by God’s grace, and it encourages us to strive for a deeper, stronger, more committed relationship with Him.