Pay Attention to the Word
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
January 17, 2016
Last Sunday Jason led us through the beginning portion of 2 Peter 1. This morning, we’ll finish the chapter. Before I read our passage this morning, let me underscore something that was read last week. In v. 13, Peter wrote,
I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder.
In other words, as long as I’m here, I’m going to keep at it. Remind, remind, remind. And he hopes that his reminder will make a connection with the hearts of his hearers in such a way that it stirs them to action. He doesn’t want his words to fall flat. Let’s read the passage and then pray that this would indeed be true of us.
2 Peter 1:16-21
If you have a Bible, please follow along with me as I read 2 Peter 1:16-21 (page 1166).ESV 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.This is God’s Word. Thanks be to God. Pray with me that he would be our teacher. “Speak O Lord, and renew our minds; Help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us. Speak, O Lord, ’til your church is built And the earth is filled with Your glory.”
Introduction
I had a friend in seminary named Rob. We weren’t great friends but I’ll never forget something he said in class one day. We had been talking about modesty, the idea that God has designed the human body with a particular glory but a glory that is not to be shared with anyone except one’s spouse. During the class discussion, Rob raised his hand and said, “I don’t want my daughter to wear clothes that draw attention to her backside. So I don’t want her to wear clothes that have words written over her backside.”Then he paused. Then he continued, “But more than that, I want my daughter to want to not to wear clothes that draw attention to her backside. I want her to want modesty.” He didn’t just want his daughter to do the right thing. He wanted his daughter to be so soaked in the a vision of God and the gospel that she would want to do the right thing. He wanted to parent in such a way that there was a genuine heart-connection to her actions.Near the end of last week’s sermon, Jason asked these questions to you:
Friends, what are you looking for in a church…something new or trendy? Are you looking for a place that’s going to accommodate the current cultural fads? Are you looking for a progressive, hip church?Or, are you looking for a church in which you will be reminded ceaselessly of the ancient, unchanging doctrines of God—of the immutable gospel?
Jason and I, and the other pastor-elders of the church, we want you to be at a church (whichever church it is) that is committed to “ceaselessly reminding you of the ancient, unchanging doctrines of God.” But more than that, we want you to want to be at that kind of church.As my friend Rob wanted to parent with a view to heart change, we want to preach with a view to heart change—a heart that loves the Bible, because that’s what we are talking about, right? When Jason asked, “Are you looking for a church in which you will be reminded ceaselessly of the ancient, unchanging doctrines of God?” what we are asking is if you are in love with the Bible because this is the place that we most objectively receive the “the ancient, unchanging doctrines of God.”There is a temptation in our day, as there was in Peter’s, to twist the Word of God, or to declare it null in some parts, or in all parts. This was true for Peter’s audience, and it’s true for us. But what Peter wanted—what he was reminding his people and what he is reminding us to do—that we would do well to pay attention to the Word of God. It’s for our good.But that’s getting ahead. Let me give you our outline for today. Just two points. First, what is Peter saying? Second, what should we do about it?
1. What is Peter saying?
I know we already read the passage, but I want to read it again in two parts, but before I do, let me summarize what Peter claims.Peter says this: “When ‘we,’ the authorized Apostles of Jesus, preached to you about Jesus’s future arrival in great power, we didn’t make this stuff up. In fact, not only were we eyewitness but we were ear-witnesses.1 We saw; we heard. I was there with Jesus when we was transformed before our eyes and I heard the majestic voice of God the Father speak of his affection for Jesus. And just as we are not making this up, so the prophets of old didn’t make this up either. They spoke, in fact we speak, as carried along by God. And if you would pay attention to the word, it would be for your earthly and eternal good.”That’s my paraphrase. Let’s read the first part again to hear it in Peter’s own words. Vv. 16-18,
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
Peter refers to the story of Jesus’s transfiguration, as it’s often called. I’m not sure if you are familiar with this story or not. It comes from the gospel accounts of Jesus. If you’ve heard it before, I guess this will just be a reminder. Let me read the transfiguration story from Mark 9:2-8,
2 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them,3 and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. 5 And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” 8 And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.
I love this story because it’s full of classic, big mouth, “I don’t know what to say so I’ll just say something” Peter.And here in 2 Peter 1, Peter brings up the transfiguration story for two purposes. First, he wants his readers to know that he knows what he’s talking about—he was there; he was an eyewitness and an ear-witness. That’s the first reason.Second, he uses this story because it’s the only place where in the gospels where Jesus (even if only for a moment), displayed himself in glory, the glory that he’ll have for all eternity.Peter grabs this story and reminds them of it because he want this audience to make the connection between the preview of (or the trailer for) the movie and the movie itself. We watch trailers as coming attractions of things to come, coming attraction for movies about to be released. And Peter says, “I saw the trailer. I heard the preview! And the movie is coming and it’s going to be a blockbuster.”That’s the main point of vv. 16-18. Remember, for now I’m just trying to make sure we are clear on what he said. Later, we’ll talk about what to do with what he says.Now, let me read vv. 19-21 again to make sure we know what he is saying there.
19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Do you see the metaphor? This world is dark. It’s dark in your hearts and it’s dark outside, and so you can’t see. What you need is a lamp. You need light. And the word of God is that light. It’s a light because men didn’t make this stuff up. They “were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Peter is saying the historicity of the Bible is wrapped up in it’s truth. You can’t have a spiritually true Bible that is historical untrue. Peter is saying they go together. We dishonor the Bible when we talk of it, as some do, as containing spiritual truths but not at all based in history.The view of the Bible that Peter is trying to commend to his audience—the view of the Bible as the sturdy, reliable, inerrant, infallible, pure Word from God and our highest authority—is not the prevailing view in culture. In fact, this view—a sturdy, reliable, inerrant, infallible Bible—is passé, increasingly so. Maybe there are some here who feel this way. If so, I’m so glad you are here. In fact, Peter would be, too. He wrote for you. In his own day there were some who felt as though the Bible was nothing but, to use his phrase, “cleverly designed myths.”One of our pastor-elders here at Community, shared with me a quote in this vein from notable atheist Richard Dawkins. In his book The God Delusion, he writes,
To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and “improved” by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries. (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 269)
In short, Dawkins says in the Bible we do not have sturdy eyewitness accounts that have been persevered in their purity by a capable and competent God. Rather, they are myths—at best.Or consider the Jesus Seminar. Have you heard of this? On the surface, they appear more charitable, but there not. The view Peter is advocating for is a challenge to them as well. The Jesus seminar was a group of about 150 scholars that got together periodically (1980s-early 2000s). And when they did, they would rate and rank the reliability of gospel account of Jesus. They had a color-coding system whereby the scholars would vote on the historicity and truth of a passage. If the scholar “believed Jesus did say the passage [in question], or something very much like the passage,” he or she voted with a red bead. And if the scholar “believed Jesus did not say the passage,” he or she voted with a black bead. And for things in between, there were pink and grey beads.2 What was left was a severely truncated Bible.I know there are some Christian here who would scoff at the Jesus Seminar, but I wonder if in the process you condemn yourself as well. Not that you and I are as overt about it, but have you ever ignored a part of the Bible? Or perhaps you have chosen to remain willful ignorant of part (or all) of the Bible by never reading it.The reason you can’t pick and choose is because God wrote it all. And our obedience, or disobedience, to part of the Bible is obedience or disobedience unto him. And if you pick and choose, you’ll of course be inclined to ignore the parts you don’t like.But consider this as well. If you pick and choose, the encouraging, rock-solid promises of the Bible won’t really be able to encourage you either. When you have moments of doubt, moments when you need an objective word from God to come to the rescue, that won’t happen for you if you approach the Bible like the Jesus Seminar does, or the way Thomas Jefferson did, who infamous cut out all the parts he didn’t like.Peter claims the world is dark and we must walk by the light of the Word of God. He says we must do this until “day dawns,” which refers to the future coming of Jesus, and until “the morning star rising in our hearts.” Jesus is called the morning star elsewhere in Scripture (Rev. 22:16). The idea is we are to let the light of God shine over everything until the final day when Jesus will reign in glorious, transfigured light, such that it’s both bright outside and bright in our hearts. That’s going to be a great day.But it’s here, too, that we find another challenge to a popular cultural narrative. The cultural narrative goes like this, see if you have heard it. You are the light, and you must first be true to yourself and should walk in the light of your own wisdom and glory. Have you heard this?Because I just quoted from Richard Dawkins (emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford) and the Jesus Seminar (a bunch of scholarly academics), it only makes sense that I would now quote from pop-star Katy Perry. That’s right. Get excited.Now, it’s a few years old but consider these lyrics from her song, “Firework,”3
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will glow / And when it’s time you’ll knowYou just gotta ignite the light and let it shine /Just own the night like the 4th of July’Cause, baby, you’re a firework /Come on, show ’em what you’re worthMake ’em go, “Aah, aah, aah” / As you shoot across the sky-y-yBaby, you’re a firework /Come on, let your colours burstMake ’em go, “Aah, aah, aah”/ You’re gonna leave ’em all in awe, awe, aweBoom, boom, boom / Even brighter than the moon, moon, moonIt’s always been inside of you, you, you / And now it’s time to let it through-ough-ough
As an aside, at the church I used to attend, in youth group they would sometimes play a game where you had to read the lyrics to a pop song with a straight face, no laughing. It was like a verbal staring competition.Anyway, you see Ms. Perry’s point, don’t you? You’re the light; walk in your light.My first point in the sermon has been to answer the question “What is Peter saying?” Well, what I’m pointing out is that it’s into a context very much like our own that Peter says something more grim and yet also far more hopeful than our culture says. What Peter says is grim in that you and I are not the light. We need light from outside of us to shine. But Peter is far more hopeful in that God has spoken and his word is clear.If this is Peter’s point, that God has spoken, the final question I want to take up is this: What are we do to about it?
2. What should we do about it?
Peter actually answers this question for us. As a preacher, I love with this happens because it makes it so easy to preach. Look at me where he answers the question what are we to do with the spoken word of God. Look at v. 19,
19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place . . .
Pay attention to the Bible: that’s what we are to do. And note the phrase, “which you will do well to pay attention.” It’s Peter’s belief that careful, obedient attention to the Word of God is for your earthly and eternal good. This means we need to be constantly growing in our own understanding of the Bible.How you doing at this church?I want to be as helpful as possible in this sermon, so I’m going to close by sharing a few of my favorite tools. These are tool that you can use to grow in your understanding of the Word. This may be a reminder for some of you, but . . . well . . . that’s what Peter said he wanted to do: remind.First—big surprise—the plain Bible. I say, “plain” in the sense of not being a study Bible. I’ll talk about one of those in a minute. I’m holding the Bible that I read when I first became a Christian. I pulled it off the office shelf this week and I noticed next to Matthew 16:20, which says, “Then [Jesus] warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ,” I wrote in all capital letters, “WHY?” After years of Bible reading between then and know, I can say, I don’t have to look up the answer. I know it.And one very precious Sunday morning almost 15 years ago, in the margins next to 2 Corinthians 6:10 I wrote, “This is what I want for my life!” I’d love to tell you about that Sunday but we don’t have time. Read the Bible.Second tool, a study Bible. Not too long after I became I Christian I was invited to go on an oversees mission trip. As the trip got closer, plans changed and I didn’t go, but what did happen to me was that I got motivated to read the entire Bible. I had never done that. And it seemed silly to go across the world proclaiming how great our God is when I had never read the book he wrote. So I did. And I used a study Bible. Study Bibles have tons of notes to help you understand the Bible. I receive no royalties from this, but my favorite is the ESV Study Bible which I have right here.Third, Bible memorization. Memorizing the Bible is taking little, seed-like portions of Scripture and planting them in the soil of your heart. When we began teaching 1 Peter in the fall, I was so blessed when a woman in our church came up to me and told me how she had only a few months before began memorizing 1 Peter. You can write out verses on card or you can buy them or even print them.Fourth, take notes in a consistent place as you listen to sermons and participate in Bible studies. I found a booklet I had used when I was first married. On November 19, 2005, Darrin Patrick (my pastor at the time) was teaching through Proverbs and he said, “Envy expresses itself in this phrase, ‘It must be nice.” That’s good. I worte it down. These days, I often use my phone and a certain app on it to capture one thought each day from my Bible reading. Some days or months I don’t do it, but I’m regularly trying to find just one thing to remember thought out the day.Fifth, there are Bible commentaries. Bible commentaries are like a study Bible but they are focused on just one book of the Bible. They have tons of notes in them. Not all commentaries are created equal, however, and you need to be careful which one you choose. But in general, they can be great tools. This particular one is for the gospel of Matthew, and I actual brought it here to loan to someone in the church who wanted to do a detailed study of a certain chapter in Matthew.Sixth, there are systematic theologies. A systematic theology is an attempt to say helpful things about the whole of the Christian faith as taught in the Bible. This one happens to be Wayne Grudem’s. We like this one around here. And I’ll tell you this, I can remember exactly where I was 10 years ago when I first finished reading this. I was in the upstairs of a church waiting for my wife to finish a Bible Study. When I finished the book, I remember thinking to myself for the first time: Now I know why there are denominations. It’s not just that this pastor is funny and this one is serious and this church plays hymns and this one doesn’t. No, they have different views of the Bible.Finally, I want to just show you two books. The church bought 10 copies of each of them. They are for sale in the back of the church. It’s not about making money. The smaller book costs $5 and the other one $10 and they both actual cost more than that. And whatever we don’t sell this morning, we’ll give away on Monday in the mail to some people in our church. Please don’t take all 10 because you thought I was giving them away.The first book is a small book by Andrew Wilson. He’s a pastor in England. This book is titled, Unbreakable: What the Son of God Said About the Word of God. Super helpful. The idea is that we want to have the same view of the Bible that Jesus had.The second book is by a pastor named Kevin DeYoung. I wrote a review of this book on my blog. It’s fantastic as well. It’s called, Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me.We’ll, that’s way more than enough tools for the time being. You don’t have to do all of these. But you do have to pay attention.
Conclusion
Let me close by going back to Peter’s words. He wrote in v. 13-15,
13 I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, 14 since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. 15 And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.
We place a high value on someone’s final words. You can Google humorous last words, or famous last words, or even the last words of famous people. In the opening of 2 Peter, Peter tells us that this is his farewell address. These are his parting words.There is something special to this, isn’t there? Have you ever held the hand of someone not long for this world? What someone says near the end might be something new and it might be profound, but more than likely, it will be a simple reminder of something deeply embedded in his or her life—an overflow of a lifelong commitment to something. So it is with Peter. And his ambition was to stir people up by way of reminder to something fundamental.Some of you may say, You don’t prove anything? You didn’t give me 100 different reasons that history and science and archeology prove the Bible is true.I know, I know. I didn’t do that. But I did give you Peter. Peter knows he is not going to die of old age. He was about to die as a martyr, just like Jesus told him he would some 35 years before (John 21:18). And if there was anyone knew that the whole thing was a myth, then it would have been him. And he, more than anyone else, wouldn’t have died for something he believed was a lie.You see, when Peter heard God the Father say, “This is my beloved son.” I think he understood that in the Gospel message, though he was an unworthy sinner, he was made a son of God—a son who was loved with all of the majestic intensity that Jesus received, because Jesus purchased this love on the cross.And because of this gospel, he wanted us to pay attention to the Bible so that you and I could know this same love, so that you and I could drain all of the gospel sweetness from the Bible.
1I’m barrowing the phrase “ear-witness” from Mark Dever’s sermon on this passage (“The Reliable Source” from 2 Peter 1:16-21 on November 5, 2006 at Capitol Baptist; here).
2Quoted from Wikipedia here.
3Katy Perry, Teenage Dream: “Firework,” 2010.
