Cut for Time: Truth You Can Trust

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

Hey, you're listening to Cut For Time, a podcast from Faith Church, located on the north side of Indianapolis. My name is Claire Kingsley. And I'm Dan Breitwieser.

Each week, one of us will sit down with the person who gave Sunday's sermon to discuss their message. Cut For Time is a look behind the scenes of sermon preparation, and they'll share with us a few things that we didn't hear from the sermon on Sunday. Thanks for listening.

Hey, Jeff, it's Cut For Time. Yeah, thanks. Good to be back.

Always good to sit down and chat with you. Yeah. So, we're just starting, we're still in the beginning of this book of 2 Peter.

And you are preaching from this past week, and you preached from chapter 1, verses 12 to 21. Would you give us a summary from your sermon on Sunday? Yeah. So, Peter, again, is writing into a context where, as we're going to hear this Sunday in detail, there are apparently false teachers coming in, and not sort of denying that Jesus existed, but just kind of redefining Jesus, who He is, that has some significant implications in how people are living, and the hope that they have.

So, Peter, in this section, the end of chapter 1, is writing to help us know that there really is a true truth. There's solid truth that we can trust. It's a truth that Peter says he wants to remind us of, so he's calling us back to what we already know, that maybe we just tend to forget, a truth that is really rooted in reality.

Peter talks about the historical verifiability, that he's an eyewitness, that the facts about Jesus' life and ministry are actual truth that you can believe in. And ultimately, he points us to Scripture as a truth that's higher than any human voices we're listening to, as Jesus being the fulfillment of everything that the Scriptures promised and pointed towards. And that, again, gives us further confidence in who Jesus really is, what it means to know and follow Him.

So yeah, and that has some real implications for us, in terms of how we pursue and follow Jesus and need to be reminded of what we already know and how we live it out in our lives. You did say in your sermon that you had some things that you're like, hey, if you're interested, let's follow up and cut for time. What would you have to cut there? Oh, yeah, man, there's a lot.

It's a great passage. So one was when Peter says, I'll make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able to remember these things. I mentioned that, you know, he may be referring to this letter, but a number of commentators aren't sure that he's really referring to this letter, because it's pretty short.

But instead, that he may likely be referring to the Gospel of Mark. We know from the New Testament that Mark was a close associate of Peter, and very early in the Church, within one generation of Peter, an early Church leader named Papias says that it was already a tradition that Mark is Peter's recollections of Jesus. And all the second century writers, so people living in the 100s, who reference Mark's Gospel, say the same thing, that it's actually Mark's recording of Peter's Gospel account of Jesus' life.

And again, we don't know that for certain, but it's possible that Peter may have had in mind his account of Jesus' life, which he may, as he was writing that, have been in the process of dictating to Mark. Just kind of a kind of cool thing to noodle around, and we'll get to heaven and find out one day. But yeah, Peter, ultimately, though, it's encouraging for us to hear how intentional Peter is about wanting to make sure that we'll be able to remember, to recall, to live out, to stand on the things that he's trying to hand off to us, to his readers, and ultimately to us.

It's, again, the conjecture around whether that's the Gospel of Mark, but it's just encouraging that God has even inspired Peter to write down this purpose and intention to leave us something to remember and to not lose hold of. Yeah, there's another little mention. When Peter says in verse 15 about literally leaving the tent of this body, the tent there is the same word that's translated as tabernacle.

And so, follow me here for a second. All the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, talk about Jesus' transfiguration when He's revealed in His glory. But why doesn't it seem like John mentions that, if John was there on the mountaintop? And yet, I think John does talk about Jesus' glory and seeing it.

Remember in chapter one, where he says, The word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And some people may have heard, I think we've talked about it, that the word became flesh and dwelt among us is that same word, tabernacle. John is literally saying He tabernacled with us.

So one, John is saying the same thing as Peter, just in different language. But it's not just seeing Jesus' glory that's kind of interesting and important, but that word that John uses for God coming to earth and just like in the Old Covenant, tabernacle made His dwelling among us, except now it's in His Son. And then by extension, God now tabernacles, God dwells in us by His Spirit.

So when Peter says he's going to soon take off the tent of this body, it's the same language. And maybe it's a stretch to say that Peter has in mind the same concept that John is drawing out, but it's just a kind of a cool thematic connection that Peter maybe even literally has in mind this idea of like, okay, my body is a tabernacle of the Holy Spirit. Now, this is where God dwells by His Spirit among His people.

And I know I'm going to take off this tent, this tent of the body, but that's to go to be in the presence of the Lord. So to me, it's just exciting and inspiring to think about maybe how God the Spirit was pulling all those threads together, even in Peter's talking about taking off the tent of His body and back to Jesus tabernacling among us. It even makes me think about the blog post that we'll publish today from Pastor Tom and his is Live Ready to Die.

Just interesting point of view from like what you're saying, how Peter addressed this and you know, Tom will kind of even reiterate that and just how our, what should our position be as well? I know that's not the main focus of the sermon, but just something to think about. Something I did think about when I was listening to your sermon, so it's a thought that I've had just on and off over the last few years. I read in the Psalms over and over the refrain, or I see just, you know, this phrase that I will not be shaken.

And I hear in your sermon this idea of like, we won't be shaken because we have this solid foundation that we are standing on. But what would you address those times in our lives where we do feel pretty shaken? Is that actually not the same thing? Is that not what the psalmist is talking about where he says, I will not be shaken? Maybe we feel shaken, but we don't, we have that foundation. And so it's not actual shakiness, which is what I mean, like feeling it is different.

Maybe it's like the wrong word I'm using. So I'm just curious, how would you put those things together? Yeah, that's a really good question. Yes.

And I don't think there's any contradiction there at all. I think when the psalmist says, you know, I will not be shaken when we're saying that in the songs, when we sing that, I think we're affirming that fundamentally, foundationally, the ground of our life and hope in Jesus will never be shaken in the sense of, you know, like probably in mind like an earthquake, right? But in that part of the world, especially in the Middle East, they had earthquakes that knocked down buildings. And so, yeah, the Bible even uses that language for shaking in kind of both those senses.

Like God even says, I will return and shake the earth. And that's probably pointing forward to the return of Christ and the final judgment and the wiping away of everything that's false and evil and sinful. But the Bible also talks about, even in a sense, we could say, I won't be shaken in the shaking that God is doing.

I won't be destroyed. Yes, my life may become chaotic, painful, disordered, maybe impossible to even make sense of. And so, yes, a lot of external things and even profound things can get shaken.

But God is clearly affirming we will never be destroyed. We'll never be torn down. We'll never be overwhelmed by all the things going on in our lives.

As you were bringing that up, I was thinking of maybe this summarizes it better than I'm sort of fumbling around a bit. But in 2 Corinthians 4, where Paul, you know, this is Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, where a lot of it is him pouring out his heart and it's just full of emotion and passion and appeal. And he says in 2 Corinthians 4, we're hard pressed on every side, but not crushed.

We're perplexed, but not in despair. We're persecuted, but not abandoned. We're struck down, but not destroyed.

And he says we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. And so, in a sense, there's sort of that tension. I mean, Jesus ultimately, of course, was crushed by the Father, but not shaken in that sense, ultimately, right? Like not abandoned, not he was, in fact, full following and fulfilling the Father's will in that shaking, in that crushing and in all that he endured.

And I think Paul is saying, yes, we are going to likely experience the same things that Jesus did in that sense of carrying around in our body the suffering, the loss, the grief, the persecution of Jesus so that his life will also be revealed in us. So hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, but never overwhelmed, never abandoned, never ultimately rejected, forgotten, forsaken, even when everything else falls away. Yes, thank you.

You made sense of the question that I feel like I wasn't even very clear in, and you answered exactly what I was trying to get at. So thank you. Oh, cool.

Wow. Yeah. Praise God.

It's good to hear. The last thing I wanted to just close with is just what is the role of scripture memorization in this? Is this an essential thing to, like Peter is saying, so that these things may not be forgotten? I'm writing this to you. And we could say, well, I'm not going to forget that I have access to a Bible on my phone, in my pocket.

I can just pull it up anytime I want or I've got it on my shelf. I could look at it when I want to. It won't forget it because I could read it any time.

But like, that's not really, that's not maybe the right position, the right mindset. So what do you think that could mean for us? Yeah, boy, that's a great question. I think there's kind of two parts to an answer to that.

And one, just starting with an observation, it's been widely acknowledged that in our, you know, in our and recent generations, we have unbelievable access to the Word of God. We have greater access to God's truth, to quality sermons, to preaching, to theology than any generation in history. And yet our knowledge of God's Word is probably significantly less than our grandparents and great grandparents.

And I think that's just a function of being in a media-saturated, information-rich culture. We're bombarded with information, noise, opportunities to distract ourselves. So in that, so one part of the answer would be, yes, I think Bible memorization is so helpful and important, maybe even critical for us because, one, we're not always going to have access to a Bible in the moment where we're facing temptation, right, or where a thought just comes up in our heads.

Maybe if I have not built the patterns and the rhythms and the language of Scripture into my head and heart so that it will come up naturally as a response and a framework and a perspective on what I'm going through, I'm cutting myself off in a sense from the resources that God wants us to have. And I'm dependent then on the screen or the phone or the app or whatever. And those things are not bad.

I mean, I think those, but those should, can and should be tools for helping us really sink God's truth down into our heads and our hearts. Because I don't know about you, but I find myself more and more just realizing, why do I have advertising jingles from the 1970s stuck in my head? I can replay Caligon detergent commercials in head and recite them by heart. I can sing the jingle for Alka-Seltzer or Pepto-Bismol or McDonald's or whatever it is, but I seem to struggle with building the habits and the pathways but that in itself tells me I can build pathways.

I can build a positive, encouraging, admirable, trustworthy, true, you know, in Paul's words in Philippians 4, think about these things. So he's encouraging us to set our minds on the things that actually are worth remembering because we can, and we do remember things. And there are things that have built neural pathways in our brains, you know, to use the language of neuroscience and, you know, whether we well-worn paths or whatever, we actually have the ability to train our minds and to shape our thinking based on the inputs that we take in.

So why do I not want that? Why would I not want that to be God's word and God's truth, God's encouragement, so that I'm not even just memorizing it, but it's actually starting to shape me and who I am. And that, so the second part of that then is, yes, scripture memorization, I think is, I wouldn't say, you know, like essential to be a Christian. You don't, because we've had, you know, many generations of people who didn't even have access to the Bible, but it's incredibly important, incredibly helpful, I think we'd be foolish not to take advantage of the opportunities to train ourselves in that way.

But secondly, just as I was saying in, I think on Sunday, the real key thing though, is to get that from our head to our heart, which is harder to do if we don't have it memorized, but if we do have it memorized, we still have to take the time, as the Bible says, to meditate, to ponder, to reflect on God's word. So, you know, our kids were in Awana when they were little and all in favor of Awana scripture memorization. The challenge was, you know, to help them develop the habits, to not just say the verse to get the reward, but to actually go deeper into thinking and talking about what does this verse really mean? What is this truth about? Why, why does this matter? That's essentially meditation as the Bible talks about it.

It's just taking the truth of God, reflecting on it and asking God to help me understand it and to love it and to live it out. So yes, but the foundation for that is scripture memorization though. If I don't have God's word in my heart and in my head, I'm not going to know it.

I'm not going to live it out. So scripture memorization is so foundational to shaping our wills, our thoughts, our emotions in healthy, God-honoring directions, and then ultimately asking God to help it go deep into our hearts and lives so that it's shaping who I am and not just knowledge that I have. That is both, it does require our participation, but it really is the spirit living in us and through us.

And so just inviting him into that because we wouldn't be able to do it apart from him. Yeah. Well, and that's a great, you know, call back to a sermon from a week and a half ago when Patrick Gilbert was here.

It's, it's not, effort is not opposed to, grace is not opposed to effort as opposed to earning, God gives us grace and invites us and calls us to participate with him and to growing into who he intends us to be and scripture memorization is a great way to do that. Maybe even a foundational way to do that. All right.

Thanks for your time today, Jeff. Yeah. Thank you, Claire.

It's always great. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Cut For Time. If you wish to submit questions to our pastors following Sunday's sermon, you can email them to podcast at faithchurchindy.com or text them into our Faith Church texting number and we'll do our best to cover them in next week's episode.

If this conversation blessed you in any way, we encourage you to share it with others. We'll be back again next week.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)