How good is your memory? Do you have a good memory? Before you answer that, let me ask you this. Do you know the definition of a good memory? What constitutes good memory? Because most people would say, oh, obviously, good memory, that's when you can recall what you want to recall. You can think of names and places and facts, important data. A good memory is the ability to bring lots of information to mind. Is that really a good memory? It might be good. It might be evil. The biblical definition of good memory isn't about how much information you can remember. It's about which information you remember. God designed your brain so that it forgets the vast majority of what comes into it. And which things you remember, of all these things that come into your mind, which things make the cut and actually go into your memory, and which things don't, will determine the success or failure, how much success or failure you're going to have in the Christian life. Just like every other aspect, every other part of us, our memories are fallen. They're affected by sin. And so they just don't work right. You learn a hard lesson, painful lesson, what happens? You forget it, and you have to learn it again. How many times have you said, man, I'm never, never doing that again. I've learned my lesson. Whole tub of ice cream in one sitting, never again. Not gonna do it. And then what happens? Your Judas memory betrays you. You completely forget what made you say never again. But you remember, you forget that, but you remember the taste of that ice cream like it was yesterday. Or how about when someone hurts you? What does your memory, your Judas memory naturally do? Well, you forget what God's word says about bitterness and anger, and you forget all the misery that vengeful attitudes have caused you in the past. You forget all that, but boy, you've got an encyclopedic memory of what that person did to hurt you, the exact words they said 20 years ago, you can still remember. This is human nature. We forget all the painful consequences of sin, but we have a photographic memory of the pleasures of sin. We remember what people have done, we forget what God has done. At every turn, our Judas memories betray us. And every Christian struggles with this. Even David had to preach to his own soul in Psalm 103, forget not his benefits, write a whole Psalm, write it out, God's benefits, so that he wouldn't forget them. Forgetting truth about God will cause all kinds of sins and problems in your life. And also fear, you know, if you're afraid of anything, it's because you're forgetting something about God. Isaiah 51, 12, who are you that you fear mortal men, that you forget the Lord your maker who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundation of the earth. So forgetting can mess your life up in so many ways. So all through the Old Testament, God tells the people, build a monument, tell your children, have a festival, all the rituals, all the whole sacrificial system, the ceremonies, it was all to help the people remember spiritual truths. And in the New Testament, it's the same thing. Now we only have one recurring ceremony in the New Testament, it's communion. And what is communion? A remembrance. Maybe you believe it's more than a remembrance, which is fine, but it's certainly not less than a remembrance. And we're studying 2 Peter. What is 2 Peter? The whole book of 2 Peter. And 1 Peter, for that matter. 2 Peter 3.1 says, Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I've written both of them as reminders. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets in the command given by our Lord and Savior. in 2 Peter 1, verse 12. So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them. I think it's right to refresh your memory. And verse 15, I will make every effort to see that after my departure, you will always be able to remember these things. It's all about remembering. Remembering and forgetting is a huge, huge theme in Scripture. And keep in mind, when you read these kinds of things, there's more than one kind of forgetting. There's the kind where you can't recall, right? It's like, ah, what's that guy's name? I can't think of it. You can't remember. That's one kind. The other kind is when the information is there in your head. You could easily recall it if you tried, but it just doesn't come to mind in the moment when you need it. Like, I tell Tracy, okay, I'll stop on the way home and get some milk. And I'm driving home and I drive right past King Soopers. And if somebody asked me right in that moment, hey, did you tell Tracy that you're gonna stop and get milk? It'd be no problem at all. It's like, oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, of course I said that. But if they don't ask me that in that moment, it just doesn't come to mind. That's another kind of forgetting. And that's the kind of forgetting that Peter warns us about in 2 Peter 1.9, which is where we left off. When we go to Pastor Peter, Counselor Peter, and say, Peter, help me, I'm not growing spiritually, I'm not making progress, I'm stalled out. Can you tell me what's wrong with me? He'll say, yeah, I can tell you exactly what's wrong with you. Two things, it's your vision and it's your memory. 2 Peter 1.9, if anyone does not have these increasing virtues, he's nearsighted and blind, there's the vision problem, and he's forgotten. that he's been cleansed from his past sins. Vision problem, memory problem. Now, we talked about the vision part last time, and I gave an illustration last time. I don't know if you remember this, but I gave the illustration about a baby that is born, and he's not growing, and so you take him to the doctor, and doc says, yeah, two problems. He's got a vision problem, and at the time, I said a digestion problem. And if you were looking at the text in 2 Peter when I said that last time, you might have thought, wait a minute, a vision problem? Shouldn't it be a vision problem and a memory problem if it's an illustration that's supposed to illustrate this verse? Why did you say digestion problem? I said digestion problem because if you think about it, when we're talking about this kind of forgetting, that's really what a memory problem is. It's not like you're sitting around trying to recall, wow, did, when he says you've forgotten your past cleansing, it's not like you're saying, did God cleanse me? I just can't remember, I can't think of, that's not the kind of forgetting. It's, you know it, you know it's true, you know it happened, you were cleansed when you became a Christian, but it's just that kind of forgetting where it doesn't come to mind, it didn't come to the front of your mind in the moments when you really need it, and it doesn't do that because, this is what I'm gonna suggest, because you never really digested it. that truth fully. See, when you digest a truth, it really becomes part of you. That truth will then affect your whole way of looking at the world and your whole way of interpreting everything that happens around you. It'll be a filter. Perfect example of what I mean by a truth that you've really digested and has become part of you is your belief in gravity. You think you're a forgetful person? Let me ask you this. You ever forget about gravity? Do you ever just like walk off a building and then you're like, ah, keep forgetting gravity, you know? No, we don't forget about gravity. Nobody forgets about gravity. You take gravity into consideration with every single action you ever do all day long. When you roll out of bed, when you toss something in the trash, when you drink some water, everything you do, you do it taking gravity into consideration. You don't consciously think about it, but you've digested that truth so thoroughly that it affects your outlook on life and your way of thinking about the world, your whole perspective. And Peter's saying, if you're not growing spiritually, there's something, there's some spiritual truth that you haven't digested like that, like you've digested the gravity idea. And he connects this digestion problem, this memory problem, with being spiritually nearsighted. Because those two problems always go together. They always go together. And Peter learned that from Jesus himself directly. When Jesus rebuked Peter and the other disciples for being blind, spiritually blind, he also mentioned forgetting in the same sentence. So Mark 8, 18, do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear, and don't you remember? Vision problem, memory problem, always go together. Spiritual nearsightedness and forgetting go together because nearsightedness means you're not looking closely enough and paying attention to the spiritual truth. You're not seeing the truth. And looking closely and giving attention to what is the very thing that causes digestion so that you don't forget. To digest a truth enough to where you don't forget it requires looking deeply, intensely. So you see why they have to go together? Failure to look deeply will result in forgetting. I didn't look closely enough, so I forgot. That's why they go together. And we see that same connection between looking and remembering. in James chapter one, very similar text, James 1.23. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror and after looking himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he's heard, but doing it, he'll be blessed in what he does. So he's making the same point as Peter. If you're not growing, you're not living out the virtues of the Christian life, you've got a memory problem, and the memory problem is due to a vision problem. You're not looking intently enough at the word. That word, to look intently, means to stoop down, bend your back, stoop down, really examine something. Fail to do that, and the truths that you learn won't sink in, and you will get spiritual dementia. you'll forget. You'll start behaving as though gravity doesn't exist. The gravity of God's holiness, or the gravity of God's love, or his food likeness, or the gravity of treasure in heaven, that principle, it won't sink in, it won't be part of who you are. Or the gravity of the fact that it's better to give than to receive, that won't sink in, so it won't seem true when you live your life. Now, all those truths that I just mentioned, you know them all, you've learned them all, You know them like back of your hand, but you didn't gaze at them long enough or deeply enough to really digest them so that they become just like the law of gravity in your heart, in the way that you look at life. So both Peter and James connect this looking, this intensive looking, and remembering with doing. James says, put them into practice. Peter says, if you have these virtues. And that's because when you put a principle into practice, that's when it really sinks in, isn't it? Isn't that when you really learn something is when you actually, you know, you get all the theories, you get the theory, and then you actually do it. Now you know it. And now you remember it. Because now you see how it's relevant. No principle is going to sink in until it becomes relevant to you. You learn something, and if you can't answer the question, so what? You haven't learned it. Your brain will take that fact and just set it aside in the back room somewhere. It's not going to be part of your thinking. Nothing sticks in your memory until you can see how it fits with other stuff in your memory, other stuff that you believe. Because your memory is not like a library where you can just take a fact and put it on the shelf like a lone book by itself on the shelf. It's more like a machine where every gear has to interact with another gear in order to be useful. Facts are like that. They have to interact with other facts in order to be useful. Because no fact is useful by itself. It's only useful when you know how it's connected to other information. It's not enough to just understand all about gravity. I also have to understand all about the hardness of pavement. Because if I know all about the strength of gravity, but I don't grasp the hardness of pavement, I might still walk off a building. I got to have those truths together. And so this study has really been good for me. It's really been helpful for me studying this these last few weeks because I just have a tendency to always think I need something new. If I'm struggling spiritually, I just think, well, all this stuff I've learned so far, it hasn't helped. I need something more. And I need to study the Bible until I find something to learn something I haven't already learned. And sometimes that's the case. Sometimes you just need to, there's something in there, a principle in there. You've never learned it. That's what you need. But most of the time, I think we have all the pieces in our head already that we need to overcome this spiritual problem. We just haven't figured out where the gear goes in the whole machine. And so this gear is sitting over here and not doing anything. So maybe this spiritual problem I have, in order to solve it, it's gonna require five biblical principles to overcome it. And I've learned all five already. I've known them for years. The problem is, I'm not gonna get victory because I learned number one and number two, principle number two, but I learned principle number three and forgot one and two. And then I learned principle number four and forgot five. Or learned five and forgot four, whatever. And I need someone like you to come alongside me when I'm struggling and say, Daryl, you need to remember principles number one and three. Because I've forgotten. And when you remind me of principle number three, be careful, because I'm probably going to say, principle number three. You don't have to remind me about principle number three. I've known principle number three since I was in Sunday school when I was a little kid. You don't have to tell me about that. But then you say, but Daryl, have you ever thought about how principle number three fits with principle number five? That's what you're missing. See, most of the information you need to gain victory you probably already have in your head. But to get the progress that you're looking for is going to require some more intense looking, more gazing, more meditating, more digesting those truths that you already have in your head. and then putting them into practice, so you see how they're relevant, so they can go from being just information gathering dust in your head to actually becoming a working part of your perspective on life, like your belief in gravity. So it shapes the way you look at things, the way you interpret the world and events, and that will jumpstart your spiritual growth. That's what Peter's saying. So Peter comes along and says, I'm not gonna teach you anything new. I'm just gonna write two books covering all the truths that you've already learned, you already know, and force you to look more deeply and to gaze more thoroughly until it sinks in and becomes a part of your perspective and your outlook on life. That's what it means to remember rather than to forget. All that to define what we mean by a good memory. So Peter warns us about forgetting. He warns us about spiritual dementia. But not all spiritual dementia. He's very specific. He narrows it down to dementia in one specific area that he doesn't want you to forget. If you're not growing, you have spiritual dementia specifically in the area of cleansing your past Cleansing, verse nine. If anyone does not have the increasing virtues, he is nearsighted and blind and has become forgetful of the cleansing of his past sins. And you say, but Peter, of all the principles in the Bible, how do you know that's the one that I'm forgetting? Maybe I'm forgetting something else. Maybe this is something else is the problem. And Peter would say, well, yeah, you might be forgetting a bunch of other stuff too, but if you're not growing, Trust me, you're definitely forgetting your past cleansing. No matter what your spiritual problem is, if you're not growing, you're forgetting your past cleansing. That's across the board. And honestly, that's kind of alarming, at least for me, because how often do you think about your past cleansing? I mean, I have to admit, I don't think about that hardly at all. I think a lot about God's forgiveness, But that's, and that's important, that's wonderful, that's good, but cleansing and forgiveness are really two different things. Forgiveness is about the restoration of a broken relationship. Cleansing is part of what makes forgiveness possible. But cleansing is more specific than forgiveness. And we need to know exactly what cleansing is because it's a huge deal in scriptures all over the Bible. And so we need to think through what does the Bible mean by cleansing? The Old Testament has whole chapters devoted to cleansing rituals, describing cleanness and uncleanness. The whole kosher food system is about clean and unclean foods. Only clean animals could be offered to God. And the reason sacrifices were needed were because God's people became unclean and needed to be cleansed. All of that that I just mentioned were all physical illustrations to teach us about what it means to be spiritually clean or dirty. Isaiah 116, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from my sight. Dirtiness is a metaphor for moral evil. Jeremiah 414, wash your heart from evil. This washing idea, it's not just an Old Testament concept. Titus 3.5 in the New Testament, he saved us through the washing of rebirth. 1 Corinthians 6.9, the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God, and that's what some of you were, but you were washed. Acts 22.16, be baptized and wash away your sins. So this washing, cleansing idea, it's all over the Bible. Ephesians 5.26 says that Jesus cleansed the church through the washing with water, through the word. And the saints in Revelation 7, 14 come out of the great tribulation, having washed their robes and made them white in blood and lambs. So from cover to cover, this is a giant theme in the Bible. It's a giant theme, but what does it mean exactly to be dirty spiritually? Ever thought about that? What does it mean to be spiritually dirty? What does it mean to be washed? And what does it mean to be clean? When David cried out in Psalm 51, cleanse me, wash me, What exactly did he want to happen in that moment? The Bible uses various metaphors to describe sin. Sin is like falling short, missing the mark. It's like unfaithfulness in a relationship. It's like betrayal. It's like rebellion, all these metaphors. And each one of those is designed to teach us something about sin. But what about this filthiness metaphor? What's that designed to teach us about sin? Why is sin described that way? Well, let's just think it through. What's wrong with filthiness? When you think about your physical body, why do you take showers? Isn't it mainly to avoid being repulsive to people? I mean, you don't want to smell bad, you don't want to look bad, and it matters a lot to us. Even if there's no hint that you're sweaty or anything, you might take a shower just in case. The purpose of cleansing yourself physically is mainly so that you won't be disgusting to people. The reason the Bible uses that as an analogy of sin, uses filthiness to describe sin, is to teach us that what BO is to us, sin is to God. It's repulsive. If you want to know how God feels when we sin, Just think about how you feel when you smell or see something really disgusting. And I thought, oh, I gotta give an illustration here. Don't worry, I'm not gonna give an illustration. I'll let you use your imagination. I don't wanna gross you out. Just think of whatever it is that turns your stomach, makes you nauseous. That is the same feeling God has when he looks at our sin. It's disgusting. Now, let that sink in for a second. to have God disgusted with you. That's, I mean, 100% of your well-being in life depends on having a good relationship with God, right? That's everything. Everything in life rides on having a love relationship with God and being close to God. So what could be worse than being the object of God's disgust I think that's even worse than being an object of his anger in some ways. Of all the consequences of sin, the more you love God, the more that consequence, being disgusting and insincere, is the most painful of them all. It's agonizing to know that someone you love and respect is disgusted and repulsed by you. That's why when David finally woke up to his sin, he was so desperate for cleansing. I mean, he wanted a lot of things from God, but he mainly wanted cleansing. Psalm 51 too. Wash me, wash away all my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Verse seven, cleanse me with hyssop and I'll be clean. Wash me, I'll be whiter than snow. Verse nine, hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, oh God. of all the terrible consequences of sin, the one that stung David the most was this idea of being filthy in God's sight. He couldn't stand the thought of God being grossed out by him. And he loved the thought of God being delighted in him. And so that's what he begged for. Now, when I said a second ago, let that sink in, God being disgusted with you, how horrible would that be? You might have thought, oh, that's not hard. to let that sink in. That sank in a long time ago. That's mainly how I think about God, looking at me most of the time. Easy for me to think of God that way. Okay, okay, well, if that's the case, then let this sink in. What did David say? Psalm 51 7, cleanse me and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let that sink in. Digest that law of gravity. It's the opposite. Now, what does it mean to be clean? If God being disgusted with you is what it means to be dirty, then what does it mean to be clean? Well, it's the opposite of being filthy in God's sight. So instead of recoiling in disgust, He looks at you and is attracted to you. Have you ever just walked by someone and caught a scent of some perfume or cologne or something? It just smelled really, really good. Imagine God inhaling a really, really big and just, huge smile when he walks past you and saying, I want to get closer. See, I think a lot of Christians, if they had written Psalm 51, they would say, God, wash me and then I'll be tolerable to you at least. I'll be tolerable in your sight. They think that when they try to draw near to God, God just holds his nose and says, okay, I'll listen to your prayer. It's wrong. It's wrong. He doesn't hold his nose. He takes a big, deep breath and just blows it and wants more. That's what clean means. And the process of washing or cleansing means going from one to the other, going from being disgusting in His sight to being pleasant, beautiful in His sight. That's what it means to be washed, cleansed. God simply chooses to, this is how He does it, He just chooses to turn His attention away from your sin and turns His attention toward your close relationship with His Son. And when He thinks about you being close to His Son, fills his heart with warmth and love and affection for you. God can do that. He has full control over his attention. We have trouble with that, but God doesn't have any trouble with that. He can completely turn his eyes away from your sin so that it's totally out of his view and no longer has any impact on how he feels about you, how he looks at you. Just a quick note, why does Peter specify past sins? You've been cleansed from your past sins? Well, he specifies past sins because those are the only sins you've been cleansed from, is your past sins. I don't know any other way to take that. It's very common for preachers to say, I'm mentioning this, because it's common for preachers to say, well, God's forgiven your sins, all your sins, past, present, and future. That's one of those things that even seminary-trained pastors repeat and think is in the Bible just because they've heard it so many times from people they respect, but the Bible doesn't say that. It never says your sins are forgiven past, present, and future. You haven't been cleansed from your future sins because your future sins haven't made you dirty yet. You haven't been forgiven of your future sins because you haven't committed them. There's nothing to forgive. When people say that God's forgiven your future sins, I think they maybe haven't thought through the implications of saying that. For God to forgive you for something, you have to be guilty of that thing. So what those people are assuming is that God holds you responsible for future sins, and that's why he's forgiven them. You say, well, I don't know, maybe God does hold me responsible for my future sins. I mean, doesn't God have foreknowledge? Knows all my futures? Yes, yes, he does know them. But no, he does not hold you responsible for them. And that's just a hard concept for us to grasp. Because if you and I had foreknowledge, and we could see the sins someone's going to commit against us tomorrow, we probably would hold it against them right now. If I know tomorrow you're gonna punch me in the face, I'm probably gonna have a bad attitude towards you right now. Maybe that's why God didn't give us foreknowledge, because he's not like that. Don't ever form your ideas about God based on what you would do. Always form your conception of God from what the Bible says, and what does it say? Do you remember what Cain and Abel, what God said to Cain before he killed his brother? God knew it was gonna happen. James 4, 7, he says, if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must master it. God says all this to Cain. Now, did God know at that moment that Cain was going to go ahead and cave in to sin and kill his brother? Of course he did, of course he did. But did he hold Cain responsible for it? No. Cain was not guilty of that sin until he actually did it, made the decision to do it in real time. God always deals with you where you are, which is always in the present. The attitude that God wants you to have towards your future sin is not, oh, those sins are inevitable, but they're forgiven. That's not the right attitude. The attitude God wants you to have for your future sins is, They don't have to happen. That's why he told Cain, sin is crouching at your door. I'm warning you. It desires to control you, but you must master it. Even though God knew that it was going to happen, right up until the moment it did happen, God spoke as if not committing that sin was still an option. It was still a possibility for Cain to choose the right thing. So, Peter specifies cleansing your past sins because forgiveness of and cleansing only happen after you get dirty, not before. And if you question that, just try future cleansing. Next time you take a shower, just keep scrubbing until you scrubbed off all the dirt and grime and sweat and everything that you'll ever have in the future. It's nonsense. So you say, well then, okay, I've been cleansed of my past sins. What about future sins? What about those sins? Well, 1 John 1 9 says, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and do what? Purify us from all unrighteousness. Future tense, He will purify you after you confess. Now you say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Does that mean I get cleansed in a big way when I become a Christian and then get cleansed in small ways over and over and over as I'm walking through my Christian life? And the answer to that is yes, that's exactly what it's saying. That's, again, something Peter learned directly from Jesus in the upper room, John 13, 8. Remember, Jesus was washing their feet. Peter said, no, you're not gonna wash my feet. Jesus answered, unless I wash you, you have no part with me. Then Simon Peter replied, not just my feet, but my hands and head as well. Give me a whole bath." And Jesus answered, a person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet, his whole body is clean. See, so when Jesus cleansed your past sins, that was like a full bath when you became a Christian. After that, as you walk through the muck of this world and you stumble into sin, you don't need a whole nother bath, but you do need some cleansing just like David did. Each time you step in it, so to speak, You need cleansing again. And once you get cleansed, then from that moment on, that sin is in the category of past cleansing. So it fits in this 2 Peter 1.9, past cleansing. And Peter says, okay, now you're clean. Don't ever forget it. Don't ever forget it. Okay, so forgetting your cleansing stymies your spiritual growth, but how? Let's think this through. We understand, I need to remember that cleansing in order to grow, but why? And I'm going to suggest three categories here of ways that forgetting your past cleansing will hinder your spiritual growth. And there's three of them, reasons, ravages, and reality. Okay, those are my headings. First reasons. You received cleansing in the past from God because you asked for it. Why? Why did you ask for cleansing? Why did you ask God to cleanse you? You wanted it for the same reason David wanted it. I assume you couldn't stand the thought of being morally repulsive before God. So you were like the prodigal son, the pig sty, saying, I can't go on like this. Look at me. This is terrible. I want to be cleansed. Every time we, as a Christian, once that happens, every time we wander away from God, commit sin, we're doing little miniature reenaction of the prodigal son story, and we're getting cleansed again. Now, maybe you're like me, and you don't remember your conversion, you don't remember becoming a Christian. All of us, though, know what it's like to feel like garbage. To sin in ways like, I feel like absolute garbage. What's wrong with me? Why can't I change? And you feel like David in Psalm 51 where he says, create in me a pure heart. My heart is so far gone, I need nothing less than an act of creation. I don't need just basic reform around the edges. I need God, I need you to do what you did in Genesis 1 with the universe. I need you to do that again in my heart. I just need a whole new recreation. So we all have gone through that, we've asked for that, we've received it, and Peter's saying, okay, but now you've forgotten it. You've forgotten. Whatever was in your life, whatever moment in your life where you were most earnest about begging God's forgiveness and cleansing, remember that feeling, because remembering that feeling, how much you wanted to be clean, is essential for spiritual growth. You forget that and you'll stop growing. You gotta remember your reasons for wanting to be cleansed in the first place. And that's where baptism is helpful. You know, unlike other religions, Christianity only has two ceremonies, right? Only two prescribed ceremonies that are in the Bible, communion and baptism. And what is baptism? It's a picture of what? Washing. Washing. Peter said, get baptized and wash your sins away. Communion is to remind us of what Christ did to provide for our cleansing. Baptism is to remind us of your decision to receive that cleansing. Communion reminds you of what He did. Baptism reminds you of what you did to receive it. So when you're tempted with sin, Think back to your baptism and say, there was a moment in my life when I, probably the time I was thinking the most clearly, when I really, really, really wanted to be clean, morally clean. And so when you're not growing spiritually of all the truths that you might've forgotten, Peter says, well, that's definitely one of them. Because if you're driving, if you're not driving on the highway of holy living anymore, obviously you've forgotten why you got on that highway in the first place. So don't forget your reasons for wanting to be clean. And even more important than that, don't forget God's reasons for wanting you to be clean. Why did God cleanse you? Obviously, because he wanted you to be clean, right? Isn't that the reason anyone cleans anything? God washed you at massive cost to himself, Why? Because he really, really wanted you to be morally clean. He wanted you to be holy and righteous, pure, self-controlled, steadfast, loving, godly, and all the rest. If you're not growing in all that, it must be that you've forgotten how strongly God desires all that in your life. He wants you to be clean. The whole reason Jesus went through what he went through is because that's what he wanted. He wanted you to be pure. Titus 2.14, Jesus Christ gave himself for us to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. Jesus didn't suffer and die and save you just to do you a favor. He did it because he really, really wanted a pure, clean people. He wanted it so much that it was worth all that suffering. How many temptations would we be able to resist if we were just able to remember how strong God's desire is for us to be clean? So if you want to grow, think deeply about the reasons for your cleansing, your reasons and God's reasons, both. That's the first one. Secondly, ravages. Remember the ravages of the cleansing process. Remember the pain that was involved. in repentance. It wasn't just a matter of saying, hey God, cleansing please. And then he says, okay, you're clean. And you walk away. There's more to it than that, right? If you think that's all it was, then you've never been in a broken relationship. Especially if what broke the relationship was adultery. And that's the word the Bible uses to describe our sin. Adultery against God, James 4. Now, can a relationship broken by adultery ever be restored? Yes. Can it be done without a lot of rough, painful moments? No, no. Remorse is excruciating. It's an excruciating emotion. I mean, just think of Peter, who went out and wept bitterly, right? And not only is remorse painful, so is the cleansing process itself, letting go of the sin. When you let your heart attach itself to some sin, to fall in love with something in this world, And then you have to break away from that? That's painful. It hurts. C.S. Lewis' book, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, tries to illustrate that. This boy has been turned into a dragon by his sin. He tries to peel off the scales himself, doesn't work. So he comes to Aslan, who represents Jesus, for help, and the lion says, you will have to let me undress you. And he says, I was afraid of his claws, but I was nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back and let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought I'd gone out right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. He peeled off the beastly stuff, just as I thought I had done it myself the other three times, only that hadn't hurt. And there it was, lying on the grass, talking about the scales. And there I was, as smooth and soft and as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me. I didn't like that much because I was tender underneath now that I had no skin on. And he threw me into the water. It smarted like anything, but only for a moment. After that, it became perfectly delicious. And as soon as I started swimming and splashing, I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why I had turned into a boy again. So that's just C.S. Lewis trying to illustrate what we've all been through, and that is the cleansing process, it works, but it's not pleasant. Jesus will reverse the damage that we do to ourselves with sin, but it's not an easy process. So every time you find yourself tempted, Remind yourself what you went through before in your repentance. Say, do I want to go through that again? When you say, I'll just commit this sin and then I'll ask forgiveness afterward, you're forgetting the pain involved in restoration. Would you say, you know, I'll just take a sledgehammer, smash my hand, because I know it can heal. Well, yeah, it can heal, bone can heal, but it's not a good reason to do the damage in the first place. especially when you realize nothing good came from the sin, right? Romans 6.21, what benefit did you reap at that time from the things that you're now ashamed of? It didn't even do you any good. All it did was put you on a path of shame and guilt that you didn't like. So when you stop growing spiritually and you start coasting in your spiritual life, it's because you've just forgotten all of that. You've forgotten how hard it is to turn back. You've forgotten the, the ordeal, the pain. So how does remembering your past cleansing help your spiritual growth? Well, it works when you remember the reasons, your reasons and God's reasons, and when you remember the ravages of the process, the shame, the remorse, the painful ordeal of ripping those sins from your heart that you've fallen in love with. Now a third R. If you're not growing, you've forgotten the reality of your cleansing. You've forgotten that it's real. You've forgotten that you are actually clean. You're clean before God. That's a fact that hasn't sunk in. And this might be the most common spiritual dementia there is among Christians. Forgetting, inability to grasp the concept, I am clean in God's sight. He walks past you and hails, smiles. Oh, I gotta get closer. That's beautiful. Why do you think the accuser, the Brethren, has that title? Why is Satan so intent on accusing us and trying to make us feel condemned and feel dirty before God? Why is Satan so big on that? Why does he want you to think God is perpetually disappointed in you, perpetually grieved by you? Why does Satan want that so much? It's because getting you to forget that God has cleansed you is strategic because if you feel dirty in God's sight all the time, you're going to get discouraged and you're going to stop running hard after righteousness because it's going to feel impossible. In the moment of temptation, you're going to say, you know, I'm already a disappointment to God. I'm already unclean. What difference is a little bit more dirt going to do? You know, kind of like if your house is a huge mess, then you don't even think anything of just putting another thing down on the table or on the floor or whatever. I mean, if something's a gigantic mess, it just tends to get messier. You don't think that much. But if you spent a whole day cleaning it, now it's immaculate. Now you're just like, oh, no, I'm not going to set that, I'm going to put it away. You don't want to mess it up. If you feel like things are great between you and God, you don't want to risk messing it up. But if your relationship with him seems like it's in shambles all the time, then you're just not going to be as careful about guarding what's already a big mess. So if you don't feel clean before God, you'll be far more vulnerable to temptation and discouragement and despair and bad attitudes and all the rest. And the worst of it will be your attitude towards God. Because if you forget that you're clean, then instead of feeling gratitude towards God all the time, you're gonna start to feel resentment towards God. Because anytime you feel like someone has a negative attitude towards you, you're gonna start to feel the same way toward him. So over time, little seeds of resentment towards God are gonna plant themselves in your heart without you even realizing it. It's incredibly damaging and dangerous to go for an extended period of time feeling rejected and unloved by God. Don't let that happen. So, back to our questions. Do you have a bad memory? And if so, how do you improve your memory? I'll give you just, I'll just close with two quick suggestions. First, if memory, if you want to remember these truths about your cleansing, and if memory depends on making connections with other truths, What if you made a habit of just looking for those connections all the time, like when you're in church? Every Sunday, when you're sitting in church, just ask, what connection between my past cleansing his principles of my past cleansing, and whatever the pastor's talking about right now, what are the connections? He's talking about Moses and the burning bush, or spiritual gifts, or whatever he's talking about. What are the connections between that and my spiritual cleansing? And make as many connections, or you're listening to a worship song, and the lyrics in the song, what does that have to do with my past cleansing? Make as many connections as you can so that your whole belief system becomes spider-webbed around this truth of your past cleansing. Why not, if Peter says it's this important? So that's one idea. The second idea is to take a hint from the fact that in the Old Testament, God used feasts and celebrations as his main ways of getting his people to remember spiritual truths. If you wanted them to remember something, he's like, every year have a big feast to remind yourself of the Passover, the Exodus, all that stuff. Why celebrations for memory? Well, do any kind of study of psychology, the thing that drives memory most is emotion. Isn't it true that most of your strongest memories from the past came from events that touched your emotions in a strong way? Something really hurt, or made you really scared, or really happy, or really angry, or whatever. Those are the things that lodge themselves in your memory hard. So, Connect your past cleansing with emotion. Celebrate your cleansing. So you confess something, you fall into sin, you confess something to God, you realize God has cleaned me, I'm forgiven, I'm cleansed. Go to Dairy Queen and celebrate with a turtle pecan blizzard, right? We're always rewarding ourselves for stupid things. What about this? How about we celebrate our cleansing? You have a steak in the freezer, save it for the next time you have communion at church. And then you take communion, the whole time you're taking communion, you're thinking about reasons, ravages, and reality of your cleansing, and you're making these connections, and then after church, you go home, you grill that thing, celebrate. I'm clean. Whatever it takes, find a way to remember your past cleansing, It's your memory of the past that gives you hope for the future. In the words of Alexander McLaren, memory supplies the colors with which hope paints her most wonderful pictures. Let's pray. Lord, I ask you that you would give us those colors to work with. Awaken our memories. Revive them. Resurrect them. These facts that we've learned that are in the mothballs, Lord, pull them up by your Spirit. Remind us and help us to make much of them and make these connections so that we can paint pictures with our hope of glorious things that you're gonna do in the future based on what you've done in the past. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.