MESSAGE BY PASTOR DANIEL PARK
FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.
Let us pray, If you are visiting the blog I invite you to pray with me, God the Father hears our prayer, we humbly cry before your word to say "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believing, you will receive" (Matt: 21 -22) we are asking for healing for our dear members of our family and also dear friends who are suffering with illnesses in their lives fighting and suffering under a lot of pain, we are asking for a miracle for each of them, You know them by name (Gaby, Vicky, Nancy, Tere, Liz , Stevie, Les, Miguel, Socrates, Kate, Sara's mom) as your precious children, strengthen their faith in you with a miracle in their lives oh Father God hear our prayer, and we also pray for all the people around the world who are suffering with wars, devastation, hunger, pain and sadness we ask you beloved Father God to strengthen their faith in you we know that you love them so much oh Father God hear our prayer, we ask you in the name of Our Lord of Lords and King of Kings you beloved son Jesus Christ. AMEN!
-Peter’s whole letter is an exhortation designed to get the believers of Asia Minor to remain faithful, obedient, and good citizens, who will in no way damage the cause of Christ through bad behavior. That is what we need to apply to our world today:
Faithfulness to the gospel so that our society can see the glory of God.
-His central message is clear:
You must remain faithful to Jesus Christ,
in spite of your social condition and its potential dangers,
by living obediently and in community with one another.
-As we come to the end of the letter and our series on 1 Peter, we are reminded that we are to live:
As Assistant Shepherds
Humbly
Pay Attention! Wake Up!”
1 We are to live with the mindset of an under-shepherd | As Assistant Shepherds
-On one level, the passage seems written for leaders:
Pastors and Elders | As a Leader (Under Jesus)
And Peter stresses the camaraderie of being a fellow elder and worker
-With 3 traits in common:
(1) They are all elders,
(2) They are all witnesses of Christ’s sufferings, and
(3) They will all partake of the future glory.
-Peter reminds them that their responsibility is to shepherd the flock of God
Which brings to mind the imageries of God as the Shepherd
Ps 23.
John 10:1 - 18 (Jesus is the Good Shepherd)
“God’s flock,” not theirs.
-But also notice the emphasis on the flock being God’s, not the elders’
So understanding all elders as equals reflects an important saying of Jesus:
We are all brothers, and there is but one Teacher (Matt. 23:8 - 12)
-So every leader in the Church should understand that they are only a leader and teacher inasmuch as they do so according to what is set out and directed by the ONE Shepherd and Teacher: Jesus
-The elders are to shepherd/exercise oversight:
Not because you must - but because you are willing, as God wants you to be
Not greedy for money/gain - but eager to serve
Not lording it over people - but being examples to the flock
-What our text offers, then, is a list of three problems of motivation, and contemporary pastors and church leaders need to look over this list, examine their hearts, and ask themselves,
Why do I serve God in the church?”
Also, a way for members to gauge the motivations of their leaders
-Something that is becoming more necessary these days, unfortunately
-First, are you as a church leader motivated to serve in the church because you have to or because you want to?
-Second, are you, as a church leader, motivated to serve in the church because of the money you can acquire or because of your enthusiasm for ministry? In saying these things, we need to recognize that a Christian worker deserves to be paid, but there is a difference between making money and serving money.
they need to be circumspect, wise, and simple in their spending so as to further the gospel.
-Third, are you as a church leader motivated to serve in the church because of your desire for power or because of the impact your life makes on others?
-One sure sign of being motivated by power surfaces when a church leader does not “get his way” in a particular matter.
-Another sign is when the pastor feels threatened by the divinely granted gifts of someone else or maneuvers to reestablish her position because of the positive comments made about another’s giftedness.
if a pastor makes sure he dresses himself in a way that conveys authority and power, then he may well be motivated by such things.
when a church leader refuses to delegate responsibilities and leadership.
-The “young men” or younger ones (5:5a),
Are told to submit (5:5a)
-The advice to this group is to listen to the wisdom of the elders and live in accordance with their instruction; that is, they are “to submit.”
Another way to look at this is as an invaluable advice for the younger generation to SEEK OUT the wisdom of their elders
To observe and learn from the elders
-As stated in 2:13, the term submission should be understood as “living according to some constituted order” — here, the order established by the directives of the elders.
-And since they have already been instructed to lead, not by domination but by example, we can assume that submission here was not some onerous task.
2 We are to live with a humble mindset
-Whether leader or member, or attender, whether old or young, Christians are to develop a deferential and humble attitude toward one another.
And serve one another
-The elder’s service is by way of leadership while the younger members’ service is by way of accepting the authority of the elders.
-Peter draws out the significance of humility and grace for the suffering believer.
-The humble wait for God’s exaltation of believers at the end of time (2:12).
“Humbling oneself ‘under the mighty hand of God’ is not an ethical admonition making a virtue of necessity,
but springs from the religious insight, that God alone can change the ultimate darkness of this world era, that only he can ‘exalt you in the time of visitation’ (5:6).”
-Just as God’s mighty hand was seen in the plagues of the Exodus, so his mighty hand is now being seen even in the persecution the believers in Asia Minor are experiencing.
By submitting to and waiting out God’s deliverance, they can expect that same mighty hand to deliver them (5:6b), just as the Lord delivered the children of Israel.
While the word “proper time” may be seen as general (in God’s own timing), that same term is used frequently in 1 Peter and early Christian literature for the final day of salvation (1:5, 7, 13; 2:12; 4:7).
-It is more likely that Peter thinks of an eschatological vindication of God’s suffering people than some kind of reward or vindication in this life.
-Peter grounds their submission to God in his loving care and protection: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (5:7).
If Peter has in mind the picturesque words of Jesus (Matt. 6:25 - 34), he has now taken them into the realm of persecution.
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
-Drawing on Psalm 55:22, where the psalmist expresses confidence that God will never permit the righteous to be moved and will eventually bring evildoers to justice, Peter exhorts his churches to express a similar confidence in God’s justice.
By turning over their fears and worries to God, they express their trust in him and rely on him to bring about vindication and justice.
The reason for turning over fears to God is because “he cares for you.”
In summary, these two verses are concerned with persecution and suffering and the appropriate Christian response.
Believers are to humble themselves before God by submitting to his will, which now includes suffering; they are to turn over their worries to him and let him bring about the justice that he has promised in his own time.
In submitting to God’s will and enduring suffering for the sake of Christ, Christians are undergirded with the knowledge that God cares about and loves them.
-Elsewhere in the Bible, we are told to humble ourselves towards each other, Peter grounds our humility to the mighty hand of God.
Our first and foremost humility is to God and HIS power
Maybe sometimes, because God is invisible to us and His ways mysterious, Christians forget that God is ALL-POWERFUL
And that He choosing to use us is grace for us - but He doesn’t have to, and doesn’t for a lot of things were are unaware of
In the face of the world’s objection to Truth, we may want to “fight” for God to lift up the truth
But God doesn’t need us to be His tactician or general
GOD Himself CAN and WILL
-And it is HE who lifts US up, if we will submit and humble ourselves to Him
3 God is telling us to be self-controlled and alert as we live
-The activity of Christians’ submitting themselves to God in a confident trust of his ultimate triumph is suddenly interrupted with two sharp commands:
“Be sober-minded and watchful!”
Or, ASA commentator translates: “Pay attention! Wake up!”
-Peter’s main concern for this letter has always been to encourage and build up
And he knew that times of difficulty and suffering could refine and strengthen,
But also hurt and break.
-From the outset of this letter, Peter has focused on the end-time and ultimate hope of believers, a hope that sustains them during their suffering. But this hope is not just something that permits them to cope with suffering; it is in fact the destined calling God has given them.
He made them his people so they could be with him eternally and praise him forever.
-This calling has in it a present condition,
one that is not pleasant: suffering for a while.
-His central message is clear: You must remain faithful to Jesus Christ, despite your social condition and its potential dangers, by living obediently and in community with one another.
-While Satan’s assaults here are understood as his attempts to get Christians to crumble in the face of persecution,
We can surely infer that this is but one method of getting Christians sidetracked from doing God’s will.
-Christians resist Satan by refusing to succumb to his temptations to deny the Lord and to be faithless and fearful in the midst of suffering.
We have the examples of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane
Of Jesus’ suffering but remaining faithful to the will of the Father
-Jesus is the Good Shepherd we follow and learn from
In the ways He leads and everything He taught us
But also in the way He humbled Himself to God’s will
And His dependence on the Word of God to remain faithful amid all trials, temptations and suffering
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