Participants: Tom Shepherd & Deyvy Rodriguez
Series Code: PBOTB
Program Code: PBOTB00004B
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00:01 Welcome back friends.
00:02 We're talking about the role 00:04 of the "Word of God and Salvation." 00:05 Dr. Shepherd, so what is this passage 00:07 tells us about salvation? All right. 00:09 Well, if you notice in starting verse 10, 00:12 it says concerning this salvation, 00:15 we had talked abouts alvation in the previous passage 00:19 and how they were looking forward 00:21 to salvation, salvation in last days, 00:24 or eschatological kind of concept. 00:26 So concerning this salvation, 00:29 it says that the prophets, and these prophets 00:33 are the Old Testament prophets, are looking 00:36 into this issue of salvation. 00:39 Now let me just kind of give a summary of the concept 00:41 of salvation that is found in 1 Peter, all right. 00:47 In 1 Peter, God has the primacy in the issue of salvation. 00:53 It's always God who saves people 00:55 we never save ourselves. 00:57 There is not something we do that brings us new birth 01:00 or something that gives us the new covenant. 01:02 It's God who acts first. So God is always primary. 01:06 But there is human response. 01:09 Humans response of believe first and then of love 01:14 and faith and joy that flows out of that. 01:19 And a obedient lifestyle, a holy moral life 01:23 that is part and parcel of the experience 01:25 of being in covenant with God. 01:28 It is directed towards God and His Holiness. 01:33 And there is a separation that takes place 01:36 in the salvation experience from the formal way of life 01:41 that was impure. 01:42 That's another concept that we'll see flows 01:46 through this book. 01:48 But interestingly enough, there is also 01:51 a very strong concept of witness 01:54 of sharing your faith with other people. 01:59 And of them having contact with you, 02:00 and actually being one over to faith 02:04 through this experience. 02:06 And of course there is this future orientation 02:10 about salvation that is going to come when Jesus returns, 02:14 at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 02:16 at His second coming. 02:17 So it's quite a holistic kind of view of salvation 02:23 that experienced, you experience it now, 02:25 the new birth, the life experience. 02:26 But it leads you through life and it takes you 02:30 to that great goal that comes in your future. 02:33 That's the idea of salvation in 1 Peter. 02:35 You know, Dr. Shepherd, 02:36 recently I was talking to an older man, an elderly man. 02:40 He--his wife had passed away a few years ago. 02:44 He had a fight with his son and so his son, 02:48 he hadn't seen him for about a year. 02:49 You know, he was totally lonely at home. 02:51 And so we were having this conversation and suddenly 02:54 we began talking about religion. 02:56 And so I asked him, what is your favorite book of the Bible? 03:00 And so he from only just thought about it 03:02 and he said, my favorite book of Bible 03:05 is the current one i'm reading. 03:07 And his message really was that regardless of whichever-- 03:11 wherever he is reading, 03:13 there's always something that just comes out 03:15 like a message that God is speaking to him at that time. 03:19 And it's totally true. 03:20 You know, if I'm reading whether the Psalms, 03:22 or Proverbs, revelation, the gospels there is always 03:28 it kind of like, oh, this is my favorite book now 03:31 because there's always that message 03:32 that God is wanting to say to me 03:34 maybe something that He wants to allow me 03:37 to change in my life. 03:39 Yeah. Yeah. 03:41 This passage that we're looking out here 03:43 in Peter 1:10-12, has a-- 03:48 an intersecting kind of perspective to it. 03:51 It doesn't just talk about what the Holy Spirit does? 03:55 Actually there is a chain of revelation that takes place. 04:00 We have a graphic here that shows us, 04:02 which you can look at and see. 04:05 It displays "The Chain of revelation" that God has-- 04:10 we say God is working from the past into the present 04:15 and into the future to save His people. 04:16 So He started long ago. 04:19 He is working now and He is got the plans 04:21 for the future, but you notice 04:22 that the Spirit is the first step in the chain. 04:25 He indicated, the Spirit indicated things. 04:28 Then the prophets are involved 04:30 because they received the message. 04:32 And we're gonna talk about 04:33 the inspiration of the prophets. 04:35 That's where we come to Second Peter. 04:36 We'll have more to say about that 04:38 and Peter has very important things to say 04:40 about the issue of how inspiration works 04:44 and how the scriptures were given. 04:46 And then it's revealed to them that they're serving you. 04:50 And then the evangelists proclaim to you. 04:53 Now who in the world were these evangelists? 04:56 Well, they were the people who brought the Gospel message 05:02 to these people and, you know, Cappadocia, 05:07 Bethania, Pontos, Asia and so forth. 05:10 Probably it's the people that Peter evangelized 05:13 on the day of Pentecost. 05:15 We have reference in Acts Chapter 2 05:17 that there were people from some of those provinces 05:20 and they went back to Cappadocia and Asia and Pontos 05:25 and then they started to share the message. 05:27 These were the evangelists to say. 05:29 So there is a chain that is involved 05:32 in evangelistic work. 05:35 Sometimes people get the idea 05:36 that that they don't need to do evangelistic work. 05:41 That-- you know, God will reach out 05:44 to those people in some way 05:46 and--and I don't need to do anything forJesus. 05:50 Well, that's certainly not what the Bible says. 05:53 Jesus said go and make disciples. 05:57 We are not sort of "off the hook." 06:00 You know, to say, no I can't go and you know, 06:03 I don't know what to do that. 06:04 I told you about this experience of our little church. 06:08 And they were two of us 06:09 who were doing the main speaking, pastor Thomas 06:12 and I were doing the main speaking. 06:14 But there were so many people 06:15 in the church who were involved. 06:16 They were involved in advertising 06:18 and the pre-work going out to the community of Mills, 06:23 of registration and it was just such a wonderful feeling 06:27 to have so many people linked together, 06:30 giving--bring in the way, being part of the chain. 06:33 So not, even though not everyone was the speaker 06:37 though formed part of that evangelism. Yes. 06:40 I have this goal, you know, I planned to hopefully make 06:44 some write up on our little campaign 06:46 and what we did our little evangelistic work. 06:49 And what I like to do is have a picture, 06:52 pretty much the faces. 06:54 I don't like these pictures where it's way up 06:56 to adjacent and you can say, who is that? 06:58 Well, that's me right there. 07:00 You know, little tiny of it, you know. 07:02 I much rather have the faces of the people. 07:04 And have the faces of the people that, you know, 07:06 baptize coming to the church 07:08 and they are right in the middle. 07:09 And then all these other people around them, 07:10 you know, faces around them, you know. 07:12 Just everybody pushed together and it's a team 07:15 that's together sharing the word of God. 07:17 So that was going on here. 07:21 So if we look at verse 10, 07:25 we see it says concerning the salvation of the prophets, 07:28 who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, 07:30 searched and enquired carefully. 07:33 So, what is this grace 07:35 that Peter is talking about in verse 10? 07:37 Yeah. It's interesting. 07:39 It's one word that kind of summarizes everything 07:43 he's already said up to this point in the book. 07:45 When he's been talking about the salvation, 07:47 about this covenant, about all the--now one word like 07:50 it summarizes the whole thing from. 07:52 He could summarize on the word salvation 07:54 and He also summarizes by the word Grace. 07:58 It's a unmerited favor 08:01 that you have received from the God. 08:02 You didn't deserve it, but He's graciously, 08:05 He's given it to you. Okay. 08:07 So we have this beautiful chain of salvation that takes place. 08:11 And that comes to us. 08:14 But there's a little bit of a surprise in these verses. 08:18 And is this passage about revelation or research? 08:21 Yeah, that's the thing is funny. 08:24 This idea of research-- we have another visual here, 08:31 another graphic for you. 08:33 It talks about words of revelation 08:36 and words of research that appears just 08:39 in these three verses 10, 11 and 12. 08:42 Look at the words on the one side of revelation, 08:45 words of revelation. 08:46 It says reveal or show, prophets and prophecy. 08:50 Announce, Evangelize, send, Angel messenger. 08:53 These are all words of revelation. 08:56 But on the other side, we have words of research. 08:59 The prophets we're seeking out. 09:01 They were seeking for. They were searching. 09:04 The desire to know it and the angels want 09:09 to stoop down and look into it. 09:12 You know, you're like, wow. 09:15 There is an awful lot of looking going on here. 09:19 I thought it was all about revelation, 09:23 you know, Him showing. 09:25 No, it's not about just about the revelation. 09:26 It's about us looking and researching. 09:31 See some people think they don't need to study the Bible 09:35 that the message is just on the surface 09:39 as you don't need to look very deeply to get it. 09:42 Oh, no. 09:43 You've to go deep into the scriptures 09:45 if you want to understand His message well. 09:47 And I teach students New Testament 09:51 and of course so then I'm a great believe in Greek. 09:54 At one time I had a student, graduates of one of our 09:58 and of course so college's state. 10:00 Dr. Shepherd he said, why should 10:02 we study Greek and Hebrew? 10:05 Well, asking a New Testament professor 10:07 that was kind of like shaking a red cloth 10:09 in front of a bull, you know 10:11 but I kind of held back a little bit 10:13 and it's like the Lord test me with inspiration at that point. 10:16 I said, young man, I said I have a one word answer for you. 10:19 I said intimacy. 10:22 Intimacy with the word of God 10:24 that's why we study Greek in Hebrew. 10:26 And then I said something he could understand. 10:28 Well, I said, would you rather have a goodnight 10:30 handshake or a goodnight kiss? 10:33 Intimacy, you see, intimacy with the word of God 10:35 is what we're looking for. 10:37 And we have--so we have to study the scriptures. 10:39 Not simply just react to them or something. 10:43 We need to have this research going on and reviewing 10:48 the revelation and looking to it. 10:49 Now it's very interesting 10:52 what happened to the prophets when they did this? 10:57 It says that they were searching 11:00 and they were inquiring carefully, you see, 11:03 trying to figure it out. 11:05 Inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ 11:08 in them was indicating when he predicted 11:10 the efforts Christ in such glory. 11:12 So they're really doing careful research. 11:14 They're getting the Bibles open. 11:16 They're trying to understand, 11:17 what's this prophecy that God has given Him? 11:19 What's it pointing towards? 11:21 And then comes a special revelation, verse 12. 11:25 It was revealed to them, not simply the prophecy. 11:30 It was revealed to them 11:32 that they were not serving themselves, but you. 11:38 The revelation that came to them was, 11:41 look what I'm giving you isn't simply for you 11:44 it's for other people. 11:46 Now that--I suppose they might have been 11:48 little disappointed by that saying. 11:50 Oh, I thought it was for me. This came to me. 11:53 Dr. Shepherd, what is this verse tells about evangelism? 11:57 Does it have message on that? Oh, yes. 11:59 Yeah, the message is that you need to be involved 12:05 in sharing the word of God and brig it to other people. 12:08 You see, when it says that the people brought 12:13 the message to you that's kind 12:15 of the role that we're suppose to have, 12:16 we're suppose to share this message. 12:18 For the last 15 years or so I've been involved 12:21 in ministry to the dorms at the different colleges 12:26 where I've been, first at Union College 12:27 now at Andrew's University. 12:30 I was concerned about the young man 12:32 and about their spiritual life and so I started to think about 12:37 how could I go to them? 12:38 What can I do? 12:40 My wife made a great suggestion. 12:41 She would make choc chip cookies for me to carry. 12:43 I'm now known as the cookie man. 12:46 But I knock on the doors and I go 12:48 and I search out the young men and I pray with them. 12:51 And then in 15 years I can probably count on one hand 12:54 the number of people who said, no, don't pray for me. 12:57 And so it's been a very wonderful experience 13:00 taking to them just a simple message of prayer to them. 13:05 But there is something special that came to me. 13:08 Perhaps it came to the Old Testament prophets as well. 13:11 I found out that when I ministered 13:13 to these young people that I was more blessed 13:18 than they were. That's right. 13:20 The blessing came to me as much or more as it came to them. 13:25 I think when we take the message of the Gospel to the others, 13:28 it reacts back on us to bring. 13:30 They bring them a blessing 13:32 and it comes back on us to a blessing. 13:34 I invite you to do this as well as 13:36 we will continue in the next few days 13:39 looking at this wonderful book of 1 peter. |
Revised 2014-12-17