Participants: Tom Shepherd & Deyvy Rodriguez
Series Code: PBOTB
Program Code: PBOTB00015B
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00:01 And we're back with "Books of the Book"
00:03 and with us is Dr. Shepherd. 00:04 Dr. Shepherd, why don't we continue in our study? Yes. 00:08 Verses 8 and 9 talks about some values. 00:12 Yes, let's read them again verse--verse 8 says, 00:15 "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, 00:18 since love covers a multitude of sins. 00:21 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling." 00:25 His big emphasis is on the concept of love. 00:29 He talks about it being earnest 00:32 and eager about this question of love. 00:36 It is the love that is supposed to be 00:38 the focus of our life as Christians. 00:40 So one wonders why is love threatened 00:44 when you are talking or thinking about the end of time. 00:47 Why would love be threatened? 00:50 Want to turn over to another passage. 00:52 If you've been noticing we've been reading 1 Peter 00:56 but we also will go to other passages in scripture 00:59 that throw light on what Peter is talking about. 01:03 We're gonna turn over to Revelation 2:1 to 7. 01:08 This is the message of Jesus to the Church of Ephesus 01:14 and He also talks to them about love. 01:20 Revelation 2:1 to 7. Why don't you read it for us. 01:23 "To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, 01:26 'these things says He who holds 01:29 the seven stars in His right hand, 01:31 who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. 01:35 I know your works, your labor, your patience, 01:38 and that you cannot bear those who are evil. 01:41 And you have tested those who say they are apostles 01:44 and are not, and have found them liars, 01:47 and you have persevered and have patience, 01:51 and have labored for My name's sake 01:53 and have not become weary. 01:56 Nevertheless I have this against you, 01:58 that you have left your first love. 02:01 Remember therefore from where you have fallen, 02:04 repent and do the first works, 02:06 or else I will come to you quickly 02:08 and remove your lampstand 02:10 from its place unless you repent. 02:13 But this you have, 02:15 that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, 02:18 which I also hate. 02:20 He who has an ear, let him hear 02:21 what the Spirit says to the churches. 02:24 To him who overcomes I'll give to eat from the tree of life, 02:27 which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." ' 02:30 Okay, now this is the church of-- 02:34 first church of Revelation 02:36 and they are famous for something they lost. 02:40 What did they lose? 02:41 Their first love. Their first love. 02:44 How do people usually interpret that, 02:47 what does that mean they lost their first love? 02:50 Well, it almost sounds like a relationship. 02:53 Maybe, they've met one and they have lost it 02:57 and apparently they have another one. 02:59 Okay, oh, I mean like 03:01 they've got a new person that they care about, 03:03 they don't have the same one that they used to have. Sure. 03:05 They have lost their first love. 03:07 A lot of people tend to think of this 03:09 and they say, well, you know, 03:11 they came into the church and they were active 03:14 and then they lost their first love 03:19 and they became pew potato. 03:23 You've heard of couch potato? I've heard it. 03:26 This is pew potato and they just sit and they-- 03:29 all they do is complain, they don't, you know, 03:31 they're not active for God anymore. 03:33 Well, if you look carefully 03:34 at the message of this church in Ephesus, 03:38 they were anything but inactive. 03:41 They were a very active church. 03:42 He says I know your works, 03:44 your toil, your patient endurance. 03:47 You can't bear those who are evil, 03:48 you've tested them. 03:50 He says I know you're enduring patiently 03:52 and bearing up for my namesake. 03:54 You've not grown weary. 03:56 So they seem like a very, very active church 04:00 and they're very careful about what happens 04:03 but he says this is the problem. 04:05 He says, you've lost your first love. 04:08 Well, in that kind of context, 04:11 the first love idea means seems to point 04:14 towards what Jesus said that you should love one another 04:18 and people should know that you're Christians 04:20 because you love one another. 04:23 Here's what happened to the church of Ephesus, 04:24 if you've studied the history of that city and its church 04:28 and the things that happened. 04:30 They became very careful it seems about truth and error. 04:35 Paul warned them in the Book of Acts 04:37 that false teachers would come in, 04:40 they had to be on their guard. 04:42 So, you know, when the apostle warned you 04:44 that you got to be in your guard. 04:45 What do you do? 04:47 You sit up, you're on your guard, 04:48 you know, you're watching something might come along. 04:52 They remembered what I call very strong side of Christianity 04:56 that is stand up for the truth, 04:58 have courage in the face of persecution, 05:01 truth, watchfulness, you know, 05:03 dare to be a Daniel, dare to have a purpose, 05:06 to dare to make it known, you know. 05:07 It takes courage to stand on the plain of Dura 05:10 be thrown into the fiery furnace. 05:12 But they left what I call the weak side of Christianity. 05:17 The weak side is I admit that I'm a sinner, 05:21 I admit that I need Jesus as my Savior. 05:24 I need His love and His grace to come and heal my problems. 05:28 I need to watch out for those who are lost 05:30 and help them come back to Jesus. 05:33 Christianity has a strong side and a weak side. 05:36 They need to stay in balance 05:38 with one another, strong and weak. 05:41 And when one predominates, 05:44 when you get just the strong side, 05:45 you tend to go towards kind of legalism 05:48 that you're watching out for, you know, 05:50 catching anybody going wrong. 05:52 If you go on the weak side, the emphasis on love, 05:55 then you tend to forget, you know, 05:58 the importance of truth and you'll say 05:59 well, anything goes wrong, it doesn't matter what you do, 06:02 you know, God still loves you, you know, it's okay. 06:04 You're always welcome, you know, 06:06 and it's always acceptable whatever you do. 06:08 So you got to have this balance in between 06:11 and sometimes a focus on the end 06:13 can focus maybe on the strong side 06:15 and you forget the weak side, 06:17 so Peter says look, you need to emphasize love, 06:19 you need to keep your focus on that. 06:21 Well, can we better press on? 06:23 Why don't we look at verse 8? 06:25 Peter says for love will cover a multitude of sins 06:28 and apparently he's quoting from another book. 06:31 From the Book of Proverbs. 06:33 Okay. Well, it seems so. 06:35 It's not the text isn't an exact quote 06:39 but in Proverbs 10:12, it says, 06:41 "Hatred stirs up dissension, love covers over all wrongs." 06:45 And is Peter here suggesting that love forgives sins? 06:50 Well, not so much. Not exactly that. 06:52 Love is not forgiving sins here. 06:56 In Proverbs 10, you see there's a parallelism 06:59 between hatred stirs up dissention, 07:02 love covers all wrongs, 07:04 so they stand in opposition to one another 07:06 but instead he's--he's not suggesting a cover up of sin. 07:11 You know, so that if you can do whatever you want 07:13 but instead he's teaching that love is forbearing, 07:16 love deals with other people patiently and cares for them 07:21 it's similar to Jesus words in Matthew 18 07:24 were he says that if your brother sins, 07:27 you go to him yourself and you talk to him alone 07:30 because you see sin is a shameful thing 07:35 and we shouldn't expose it to lots of people. 07:39 When somebody sins you just go to that person alone. 07:42 Don't tell it to everybody else. 07:44 We do just the opposite to it usually what Jesus said. 07:47 He said go to him alone then take two or three others, 07:49 then tell to the church if they all listen. 07:50 We tell it to the church 07:52 and we never go to the brother by themselves. 07:54 Then they're hurt and there is hypocrisy, 07:57 then there is back biting and there's all kinds of probes. 08:00 We should follow Jesus' method of dealing with issues, 08:02 forbearing with people but working with them 08:05 on individual bases, you know. All right. 08:08 And why don't we go on to verses 10 and 11 here. 08:11 It seems like Peter is now shifting 08:14 to the aspects of service. 08:17 Yes, lets reads those verses again, 08:18 they're quite interesting. 08:20 "As each one has received a gift, 08:22 minister it to one another, 08:25 as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 08:28 If anyone speaks, let him speak of the oracles of God. 08:31 If anyone ministers, let him do it 08:34 as with the ability which God supplies, 08:36 that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, 08:40 to whom belong the glory 08:42 and the dominion forever and ever. Amen." 08:45 All right, very good. 08:47 Now you see here in verse 10 he says, 08:50 "As you've received a gift," 08:52 he is clearly talking about spiritual gifts. 08:54 He doesn't have the long list like Paul tends to have. 08:58 He has kind of a short list 08:59 but we'll see that his short list 09:00 kind of catches everything in its net. 09:03 But he starts off and he says, 09:05 you've received a gift, he said 09:07 so you should use it to serve one another 09:10 and then he uses this interesting word, 09:13 he says, "As good stewards of Gods very grace." 09:18 Do you know what a steward is? What's a steward? 09:21 A steward in my understanding is a good manager. 09:24 A steward, our term today is a manager, okay. 09:28 Now what's the difference between 09:30 the manager of a bank and the owner of a bank? 09:33 Well, the manager has a reasonability role, 09:37 where as the owner doesn't really have 09:40 that big burden of reasonability if something goes wrong. 09:45 The owner can make decisions 09:46 and without really having to contact 09:49 or ask for any type of approval by any. 09:53 All right, so the owner actually owns the thing 09:57 and the manager is taking care of it for the owner, all right. 10:01 So Peter here talks about us being managers 10:06 or stewards of the gifts that God has given us. 10:11 The Adventist Church has this very interesting 10:13 and powerful teaching called stewardship. 10:17 And most people when they think of stewardship, 10:18 they think of money. 10:20 That's right. They think of money. 10:22 Today we're gonna talk about stewardship. 10:24 Ah, they're gonna talk about money. 10:26 Tithe and offerings. Tithes and offerings. 10:28 Actually it's much more than that, it is all of our life. 10:33 Some people think of that 10:34 we're making contributions to the church 10:38 but there's a big difference 10:39 between a contribution and commitment. 10:42 You see, contribution and commitment, 10:44 it's like the story of a pig and a chicken 10:48 talking to each other, made up of course. 10:51 And the farmer was planning 10:53 to have bacon and eggs for breakfast. 10:56 He hadn't heard the health message yet 10:58 and he was planning to have bacon and eggs for breakfast. 11:00 And the pig said to the chicken, "You know, madam Chicken." 11:03 He says, "you are making a contributions 11:07 to this breakfast but for me its total commitment." 11:12 So when we think of this idea of stewardship, 11:16 God has placed into our hands His goods 11:20 they don't belong to us, we are not our own, 11:23 we don't belong to ourselves, we belong to God. 11:25 He says, "You are to use these gifts to bless other people." 11:30 That's the purpose He gives you the gifts for, 11:33 He gives you the gift of live and He gives you opportunities. 11:35 He has two groups of gifts that he refers to, 11:39 He talks about "Speaking" and he talks about "Serving." 11:43 So one you could say is in words and the other is in action. 11:49 Peter focus both of these ideas on God. 11:53 You see, he says, 11:55 "That if you're given the gift of speaking, 11:58 you speaks the oracles of God 12:00 and whoever serves the one 12:01 who serves by the strength that God supplies, 12:04 so that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." 12:09 The goal of our life as Christians 12:12 is to glorify God, not ourselves. 12:15 In the process of blessing others and encouraging them, 12:19 we ourselves are actually lifted up when you glorify God, 12:23 it encourages your heart, 12:24 it brings you up to a higher level. 12:27 That's the purpose of our being in the church. 12:30 Some people will say, "Well, that church is so cold, 12:33 I don't think I want go there." 12:35 Well, they need you. 12:37 If you can see that it's cold, 12:39 then you know what warm is about. 12:42 And God may be calling you to that church, 12:44 so you can warm it up. 12:47 So instead of complaining about what's wrong with the church, 12:50 we need to become part of the solution 12:52 to draw people upward to Christ. 12:55 You know, at the end of this verse he says, "Amen." 12:58 Almost like he's done with the book, 13:00 no he's not done, he's still got 13:01 the whole another section to go 13:03 but this is the conclusion of this section of the book 13:07 and we will be looking at some more in the next show. 13:10 Once again, Dr. Shepherd, 13:11 we want to thank you for being with us again 13:13 in this program "Books of the Book" 13:15 I have been certainly very blessed in hearing these, 13:19 these Bible study we're having together. 13:21 Well, God bless you friends. 13:23 Till next time this has been "Books of the Book." |
Revised 2014-12-17