Participants: Tom Shepherd & Deyvy Rodriguez
Series Code: PBOTB
Program Code: PBOTB00018B
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00:01 And we're back to "Books of the Book"
00:02 with Dr. Tom Shepherd. 00:04 Dr. Shepherd, we were going to read a Psalms, is that right? 00:07 Yeah, we were going to read Psalm 00:08 part we'll read-- we'll read part of the Psalm. 00:10 It Psalm 22 and this is a messianic psalm. 00:14 You will notice when we read it, 00:16 it'll immediately become clear that Jesus 00:20 quotes from this Psalm, when He is on the cross. 00:23 So it's clearly this messianic sense. 00:26 I want you to notice as we read through it, 00:28 how it goes down to depths and it comes back up and then 00:32 goes down into the depths and comes back up, right? 00:36 It starts this way, "My God, my God, 00:39 why have You forsaken me? 00:42 Why are you so far from saving me 00:45 from the words of my groaning. 00:46 O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, 00:50 and by night, but I find no rest. 00:54 Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. 00:58 In You our fathers trusted. 01:00 They trusted and You delivered them. 01:02 To You they cried and were rescued. 01:05 In You they trusted and were not put to shame. 01:09 But I am a worm and not a man, 01:11 scorned by mankind and despised by the people. 01:15 All who see me mock me. 01:18 They make mouths at me, they wag their heads. 01:20 He trusted in the Lord, let Him deliver him. 01:23 Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him. 01:27 Yet You are He who took me forth from the womb. 01:30 You made me trust You at my mother's breasts. 01:34 On You was I cast from my birth. 01:37 And from my mother's womb You have been my God. 01:41 Be not far from me, for trouble is near. 01:44 And there is none to help." 01:47 "Many bulls have surrounded me. 01:49 Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. 01:52 They gape at me with their mouths 01:54 like a raging and roaring lion. 01:56 I am poured out like water, 01:58 and all my bones are out of joint. 02:00 My heart is like wax. It is melted within me. 02:04 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, 02:07 and my tongue cleaves to my jaws. 02:10 You have brought me to the dust of death. 02:12 For dogs have surrounded me, 02:14 the congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. 02:17 They pierced my hands and my feet. 02:20 I can count all my bones. They look and stare at me. 02:24 They divide my garments among them 02:26 and for my clothing they cast lots. 02:29 But You, O Lord, do not be far off. 02:31 O my strength, hasten to my help me. 02:34 Deliver me from the sword. 02:36 My precious life from the power of the dog. 02:38 Save me from the lion's mouth. 02:41 And from the horns of the wild oxen." 02:44 Okay, so it's very clear. 02:47 You get this pattern of almost like 02:51 total despair and then a remembrance, 02:55 no, but God is the deliverer. God will come to my aid. 02:59 Totally left alone, no, but God will rescue me. 03:04 And it's very interesting that the words of Jesus on a cross 03:08 quote from the psalm that's verse one. 03:10 He quotes from that. 03:12 So even His words of anguish are a prayer 03:16 as He, you know, looks to God for help. 03:19 And you get this back and forth so it has two poles. 03:24 The pole of despair and the pole of hope, all right? 03:27 And here back in, this was your question 03:30 that you had asked about what Peter does? 03:34 And you just want to repeat 03:36 that question again so that we are clear. 03:38 So what I noticed in the Psalms we just read 03:40 and mentioned a lion twice. Yeah. 03:43 As an enemy and I don't think I could have come up 03:45 with a better illustration than the one Peter did 03:48 as the devil being like a lion roaring around 03:52 and so what has Peter recommended in response to that? 03:57 Well, if I were out in the open field with a lion, 04:02 I would run as fast as I could. 04:08 Hopefully, I'll have a jeep nearby 04:10 and I get inside my jeep-- That's right. 04:11 Put the windows close. 04:13 But that's not what Peter says to do. 04:15 It's really kind of surprising. He says to withstand him. 04:19 You think of David, you know, he was a brave young man 04:22 and then he said, when there was a lion and took the lamb. 04:24 He says I went, grabbed it and killed it, 04:26 you know, if it was a bear, 04:28 I would hit it with my club or whatever. 04:32 Peter talks here about other Christians. 04:36 He's been talking to the group of Christians 04:37 he's been writing to all through this time. 04:40 And now he refers to other Christians around them. 04:44 He says there's this brotherhood through out the world 04:47 that's going through similar sufferings. 04:49 It's not misery loves company. That's not the idea. 04:54 It's rather the great crowd of faithful witnesses 04:57 that these people are encouraged to stand 05:00 shoulder to shoulder with to be firm and strong. 05:03 It's not just the brotherhood we are to take as our example, 05:06 but Peter indicates that in verse 10, 05:09 God is the one, who will see us through. 05:12 So in that contrast of despair and hope in Psalm 22, 05:16 now we come to the contrast between the devil and God. 05:22 And so my question is what is God's role in this? 05:28 God's role is very beautiful in this passage, okay. 05:31 Peter reminds us of who God is? 05:33 He is the God of all grace. 05:36 He is the God who called us to His eternal glory in Christ. 05:40 He set before us then is a-- 05:44 His resolution of our past by His grace. 05:48 That's where he started the letter. 05:49 This is kind of like the closing 05:51 book end on the letter, you know. 05:53 He started by talking about what God did for our past. 05:56 How that He has secured our future? 05:58 And so we can face the present. 06:01 So even here His resolution of our past by His grace, 06:07 the experience of eternal salvation that is going to come 06:10 at the return of Christ helps us now 06:12 in our present experience of facing the devil. 06:16 So understanding who God is 06:18 and what He has done for us 06:20 and what He is calling us to? 06:22 Does not deny our present experience of suffering, 06:26 but it does modify our view of that sufferings magnitude. 06:30 Peter says it's for a little while. 06:33 And then he uses four beautiful verbs to describe, 06:40 what God is going to do and how He's going to carry things out. 06:43 And these verbs are found in verse 10, 06:49 if you would read verse 10? 06:51 "But may the God of all grace, 06:53 who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, 06:56 after you have suffered a while, 06:58 perfect, establish, 07:00 strengthen, and settle you." 07:03 All right, now we got to kind of slow down 07:05 on those verbs and, you know, 07:07 open them up a little bit, okay. 07:09 The first one is the Greek verb is katharizo 07:12 and it means to put in order or to restore, 07:17 okay, so and to make compete. 07:19 This verb was used to refer to mending nets. 07:24 When they had been torn or to set-in a dislocated limb, 07:30 if your limb got out of joint and the doctor would take 07:32 and get it back into joint, okay? 07:35 So we can say that God is going to restore things. 07:38 He is going to put things back in order. 07:42 Remember, He is the moral orator of the world. 07:44 So all the things in our lives that have been put out of place. 07:48 All of the things where people have done us wrong, 07:51 its never been set right, where we've suffered 07:54 and gone through trials because of our Christian faith. 07:58 He is going to settle all those things. 08:00 He is going to set it right. 08:01 The next verb is sterizo, it means to setup 08:07 or to establish, to fix firmly. 08:12 It's used to refer to setting something firmly down 08:15 like taking a stone and setting it firmly in the ground. 08:18 You have a big stone and you make a hole for it. 08:20 You set it there, so it's not going to move. 08:24 It also means to support, to collaborate, 08:28 to establish and ground something. 08:31 Then the third verb that he uses. 08:33 Nice that he uses four verbs together, 08:35 you know. It's a tough one. 08:39 Sthenao, sthenao and it means to strengthen, 08:43 okay and it's related to a noun 08:45 and that means strength or might, 08:47 especially of bodily strength like bodybuilding. 08:50 You see, you can go to the YMCA and you lift your weights. 08:53 And the last verb is themalio which means to, 08:59 to found or to lay a foundation, to establish. 09:03 So if we think of all of these four verbs together, 09:08 you know these great ideas. 09:10 We kind of get a pattern that goes like this. 09:13 God is going mend the broken nets of your life. 09:19 He is going to set the dislocated limbs 09:23 that had been pulled out of place, 09:25 by our life's trials and troubles. 09:28 He is going to set the stone of your life in a settled place. 09:34 It's been moved from here to there 09:36 by all kinds of trials and troubles. 09:38 He is going to set it in place in a firm place. 09:41 He is gonna build up your body. 09:43 He is gonna take you to the YMCA and make you 09:46 one of those body building people with the big muscles. 09:50 I go to the YMCA to lift weights. 09:51 And one time I saw a guy wearing a shirt, 09:54 one of these guys with the great big muscles, you know. 09:56 And he had something written on the back of his shirt, 09:59 so I was kind of looking at it 10:01 and I looked at, little more closely 10:02 and this quote on the back of his shirt said 10:07 "pain is weakness leaving the body." 10:14 Pain is weakness leaving the body. 10:16 So God is taking you to the YMCA and He is gonna build you up. 10:19 He is gonna give you strong muscles again. 10:22 And He is gonna lay the foundations 10:23 of a new building for you and make your life secure. 10:26 I mean, God will put it in order, 10:30 He will establish you, He will strengthen you, 10:32 He will lay the foundations of your life. 10:34 I mean, you can hardly think of a better way for Him 10:37 to bring things to a conclusion. 10:40 Okay, so what role does verse 11 play then? 10:44 But when you see, what God has done, 10:45 let's read verse 11 it says. Sure. 10:47 "To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen". 10:50 It's a praise, he turns back to praise to God, 10:53 just like he began, you know. 10:54 Blessed be God who has given us this new birth. 10:56 So when you see what God has done 10:59 just like Peter began the book with blessings 11:01 so here he ends the book with this wonderful doxology 11:05 "To him be power forever. Amen". 11:08 Okay, and we are just about to close this letter, 11:11 how does Peter finish off his letter? 11:14 Oh, in verses 12 to 14, 11:17 Peter describes a helper, who is working with him. 11:22 And then he gives a greeting to the church in Rome. 11:25 And he has a final reminder about love within the community. 11:28 The name of the helper was Silvanus 11:32 and this turns out to be Silas. 11:36 In the book of Acts Chapter 15 11:38 and over in 2 Corinthians Chapter 1 11:41 and 1 Thessalonians 1 and 2 Thessalonians 1, 11:44 this guy got around, he was a traveling companion of Paul. 11:48 And evidently, he ends up Peter is in Rome. 11:52 He calls the place Babylon where he is so, 11:55 you know, it's that linkage to Rome. 11:57 And Paul ends up there as well, but Silas does too. 12:02 And so, Silas helps Peter in some way with this letter. 12:06 Now some people think that this means 12:08 that he helped to write the letter. 12:11 But actually the terminology that is used here, 12:13 the Greek terminology through whom I wrote, 12:16 doesn't actually mean the person who wrote the letter. 12:20 What we would call an amanuensis, 12:22 the person taking the words down, 12:25 rather this is referring to the person, 12:26 who would carry the letter. 12:28 So Silvanus is not in jail or stopped 12:32 from moving in place and he can go. 12:34 So he takes the letter for Peter after these people. 12:39 But Peter can't resist just one more expression 12:41 summarizing what the letter is about. 12:43 He says this is the true grace of God 12:46 in which you must stand. 12:49 God's action is summarized by reference to His grace 12:51 and this epitomizes all that He has done for us in Christ. 12:56 Then Peter summarizes what our response must be. 12:59 He says stand in this truth and he affirms its validity 13:05 by calling it the true grace of God. 13:06 Peter then does greetings from the church in Babylon, 13:11 the fellow sister church and he refers to his son Mark, 13:15 who is also becomes the writer of the gospel of Mark. 13:19 And finally his last phrase is 13:21 "Peace to all of you who are in Christ." 13:26 It's such a wonderful book 1 Peter. 13:29 I just love its wonderful power 13:31 and its wonderful theology in the mixing of ideas. 13:35 But now we've come to a conclusion 13:37 of looking at this book. 13:38 And so next time, we will look at 2 Peter. 13:41 And I'm looking forward to our next study. 13:43 And I hope you, too, have been blessed by these studies 13:45 with Dr. Tom Shepherd as I have. 13:48 Well, we hope to see you next time 13:50 in this series of "Books of the Book". 13:52 We are studying now the next series 13:55 on our next program "The Second Book of Peter". 13:58 Till next time, we hope that you have been blessed. 14:00 And don't forget. Pick up the Bible. 14:02 Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you 14:04 as God speaks to you. God bless. |
Revised 2014-12-17