The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

A GODLY MARRIAGE (1 Peter 3:1-7)

The institution of marriage, as it was created by God, is a wonderful thing.  It is defined in the Bible as one man and one woman choosing to love God first and then each other next.  They work together to accomplish the will of God in their lives.  They are true yokemates working together to please God.  Marriage is something which God has given to the entire human family, not just to Christians or to the nation Israel.  In the Book of Genesis, we are told that God made man and at that time man was alone.  I think the Lord let Adam be alone for a long time to let him know he was missing something.  Then Scripture says that God took man and from man He made woman.  Using the Hebrew words, Genesis 2:23 reads, She shall be called Isha, because she was taken out of Ish.  She is called … an help meet for him (Gen. 2:18); that is, a help that was fit for him.  In other words, she was to be the other half of him. He was only half a man, and she was to be the other part of him. 

In God’s blueprint for marriage, He has assigned roles for both the wife and the husband.  A godly wife was a woman who has a healthy fear and respect of God.  A woman who is obedient to God’s will for her life.  A woman who seeks to fit into the needs of her husband as they work together to accomplish the tasks that God has assigned to them.  She is also a woman who is submissive to her husband.  Now, when Peter says to the wives, Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, it absolutely does not mean that the wife is to be a slave to her husband.  The Bible does not teach that in any form or way.  What is does teach is that a woman is to make a voluntary choice to be submissive to her husband because of her love for God.  The Christian wife, in obedience to her Lord, subjects herself to her husband’s leadership, authority, and control.  She does this because she fears God, because she loves God, and her duty, just like the husband’s, is to be obedient to God’s will for her life.  

Now, this is important to understand, none of this means that men are superior to women or that women are inferior to men.  They have simply agreed to work together with the husband leading.  In the marriage relationship, it simply means that God insists on order in the home.  To establish that order, He assigns the respective roles to the husband and the wife.  There cannot be two captains on a ship; neither can there be two people at the helm in the home.

Godly husbands are to be considerate of their wives.  Men are not to ride roughshod over their wives, bossing and bullying them, ordering them around, letting them do hard labor which is beyond their strength, or making unreasonable demands upon them.  Peter says that godly husbands and wives are heirs together of the grace of life.  This means you both are co-heirs of God’s grace.  You both are saved from your sin.  You both are joint heirs with Christ.  You both are adopted children of God.  You both have been granted eternal life by God’s grace.  The husband and the wife are partners.  They must work together. They have something more than marriage vows to bond them together.  They have Christ. They are heirs together of God's gracious gift of everlasting life.  They are true yokemates.  They should work together to establish a Christian home, to bring up children in the ways of the Lord, to provide a measure of stability to a community, and to be the moral and spiritual backbone of the nation.

A godly husband is to dwell with them according to knowledge.  For a husband to deal with his wife in the way that God wants him to do, the husband must know and understand several things.  First, he must know God’s desire for the marriage relationship.  This means he knows what marriage is and what it is to be in the eyes of God.  Next, he must know his wife.  This means he knows her nature and emotional makeup, what she needs and wants emotionally and spiritually, her strengths and her weaknesses.  He must also know the word of God.  You cannot be the spiritual leader of your home if you do not know what God says in His Word.  The husband has the responsibility to guide the family in the will of God.  In order to do this, the husband must know the Word of God.  It is amazing how easy it is for a wife to submit herself to a husband that is who and what God says he is supposed to be.  

With that in mind, you can see that the marriage relationship is not to be one of a man insisting on treating his wife like a little child who has to jump every time he says so.  She is there to help him. She is there to be a part of him.  She is there to love him. And he is there to love her, guide her in the ways of God, and protect her.  That is God’s desire for the relationship of a man and woman in marriage.  This is how a husband is to treat his wife, and this is how a wife is to treat her husband.  They both do this because they love God first, and then each other next.  

Listen to this podcast to learn what God defines as a godly marriage.

OUR MISSION IS TO GLORIFY GOD (1 Peter 2:12-13a)

Last week we began talking about how the believer is to live a separated life by his behavior.  In other words, people should see a difference in us by our behavior.  They are to see in us a type of behavior that brings glory to God.  

We are a chosen people, we have a special position before God, we are separated by birth because we are the adopted children of God, we are no longer the slaves of Satan, we are separated by our new birth.  

We are a people separated by our belief, our faith is in Christ, our beliefs are unlike any other man-made religion, we believe in our salvation by God’s grace and the precious blood of a risen Savior, not man’s works and efforts.  We are separated by our belief.

We are also a people who should live lives that show a new attitude toward the world around us.  We are to be strangers and pilgrims in this world that is no longer our home.  The world is defined as the society around us, with God left out.  God is deliberately not welcome in the minds and hearts of most people in our society.  Neither are His adopted children, Christians.  

We are strangers in this world.  We are away from our home.  We are in this world, but we are not of this world.  

We are also pilgrims in this world because we are on our path back home.  Our eye is on the goal of completing our mission that God has given us.  The mission of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with a dark world.  

Peter is telling us that our goodness, a goodness that is to be something beautiful to behold, is how we are to behave.  This goodness is to include our obedience of the laws of man.  Christians will be, and have been, accused of horrendous crimes, of hatred, and of violence.  These are lies on a grand scale, and God wants our behavior to prove that these things are false.  Our behavior is to be such that when the world sees a Christian, they are to say that their behavior brings glory to the God that they serve.  In other words, we are God's people in a world of lost people.  Our behavior is to reflect the goodness of God who has sent us here as His personal ambassadors.  This goodness, that is witnessed by others, is to be a result of our separation.

This is the basis for everything Peter teaches in this passage.  We are a chosen people who have been saved, reborn, and given a mission from God.  That mission is to serve God.  It is to be a witness for Him, to lead others to Christ, and to bring glory to God.  That is our mission.  Everything else takes a back seat.  

God has commanded us to live separated lives.  He has given us His definition of the words good, moral, evil, and amoral.  We do not get to change those definitions as the world has done.  Our lives are to meet His standards so that we can represent Him and bring glory to His name.  The world is to know God by what they see in us.  

DOES THE WORLD SEE GOD IN YOU? (1 Peter 2:11)

If I were to describe someone as a good person, a moral person, what does that mean to you?  If I were to describe someone as an evil person, an amoral person, what does that mean to you?  Where do the definitions of the words good, moral, evil, and amoral come from? Are these words relative?  Are some people better than others, or more evil than others?

Do those words, good, moral, evil, and amoral, have the same meaning today as they did 10 years ago, 20 years ago, even 40 years ago?  I don’t think so, so why has the world changed the definition of what good and moral behavior means?  Why does the world want a different definition of these words?

As with all words, the meaning depends on the dictionary that you use for it.  For example, if I say the word resurrection as it relates to Christ, I mean the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  I get my definition from the Word of God, the Bible is my dictionary.  Many Christian religions, and some non-Christian religions, believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they have a different definition for the word resurrection.  They may believe in a spiritual only resurrection, or maybe a symbolic resurrection, but not a physical resurrection.  They say the same words, but they use a different dictionary to define the word, so we have to be careful to know which dictionary we are using when we say the words good, moral, evil, and amoral.  

The answer to the question of why the world has changed the definition of these words is because God’s definition of these words, as He defines them in the Bible, are too restrictive.  They don’t fit in with the new morality.  So over time, man has chosen a different dictionary to define these words, they have moved away from God’s definitions in the Bible, to a definition of their own creation.  The further man moves from the definitions of the Bible, the more evil behavior is called good, and good behavior is called bad.  God warns us of this in His Word.

Isa 5:20

20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

KJV

We live in a society today where homosexuality and lesbianism are called good.  Men can call themselves a woman, have some surgery, and they are called brave, heroes, and good.  It was not long ago that the country had a different name for these types of behavior, but now we are told we must accept evil and amoral behavior as good and moral.  In fact, we must go further than just accepting them, we must agree with the world and call them good and moral, or face persecution.

We live in a society today where God’s definitions of good, moral, evil, amoral, and those who preach, teach, and try to live by these definitions are the ones called evil and hateful.  Jesus tells how we should react to these descriptions.

Luke 6:22

22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.

KJV

So, let me ask you, are you feeling blessed these days?

Our lesson today is about why God wants His followers to live their lives by His definition of the words good, moral, evil, and amoral.  We are to be different from the world, not weird different, but a good difference.  A difference that people will notice and be drawn to.  We will never be perfect by God’s standards, but we are to live our lives more like Christ lived His life every day.  God has a purpose in this desire for us.  We are to be a separated people, not isolated, but separated from the world’s definitions.  We are God’s special people, a peculiar people, a chosen people.  We are His ambassadors and our lives should show it.  

OUR RESPONSE TO GOD'S GRACE (1 Peter 2:9b-10)

Today is Mother’s Day.  It is a special day for everyone, because no matter who you are, you had a Mother.  You may not know who your Mother was.  You may not have had a very good Mother, but if you are like most people, your Mother is very special to you.  Your Mom was there when you fell.  She was there when you cried out in fear of the darkness.  She was there when you hit a home run, or when you struck out for the third time that day, and she was there when you walked across the stage as a graduate.  She loved you no matter what.  She loved you when you didn’t call her, when you didn’t come by to see her, and even when you forgot her on Mother’s Day.  She just loved you.  How do you respond to that kind of love, to that kind of grace?

Do you tell other people how great she was?  Do you tell your children what a great mom you had?  Do you do your best to make her proud of you, of what you have become?  Not everyone’s Mom is still with us.  In fact, in a class with people of our age, some of our mom’s passed away some time ago.  I firmly believe that my Mother is looking down from heaven on me and my sister and brother, and she is checking up on us to make sure we are doing what she taught us to do.  My guess is that she has a conversation with Jesus every once in a while telling Him what she thinks of us.  

How do you respond to that kind of love and grace?

Our lesson today is about several things, we are going to finish up our discussion on our position before God, about the mercy and grace that God has shown us, but we are also going to talk about how we are to respond to our God who has loved us so much, and has shared His grace upon us.

How do you respond to that kind of love and grace?  Pretty amazing isn’t it?  Listen to this podcast to learn how to respond to God’s grace.  

OUR POSITION BEFORE GOD (1 Peter 2:8-9a)

If I were to ask you what your position in this world was, what would you say?  What is it that you are identified by?

Are you one of the social elite?  Not many of us would say yes to that, even if we were.  It would not be politically correct to be so crass.  If you are such a person, you just know it, and live it, you don’t have to brag about it, and people just identify you as such.  

Are you a victim of something?  That is the popular position to be in today, because if you are a victim of some type of injustice, then society owes you something.  You have the supposed right to take away something from your victimizer, and declare it as yours, whether you earned it or not.  If you can get the government to do it for you, even better.  You can usually be identified as a victim by the anger in your actions and your words, your intolerance of others, and the chip on your shoulder.  

Are you a proud member of the middle class?  Hard working, providing for your family.  You are a blue collar worker with a strong back and calloused hands to prove it.  You are identified by your work.

Are you a parent?  Which means you are a provider, a cook, a teacher, a caregiver, a protector, among a hundred other things.  This is what you are identified by, the family that you raise.   

Do you have a position in a religion?  Are you a priest, a preacher, a bishop, a cardinal, a deacon, a deaconess, a choir member, a Bible teacher, a back row Baptist, or a member of the amen pew?  Are you identified by the collar you wear, the cross around your neck, the ring on your finger, or the religious book that you carry around with you, be it the Bible, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, or the New Testament that you have in your pocket?  

What is your position in this world?  What are you identified by?  When someone introduces you, how do they describe you?

Our lesson today is about the position that we have before God, both the believer and the non-believer.  

Last week we discussed Christ as the Living Stone, the foundation stone of the church today.  Christ was rejected as not fitting in with the ideas of the Messiah that the Jews had, so He was killed, but God raised Him from the grave, and now He is our Royal High Priest serving in the Holy Tabernacle of Heaven.  He is the rock that our faith is built upon.  

As believers we are members of the family of God, joint-heirs with Christ, and royal priests, in the same manner of Christ.  That is our position before God.  But, what about the person who rejects Christ?  What is their position before the Living Stone that is Christ?

 

Listen to this podcast to learn your position before God.

CHRIST IS THE LIVING STONE (1 Peter 2:4-7)

When we think of building a home, we spend a lot of time thinking about how many rooms we want to have, how big they should be, should we use carpets on the floor or some kind of tile or wood; what kind of countertops, marble, Formica, tile, or even solid wood; what color the outside of the house should be, do you want a deck or a fence in the backyard.  Everything we spend the most time on is generally on the appearance of the home, and the functionality of the rooms, and that is understandable because that is what we see and use the most.  

I would hazard a guess that, other than deciding on whether or not to have a basement, most of us will not even spend 5 minutes making sure the house has a solid foundation to be built on.  As Jesus said in His parable of the two builders, there are wise builders and there are foolish builders.

Matt 7:24-27

24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

KJV

The foundation of our home may not be the thing we think about the most, but the truth is, if the foundation of your home is not solid, the winds and storms of Kansas will blow all of that nice exterior and interior beauty away in just a brief moment.  In fact, after a tornado, often the only thing left is the foundation of the home.  

The spiritual house of our church and our own spiritual life, depend on having a solid foundation.  You can have the best music program, the most entertaining sermons, even the best youth programs, but if your spiritual house is not built on a faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God, then, you will have nothing but disappointment when the storms of tragedy come blowing into your life.  

1 Cor 3:11

11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

KJV

This is what our lesson is about today.  Jesus Christ as the Living Stone that is to be the foundation that our spiritual house is built upon.

THE SOURCE OF POWER IN A CHRISTIAN LIFE (1 Peter 1:22-25)

Have you ever been told by someone in authority that you are to go do something that you don’t believe is within your capability to do?  At my workplace, we move people around to different roles a lot.  With a large part of the employees, they are moving to a different role about every two years.  This means that they have to quickly learn how to do a particular role, and then just when they get a basic understanding of how to do it, they move on to another role.  

Quite often they will move a very young, inexperienced, person into a position of greater responsibility and expect them to sink or swim.  I often hear people say that they were intimidated by the responsibility of the new role, and that they did not feel capable of doing it.  However, the company philosophy is one of if you have the right virtues, talents, and philosophies, then they can put you just about anywhere, and you will succeed.  It can be a bit daunting at times.  

The one thing the company does do is provide the right tools to help a person who is humble enough to ask for the help.  I have watched as a person will try to succeed by his own wit and knowledge, and almost always, you will see them fail, many times quite miserably.  I have watched others who were humble enough to ask for help and they can often succeed.  The corporate world can be a real meat grinder of people.  The proud can rise, but they can also fall quite hard.   

The demand that God puts on us as believers is very similar to this.  You take a brand new Christian, and you immediately give them the elevated standing of an ambassador to the almighty Creator of all things.  You then tell them all of the things that God has done for them to provide them with eternal life and redemption, much as Peter has been doing over the last several weeks, and then you tell them all of the things that this new standing, or position, requires of them.  

They are to hate sin, they are to live a life that is uniquely different from the life they led before, and the life of the lost people all around them.  They are to tell people about the gospel message of Christ, but more than that because words can be hollow, they are to live a life that is a testimony to the Christ they serve.  They are to be a light in the darkness drawing people to them so that they can lead them to the cross of Jesus.  

It is easy to be intimidated by this requirement of a holy life.  Yet, God formed His plan of redemption for us from the foundation of time.  That plan included the tools and resources that the new-born Christian could depend on to accomplish the task that God had given them.  They just have to be humble enough to ask for the help.  It is absolutely impossible to live a holy life that is acceptable to God under your own wit and knowledge.  You simply cannot do it on your own.  You must use the power and tools that God is offering you, or you will fail, and fail miserably.  

Those tools and resources are the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, and the living, indestructible, incorruptible, and eternal, Word of God.  It is the Holy Spirit and the Word of God who are the true source of power in a Christian life.  God has provided them as part of His plan of redemption, you just have to be humble enough to seek them out and use them.  This is what our lesson is about today.  Listen to this podcast to learn the true source of power for the Christian to live a holy life.   

GOD'S PLAN OF REDEMPTION (1 Peter 1:19-21)

God has a plan for your redemption.  God was not taken by surprise by the fall of man.  It was foreknown by God.  If God acted in creation, He knew He would eventually have to act in redemption.  He also knew that all three persons of the Godhead would have to be involved.

So, before God ever spoke the words that began creation, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit conceived the plan to redeem Adam's ruined race.  It was foreordained before the foundation of the world that, when the fullness of the time was come, God the Son would enter into human life.  He would become the Babe of Bethlehem and then, in due time, the Lamb of Calvary.  Our redemption was no afterthought with God.  It was part of a plan.  

Christ was the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world because God knew that you and I would need a Savior, and He loved us enough to provide that Savior.  The Biblical concept of foreordination is just that simple, we only needed a God with a great big heart of love who provided redemption by His grace. 

John 3:16-18

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

KJV

This is God’s plan of redemption.  God loves you enough to offer salvation by grace.

Revelation 13:8

8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

KJV

Whether man wants to acknowledge the existence of God or not. Whether man wants to accept God’s plan of redemption, or not.  God’s plan states that from the foundation of the world, God planned for all mankind, saved or not, to worship Him.  If you want to find God’s salvation, then the object of your faith must be in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  God very reasonably declares…

1 John 5:9-12

9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.

10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.

11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

KJV

Our redemption has been a part of God’s eternal plan.  Our response to that plan demands that we accept the redemption offered by God, to live a holy life as set out by the Scripture, and to do the work that God has sent us here to do.  

Listen to this podcast to learn about God’s plan for your redemption.

TO BE ELECTED BY GOD (1 Peter 1:1b to 2a)

The Bible emphatically teaches the doctrine of election, and this is a doctrine that has caused endless debates and disputes throughout the ages.  People will either go off the deep end into hyper-Calvinism with this doctrine, or they avoid it like the plague because they don’t understand it.  When it really is quite simple to understand.  Man complicates it by assuming that God cannot know anything that man does not know.  That really is the heart of the problem for man in understanding this doctrine.  

However, the truth is that man’s mind is limited, and God’s mind is unlimited.  Man’s capacity to know things is finite, and God’s knowledge is infinite.  Man’s knowledge is bounded by the constraints of time, it encompasses what has happened in the past and what is happening right now.  Man can only guess at the future.  

God created the concept of time so His knowledge is unconstrained by time.  He knows all things from before time began until well past the day when eternity makes time irrelevant, and He knows it all at the same time.  God cannot learn anything, since by definition He already knows it all.  

In today’s lesson, Peter gives us his own inspired insight into the subject.  He bluntly declares that our election is based on God’s foreknowledge.  Without hesitation, or qualification, Peter says that God has elected a certain company to become members of the royal family of heaven.  However, God does this and never violates our own volition, or our own right to choose.  God woos, He does not ravage.  He does not endow His creations with wills of their own, with the power of choice and personal accountability for their behavior, and then act as though they had no such thing.  

God’s election of certain members of the human family to become members of the royal family takes into account the response of each individual when confronted by the Holy Spirit with the offer of salvation.  While this may sound difficult to understand, the simple truth of it is that if you want to be a part of the elect of God, then choose Christ when the Holy Spirit presents salvation to you.  

Salvation boils down to one question, will you accept or reject Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master.  

If you say yes, then you will become part of the elect of God, and you will spend eternity in heaven with Christ.  

If you say no, then you will not be part of the elect of God, and you will spend eternity burning in the fires of Hell, forever without the light of God.  

Listen to this powerful Biblical doctrine of God’s foreknowledge and how it can bless you because God knows who you are, where you are, what you are going through, and He has a plan for you.  If you are believer, then God will empower you to deal with any persecution or trial that you may be going through.  He knew about this before it ever occurred and He has prepared you for it, and He is with you every step of the way.  

GOD'S PLAN WILL BE DONE (Romans 16:21-27)

One of the great Biblical promises that we have as believers is that God’s plan will be done.  No matter what man does to mess things up in this world, no matter what schemes and plots that Satan has for this world, God’s plan will be done.  It will be done just like He set it up to be done before He created the universe and everything in it.  Nothing has changed in this plan, and nothing will change.  God’s plan will be done, period.  

The fact that I know this promise of God to be true is comforting to me, and that is why God gave us this promise, so that we could be comforted knowing that God was in control.  Paul closes out this epistle with a declaration of this promise.  The almighty God of the Bible is the everlasting God, and His purposes and His goals are pursued by Him from age to age.  Christians may be feeble and frail, but God is strong.  The church may look like it is weak and divided, but it is the body of Christ and therefore it is linked to Omnipotence.  Whatever else may fail, the work of God cannot.  

Paul draws our thoughts to Him whose loving counsels foresaw the fall of man, provided for it before the foundation of the world, foreknew us, foreknew you and me, loved us into the kingdom, and who arranges for all things to work together for our good and His eternal glory.  Paul also draws our thoughts to the Son of His love, our blessed and glorious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  And having filled our hearts and mind with these thoughts, Paul says a final Amen to this great epistle.