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Each week a new verse-by-verse Bible study podcast given in expository style. Join us and see the Bible come alive as we study the truths that God‘s Word has for us.
Episodes
Sunday Jun 05, 2016
Sunday Jun 05, 2016
So, last week we continued the theme of submitting to the ordinances of man in order that we might bring glory to God. We know that we are going to be persecuted unjustly. The secular world hates Christianity, and they will do everything they can to destroy us. They will tell horrible lies about us. To know this is true, you have only to look at the headlines of our own country. The democratic party, and its progressive agenda, is focused totally on removing God, those who worship Him, and His morals about what is right and wrong from the public square, and for the most part, they have succeeded by telling lies about us.
So why would God command us to obey the laws that these corrupt governments create?
Our submission is limited only by our adherence to God’s laws in priority over man’s law. But, we are to obey man’s law right up to the point that it violates God’s law, and that is difficult to understand why. It is, of course, contrary to our natural desire for justice and fairness. And believe me, nothing is more distasteful that being forced to obey the laws of the moral degenerates who are pushing their progressive agenda. But God says I must. I can and should fight for what is good and moral by God’s definitions, but I must do it within the law.
The key to understanding this seeming paradox is that we must remember that we are the ambassadors of the almighty God, and all of our words, our actions, and our fights, must bring glory to His name, or we have failed Him. Our mission is to change the spiritual hearts of people by introducing them to our Lord Jesus Christ, and let God take care of the rest. Revival can only occur when the heart is changed by God.
In our lesson today, Peter begins to give us an explanation for our submission.
Sunday May 29, 2016
Sunday May 29, 2016
If I were to ask you to give me a list of so-called Christians or Christian groups that give others a bad impression of Christians, and Christianity as a whole, who would you list? My list would include churches that protest military funerals, and violent anti-abortion groups and people. Make no mistake about it, God does not support this type of activity, and it does not bring glory to His name. When one of these groups protest the burial of war veteran, nobody is thinking positive things about the people of God. When an anti-abortionist walks in and shoots people, nobody is thinking positive things about the people or groups that this person represents or the God they claim to worship.
If I were to ask you about the top lies the secular world says about Christians, what would you say? My list would include “They are all a bunch of hypocrites” or “They hate _____people,” fill in the blank with whatever sin you want, be it gay people, drunk people, abortion doctors, or adulterers. While these are certainly lies of the greatest magnitude about true Christians, people who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, they are unfortunately true of a large group of people who claim to be Christians. Once again, make no mistake about it, God does not condone hypocrisy, or hatred of any person, on the part of His true followers. Some of the most vehement words that Jesus spoke while He was on this earth were directed at the hypocritical Pharisees and Sadducees. The Bible does not teach it, nor does God command His followers to behave in this way. In fact, He commands just the opposite.
Mark 12:29-31
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
KJV
You cannot love your neighbor as yourself, and hate them at the same time. God didn’t say love only the good people, He said to love thy neighbor. We are to recognize and proclaim sin for what it is, rebellion against God. We are to recognize those who commit sin as rebels against God. We are to preach and teach people to obey the commandments of God. To behave in a way that is in accordance with God’s definition of good and moral, and to abstain from those things that God calls evil and amoral.
We are to do this with a spirit of love and because we know the eternal consequences of rejecting Jesus Christ and rebelling against God are real and permanent. Hell is real and it is forever. God’s judgment is real, and because we love our neighbors as ourselves, we do not want this for anyone. Our mission is to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ so that He can change the heart of that person, and provide them with eternal life.
The world is going to make up enough lies about us as it is. We are going to be persecuted unjustly. The only defense we have is that our behavior does not match the lies. If someone wants to look for the truth in your life, they should find a law abiding citizen who respects the law of man.
Yet, when we, as Christians, violate man’s laws and become labeled as criminals, when we lie, or steal, or fail to pay our taxes, drive a vehicle while we are drunk, when we commit violent acts, or when we violate God’s commandments, we bring dishonor to the God that we serve. We bring dishonor to the name of those who serve God and we taint the gospel message that we preach. Our actions have to match our words. This is what our lesson is about today, behaving in such a way that when the world tells lies about us, our behavior can set the record straight and bring glory to the God we serve.
Sunday May 22, 2016
Sunday May 22, 2016
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.
Sunday May 15, 2016
Sunday May 15, 2016
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.
Sunday Apr 24, 2016
Sunday Apr 24, 2016
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.
Sunday Apr 17, 2016
Sunday Apr 17, 2016
HOW TO LIVE A HOLY LIFE
When I was a kid growing up, my father would tell me that I needed to choose the people I hung around with very carefully because if you are part of a group, then you will be judged by the behavior of that group. Whether, or not, you actually did whatever the group did, that was how people would think of you. In other words, if you hang out with a group that is always getting into trouble, then people will think of you as a trouble maker. If you hang out the smart people, then you will be judged to be like them whether you really are smart, or not. I am not saying that is fair, it is just the way it is. Life is rarely fair.
I learned this lesson well, and I generally chose to do things the various groups of kids were not doing. As the saying goes, I was country when country wasn’t cool. I turned in my platform shoes and walked all around my college campus wearing cowboy boots. Now, I have to admit, it was at Kansas State University, so it wasn’t all that unusual. I gave up listening to Three Dog Night, Chicago, and Sly and Family Stone as a teenager and started listening to Willie and Waylon, Hank Jr, and Merle Haggard back in the rebel days of country music.
After a while, I switched to traditional country music which included George Strait and the music from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. People like Hank Sr., Patsy Cline, Don Williams, Danny Davis and Nashville brass, and so forth. I even started listening to big band and 40’s club music. Nobody was listening to these guys at that time. It actually became a point in my life to be seen as different from all of the crowd. But being different meant that I was not a part of any particular group. Certainly not, the in-crowd. This was a conscious, and deliberate, decision on my part. I did not want to be associated with the in-crowd, and so I wasn’t.
This actually fit right in with being a Christian during my school years. Living the life of a Christian means you will never be popular, and you will not be a part of the cool kids. In fact, the Bible tells us that we will be hated.
Mark 13:13
13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
KJV
Even knowing that this true, there is to be a conscious, deliberate, decision on the part of a believer, to live a life that is separated from the secular world. Not isolated from the world, for we live in the world, but we are not to be of the world. When people describe you, they should say that there is something different about you, not goofy different, but a good difference. There ought to be something attractive about the way you conduct yourself. There should be a lack of anxiety about all of the things that worry the rest of the world. There should be a humility in your words and your actions. There should be kindness in your actions to others. In fact, people should see Christ shining out of you.
Everything you think about when you consider how Christ lived His life on this earth, ought to be something that you are moving toward, or growing toward as a Christian. This is what living a holy life means. It is living a separated life. One set aside for Christ, dedicated to the work of Christ, and accomplishing the purposes of God in this world.
This is what our lesson is about today, how to live a holy, or a separated life.
Sunday Apr 10, 2016
Sunday Apr 10, 2016
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.
Sunday Mar 20, 2016
Sunday Mar 20, 2016
Do you fear God?
Your answer to this question says a lot about whether or not you truly believe that there is a God, that He is the Creator of all things, including you, and that a day of judgement is coming for you. It also says what you believe about heaven or hell and how God will determine who joins Him in heaven, and who spends eternity in hell.
When we have a healthy fear of the things of this world, it is because they have the ability and the authority to deprive us of our life and the lives of our loved ones, our liberty, and our possessions, although I would define liberty as including our wealth and possessions. For example, I have a healthy fear of the IRS, not because I have ever failed to pay my taxes as required, but because they have an almost unlimited ability to change my life by taking things away from me, and they have a very spotty record of being accurate in their judgments.
It is a sad statement that man has more fear of the institutions created by man, than they do of their own Creator. Some of this can be attributed to the immediacy and the visibility of the institutions created by man. We can see them, we know they exist, and the judgment date can be established as a day on the calendar. But it can also be attributed to the love that man has for sin.
John 3:19-20
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
KJV
Man does not live a holy life because he does not want to believe in God. To believe in God, means that you must acknowledge His sovereign right to declare what is sin and what is not. Instead, man wants to decide for himself what is sin and what is not, so he denies the existence of God.
Man does not live a holy life because he does not want to believe that there ever will be a judgment day for that sin. If man denies the existence of God, then man can deny any type of judgment by God. Man loves sin more than he fears God.
In today’s lesson, Peter will tell believers that this is a fallacy that we should know better than to believe. As our Creator, God has the sovereign right and the ability to deprive us of our life, our liberty, and any of our possessions. While a believer knows that their eternal destination has already been decided when they made Christ their Lord and Master, they also know that a day of judgment is coming for the determination of how our actions will either be rewarded or lost. Our salvation is secure, our presence in heaven is secure, but our standing in heaven is yet to be determined.
Sunday Mar 13, 2016
Sunday Mar 13, 2016
Outside the four walls of the church, would you ever describe your life as holy? Do you feel comfortable with the word holy when you are speaking to the general public? Probably not. I can’t say that I use the word holy very much outside of a church service or in a Bible study setting.
Why not? The unfortunate reality is that we have allowed the word holy to be hijacked by those who would give it a somewhat pious connotation to it. This is certainly true in the secular world, but even in the religious world. Words like holy-roller, holier-than-thou, are phrases that come immediately to mind when someone claims to be holy.
Why? It is because the world thinks of a religious person as basically a hypocrite because they see so many examples of people who claim to be a Christian, but they live a life that is no different than everyone else around them. They claim to refrain from drinking for religious reasons, but spread gossip at every opportunity. They say they go to church on Sunday, and then they join their friends at a bar on Monday. Statistics would say that a Christian couple is just as likely to commit adultery or have their marriage end in divorce as a non-Christian couple. If these things are true, then there is no wonder that the first thought that comes to mind of an average person when they hear the word holy, is hypocrite, or religious fraud. If you doubt this is true, try describing yourself as living a holy life to one of your lost friends and then watch for the look on their face.
So, as a believer, when we say that we are to live a life that is holy, what does that mean to you?
Does it mean to live life one way while you are at church and another way when you go to work on Monday? How about when you are behind the wheel of your car in traffic, do you live a life that is holy then? Are your actions as you drive holy, are the gestures that you make to other drivers holy, are your words, both the ones you say out loud and the ones that you think in your mind, holy? How about when you are watching your child, or grandchild, play in a sporting event, would somebody listening to your words that you yell at the umpire or referee consider them to be holy?
When God talks about living a life that is holy, He means that your life should be one that is distinct from the secular world. There ought to be a noticeable difference in your life, not a weird difference, but a good difference. Not a hypocritical difference, but a consistent difference. I said last week that for many people, the life of a believer is the only Bible that they will ever read. People should see Christ in your life. Your life should be holy, just as Christ’s life was holy.
We cannot be perfect, but we can keep trying to be more like Christ. We cannot live a holy life by our own will power. It can only be done by the power of the Holy Spirit having complete control of our lives. This is the message that Peter has for us today.
Sunday Feb 14, 2016
Sunday Feb 14, 2016
When I was a child and my Father wanted me to learn something that I would remember, he often had me experience it first, and then explain how important that concept could be in my life. He called it character building and it usually involved me doing some type of work around the house. For example, when he wanted me to learn that it is better to earn what you have in this world, than to steal it from somebody else who had worked for it, either by outright theft or by getting the government to steal it for you, he would put me to work. He taught me that a benefit of hard work is the payment of something you want in return, be it money, or something else.
Learning from experience can come in a couple of ways, we can learn from our own experience, or we can learn from the experience of watching or listening to others. For instance, I don’t have to jump from the top of a tall building to know that this is not something I want to do. I have seen what happens to others when they contact the ground at a high rate of speed, and it is not pretty. I learned this lesson from the experience of others.
When we learn from our own experience, we often have a deeper understanding of what it takes to get through this type of trial. I know that I never had a true appreciation for what a person goes through when they lose a very close loved one until I lost my father, and then my mother. There is a deep feeling of anguish that does not come from watching others. I have a much deeper sense of empathy for others now and it is because God allowed me to experience this trial myself.
One of the key concepts that Peter is trying to teach us in the very first verses of this book is how certain our faith is, and how it is not based on a hope-so type of knowledge, but it is based on a know-so type of knowledge.
When he talks of having hope, it is not a vague type of hope in the things that are to come, it is a know-so type of hope, an expectant hope, and a certain hope. We know that Jesus is alive today because we know that He rose from the grave. The Bible tells this is true, and secular history tells us that this is true.
We know for a fact that Jesus is coming again to reign as Lord of lords and King of kings, and we are absolutely certain that Jesus has prepared for us a place in heaven where we will spend eternity living with Him. This is our know-so, expectant, hope.
Peter now moves from the certain hope we have in Christ, to our faith based on experience and substance. Faith is another weak word in the English language, but in the Bible our faith is based on the promises of God, the certainty of Christ, and the experiences we have in times of trial, and through watching others go through trials. It is a faith based on the experience we have in Christ.