First Peter chapter two. About the word of prayer in a
moment. We'll make this announcement. I don't believe that Pastor Bill
Parker has ever been here before, as you may or may not know him,
but he's a young preacher from Ashland. The pastor is down in
Georgia, Albany, Georgia. And he's about my age, he's 36,
and he suffered a heart attack the night before last. And he
was preaching at a conference in Knoxville, Tennessee. But
he's doing fairly well, they say, considering. And so we will
remember him in prayer this morning. Bow with me in prayer. Our great God and kind Father, we come to you through your well-beloved
Son. We come pleading Him as our mediator
or our go-between, the daisman, the twixtus, the only one who can speak to
us for the Father. and ensure that our prayers are
heard. And dear Lord, we hope that we've
met together in spirit, through your Holy Spirit, that you would
send him to enable us to pray a rite, to worship a rite, to
read a rite, to hear a rite, to do everything for the glory
of God in sincerity and in truth. as it is in Christ, his gospel. We thank you for everything that
we so richly enjoy from your hands. We acknowledge your mercy
and grace to us, your abundant, abundant blessings to us. Our cup runneth over, and we
thank you. We do go through times of need
and trial, but yet the majority of the time. For the most part,
we are rich and increased with goods and really have need of
nothing here in this life. And we owe it all to our gracious
and good God. and we believe that the message
this morning and this evening's messages are Christ-centered, so needful, edifying. So, Lord, we ask that you would
send your Spirit to enable us to worship. Lord, make us serious about what
we're doing in a world of so much religion
and tradition and vain conversation received by tradition from the
fathers and denominations and this and that and the other.
Lord, enable us, this little small group, enable us to worship
from the heart, to truly glorify our God in the
things we do and say. Lord, we need help. We need your
Holy Spirit. I desperately need your Spirit
to speak through me, to take the Word, apply it to my heart,
and let it go forth from my mouth. And Lord, those that hear need
the same Spirit to hear aright. Lord, let us hear whatever it
may be. All Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
instruction. We need to be comforted, yes,
but we also need to be reproved and admonished. We fall way short
of the glory of God. We fall way short of being true
disciples, true followers of Christ. We fall way short We're
so thankful that the Lord Jesus Christ is our substitute and
our representative, that he did all that was needful for us to
be accepted. We're accepted in him. We're
so thankful. But Lord, don't let us be content in ourselves. Let us be content with Christ
and look to him, but let us ever be ashamed of ourselves long
to be conformed to the image of Christ and be more diligent
and faithful servants. May we be stewards of the manifold
grace of God, good stewards, faithful stewards. Lord, give
us pure hearts and mature lives and minds and just mold us, make
us like Christ. cause us to grow up in Him in
all things, to see our desperate need of Him and to see how we
are supposed to conduct ourselves. We thank you for Christ, and
we pray these things for His namesake, for His glory and our
good. Amen. Last week we studied from verses
11 through 16. And Peter exhorted and admonished
and warned us in verse 11 to abstain from fleshly lusts which
war against the soul. And he also exhorted us in verse
12 that we should live our lives above reproach from the unbelieving
world, before the unbelieving world. And then in verses thirteen
and fourteen, he told us our obligation to be in subjection
to all authority has been from God himself. And then in verse
sixteen, he told us to beware of using our liberty, even though
we are free men and women in Christ. He told us to beware
of using that liberty as an excuse for sin. Then, beginning in verse
17, this is where we pick up. He sort of sums it all up in
a few short verses, almost like Proverbs, short Proverbs, two
and three word sentences, Proverbs. And let's begin here in verse
17. He says, honor all men. honor all men and women. Whenever it says men in the scripture,
you can apply it to both sexes, men and women. That is, give
honor to whom honor is due, like Paul said over in Romans. According to office, according
to position, according to rank, according to authority or circumstance,
whether it be a believer or an unbeliever. We are to give honor
and respect unto all men. That's what it says there, honor
all. Husbands are to honor and respect
their wives, and vice versa. We're to honor one another, be
in subjection to one another, or submit ourselves, subject
ourselves to one another. Submission It would be the key
to happiness in the home. There would be no problems if
husbands truly treated their wives as they should with respect
and due benevolence and vice versa. If the woman truly respected
and honored and esteemed her husband as the head of the home
there would be no problems in our homes other than the typical
problems of finances and so forth. and children are to honor and
respect their parents. Needless to say, there'd be no
problems in that area if that were so. Students are to respect
and honor their teachers. We are all to respect and honor
law officers, police, government officials. In the church, the
members are to honor the pastor. the elders, the leaders of the
church, submit themselves to their wisdom
and their rule, like he said over in Hebrews chapter 13. And
there's a sense in which we can honor all men and all women for
the things that they do. We can at least respect people
for the things that they do. If someone has worked hard to
attain a particular knowledge in a particular field, we can
respect that person. We can, in a certain degree,
admire them for their attainment. Not overly esteem them, but we
can honor them. That's what he's saying here.
Honor all men. Now, look at the second one. Love the brotherhood. love the brotherhood. Now, turn with me over to 1 John
chapter 3, a few pages over. Paul, the apostle, said, do good
unto all men, especially those that are of the household of
faith. Do good unto all men, especially
those that are of the household of faith. To love the brotherhood,
as we saw back there in 1 Peter chapter 1, I believe it was,
he said, love one another with a pure heart fervently. Fervently. That means actively. Actively. Now, I'm going to look at this one more time
here in 1 John chapter 3. We've looked at this over and
over again. We studied this for, we were on this subject for perhaps
six months running. This kept coming to our attention.
We did a complete study upon the church and our responsibilities
to it, responsibilities of members to one another, to the pastor,
to the church, pastor and deacons and so forth, to the church and
to one another. And we're going to look at it
one more time, and I prayed about this, and I've got some hard
things to say. I believe you know my love for
you as a people. God is my witness that I love
you people, and I want to say these things in love and in tenderness
and in compassion, but they need to be said. Look here at 1 John
chapter 3 beginning with verse 14. Now John says this, we know, we know that we have
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother
abideth in death. Now he's talking about active
love here. He's not talking about in word
only. He goes on to say that. Let's
look at it. Verse 15. Whosoever hateth his brother
is a murderer. And you know that no murderer
hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love
of God. How? Because he said so? No, because he did so. because
he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's goods,
and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God? in him, my little children, let us not
love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." As with most churches, especially
young ones, this church has a lot of growing up to do. We need some spiritual leaders. We need some men to take some
responsibilities upon themselves, to seek out the needs of this
building, the members, the pastor, visiting people, especially preachers. We've got a large building to
maintain. It is right now in bad disrepair. We have grounds to keep up, we
have expenses to meet, and we are barely getting by. To love the brotherhood presupposes
that you are a member of the family. And to be a member of
this family requires taking upon yourself responsibilities, more
responsibilities than your own family. Christ himself said several
times, if you love father or mother, husband or wife or children
or whoever more than me, you are not a disciple of mine. As I say it, it requires taking
on responsibilities. Christ said, love one another
as I have loved you. How did Christ love us? Principally,
sacrificially. He gave himself, every part of
his being, for our service, expecting nothing in return. Secondly,
he gave himself in service. His whole life was spent in the
service of his brothers, of his family, of his bride. Thirdly,
he did it consistently, at all times. A brother loveth at all
times, the scripture says. The scripture says a brother
is born for adversity. We have an old saying that says,
a friend in need is a friend indeed. Love the brotherhood. Let me go through a few things
with you that constitute true outward loving the brotherhood,
fervent love. There are many things we can
do if we sat down and thought about it, such as the things
just going over in general that regard the facilities and the
people and so forth. We can call, we can visit sick,
we can open up our homes. God did not give us our homes
to use for ourselves. He did not. He can take them
away. He can. He can do that. Our cars,
God did not give us our automobiles just so we could get to work.
Do you remember the story of the Pearl of Great Price when
the man bought everything, it cost him everything that he owned? And the man gave it all back
to him and said, now it's not yours. It's not yours, it's mine. Now you won't mind using my goods
to serve my friends and so forth. Well, the same thing applies
to us. We're to open up our homes. We're to use our automobiles.
We're to open up our refrigerators. Everything that we have is to
be used for God's people and for the glory of God. And if
we're not doing it, if we're not doing it, we're out of the
will of God Almighty. And He will deal with us accordingly. Write somebody a check that's
in need. Brother Donnie Bell and I sat
down and talked about this. There's a sense in which we can
rob God Almighty. I know that passage over in Malachi
deals with tithes, but there is a sense in which we do rob
God Almighty. There is a great sense in which
we are supposed to give the first fruits. The first fruits. When you get your paycheck, you
don't pay all your bills and then see what you have left.
That's not giving God firstfruits. Firstfruits. Firstfruits. And there are many people who
are in financial straits, possibly—I'm not saying it's always this case,
but Brother Donnie and I talked about this—possibly the reason
they are in financial straits is for this very reason, the
robbing of God Almighty. not using their things for his
glory first. He said, cast your bread upon
the waters and you'll see it after many days. He said, I'm
not mocked. Whatever you sow is what you're
going to reap. And if we lavish ourselves with
things and then give God what's left over, we will probably accrue
great debts and be always in financial straits. So as to reach
the point where we are unable to give anything for the use
of God's kingdom. I know that from experience.
I really do. Open up your house. Open up your car. Open up your
refrigerator. Write somebody a check. Visit
the widows. We've got some widows in this
church. Fix their car. Wash their windows. Go to the
store for them. Meet the needs of visiting people. I hope you all were blessed by
Brother Bill Clark's ministry here. I tried to tell you before he
got here the magnitude of the man and the ministry, what the
Lord is doing through this man. I just don't—I can't express
to you. You'd have to see it for yourself.
You heard firsthand a little bit of what the Lord is doing
through him. He's truly, in a worldwide sense,
the Apostle Paul of our generation. He really is. This church wrote him a check for $84. And I'm ashamed of it. One man wrote him a check for
$2,500 for one man. God doesn't have to keep this
little assembly going, folks. I pray that he will. I believe
there's some true sheep here, but we need to hang our heads
in shame. We really do. I prayed about saying these things.
And like I said, I've already mentioned all the needs of this
place, and we need to work on it. We need
to pray about it. We need to love the Brotherhood. That's what we need to do. Not
just in word only, but in deed and in truth and with our substance
and with ourselves. Pray about it. Pray about it.
Let's go on. Fear God. Fear God. Let's not be, as another thing,
let's not be as Paul said of some. He said, all seek their
own and not the things of Christ. All seek their own. We all need
to be seeking out what we can do for the service of God and for one another. for this
church, for this family. We need men to be men, take responsibilities
upon themselves, look and see what needs to be done and do
it. We need young men to be zealous for the truth. We need women
to be leaders and guides to the younger women, to our children.
Dear God, do everything as unto the Lord. Before his eyes all
things are naked and open, the scripture said. Before God, if
we truly feared God, we would do everything as unto the Lord,
because everything is naked and open before his eye. If we treated our jobs like we treated the worship of
God, we probably wouldn't have a job. If we fell asleep at the job,
or if we continually came in late, or if we might show up
and might not, we would not have a job, would we? Fear God, the Scripture says. Fear God Almighty. I'm not saying this from any
personal These things need to be said, desperately need to
be said. I'm deriving this from what this says here. Fear God. Fear God. God is not mocked. God is to be reverenced, respected,
to be in awe of, to put first, to worship, to honor, to render
everything we have unto Him. to act respectfully in his presence,
seriously, soberly, consistently, and faithfully. Fear God Almighty. This is the beginning of all
wisdom and true understanding, especially spiritual maturity.
This is the beginning. Fear God. And if you truly fear
God, you will act like you fear God. Honor the King. Honor the King. in the context of what Peter
has been talking about here. He's talking about rulers and
our employers and so forth. Now, in a day when Roman tyranny
was so terrible and cruel back then, these people—there was
true slavery that went on back in this day. And Peter said it—if
he said that back then, How much more does it apply now? None
of us, I know many of us work for non-union employers and probably
some difficult and cruel taskmasters, if you want to call them that. But we're to honor them, we're
to be in subjection to them, submission to them. Remember
there, look, verse 18, servants be subject to your masters with
all fear, not only to the good, and gentle, but also to the forward. You've seen the old saying, rule
number one, the boss is always right. And in case the boss is
wrong, rule number two, if the boss is wrong, refer back to
rule number one. I know you've all seen that.
Well, rule number one is the only rule here. God is always
right. And he says here, to fear God,
honor the king, and be subject to your masters, even the good
or the bad. The good or the bad. Like I said,
none of us here knows anything really about cruelty or slave
labor. They did back then. When Peter
wrote this, he was saying it in a day when there was true
slavery that existed. I used to work a non-union job
when I was about 19 years old. down in Florida in the dead heat
of the August sun. And I was just a common laborer. And the foreman, the foreman
wore a whistle around his neck. And he, the man never ate, never
stopped, never did anything. All he did was look at his watch.
And when the five-minute break came, he blew that whistle. And
then he sat there and looked at his watch. And while you were
getting a drink, a cup of coffee or whatever you were doing, you
know, he was looking at that watch. And when it, when the second
got to five minutes, he blew that whistle again. You better
be, you better have your trowel or your shovel or whatever in
your hand. You better, you better be running to do it. Truly, he,
he looked at that and he had a whistle. A friend of mine, the first few days at work, he,
he wasn't, He wasn't too good a shape. He was trying. He was
working hard as he could. And he stopped to, he got sick
out there in the sun. He got sick. They fired him.
They fired him. But that's nothing like slavery.
That's nothing like slavery back then, back in these days. That's
still nothing like what they went through back then. And so
Peter says, no matter what you go through, no matter what your
boss is like, no matter what your company appears to be like,
submit yourselves. Submit yourselves. Because you
do it, verse 19, this is thankworthy if a man for conscience toward
God endured grief, suffering, and wrongfully. For what glory
is it, verse 20? If when you be buffeted for your
faults, you take it patiently. If you're a grumbling and complaining
employee. But if when you do well and suffer
for it, well, you take it patiently. This is acceptable with God. If a believer is a good and obedient
wife, child, servant, or employee, and suffers persecution, endures
grief, and is mistreated, his or her conduct and attitude will
be well pleasing to God. And that's who we're serving
anyway. Don't worry about the go-between. But if somebody is
rebellious or lazy or disloyal and suffers the consequences,
there's no glory or honor if they endure that patiently. We
can't call it bearing our cross and suffering for Christ when
our difficulties are brought upon us because of our evil attitude
and our behavior. Now, Christ said, blessed are
you when you suffer persecution wrongfully. When you suffer all
manner of things for my name's sake, be persecuted." So we can't
call it cross-bearing if we are unfaithful and undiligent employees. But we work for God Almighty.
Whatever you do, do as unto the Lord. Verse 21. So this is where,
until you were called. This is what you were called
to do. Look over at Philippians chapter 1 with me. Philippians
chapter 1. We're called to obedience. We're called to godliness. We're
called to good works. God has ordained that we should
walk therein. We're called to bear afflictions,
trials, suffering, and they may result from a godly way of life.
Christ said it's enough that the servant be as his master.
If they've hated me, they'll hate you. They'll treat you spitefully. They did him. He said, in the
world you shall have tribulations. And he said, take up your cross
and follow me. Discipleship is cross-bearing. It's cross-bearing discipleship.
Look at verse 29 of Philippians chapter 1. For unto you it is
given. It's a gift. A gift. Someday we'll fully understand
what he's saying here. But it is a gift. On the behalf
of Christ, not only to believe on him—faith is a gift, yes—but
to suffer for his sake. To suffer. A gift. Paul said
over in Romans, I believe it was, I don't know, 2 Corinthians
chapter 12, I believe it was, that he'd rather eat glories
in infirmity. Well, look back at the text in
1 Peter. He said, you were called to this,
verse 21, because Christ also suffered for us. He left us an
example that you should follow in his steps. Christ is not only
our substitute, but he's our example in the ways that I was
just talking about a while ago, in service, but also here in
suffering and dealing and living in this world. Look at verse
22. He did no sin. Neither was guile found in his
mouth. Who, when he was reviled, he reviled not again. If anybody
could have rightfully reviled and answered those, he could
have. But he didn't. He didn't. When he suffered,
he threatened not. But he committed himself, or
his cause, to him that judges righteously. Righteously. Christ is our example. He committed
no sin. He was in the world and did no
sin. There was no guile, no deceit, no lies, no exaggeration in his
mouth, which all are in us. Yet he suffered for it. When
men reviled him, they called him a devil. Called him a wine-bibber,
a friend of sinners. He didn't answer them. He didn't
revile back again. You remember that article by
Spurgeon where he said, He said, if people say wrong things, say
things about you, he said, don't get mad, because they haven't
told the half of what you're really like. If the truth be
known, you'd be a whole lot worse than they said about you. Well,
Christ was none of these things. When he suffered, he didn't make
people suffer in return, nor did he threaten them with vengeance,
but he prayed for them. He committed his cause to the
Father. Not only was he doing this for
our sake, but he did this for our example also. He left his
case with the judge of all men who will do right. And this is
our example. We may be misunderstood, ridiculed,
persecuted, but we're not to treat people like they treat
us. But we're to love and to pray for them and leave our cause
in the hands of God Almighty. He says, See that none render
evil for evil. God said, Vengeance is mine.
I will repay it, saith the Lord. Well, look back at the text.
Look at verse 24, 1 Peter 2. Consider this. Christ, who his
own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we
being dead to sins should live under righteousness. by whose
stripes you were healed. Christ actually bore our sins. I wish I could enter into this.
I wish we could. He actually bore our guilt. You know that terrible, oppressive
guilt that you feel within because of your sinfulness before God?
You feel this awful guilt and it plagues you. Christ actually
bore that. He didn't have to. It wasn't
His. It was ours. He bore our shame. He says he thought nothing of
the shame for the joy that was set before him. There's nothing
we hate worse than to be put to shame or ridiculed and mocked.
He took it all patiently, and he didn't have to. He did it
for us. We should have been the ones
to be ridiculed and mocked and scourged and spit upon and laughed
at, but he did it for us. He did it for us. Not only did he suffer physical
affliction, but he actually went through some sort of hell, separation
from God Almighty, which we deserve for eternity. And three days
of it, or one, six hours of it for Christ was as an eternity. That's why I cried out upon the
cross, my God, my God, why? And there'll be people crying
out for A time in eternity, my God, my God, because they've
been separated from God. Well, Christ did that for us,
so we won't have to. He took my weapon. The punishment
that was due to me, He took it. By whose stripes you were healed. He was bound and put in prison
that we might go free. The innocent for the guilty.
He died that we might live. That's what He did. And what
is it for us to take a little bit, a little bit of a light
affliction? For a season, if need be, as
Peter said, for a season you're in manifold temptations and so
forth. Go without. A little bit of sacrifice. Nobody
in here, including this preacher, has done much sacrificing. Goodness
gracious sakes. Just no sacrificing at all. We
don't know much about giving sacrificially or serving sacrificially. We just don't know much about
it. And we need to learn something about it because it's given to
us to do this. Look at verse 25. We'll quit.
For you were, consider this. Remember where you were. Remember
the pit from which you were digged. You were a sheep going astray.
but are now unto this shepherd. You were as sheep going astray,
but the good shepherd gave his life for you. You were headed
toward a precipice, toward a cliff, fall over this cliff into destruction,
hell and damnation, but the good shepherd hazarded his life, actually
gave his life for the sheep, because he's a good shepherd.
And we're now returned unto him by his mercy, by his grace. We're
returned unto the shepherd. These two words are significant. The shepherd, that
is one who watches over us, one who leads us, who calls us, who
guides us, one who bears listening to. And the bishop, that's overseer,
our ruler, our master, our Lord. Our Lord. You can't have, Barnard
said, you can't have Jesus as Savior. unless he is really the
Lord, your Lord. And a lot of people are saying
that, aren't they? Accept Jesus as your personal Savior, and
later on you can make him Lord of your life. That's not so.
No, you bow to him as Lord, and then you'll see him as Savior.
But he's both. He's the Shepherd, he's the Savior, he watches over
you, but he's also your Lord and Master, whom you're supposed
to be serving, the Bishop of your soul. Remember, he says,
you were astray, but you're now returned. and you're under his
leadership and his guidance. Well, I said some hard things,
but I've derived them from God's Word here. And we need to consider these
things. We need to consider them well. He that hath ears to hear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the church. If indeed
this is a church, I believe it is. And there are believers in
here, I believe there are. Followers of Christ, I believe
there are. Then we need to, it needs to
be seen, it remains to be seen in so many areas. Me included. I include myself in this. Okay,
you're dismissed.