back to indexBerean Community Church Wednesday Bible Study 12/7/2022
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All righty. Let's go ahead and bow our heads and go to prayer. Let's pray. 00:06:53.080 |
Heavenly Father, we each week desire to give to you our worship and God our appreciation. 00:07:05.080 |
As we gather in the midweek and the busyness of our schedules, we are so privileged and grateful that we get to hear your instruction, 00:07:14.080 |
be refreshed by your truth, and also God in the fellowship of observing your word and challenging one another, 00:07:21.080 |
we recognize God this is a true, true privilege for us, so thank you. 00:07:26.080 |
We pray also, knowing God that we have our own weaknesses, may it truly be times of strengthening for us. 00:07:34.080 |
And God, as in the word, Lord, you describe our walk through this life, as often, God, that sometimes we are stained 00:07:42.080 |
and often we become tainted by the things that are in the world, we pray for renewal and washing each day. 00:07:50.080 |
And so, God, we are again thankful and pray that that kind of spiritual work would happen in our time. 00:07:56.080 |
Lord, we thank you again and we lift these songs to you. It's in Christ's name. Amen. 00:16:24.080 |
I just have a couple of announcements for everyone. 00:16:46.080 |
and open up our Bible study sign up for the next session. 00:17:03.080 |
You do have the option of requesting the same group 00:17:11.080 |
So you can request that on the sign up itself, okay? 00:17:15.080 |
please go ahead and jump into your discussion time. 01:02:01.080 |
Ah, if I can get people in the rooms to come back, 01:02:45.080 |
All right, if we can get the people in the rooms 01:04:17.080 |
a little bit different, 'cause you're not gonna be, 01:04:26.080 |
Okay, let me pray first, and then we'll start. 01:04:37.080 |
We pray, Father God, that you give us open ears 01:04:41.080 |
and eagerness to hear, to apply all that you have to teach us. 01:04:48.080 |
by the renewing of our mind according to your word. 01:05:05.080 |
and you'll see in a minute why I did that, okay? 01:05:08.080 |
I wanted you to see the thought flow and application. 01:05:13.080 |
So there's about five things that I've noticed 01:05:16.080 |
as instructional things that we can apply from this text, okay? 01:06:32.080 |
If I don't charge it, it just goes to laser pointing mode? 01:07:24.080 |
Anybody carry around quadruple A just for fun? 01:08:31.080 |
I don't know why people complain about technology. 01:08:42.080 |
So I just wanted you to see the outline of it. 01:08:49.080 |
but basically it's kind of a summary of what we've been saying. 01:08:52.080 |
Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, 01:08:55.080 |
looking for these things is basically assumed, number one. 01:09:05.080 |
regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. 01:09:21.080 |
So I just did that so that you can kind of see 01:09:26.080 |
as he is instructing that these are the things 01:09:31.080 |
Okay? So that's kind of how I'm going to follow. 01:09:39.080 |
sidetracks a little bit to describe about Paul's writings, 01:09:46.080 |
I know you can't see it. You don't have to see it. 01:09:56.080 |
most likely a sermon, like an expositional sermon on this text, 01:10:10.080 |
that if you see it, if you're able to outline it in this way, 01:10:15.080 |
So basically what we do, what the pastors do on Sunday 01:10:20.080 |
and dividing it up into the natural thought flow. 01:10:23.080 |
So this is--all I did was divide it into that. 01:10:28.080 |
So normally if I was to give a sermon on this, 01:10:40.080 |
So if you look at it first, focus on his coming 01:10:42.080 |
because of the judgment and the restoration that's coming. 01:10:45.080 |
Right? That would be the first thing that I mentioned. 01:10:54.080 |
And then this would be kind of a description of that. 01:11:12.080 |
And then four, be on guard and not be carried away by error, 01:11:19.080 |
And then grow in grace and knowledge for Jesus Christ. 01:11:24.080 |
And so I just wanted to show you what a biblical outline 01:11:38.080 |
is because he kind of sidetracks and talks about-- 01:11:41.080 |
it's not that it's unrelated, but the meaning behind this, 01:11:48.080 |
All right. You don't need to take notes on this. 01:11:50.080 |
I just wanted you to show you this so that you can see, like, 01:11:57.080 |
and this is kind of like--this is what the text would be teaching. 01:12:05.080 |
I might break this up into two to three different sermons, 01:12:14.080 |
like, a lot of times what ends up happening with me 01:12:16.080 |
is as I'm studying, I just get deeper and deeper into this hole. 01:12:20.080 |
You know? And then--mainly because I'm curious 01:12:23.080 |
as to what does this mean, what does that mean, 01:12:27.080 |
and certain things kind of lead me down this path, 01:12:31.080 |
so I could just completely ignore it or decide to teach it, 01:12:39.080 |
So, anyway, so I just wanted to show you what that looks like. 01:12:43.080 |
So, first of all, I'm going to take that section 01:12:45.080 |
that I talked to you about, this section first, okay, 01:12:56.080 |
the other part, "just as also our beloved brother, 01:12:59.080 |
according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you." 01:13:03.080 |
Now, Peter is equating Paul's writings with Scripture, right? 01:13:10.080 |
He says, "They provided also like the rest of Scripture." 01:13:14.080 |
So he's saying that Paul's writings are equated with Scripture. 01:13:17.080 |
So, in the New Testament, when they say "Scripture," 01:13:29.080 |
but Paul's writings is a direct revelation from God. 01:13:35.080 |
So, right off the bat, so if you've ever heard the argument 01:13:38.080 |
and people say, "Oh, the Bible was not put together 01:13:44.080 |
and they decided, you know, let's go and gather these material, 01:13:49.080 |
and that's a typical argument that people give 01:13:56.080 |
Scripture itself tells us that they understood 01:14:02.080 |
and the letters they were giving was inspired by God, 01:14:07.080 |
Now, do you remember when 2 Peter was written, 01:14:27.080 |
Maybe about two to three years after 1 Peter was written, 01:14:35.080 |
What was happening historically around AD 65? 01:14:59.080 |
and then he blames the Christians for what happened in Rome. 01:15:02.080 |
So to this day, no one knows exactly what happened, 01:15:05.080 |
but basically he used Christians as a scapegoat, 01:15:08.080 |
and he ended up rounding up all the Christians, 01:15:11.080 |
so when you see all the movies of the Colosseum 01:15:35.080 |
So we're talking about anywhere between 6, 7 to-- 01:15:42.080 |
But most likely around 6 or 7 years after Galatians. 01:15:48.080 |
Galatians, Peter was embarrassed by Paul, right? 01:15:55.080 |
saying, like, "You're perverting the gospel," right? 01:16:09.080 |
And so this is 6, 7 years after he writes that. 01:16:12.080 |
So you could have easily seen how Peter would have been offended. 01:16:19.080 |
and there would have been a strife between Paul and Peter, 01:16:21.080 |
and then Peter could have easily went around, 01:16:23.080 |
started saying, "Man, that guy is saying some whack stuff," right? 01:16:39.080 |
Peter rebuked, and he knew that Paul was right. 01:16:48.080 |
because there's a lot of criticism about Paul, right? 01:16:51.080 |
And he said, "These people who are untaught and unstable 01:17:05.080 |
what were they saying about Paul in some of his writings? 01:17:09.080 |
We went over some of that in 1 Thessalonians, 01:17:26.080 |
In Romans, remember what people were saying about his teaching? 01:17:30.080 |
"As some say, 'Let us sin, that grace may abound.'" 01:17:44.080 |
"we don't have to be righteous in order to be saved. 01:17:50.080 |
that we can live lawlessly and it doesn't matter. 01:18:00.080 |
What's another way that they were distorting what he was saying? 01:18:12.080 |
They're saying that Jesus already came, right? 01:18:16.080 |
He's talking about the second coming of Christ, 01:18:18.080 |
He already came, so He's telling you stuff that you've already missed. 01:18:22.080 |
And so the whole reason why he writes Thessalonians 01:18:26.080 |
is to kind of correct that false teaching that was going around. 01:18:30.080 |
And then, not only were they distorting his message, 01:18:40.080 |
What was he saying about Paul to discount his message? 01:18:49.080 |
And that's what the false teachers came in and saying, 01:18:57.080 |
Do you remember how I work night and day, right? 01:19:03.080 |
Basically, he knew that this was going to come. 01:19:05.080 |
So, these untaught, unstable people were distorting the gospel, 01:19:15.080 |
and of all people that were defending him, it was Apostle Peter, right? 01:19:20.080 |
So, I don't know about you, but this is, to me, 01:19:23.080 |
this is so encouraging because from the early church, 01:19:31.080 |
and he could have easily called Peter out and said, 01:19:35.080 |
But the Holy Spirit was moving among these men that now you see Paul, right? 01:19:43.080 |
Which is also interesting, the other back story is, 01:19:45.080 |
remember Paul, remember rejected Mark after the first missionary journey? 01:19:57.080 |
And then, Paul later on admits that Mark had become a very useful servant. 01:20:04.080 |
So, indirectly, he kind of admits that he was wrong about Mark, right? 01:20:08.080 |
So, when you see the back story behind the drama that's taking place, 01:20:12.080 |
even in the midst of human personalities, God is still working, right? 01:20:22.080 |
All right, so we go here to, "Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things," right? 01:20:27.080 |
And the whole previous two sections was about how the heavens and the earth 01:20:34.080 |
So, knowing that everything that we're tempted by is going to be destroyed, 01:20:38.080 |
and then only the eternal things are going to be coming, 01:20:45.080 |
Be diligent to be found in Him in peace, spotless, and blameless. 01:20:50.080 |
What does it mean to be found in peace, right? 01:20:54.080 |
This is not simply in reference to your inner chi. 01:21:04.080 |
One of the most foolish things that you hear people say 01:21:08.080 |
when they're about to do something foolish is, "I have peace," right? 01:21:19.080 |
And you're going to do something completely unbiblical, ungodly, 01:21:30.080 |
Now, remember the false prophets when God comes and He convicts them 01:21:35.080 |
Remember what God says about the false prophets? 01:21:37.080 |
They say, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. 01:21:43.080 |
The peace here is talking about is peace with God, right? 01:21:50.080 |
Remember in the book of Amos, these people were very religious 01:21:56.080 |
but He sends a plumb line, the Word of God, right? 01:21:59.080 |
By your own eyes or your own feelings, maybe because you've drifted so far, 01:22:10.080 |
Judgment of God is coming and you say you have peace. 01:22:16.080 |
The Word of God to measure so that you can measure where you are with God 01:22:21.080 |
So here the peace, to be found in peace with Him is not simply talking about 01:22:27.080 |
It's talking about your life in such a way that you have peace with God, 01:22:35.080 |
Where do you find this word "spotless" in the Bible? 01:22:48.080 |
So this--immediately if you're thinking the Old Testament, 01:22:52.080 |
you would think of the spotless sacrifice, right? 01:22:55.080 |
Nothing impure, nothing defective can be in the presence of God. 01:23:02.080 |
So immediately a Jew would hear this and realize that that's what he's talking about, right? 01:23:08.080 |
So this may be more talking about the character of the individual. 01:23:13.080 |
Because spotless, you're thinking about something on the outside, 01:23:23.080 |
So if you put the two of them together, you'd be talking about your character and your behavior. 01:23:29.080 |
So remember last week we talked about holy conduct and being godly, right? 01:23:36.080 |
And basically put together, it means everything. 01:23:42.080 |
So have peace with God by being spotless and blameless, inside and out, right? 01:23:50.080 |
That you can present yourself to be spotless, but you're not blameless, right? 01:23:57.080 |
Because of what you're harboring in your heart. 01:24:03.080 |
Or you can say, you know, my heart is pure, but your conduct is not, right? 01:24:10.080 |
So by saying spotless and blameless, even though it has similar meaning, 01:24:16.080 |
Not to excuse your sin because of righteousness in other areas, right? 01:24:31.080 |
Regard patience of our Lord as salvation, right? 01:24:44.080 |
Remember the previous passages, what he said about why is he not coming, right? 01:24:49.080 |
Everything continues to go on like it always did. 01:24:59.080 |
There's two things that he said in the previous passage. 01:25:13.080 |
For others to give time for the others to repent. 01:25:20.080 |
And then two, time is relative to him, right? 01:25:26.080 |
So to us, a thousand years may sound like a long period of time, but to God, it's nothing, right? 01:25:32.080 |
So when he says regard patience of our Lord as salvation, there's two applications. 01:25:47.080 |
That don't get anxious, don't let these false prophets tell you, you know, and try to throw it away and lose hope. 01:25:54.080 |
And he says so regard it as salvation because, again, God is being patient so that all that are elect will come into the kingdom. 01:26:10.080 |
Because if the whole reason why he hasn't come is for others to come to Christ, clearly what we're supposed to be doing is to bring other people to Christ, right? 01:26:24.080 |
Because that's the whole reason why we're here. 01:26:26.080 |
The whole reason why he's not here and the whole reason why you and I are here is to get the gospel to other people, right? 01:26:32.080 |
So sometimes if we're not careful, we look at our Christian life as trying very hard not to sin until we get to heaven, right? 01:26:41.080 |
Trying very hard not to sin until we get to heaven, right? 01:26:46.080 |
Which is something we should be working on but the calling for a Christian goes beyond that, far beyond that, right? 01:26:55.080 |
And it's not simply because that's what the Bible says. 01:26:59.080 |
You know, oftentimes, like, what does the Bible say? 01:27:01.080 |
Does the Bible really have to tell us that for us to believe that salvation is only in Christ? 01:27:08.080 |
And then just the natural response to that would be to tell as many people as possible before we go. 01:27:17.080 |
Not simply because the Bible said so, it's just a moral thing to do, right? 01:27:24.080 |
That would be the moral and logical thing to do, that we would live our lives to the best of our ability to share the gospel as many people as possible, right? 01:27:34.080 |
I mean, biblical, I mean, of course it's biblical but it's just common sense. 01:27:41.080 |
It wouldn't make sense, it wouldn't be consistent with our profession of belief about salvation in Christ alone and then to say, well, I don't know if the Bible tells us that. 01:27:54.080 |
If you have a million dollars and somebody's starving next to you and thinking, how can I feed that person? 01:27:58.080 |
Does somebody need to have a discussion with you and train you how to dissect that money and give it to that person and buy the food and pay the whole? 01:28:09.080 |
Does somebody, do you really need training for that? 01:28:13.080 |
Anyway, I'm gonna go off if I don't continue, okay? 01:28:19.080 |
So how we think how you live, right, is what it means to regard patience of our Lord as salvation. 01:28:27.080 |
And then three, be on guard so that you are not carried away, right? 01:28:32.080 |
Be sober because of unprincipled men, right, so that you do not fall from your steadfastness, right? 01:28:52.080 |
If you're not thinking about his coming and you're not actively pursuing being found in peace with God, spotless, blameless, if you're not actively participating in the spread of the gospel, then there's no way you can be on guard, right? 01:29:09.080 |
Being on guard isn't simply memorizing scripture, right? 01:29:13.080 |
Being on guard isn't simply coming to Bible study because you can turn this on and off, right? 01:29:18.080 |
Every Wednesday you can come turn it off and then when Bible study is done, Bible study is done, right? 01:29:22.080 |
The purpose of Bible study is so that you can be on guard every other time, right? 01:29:30.080 |
And then five, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, right? 01:29:37.080 |
This is interesting here when it says grow in grace, right? 01:29:40.080 |
Because typically when you think of growing, if you're commanded to grow, like what do I have to do? 01:29:50.080 |
When you think about grace, you just receive, right? 01:30:01.080 |
Because I know like these are the things I need to do in order to grow, but it says that growth has to be in grace. 01:30:44.080 |
I was trying to catch certain words and pretend like I heard you. 01:31:17.080 |
I think I heard the gist of basically, yeah, basically to grow in grace, it's not one or the other, right? 01:31:22.080 |
If you are trying to grow and grace is not what's causing you to grow, it's just your hard work. 01:31:29.080 |
I'm going to just, you know, I'm just going to be disciplined. 01:31:50.080 |
Whatever happened is because you worked hard and you did it. 01:31:55.080 |
So there's a danger of growing without grace. 01:32:00.080 |
What happens when you are just embracing grace, right? 01:32:36.080 |
Where you like, law, you kind of pick and choose. 01:32:40.080 |
But then the judgment, you know, like we're not about that. 01:32:49.080 |
The judgment needs to start from the household of god. 01:32:51.080 |
The problem is we start judging outside instead of inside first, right? 01:33:00.080 |
You are to strive to grow but in the grace of god and in the knowledge. 01:33:18.080 |
So if you see somebody growing in their faith, you can't have one without the other. 01:33:24.080 |
If somebody is growing in righteousness, they also must be growing in grace. 01:33:31.080 |
And in the knowledge of god, he's not just talking about information. 01:33:39.080 |
This knowledge here is not referencing like growing in understanding or more information. 01:33:45.080 |
Growing in knowledge basically is affection for god. 01:33:49.080 |
Because the more you understand and embrace and practice grace, the more you are in love with this god. 01:34:00.080 |
So beholding his beauty is what ultimately leads to greater righteousness. 01:34:10.080 |
The gospel isn't get yourself right so that you can be right with god. 01:34:15.080 |
The gospel is get right with god so that you can become righteous. 01:34:20.080 |
And so getting right with god requires grace and knowledge. 01:34:25.080 |
You cannot get right with god by your own effort. 01:34:30.080 |
You can only -- so that's why you can't have one with the other. 01:34:34.080 |
If you're really growing in christ, you must also be growing in grace and knowledge. 01:34:42.080 |
One without the other falls into two things in the bible that they're constantly fighting. 01:34:52.080 |
They practice and they said, oh, we got to do all these things. 01:34:55.080 |
You still have to do it in order for you to know god. 01:34:58.080 |
This other part, the gnostics, what you do in the flesh doesn't matter because we're saved. 01:35:07.080 |
You can't say you're a fellowship with god while you're living in darkness. 01:35:10.080 |
So you have these two things on both sides that was constantly competing with the gospel. 01:35:18.080 |
So if you grow without grace or you have grace without growth, right, you're falling into 01:35:32.080 |
To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. 01:35:44.080 |
This is exactly what we did I think in Thessalonians. 01:35:59.080 |
Just go through it several times and make sure that you like certain things that you 01:36:04.080 |
So I'm pretty sure if you go back and read your notes, you're not going to like you've 01:36:08.080 |
probably highlighted different things in second Peter than I did. 01:36:12.080 |
Then maybe your bible study group did because certain things may have made more sense to 01:36:20.080 |
Not just a logistical outline but just to go back and remember how what kind of impression, 01:36:25.080 |
what verses, what things that came out that really made an impression on you. 01:36:29.080 |
What's the primary reason apostle Peter wrote second Peter? 01:36:35.080 |
What are some repeated phrases or words in all three chapters? 01:36:38.080 |
So I'll bet you now if you go back and you look at your introduction study, it's going 01:36:46.080 |
There are certain words that probably you didn't notice that you'll probably notice 01:36:50.080 |
more this time because now that you've studied it. 01:36:54.080 |
How would you retitle the whole letter in your own words? 01:36:58.080 |
Again, go look back at what you wrote in the beginning and then compare it to how you would 01:37:07.080 |
This going in depth, how did it help you or change your perspective or something that 01:37:13.080 |
you kind of saw just superficially in the beginning but how does it affect it now? 01:37:18.080 |
How did you learn about God through this letter? 01:37:21.080 |
These are questions that you should ask every book. 01:37:24.080 |
What did you learn about the gospel through this letter specifically? 01:37:28.080 |
What did you learn about the church specifically, the community? 01:37:35.080 |
So these are reflection questions and this is the end goal of every Bible study. 01:37:41.080 |
Every quiet time, every sermon is to make sure that you come out with this. 01:37:52.080 |
What specific applications have you made while studying? 01:37:55.080 |
Not what you should make but during the Bible study, remember what applications were made. 01:38:01.080 |
And then what did you learn about inductive Bible study? 01:38:05.080 |
Or were you an expert already when you came in? 01:38:08.080 |
So if you were an expert already, next week when you come, say, "Expert." 01:38:17.080 |
Like, oh, you know, the cross references were really important. 01:38:25.080 |
In what way can you improve for the next session of inductive Bible study? 01:38:29.080 |
What are some skills that you learned from this section that as we go into the next study 01:38:34.080 |
at the end of January, like how will it help? 01:38:37.080 |
Okay, so these are all things that I'm going to ask you guys to prepare. 01:38:42.080 |
So when you come, these are the questions that you're going to go through. 01:38:44.080 |
And then after you do your initial session, I'll come and I'm going to highlight. 01:38:52.080 |
And then at the end, you'll go back and take some time to pray as we end up, wrap up. 01:39:00.080 |
How can you be more mindful of the end times? 01:39:03.080 |
Okay, this is part of what we talked about last time. 01:39:06.080 |
With so many people in different churches claiming to be teaching the truth, 01:39:10.080 |
how can you be sure that what you are learning is the truth rather than a distortion of the truth? 01:39:23.080 |
When there's a lot of people saying different things, I see two false responses that people give. 01:39:31.080 |
One is, if they're all saying different things, maybe we can't know the truth. 01:39:41.080 |
If everybody is saying that they have the truth, that what we're saying is right, maybe they're all right. 01:39:48.080 |
It's just, you know, we don't have to be so harsh because there's different people have different opinions. 01:39:53.080 |
And so you don't really have a conviction about it. 01:39:56.080 |
You shouldn't have conviction about anything because that's a pastor. 01:39:59.080 |
That's a church and this seminary and that's a -- so if they're all saying different things, maybe we're not supposed to. 01:40:05.080 |
And so being confident about something is just arrogance. 01:40:11.080 |
Or you say, since everybody is saying the same thing and they all are saying different things, they have different opinions, they must all be wrong. 01:40:26.080 |
Because everybody -- maybe we're not able to know the truth. 01:40:32.080 |
So the lazy way to respond when there are different opinions is either everybody is right or everybody is wrong. 01:40:48.080 |
If five people come into the room and all five people say that they are Michael Jordan, do you say, well, they must all be Michael Jordan because they all said they're Michael Jordan. 01:41:04.080 |
Or do you say they all said they're Michael Jordan. 01:41:16.080 |
So maybe if they're all 5'6", right, 5'6" Asian American, right, middle-aged, maybe, but maybe one of them has a different skin tone and he's 6'6", right? 01:41:40.080 |
And he's 6'6" and he's slender and he's of the age, right? 01:41:46.080 |
Then you would look at that and say, well, they're all saying it, but there's only one that looks like Michael Jordan. 01:41:52.080 |
You see him play basketball and he's the only one that can actually play like Michael Jordan. 01:41:56.080 |
The only one that actually fits all the criteria that a Michael Jordan may have. 01:42:13.080 |
Then you can come to the conclusion that's got to be Michael Jordan. 01:42:16.080 |
But you don't automatically say because everybody said that they're Michael Jordan, say, oh, they can't all be Michael Jordan. 01:42:22.080 |
Or none of them can be Michael Jordan, right? 01:42:25.080 |
I see a lot of people coming to false conclusions because they hear so many differing opinions. 01:42:32.080 |
And without doing their homework, they come to one or the other conclusion without ever carefully examining. 01:42:40.080 |
At the end of the day, you may do careful examination, maybe come out at the end saying, after I looked at everything carefully, 01:42:51.080 |
Or after careful examination, looking at the pictures and everything else, none of them fits this criteria. 01:42:58.080 |
But they don't come to that conclusion just because they said that. 01:43:03.080 |
The reason why I tell you that is because I am confident that if you take time to examine the Word of God and ask good questions and dig and search for the truth, 01:43:20.080 |
I don't need you to believe everything I tell you. 01:43:24.080 |
Because my words, in my opinion, are coming from the Word of God. 01:43:29.080 |
So if you examine it carefully, right, test me. 01:43:36.080 |
And if you test me, we will be more united, not less united. 01:43:43.080 |
We may not have that 100% opinion about the exact same thing. 01:43:47.080 |
But part of the reason why there's so much division in our churches and in our generation is because we are not examining the truth. 01:43:55.080 |
We're coming to lazy conclusions about the truth, one way or the other. 01:44:03.080 |
And then finally, what does growing in grace look like in your life? 01:44:07.080 |
So let me pray for us and then I'll get you guys to have your discussion. 01:44:14.080 |
Gracious Father, we pray that you would anoint this time. 01:44:18.080 |
May your Word and your Spirit continue to speak to us, guide us, convict us, renew us. 01:44:31.080 |
Help us, Lord God, that we may grow in grace and in knowledge.