back to index2021-4-11 Everything We Need For Everything We Ought To Be
00:00:00.000 |
If you guys have your Bibles with you, please turn with me to 2 Peter, and I'm going to 00:00:10.240 |
read just the first four verses of 2 Peter, and it'll be projected up overhead. 00:00:17.000 |
So take a minute, or take a second, to go to 2 Peter, verses 1 through 4. 00:00:25.280 |
Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a 00:00:32.140 |
faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 00:00:39.520 |
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing 00:00:45.160 |
that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. 00:00:51.420 |
Through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. 00:00:56.840 |
For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them 00:01:03.040 |
you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the 00:01:11.200 |
Lord, would you speak and feed your people this morning, and that we would become just 00:01:20.600 |
all the more appreciative of our lives in Christ? 00:01:26.560 |
And Lord, that that appreciation would overflow into lives that shine brightly for you and 00:01:35.280 |
Help us to receive your word, to be challenged by it, to be changed by it, and help us to 00:01:42.440 |
grow more and more just hungry to feed more each and every week. 00:01:49.280 |
So we thank you for giving us the opportunity to gather today. 00:01:52.960 |
We pray just for your grace and your blessings over our time together as you say we pray. 00:02:00.480 |
So well, first off, I just want to say thank you to my church family for praying for us 00:02:07.920 |
and loving on me and my wife and the kids, especially over the past 14 months. 00:02:13.140 |
By the grace and kindness of God and the support and love of the church, I am completely cancer 00:02:20.120 |
I was diagnosed, for those of you guys who are visiting, with stage 3C colorectal cancer 00:02:31.400 |
And as most of you guys do know, the last step of the treatments was a couple weeks 00:02:40.800 |
And I took most of March off just to recover and rest. 00:02:44.200 |
So now I'm back, fully healthy, running around pretending to be busy. 00:02:48.920 |
Actually, no, I am busy, but trying to look the part. 00:02:54.080 |
God's answered many of your prayers in the affirmative. 00:02:58.320 |
And I'm much indebted to this church family for all the love and the care. 00:03:03.260 |
We literally had like 14 months straight of a minimum of two meals delivered to our home. 00:03:09.800 |
I received at the very least one physical snail mail letter written just to encourage 00:03:17.120 |
me to say and remind me that people are praying. 00:03:21.720 |
And that's not even including all the texts and the emails and stuff. 00:03:30.160 |
And one of the strangely wonderful things about cancer is that you come face to face 00:03:37.400 |
And I don't say like wonderful facetiously because there are aspects of it that are horrible. 00:03:43.480 |
But being reminded that you might possibly die very soon is spiritually a very powerful 00:03:51.960 |
And normally in your 40s, you don't think about death too much. 00:03:56.760 |
But I remember we've had quite a few funerals of our church family members' families just 00:04:05.800 |
And I remember at one of the first ones shortly after my diagnosis just watching the casket, 00:04:11.920 |
singing the hymn with the deceased persons like family and friends. 00:04:15.520 |
And I actually was imagining my body being lowered into the casket. 00:04:20.540 |
And it wasn't like a morbid depressing thought. 00:04:25.760 |
But it was actually rather like a sober reflection on my reality. 00:04:31.700 |
So that reflection caused me to just want to just live better, to be better, and with 00:04:40.760 |
And because of the size of the tumor and the staging of my cancer, those first few days 00:04:48.060 |
And I had a lot of time, especially those first few days, to think about death. 00:04:52.640 |
I had a lot of time to think about the remainder of my life. 00:04:56.920 |
And I was forced to think through how I would live my life if I had like a year remaining. 00:05:02.700 |
If my end was near, how would I maximize the time I had left? 00:05:12.540 |
What would I be so eager to press upon those closest to me? 00:05:16.720 |
So with death on my mind, there was a sense of urgency with which I wanted to live my 00:05:23.180 |
And there were many things that I felt so compelled to share, to preach, and to communicate. 00:05:29.500 |
For the Apostle Peter, it wasn't cancer, but rather his trial and his looming execution. 00:05:38.700 |
And I'm going to read verse 14 and 15 of this, the beginning of the epistle for you. 00:05:42.940 |
"Knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus 00:05:52.620 |
And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call 00:06:00.240 |
So Peter's writing as he's nearing the end of his life. 00:06:04.480 |
He knows that he will soon return home to be with his Lord. 00:06:08.380 |
He knows his time is almost up, so he's writing with urgency. 00:06:11.820 |
And he wants to make absolutely crystal clear how he wants the church to carry on this gospel 00:06:25.500 |
He wants them to know how to fight, what kind of things to abstain from. 00:06:29.920 |
And he makes very clear in 2 Peter the priorities of the church and the priorities of his saints. 00:06:36.380 |
And he tells the churches to be very careful. 00:06:39.940 |
He explicitly points out that the looming dangers, what they are, that threaten the 00:06:46.040 |
And he reminds them of the fact that this corrupted world and all that is in this corrupted 00:06:54.100 |
It's actually probably one of the most intense books of the New Testament. 00:06:59.100 |
So in 61 very intense verses, the apostle Peter gives what appears to be his last will 00:07:08.180 |
And so much of what Peter wrote to the churches in Asia Minor and in this second epistle, 00:07:19.460 |
So this morning I'm going to take a look at primarily the first four verses found in the 00:07:25.020 |
And then I will walk you through some of the major themes of the whole of 2 Peter because 00:07:30.100 |
the contents of the entire letter are weighty, they're intense, and of supreme importance. 00:07:35.660 |
So I'm going to give you an outline up front, who we are. 00:07:41.360 |
So Peter first says this is who we are, this is our identity. 00:07:45.140 |
And then he continues to what we have been given, verses 2 to 4. 00:07:50.060 |
And third, what kind of people we ought to be. 00:07:52.280 |
So who we are, what we've been given, and what kind of people we ought to be, especially 00:07:57.740 |
in the light of the fact that everything is going to crash and burn. 00:08:02.220 |
So who we are, or in our context, who the apostle Peter is and who he's addressing. 00:08:09.500 |
So it says in verse 1, "Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ." 00:08:16.020 |
So the letter opens with the apostle introducing himself as Simeon Peter. 00:08:22.180 |
If you guys are using the ESV, that's not a typo. 00:08:27.060 |
The ESV actually has translated it correctly, while the NASB did not. 00:08:33.580 |
Simeon Peter, so he calls himself a bondservant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. 00:08:39.820 |
And bondservant is a very nice way of saying slave. 00:08:43.860 |
And the word slave in our modern context is very negative, very incendiary, and it carries 00:08:51.780 |
So because it carries so much baggage, most English translations, they use the more neutral 00:08:59.620 |
But the word doulos really does mean slave, one whose sole purpose is to obey his master 00:09:08.620 |
So in a worldly sense, the word slave feels super offensive and insulting because no one 00:09:15.920 |
likes to think that he only exists to be used. 00:09:21.580 |
But I wonder how different the word slave would feel if history was full of examples 00:09:27.020 |
of selfless, sacrificial, compassionate, generous, protective, and loving slave masters. 00:09:37.340 |
But if a slave had a master who was always looking out for his good, I think there would 00:09:50.380 |
We serve a good shepherd, a good master, one who would even elevate us slaves to the level 00:09:57.320 |
of friend, brother, co-worker, and even co-heir. 00:10:01.980 |
So spiritually, slave of Jesus Christ is not a position of humiliation but one of honor. 00:10:16.520 |
So here's what Peter is saying when he's saying that he is a doulos of Jesus Christ. 00:10:21.100 |
First, he is inalienably possessed by Jesus Christ. 00:10:29.540 |
Second, Peter says he's unqualifiedly at the disposal of Jesus Christ. 00:10:36.100 |
So he has been created and called to be used and to be useful. 00:10:41.180 |
Third, owing and unquestioning obedience to Jesus Christ. 00:10:56.620 |
So and fourthly, when Peter says, "I am a doulos of Christ," he's saying he's constantly 00:11:04.580 |
So Peter gets no breaks, no holidays, no PTO. 00:11:14.260 |
And the apostle Peter is calling himself a slave of Jesus Christ. 00:11:18.060 |
And that title for him is good because Jesus Christ is supremely good. 00:11:26.820 |
Peter is a slave and a mouthpiece of his good Lord. 00:11:33.280 |
His sole purpose in this life is to honor Christ. 00:11:40.820 |
But actually if you read through 1 and 2 Peter, there is absolutely no hint of bitterness, 00:11:48.660 |
He does not care that following Christ has cost him everything. 00:11:55.340 |
Christ has been and will continue to be his Lord for all eternity. 00:11:59.440 |
So Simeon Peter, a bondservant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. 00:12:08.300 |
And after introducing himself in the letter, Peter turns his attention to the audience. 00:12:13.580 |
It reads, "To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness 00:12:24.340 |
So he's addressing this letter to all the other fellow slaves who like him have been 00:12:29.560 |
purchased at a very expensive price, the blood of Jesus Christ. 00:12:34.660 |
So 2 Corinthians 5, 21, "He made him who knew no sin be sin on our behalf so that we might 00:12:44.500 |
So the believers in the churches of Asia Minor had received the same faith. 00:12:48.860 |
They had received, they had responded in the same way to the gospel of Jesus. 00:12:54.020 |
They were, they who were poor were made rich because of the voluntary poverty of Jesus 00:13:00.020 |
And though they weren't especially called to be apostles, these Christians, their faith 00:13:06.580 |
in Christ made them bondservants of Christ just like Peter. 00:13:16.980 |
Jesus Christ cannot be Savior only and not Lord. 00:13:23.800 |
Jesus Christ cannot be our Savior only and not Lord. 00:13:36.980 |
And Peter's call and burden is our call and burden. 00:13:40.700 |
Peter's master and Lord is our master and Lord. 00:13:43.740 |
And this is the identity of every person who would call himself a Christian. 00:13:49.700 |
And you cannot land, you cannot but land on that conclusion if you're reading through 00:13:55.680 |
You cannot accept Christ as Savior and reject him as Lord over your life. 00:14:12.700 |
So has your soul been purchased by the precious blood of Christ? 00:14:18.580 |
Have you become in him the righteousness of God? 00:14:37.100 |
And your primary and chief aim in life is to proclaim the excellencies of him who calls 00:14:42.940 |
you out of darkness and into his wonderful light. 00:14:54.380 |
So you and I exist to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 00:14:58.540 |
And it's very good this morning to be first reminded of this truth because modern-day 00:15:02.980 |
church culture kind of nudges us to think that Jesus Christ exists to serve us. 00:15:16.540 |
We are bond servants of Jesus Christ, and may he do with us as he deems fit. 00:15:23.020 |
So this brings us to our second point, what we have been given. 00:15:27.860 |
So for the who we are part of the sermon outline, it's all there in verse 1. 00:15:35.340 |
But the what we have been given part, it's a little bit more challenging because we have 00:15:40.060 |
to look at all the verses from, or two through four. 00:15:43.300 |
So I'm going to reread verses 2 to 4 for you. 00:15:48.100 |
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing 00:15:53.420 |
that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the 00:15:59.540 |
true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. 00:16:04.260 |
For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises so that by them you 00:16:09.580 |
may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the 00:16:16.100 |
So in the Greek, there's grammatical awkwardness all over the place in these three verses. 00:16:22.580 |
And in the Greek, in the new section, is clearly starting at verse 3, but Peter has let the 00:16:31.760 |
And there's also no main verb in these verses. 00:16:35.460 |
And Peter goes back and forth from you to us, us to you, you to us. 00:16:38.880 |
So if you're doing like an inductive Bible study through these verses, you would come 00:16:46.540 |
And the English translations have smoothed out things a little bit in these verses so 00:16:52.220 |
But if you compare all the English translations, there's commas and semicolons and periods 00:16:58.380 |
So the grammar is a little awkward and complex. 00:17:01.340 |
But syntactically, there are two things that are highlighted, okay, in these verses. 00:17:06.660 |
And they come after the words "has granted to us." 00:17:12.500 |
First, the term "everything" is in the emphatic position. 00:17:17.500 |
So Peter is stressing and emphasizing how God's divine power has granted to all believers 00:17:32.220 |
So you can actually interpret that as a godly life, and that would not be incorrect. 00:17:37.020 |
So there are a lot of little couplets in 2 Peter where two words are used to kind of 00:17:48.500 |
So God has given to the apostles, to the churches in Asia Minor, and to all of us who know Him, 00:17:56.020 |
everything we need for life and for godliness. 00:18:20.240 |
And that's consistent with what we see all over the scriptures, and this is nothing new. 00:18:25.540 |
So the apostle Paul points to us, to this truth, that God's grace is sufficient, 2 Corinthians 00:18:31.200 |
12 9, that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him, Philippians 4 13. 00:18:40.080 |
He says, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." 00:18:51.640 |
So hopefully this isn't new teaching for you. 00:18:55.400 |
Hopefully this has been and is familiar biblical truth for you. 00:19:24.240 |
And hopefully when you sang it, you weren't lying and you weren't just mindlessly and 00:19:27.800 |
habitually moving your lips, especially if you had like your praise face on. 00:19:33.760 |
Hopefully you were really saying that as a confession. 00:19:37.680 |
And this isn't a song that we sing as much now, but you know that song? 00:19:55.560 |
And whenever you sing these kinds of things, it doesn't like cause you to be like, "That's 00:20:01.360 |
So this is a truth that you guys already know academically, but do you really believe this? 00:20:09.960 |
Second Peter 2, 1-2, Peter warns that there have always been distorters of God's truth 00:20:16.560 |
and that there will always be false teachers among the people and that there will be destructive 00:20:25.840 |
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers 00:20:31.520 |
among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought 00:20:38.320 |
them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. 00:20:42.800 |
Many will follow their sensuality and because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned. 00:20:48.520 |
And you know the tricky thing about heresies and lies in general, heresies contain a whole 00:21:00.060 |
If heresies were very obviously heresies, it would be a pathetic heresy. 00:21:06.400 |
Heresy, a lot of what is contained in there is truth with a perversion and a distortion 00:21:14.800 |
And there have been all kinds of destructive heresies that have battered the walls of the 00:21:18.800 |
And here's one destructive heresy that I believe that many in our pews today are tempted 00:21:50.160 |
And so many church people work very hard and expend a lot of energy trying to gain more, 00:21:57.120 |
trying to attain more, trying to buy more, trying to move out of state perhaps. 00:22:04.760 |
Because a part of them has bought into the lie that they don't have enough or that their 00:22:10.440 |
circumstances are not enough to make them happy or useful to the Lord. 00:22:18.800 |
His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. 00:22:31.620 |
You have everything you need for life and godliness. 00:22:39.420 |
You may not have a lot in your bank account, but you have everything you need for your 00:22:49.720 |
And I know many of you love Romans chapter 8, verses 31 to 32 are two of my favorite 00:22:55.680 |
It reads, "What then shall we say to these things? 00:23:03.560 |
He who did not spare his own son but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also 00:23:14.840 |
So hopefully when you're singing, "Your grace is enough," or "Christ is enough for me," 00:23:20.240 |
you're not just honoring him with your lips while your heart is super far away. 00:23:24.860 |
Do you believe that his divine power has given you everything you need for your life and 00:23:33.180 |
So the second thing that has been granted to believers is God's precious and magnificent 00:23:40.640 |
So we're not told exactly what the content of the promises is, but the focus of these 00:23:46.360 |
promises is our participation in the divine nature and escape from corruption that is 00:23:57.020 |
We escape this corruption, we escape this destruction, and we partake in the divine 00:24:02.300 |
And we gain a little bit more insight into this at the end of the letter in chapter 3 00:24:05.820 |
verse 13 where the word "promise" is used once again. 00:24:10.140 |
But according to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness 00:24:18.080 |
So we have been granted everything we need for life and godliness. 00:24:21.020 |
We have received promises of salvation and a great future hope. 00:24:24.820 |
And all of these things, all of our sufficiency, all of our blessings come through a true and 00:24:32.140 |
So the word "knowledge" will keep coming up again and again in the entirety of Peter's 00:24:37.340 |
So I'm going to have a slide up here for you, and we'll just read through this real quick. 00:24:41.140 |
Grace and peace in the knowledge of God, through the knowledge of him, in your moral excellence, 00:24:46.180 |
knowledge, and in your knowledge, add such and such a thing, nor unfruitful in the true 00:24:53.860 |
We made known to you, but know this first of all, escaped by the knowledge of the Lord. 00:25:05.380 |
So the word "knowledge" is very important to the apostle Peter. 00:25:10.460 |
It's used twice here in just this grammatically challenging section, and you'll see it again 00:25:15.180 |
in verses 5, 6, 8, 16, and 20, just in chapter 1. 00:25:21.140 |
And this whole epistle ends with a last exhortation to actively grow in the knowledge until the 00:25:27.500 |
So we're in the beginning of the book of 1 Timothy, chapter 3, but grow in the grace 00:25:30.980 |
and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 00:25:35.020 |
To him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. 00:25:41.260 |
So as I've mentioned before, grammatically, this is not an easy verse to fully understand, 00:25:46.740 |
but what God has given every believer, what you and I have received, is very easy to discern. 00:25:54.040 |
So he has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. 00:25:58.560 |
He has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, and he has granted to us access 00:26:05.080 |
to know him, to know of him, and to be known by him. 00:26:11.600 |
And to know God actually is what eternal life is all about. 00:26:19.100 |
This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you 00:26:26.140 |
And we remind you time and time again, we have everything we need. 00:26:34.200 |
And if you are a child of God, if you put your faith in Christ, eternal life has already 00:26:40.640 |
So here your knowledge of God may be like that of a poor reflection, but one day you 00:26:48.580 |
Eternal life does not start the moment you expire your Lord into the casket, "Oh, eternal 00:26:55.040 |
It starts with your initial knowledge of the living God. 00:27:02.960 |
He is Lord, we are slaves, we have everything we need, we lack nothing. 00:27:13.060 |
Our goal in life, our all-encompassing purpose in this life and in the next is to know him 00:27:25.460 |
Does the way you live your life proclaim this? 00:27:30.480 |
So going back to our outline, who we are is we are slaves of our God and Savior, Jesus 00:27:40.920 |
We have been given everything that we need for life and godliness. 00:27:52.460 |
Verse 4 briefly touches upon the truth that we will be partakers of the divine nature. 00:27:57.260 |
So there's an already but not yet element here because these promises, though initiated 00:28:02.700 |
here, won't be fully actualized until his promise of a new heaven and a new earth is 00:28:08.220 |
So verse 13 of chapter 3, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth in 00:28:16.860 |
And I mentioned to you that a destructive heresy many today are tricked into believing 00:28:31.500 |
And that's another dangerous lie that you and I cannot be tricked into believing. 00:28:37.500 |
This world is our home is a very subtle, destructive lie that many are tempted to buy into. 00:28:51.980 |
The Bible says this place is going to crash and burn. 00:28:54.660 |
So I'm going to read together what the apostle Peter says about what awaits this world. 00:29:02.940 |
But by his word, the present heavens and the earth are being reserved for fire, kept for 00:29:08.380 |
the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. 00:29:13.100 |
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a 00:29:17.780 |
roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will 00:29:37.100 |
You know what sounds nice but is extremely foolish? 00:29:49.140 |
It is great folly and unnecessary distraction if you're thinking of expending a lot of energy 00:29:54.500 |
making this world more comfortable, more habitable, and more peaceful. 00:30:03.300 |
So trying to make this world a better place is akin to applying beautiful paint on cabinets 00:30:15.820 |
So I'm not saying that we shouldn't be good stewards or that we shouldn't be salt and 00:30:19.420 |
light in the world while we are in this world. 00:30:22.860 |
What I am saying is that we should put very little hope in this world. 00:30:28.660 |
So I actually wrote a list down of what things I would try to save in the event of a fire. 00:30:37.020 |
If I wake up in the middle of the night, things are burning, what am I going to go and scramble 00:30:47.660 |
Nod your heads if you guys would do the same, like old photo albums. 00:30:51.260 |
Second, legal documents, social security cards, passports, birth certificates. 00:31:03.200 |
I would go after my laptop because there's important stuff on my laptop. 00:31:07.660 |
Cloud hasn't been updated in about a week and a half, okay? 00:31:10.580 |
And it's a hassle to try to get a new computer. 00:31:14.720 |
I would save my wallet because I need some kind of form of ID. 00:31:21.180 |
I will save my Bible that I've taken notes on, right? 00:31:23.940 |
Because it's hard to replace all of the inspiration that I've gleaned from just my quiet times. 00:31:36.700 |
So she's been with us for a while, so I would save Bailey. 00:31:40.440 |
And I would probably grab our car keys, maybe, if I had some time, because you need a temporary 00:31:50.360 |
And these are all important and valuable and useful to me. 00:32:00.000 |
And some of these things, though they can be replaced, it's a big old hassle to try 00:32:09.780 |
So none of you guys are probably thinking I'm gonna fault that guy for grabbing these 00:32:19.060 |
But if this was the entirety of my list, you would fault me. 00:32:33.140 |
So all the other things that I would grab are not unimportant things, and I do hope 00:32:39.420 |
But in the event I wake up in the middle of the night to a fire, I need to prioritize, 00:32:46.460 |
I need to prioritize my wife and my kids, even if my dog perishes. 00:32:55.460 |
Even if she were to perish, I would have to go after Becky and the kids first. 00:33:02.640 |
And that's not saying that I don't love Bailey, my dog. 00:33:13.060 |
To make the world a better place, what are their foolishness? 00:33:21.180 |
The Bible says that this world is going to crash and burn, and that truth is all over 00:33:32.700 |
Give your kids a solid college education, save for your retirement. 00:33:50.300 |
But our priority with the short time that we have in this life, get souls restored to 00:34:02.900 |
And remember, his divine nature has granted to you everything pertaining to this task. 00:34:11.300 |
Charles Spurgeon once said it well, "Great numbers of persons in the churches have no 00:34:18.140 |
They care more about their cats and their dogs than their souls." 00:34:22.260 |
And perhaps Spurgeon is describing some of us sitting here today. 00:34:31.940 |
First, we are slaves of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. 00:34:38.300 |
We've been given everything we need pertaining to life and godliness. 00:34:42.060 |
We've been given his precious promises that were a seal. 00:34:48.420 |
We were given these things, and what sort of people in response ought we to be? 00:34:54.020 |
And in 2 Peter, there's a ton of applications that Apostle Peter lays out, a ton of exhortations, 00:35:05.420 |
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you 00:35:12.700 |
Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by him in 00:35:17.940 |
peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. 00:35:25.860 |
Keep yourself unstained by the world and get to work rescuing souls. 00:35:31.740 |
And I'll take you also to the verses immediately following the verses that I read in the beginning, 00:35:37.940 |
Now for this reason also, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence, in 00:35:46.100 |
your moral excellence knowledge, and in your knowledge self-control, and in your self-control 00:35:52.580 |
perseverance, and in your perseverance godliness, and in your godliness brotherly kindness, 00:36:04.100 |
It may be a foolish and distracting endeavor to try to make this world a better place, 00:36:14.340 |
But all of that is under the umbrella of knowing God and making him known because there is 00:36:20.340 |
That has to take central priority in your life. 00:36:25.300 |
You know as I was meditating upon 2 Peter chapters 1, 1 through 4, my mind kept going 00:36:33.060 |
You guys know that Psalm, like the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 00:36:39.940 |
And there's a line in there that says, "Be it in a quiet pasture or by a gentle stream, 00:36:52.740 |
Should I face a mighty mountain or a valley dark and deep, the shepherd of my soul will 00:37:02.700 |
So in life there are seasons where it feels like there are more mighty mountains or dark 00:37:09.980 |
For me the 14 months fighting cancer felt like a mighty mountain. 00:37:15.860 |
And sometimes life is full of little inconveniences and challenges. 00:37:24.980 |
How do we conduct ourselves in holiness and godly conduct? 00:37:29.820 |
If every trial, every inconvenience, every person even is in your life on purpose, how 00:37:39.980 |
In all things we seek to know him and to make him known. 00:37:46.980 |
He is a good shepherd and he has other sheep that are not yet of this fold. 00:37:56.700 |
He has other sheep that are not yet of this fold. 00:38:01.540 |
So in your knowing him, in your trusting him, our call is to help others to know him and 00:38:09.460 |
And you and I have been adequately equipped to do this. 00:38:17.940 |
A lot of things both big and little, both good and bad have happened in just the last 00:38:25.060 |
So on February 26th, so I went in for my final surgery and up until that point, you know, 00:38:34.180 |
And February 26th I was going to get the stoma taken down and I was going to go back to life 00:38:41.820 |
That was my final step in the cancer journey. 00:38:45.980 |
And the first time I was there, I was there for about four days. 00:38:48.840 |
And so I had taken a lot of work to do because I was thinking, hey, this whole cancer treatment's 00:38:55.980 |
After surgery I'm just going to, you know, do memory verses. 00:39:01.180 |
And I realized it's kind of hard with all these wires strapped to your fingers and your 00:39:04.220 |
body and the drugs running through your system. 00:39:06.900 |
So I said, okay, this time around I'm just going to kind of relax. 00:39:09.740 |
Okay, so I was expecting three or four days where I could just sleep. 00:39:14.140 |
I could actually get to a couple TV shows and I was ready to relax. 00:39:19.820 |
And I was sitting there, laying there, and then all of a sudden they wheel in another 00:39:26.700 |
And I was thinking, man, I had peace and quiet, but they're reeling in this other dude, this 00:39:30.380 |
18-year-old kid who just had his appendix about to burst. 00:39:33.740 |
So they did an emergency surgery and then he was there. 00:39:37.820 |
And he, I mean, he was a very nice kid, but he was 18. 00:39:44.460 |
And he was talking about, he was calling his friends for three, four hours at a time, talking 00:39:48.620 |
about all kinds of silly things that 18-year-old kids talk about. 00:39:51.720 |
He was watching his TV shows at a very high volume. 00:39:55.460 |
And at first I was like, Lord, you know I need to rest. 00:40:01.740 |
But then the thought that came to mind was if every person is on purpose, every meeting 00:40:07.500 |
is a divine appointment, and I am called to save souls, and he has equipped me for everything 00:40:13.500 |
pertaining to life and godliness, I need to use this to my advantage. 00:40:25.860 |
And he just nodded along and then called his girlfriend again. 00:40:35.340 |
A couple, like a week later, I was thinking, oh man, I got to take advantage of my last 00:40:40.860 |
few days off work because once I get back to church it's going to be busy. 00:40:44.680 |
And the last few times I did jury duty, it ended really quick. 00:40:48.180 |
But this time around for some reason, I was there all the way until 4 p.m. and then they 00:40:54.700 |
And I was like, man, this is so inconvenient. 00:40:57.420 |
And I just started striking up a conversation with a lady named Deb, and I made a new friend 00:41:05.620 |
And each step of the way, I was thinking, man, there is no shortage of opportunities 00:41:15.220 |
I don't know if anything happened after that. 00:41:19.820 |
And just a month ago, on March 11th, I got a phone call saying that my mom in Korea had 00:41:29.540 |
So she got diagnosed with -- she was worried about me, and in December, I got a phone call 00:41:34.140 |
saying that she got diagnosed with lung and bone and breast cancer. 00:41:37.060 |
A little bit had gone into her brain, so it was a little bit urgent. 00:41:40.300 |
And I was thinking, you know, I need to get to Korea. 00:41:45.260 |
And I was calling the surgeon, trying to see would I be okay to travel with this ostomy 00:41:53.780 |
And so I wouldn't have been able to go see my mom. 00:41:56.560 |
And then exactly one month ago, from today, March 11th, she passed away. 00:42:02.220 |
And the thing that I was thinking was, you know, the emotional highs and lows are there. 00:42:08.680 |
But the truth of my reality is that His divine power has given me everything I need for life 00:42:16.660 |
And the truth of the reality of this life is that it's going to end. 00:42:27.500 |
And my main duty in all of this is just trust and obey, to put my hope in Christ, to know 00:42:44.840 |
His divine power has given me everything I need to respond to every hurdle, every high 00:42:51.120 |
mountain, every low valley in a way that gives Him glory. 00:43:00.800 |
In every trial, in every inconvenience, in every joy, success, and victory, in every 00:43:04.920 |
relationship, what is your purpose, O beloved slave? 00:43:12.800 |
You are to trust Him, to know Him, and make Him known. 00:43:20.160 |
That Him, trust and obey, for there's no other way, what? 00:43:26.600 |
So to the shepherd of your soul, give Him full control. 00:43:30.840 |
And wherever He may lead you, follow and follow well. 00:43:35.800 |
Be it in a quiet pasture or by a gentle stream, remember that the shepherd of your soul is 00:43:48.240 |
His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the 00:43:55.280 |
true knowledge of Him who called us by His glory and excellence. 00:44:05.920 |
And as our good shepherd leads you through the highs and lows of this life, worship, 00:44:24.920 |
Father, we need Your help to know how to properly give You the worship that You do in every 00:44:49.840 |
And we pray that as we walk with You, that You would give us greater wisdom, greater 00:44:55.320 |
insight, greater faith, so that as we walk with You, we will grow in excellence in knowing 00:45:07.120 |
Lord, we thank You for Your kindness in our lives. 00:45:17.520 |
Help us to reflect You in a way that is so pleasing.