back to indexBerean Community Church Wednesday Night Bible Study Titus Intro and 1:1-3
Chapters
0:0
0:17 Word of Prayer
8:59 Inductive Questions
9:5 Inductive Bible Study
12:49 Encouragement for Memorizing a Book
15:17 Direct Commands to Titus
20:14 Relationship between Our Faith and Good Deeds
22:49 Reprove Them Severely the False Prophets
24:28 Can Christians Eat Blood
29:23 Work Out Your Salvation with Fear and Trembling
00:00:07.480 |
So we're in the book of Titus, and it's 46 verses, and there's a lot of fun stuff in 00:00:15.560 |
And before we begin, let me just open us up in a word of prayer, and then I'll give you 00:00:19.500 |
some helpful informational little tidbits before you guys have a discussion, okay? 00:00:27.080 |
Father, would you bless our study over the next few months, and would you teach us how 00:00:39.480 |
Help us to just grow, not just in knowledge, but in greater love for you and for one another, 00:00:46.720 |
and that as we adorn ourselves with good deeds, and as we work hard to give you the glory 00:00:53.040 |
that you do, I pray that you would bear fruit, and would you magnify yourself through the 00:01:04.280 |
We entrust tonight into your hands, and there's going to be a lot of different awkward, clumsy 00:01:10.080 |
moments where we're trying to learn how to study your word. 00:01:14.560 |
More than anything, would you cause our hearts to hunger for more of you? 00:01:19.920 |
Would you guide the discussions, and would you instruct not just our heads, but our hearts 00:01:28.240 |
All right, just there are two things that I want to just introduce before you guys get 00:01:36.920 |
I'm going to be looking at Titus the man, the person, because we don't know too much, 00:01:43.440 |
And also, he's on the island of Crete, and so just some helpful background that some 00:01:49.000 |
of you guys might have already done, but some helpful background so that when we're reading 00:01:53.680 |
the book of Titus, contextually, certain things make better sense, okay? 00:01:59.400 |
So for Titus, Paul likely met Titus on a second missionary journey of three, but Titus is 00:02:06.520 |
not mentioned at all in the book of Acts, so that's a little bit – so it's a little 00:02:11.640 |
difficult to discern exactly when Titus came into Paul's life, but he's an important 00:02:17.520 |
And he's such an important figure that in 2 Corinthians alone, he's mentioned nine 00:02:22.480 |
And he's called like a partner and fellow worker. 00:02:25.160 |
There aren't many people who have as much praise heaped on them as Titus and Timothy 00:02:32.360 |
So Titus is a very important figure in the early church, even though he's not even mentioned 00:02:40.560 |
So he was born a Gentile convert, and if you guys look at Galatians chapter 2, Paul doesn't 00:02:46.800 |
circumcise him, but he does circumcise somebody else, right? 00:02:53.640 |
He circumcises Timothy, who is a half Jew, half Gentile, but Titus, he leaves him be, 00:03:03.080 |
So he's a born-again Gentile convert, left uncircumcised, and he's also very trustworthy 00:03:08.360 |
most likely because you don't give the funds and a large amount of funds to someone who's 00:03:15.880 |
And so just in 2 Corinthians, the whole chapter on generosity and God loving the cheerful 00:03:20.960 |
giver and how we're not supposed to give begrudgingly, but just from gratitude and 00:03:27.200 |
from a cheerful heart, Titus is mentioned in that chapter on two different occasions, 00:03:32.520 |
and he's the one being put in charge for the collection. 00:03:38.040 |
His origins, when Paul meets him and all of these things, we don't really know. 00:03:43.560 |
In 2 Timothy, he's mentioned, and the only note there is he's gone to Dalmatia, okay? 00:03:49.720 |
But so Titus is a very important person to Paul, and he writes what we would call the 00:03:55.400 |
pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus to this man. 00:04:14.800 |
We studied that during the quarantine in the Macedonian area. 00:04:19.560 |
Galatia, Colossae, Ephesus, and Corinth are kind of all over here, but if you guys see 00:04:30.560 |
It's kind of like the Australia of the Mediterranean Sea, all right? 00:04:36.580 |
And there's a reason why I call it the Australia of the Mediterranean. 00:04:43.160 |
So hopefully, just geographically, you're thinking here's the Mediterranean, here's 00:04:46.760 |
the boot of Italy, and Crete is just kind of in the middle, okay? 00:04:51.560 |
So Paul actually travels through there, and you'll read about that account in Acts chapter 00:04:59.440 |
I'm not going to go into it, but Crete was a very interesting area, okay? 00:05:06.340 |
So here's a couple things that I found on Crete through various commentary sources. 00:05:11.600 |
And I'll tell you, for the preparation for our study, I didn't consult anything, like 00:05:19.560 |
The only thing I consulted online or for commentary work was just for the background of the place, 00:05:26.600 |
So you'll see that you don't need to consult the commentary, and we actually discourage 00:05:31.480 |
But anyway, for Crete, you guys might have done your own research. 00:05:36.040 |
Under Tiberius, it was used for exiles from Rome. 00:05:40.260 |
If you guys know any British history, Australia was like where they sent the not-so-high-quality 00:05:54.540 |
So Crete, during Tiberius' reign, was where they sent all Roman citizens who were a little 00:06:02.940 |
So it kind of was an exile, prison-like area. 00:06:07.520 |
So when you have a bunch of colorful characters, you know that that area develops a culture 00:06:13.100 |
that's not necessarily the most wholesome, okay? 00:06:15.280 |
So there's a strong Jewish community also in Crete. 00:06:21.840 |
So these guys from Crete are seeing what the apostles are doing, and they marvel. 00:06:30.720 |
In the Old Testament, oftentimes it's referred to as Kaphtor. 00:06:35.000 |
I don't know how to pronounce that, but I think I'm hopefully a little close. 00:06:43.000 |
And one interesting tidbit is that a lot of them have been archers since birth. 00:06:48.960 |
It's a mountainous area full of forests and trees. 00:06:52.320 |
And so one interesting note is that they know how to fight, and they're very excellent archers, 00:06:59.280 |
and they develop a culture of very vile soldierdom, okay? 00:07:04.680 |
So that's kind of the culture that Crete has. 00:07:12.320 |
Zeus is an important deity on the island of Crete, and they're not a very good people 00:07:20.320 |
So here's a Greek historian writing about Crete, and I highlighted some important words 00:07:30.880 |
Private seditions, murders, civil wars, steeped in treachery, no policy more inequitable than 00:07:43.560 |
And there's a lot of work that Titus has to do on this island. 00:07:49.560 |
There's religious people, there's pagan people, and Titus is given a task, okay? 00:07:56.220 |
So those are just kind of some of the basic information tidbits that I'm hoping that you 00:08:05.280 |
I'm going to break you off into -- well, you're broken off. 00:08:07.600 |
I'm going to just hand you over to your small group leader in a minute, but when you get 00:08:12.240 |
together, this is what you're going to share, all right? 00:08:17.760 |
Online and your small group leaders probably emailed you some of the homework questions. 00:08:22.360 |
You're going to share your outline of the book of Titus, okay? 00:08:28.560 |
Second, what are some major or repeated themes and exhortations that you notice in your reading? 00:08:36.400 |
Three, you're going to share your one-sentence summary of the epistle, all right? 00:08:42.320 |
Doesn't have to be like super eye-catching, but just your one sentence that'll help you 00:08:47.560 |
remember, and also that'll help the people in your group just see where you've launched 00:08:55.480 |
And then with the latter part of your time, what I want you guys to do is share the inductive 00:09:01.680 |
And for those of you guys who are kind of newer to our church and you're not quite sure 00:09:05.360 |
how to do an inductive Bible study, we do have a Bible lab running throughout various 00:09:12.320 |
And so we're not in that right now, but hopefully just during our time together, if you're not 00:09:17.160 |
quite sure, grab an older member of the church in your small group and maybe spend some time 00:09:21.800 |
just to get a private tutoring session from said brother or sister, okay? 00:09:27.200 |
But you're going to share inductive questions and observations that you made from these 00:09:33.640 |
And then at the end, if you have enough time, you're going to share one tangible application 00:09:39.880 |
that you can make from just the first three verses, okay? 00:09:42.800 |
Something that's measurable, something that's doable. 00:09:45.460 |
You don't want to share an application like, "No God more," okay? 00:09:49.760 |
Because that's not really measurable, all right? 00:09:53.680 |
So what is one tangible application you can make just from the verses one through three? 00:09:59.380 |
Raise your hand if you've noticed that just the first three verses are super dense. 00:10:04.860 |
And that's why in preparation for this, I preached out of this two weeks ago just so 00:10:09.160 |
that a lot of the dense material we cover in the sermon, okay? 00:10:15.380 |
And then this study is more for you to just go into the outline. 00:10:19.280 |
And then when you have time, you yourself to go into just those first three verses, 00:10:30.920 |
20-ish, and then I'm going to come up and I'm going to walk you through my outline, 00:10:39.240 |
So if you guys don't know each other, take a couple minutes, don't share your life story, 00:10:44.160 |
get to know each other a little bit, and then just jump right in. 00:10:47.120 |
And if you need just blank text only, Titus chapters one through three, I think there 00:10:58.720 |
All right, we're going to start the discussion time at 8.20, so finish up your... 00:11:08.000 |
Okay, you guys just finished up all your thoughts. 00:11:13.280 |
All group leaders, if you guys can pass this worksheet to everybody in your group. 00:11:22.200 |
And basically, I'm going to be sharing with you my homework, all the work that I did in 00:11:31.200 |
mostly the last three, four days, just putting this together. 00:11:35.560 |
And so that hopefully this will kind of give you insight as to how the pastor studies the 00:11:48.160 |
So normally on a Wednesday night, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be doing 00:11:52.040 |
a discussion like this, but I'm only going to come up and do the teaching at the end 00:11:58.760 |
And it's not going to be so much a teaching as it is going to be like a reflection and 00:12:05.520 |
Most of the study is going to be all on you guys, okay? 00:12:09.080 |
So we don't want your understanding of the Bible to be pastor-centered or pastor-focused. 00:12:16.480 |
You don't want to say, "Well, Pastor Mark says this, Pastor Nate, Pastor Peter says 00:12:24.920 |
We want you guys to dive into the Word and extract your own... 00:12:29.560 |
I mean, there is a proper way to do it, but really feed off of the source itself, okay? 00:12:39.260 |
And the whole process of this for me, I actually started memorizing this thing as soon as I 00:12:50.040 |
And my encouragement for memorizing a book, it's actually not that hard. 00:12:54.560 |
We have 17 of our teachers memorizing this so that when they teach it, starting next 00:13:00.680 |
month to the kindergartners and up, they know the context. 00:13:05.480 |
So I just go one verse a day, and I'm not done yet. 00:13:14.160 |
And I memorized this in the NIV about 15 years ago. 00:13:17.620 |
But as I'm going through the memorization process, I'm meditating on it, I'm chewing 00:13:22.520 |
on it, and I'm starting to notice very similar words, very similar phrases, very similar 00:13:32.560 |
And so it forces me to just kind of slow down. 00:13:37.040 |
So I came into this having memorized up to chapter 3, verse 6. 00:13:56.320 |
And I just start making observations and start writing stuff up on a Word document, okay? 00:14:08.520 |
And then I started just kind of indenting things and moving things around just as I 00:14:22.280 |
So the first thing I did was I indented just everything so that... 00:14:26.480 |
I mean, the first three verses, we did it today, so I just kind of organized it so I 00:14:33.640 |
But I made everything else like little sections, okay? 00:14:41.940 |
As you can see, the first part I put "Introduction to Elders and Overseers," and then "Why the 00:14:47.640 |
Church Needs Godly Leaders," and then "Expectations of Those Who Are Redeemed Under These Godly 00:14:54.720 |
Leaders," and then "Expectations of the Redeemed, Part Two," and in the middle of that is a 00:15:12.000 |
And then if you notice, like the little teal-colored highlight, I just started highlighting Paul's 00:15:40.960 |
So if Titus is a leader at the church, and whenever he's commanded to do certain things, 00:15:46.840 |
then I'm like, "Okay, these are important things that I need to pay attention to," okay? 00:15:50.960 |
This is a leader who's supposed to appoint other leaders, so whatever is being directly 00:15:55.280 |
told to him are very important things for Titus to keep in mind and for all church leaders 00:16:01.000 |
to keep in mind, so I kind of highlighted that. 00:16:09.040 |
If you guys, I don't make charts for like, if we're going through Philippians, you don't 00:16:13.760 |
have those charts, but in Titus, if you guys notice, you have a lot of good qualities that 00:16:19.160 |
people are supposed to have and a lot of bad qualities people are supposed to have. 00:16:22.560 |
Nod your heads if you guys already knew that. 00:16:28.080 |
And as I'm doing this, I'm making the chart, I'm copying and pasting and adding, copying 00:16:33.480 |
and pasting and adding as I'm just going through this. 00:16:36.720 |
And this was when I was like at verse 9 of chapter 1, so I just wanted to show you, I 00:16:40.960 |
put it into a category of godliness and then I put it into a category of ungodliness. 00:16:49.160 |
And that just came from just feeling the mood of the letter and the categorizations, not 00:16:56.280 |
just by reading it, but by just digesting on it for a few months. 00:16:59.600 |
Now obviously, you're not going to have a few months to study a letter at all times, 00:17:04.200 |
but the more you slow down, the more you catch very important themes on any book. 00:17:11.700 |
Because when you just read through stuff, you can miss a lot of things, right? 00:17:15.640 |
So I categorized it godliness and ungodliness. 00:17:20.640 |
And if you look at the final chart on the third page, I have a list of who's godly, 00:17:28.740 |
what qualifies as godly traits, why they need to be godly, and how they become godly. 00:17:41.560 |
And then on the other side, I made an ungodly category. 00:17:48.480 |
They're men of circumcision, cretins, pre-Christ selves, factious pretenders, and then all 00:18:05.600 |
And then I made a note of frequently repeated or emphasized traits or words. 00:18:11.760 |
So I noticed that sensible comes out five times. 00:18:17.120 |
Not just if you actually also notice that, okay? 00:18:23.280 |
I also noticed that good deeds actually wins this competition. 00:18:31.520 |
Good deeds, good deeds, good deeds, good deeds. 00:18:37.400 |
The thing that comes out negative the most is actually heterodoxy, bad teaching. 00:18:48.600 |
So just from making this list, on the godly side, there's an emphasis on appropriately 00:19:05.080 |
On this side, these dudes, the thing that's emphasized the most is they teach bad theology. 00:19:25.440 |
Contradict sound doctrine comes out the most when it comes to the ungodly people. 00:19:30.960 |
And if you guys also noticed, our Savior shows up on every chapter sometimes twice. 00:19:42.120 |
After every incarnation, there's our Savior, okay? 00:19:48.600 |
So if I was asking an inductive study, it's like, there's this theme of our Savior repeating 00:20:02.960 |
What kind of teachings are going around so that Paul's having to speak against the teaching 00:20:14.520 |
What is this relationship between our faith and good deeds? 00:20:18.040 |
James says faith without deeds is dead, but this is Titus. 00:20:29.560 |
Because in chapter 3 verse 5, it says good deeds doesn't lead to salvation, but there's 00:20:40.560 |
And then I just went through and highlighted all the reasons that will tell me why something 00:20:49.040 |
So that, one of our brothers at the table is like, so that's mentioned a lot. 00:20:54.520 |
Is so that, is that an important phrase in English? 00:21:03.000 |
Eat lunch on time so that there's a why question that's naturally being asked, okay? 00:21:09.720 |
So every important word that I kind of came across, I just started highlighting in yellow 00:21:16.760 |
so that my eye would go to these little breaks. 00:21:21.220 |
And then I looked at anything that's future focused, the already but not yet tension. 00:21:41.880 |
So I'm hoping that, I mean, it's just the first three chapters. 00:21:55.360 |
And if I was doing this for myself and not to present, I would print it at this stage. 00:22:00.440 |
And then I would take a pen and I would start drawing lines everywhere. 00:22:07.860 |
And the more I just mark this up, and you don't want to do this on your Bible because, 00:22:13.640 |
you know, if you make a mistake, you're done, right? 00:22:16.160 |
But I just want to mark it up so that I could digest, chew, and like just get every morsel 00:22:23.880 |
of spiritual nutrient that is supposed to be in there. 00:22:32.000 |
And then at the end, I made some, a note of fun stuff. 00:22:37.020 |
These are things that I'm going to have to stress out a little bit when I teach. 00:22:47.840 |
Chapter 1 verse 13, "Reprove them severely, the false prophets, false teachers, so that 00:23:07.600 |
When you're going against a factious person or a person who's living a compromised life 00:23:13.320 |
and they're teaching bad stuff and you reprove them severely, can you turn them? 00:23:29.500 |
But if someone's teaching bad stuff, the word severely is a strong word. 00:23:33.760 |
Okay, there's a lot of stuff I'm going to have to glean from this. 00:23:40.080 |
I'm going to look at this side of the room, okay, while I talk about this. 00:23:55.120 |
So I'm going to have to be very careful in our cultural context, and most of you guys 00:24:01.560 |
know I'm pretty sure my worldview is bigger than most everybody because I've traveled 00:24:12.720 |
But in First World America, Orange County, I'm going to have to deal with this. 00:24:20.120 |
In China, when I was there as a missionary between 2009 and 2012, one thing that kept 00:24:25.640 |
coming up as an issue, which is never an issue here, is can Christians eat blood? 00:24:39.160 |
Some churches actually were on the verge of splitting about this because the pagan Chinese 00:24:44.120 |
person in their hot pot, in whatever it is, will they eat blood? 00:24:51.040 |
But for a church Christian person, is that okay? 00:24:56.880 |
Those are fun passages that I would have to tackle in China. 00:25:01.160 |
But here, you're like, "Hey, blood, shmud, whatever," right? 00:25:05.660 |
But this one, I'm going to make a note because this is going to be something that I might 00:25:13.120 |
have to counsel my daughter in as she gets older. 00:25:17.520 |
"Hey, Karis, what does it mean for you to honor the Lord in every way?" 00:25:29.160 |
In First Timothy, it actually says, "Women will be saved through childbearing." 00:25:35.580 |
So there are going to be passages that I have to tackle because they're culturally sensitive 00:25:43.040 |
Chapter 3, "Remind them to be subject to rulers, to be obedient, to be ready for every good 00:25:49.960 |
When you get to a democracy and you have Christians blasting our national leaders, you have a 00:25:58.880 |
So that's going to be something that I need to carefully examine to speak into our times. 00:26:05.760 |
Chapter 3, verse 9, "Avoid foolish controversies, genealogy, strifes, disputes." 00:26:15.720 |
But we talk about other stuff, things that churched people, Christians, argue over that 00:26:31.240 |
Could it be some of the political agenda-related kind of stuff now that we're constantly engaging 00:26:39.040 |
Is that something that can be categorized in here? 00:26:43.800 |
I'll put that in there because it can affect my understanding of Christian good deeds, 00:26:54.080 |
Warn a factious person once, warn them a second time, after that have nothing to do with them. 00:27:02.520 |
There are churches that love to discipline people. 00:27:07.840 |
Nod your heads if you knew that there are churches out there that love to make examples 00:27:15.760 |
We want to make sure everyone is loved on and truth is spoken to them in love. 00:27:21.120 |
The last thing we want for them is to be made a public spectacle to be kicked out of the 00:27:27.480 |
What kind of a person do you have to kick out of the church? 00:27:34.280 |
So that's another hot button item that I'm going to have to address when we get there, 00:27:46.800 |
So these are, when I'm going through this and as I'm just meditating through all of 00:27:53.040 |
these things, I'm tripping over things that I'm going, "Does this apply to my life? 00:28:02.400 |
And if so, how do I teach this in a way that's both sensitive, faithful to the truth, and 00:28:10.480 |
yet looking to build up and if need be, reprove sharply?" 00:28:15.920 |
So these are things that I go through as I look through the passage. 00:28:21.640 |
And in my sermon on two Sundays ago, I mentioned like, "Hard work doesn't make me godly." 00:28:29.880 |
I was like, "Hard work doesn't make me godly. 00:28:35.060 |
First service, I actually tied it very beautifully together saying like, "So we work hard in 00:28:40.400 |
But second service, I forgot, so I left people hanging. 00:28:42.240 |
So does that mean just leave, I could be lazy? 00:28:45.920 |
Work hard, because that's what Titus is pointing at, right? 00:28:49.240 |
But this is what something that comes up, good deeds, there's an importance placed on 00:28:55.560 |
Godliness doesn't come through man's effort, but redeemed man gives every effort to reflect 00:29:09.200 |
First Corinthians 9.24 and 9.27 talking about buffeting his body. 00:29:19.400 |
Taking off whatever is hindering, I'm taking off to win. 00:29:23.200 |
Philippians 2.12.13, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who 00:29:29.240 |
So like, there's a juxtaposition of my hard work, but God doing the work to sanctify me 00:29:38.160 |
So there's a theological like emotional, or sorry, not emotional, but like a theological 00:29:46.560 |
I'm supposed to work hard, but my hard work doesn't make me Godlier, but I need to work 00:29:57.440 |
So I'm looking at like 1 Peter 1.16, "Be holy for I am holy." 00:30:01.680 |
2 Timothy 2.15, "Be diligent to present yourself as a worker approved by God, unashamed." 00:30:09.260 |
So hard work is absolutely essential to the Christian. 00:30:13.920 |
"Laying aside every encumbrance, you're running full speed ahead to bear good fruit for the 00:30:26.760 |
Titus has a lot to say of the connection between faith and deeds. 00:30:33.400 |
And hopefully just as you guys are looking through this, you'll notice that. 00:30:52.740 |
So these are the things you're going to have to wrestle through in the text. 00:30:57.460 |
So how I do the inductive study, I usually have five translations. 00:31:03.200 |
NIV is my like most dynamic one where you get a lot of interpretation in the NIV. 00:31:15.080 |
I have a newer translation called the Legacy Standard, and then I have the King James. 00:31:19.540 |
And I just kind of do an eyeball scan through all of them. 00:31:22.940 |
And if there are translations that all look a little bit different, I ask a question. 00:31:33.020 |
Is there something in the original language that makes it very tricky to translate properly? 00:31:45.480 |
Can the non-elect have knowledge of the truth? 00:31:51.560 |
What is the relationship of knowledge of the truth and godliness? 00:31:54.280 |
And as I'm doing these things as a pastor, they come out in the sermon. 00:31:59.120 |
So as a pastor going through a text, the better the questions that I ask, the clearer a lot 00:32:11.520 |
And so the more you ask very important questions and you slow down enough, you can gain more 00:32:20.600 |
And I already went through chapters 1 through 3 on the sermon, so I'm not going to cover 00:32:28.200 |
So that's hopefully something that you were wrestling through in your small group. 00:32:32.680 |
Verse 2, so God who never lies, God who cannot lie, God who does not lie, they all have a 00:32:42.160 |
So these are the kinds of questions that I ask. 00:32:44.120 |
What is verse 1's connection with the hope that is mentioned in verse 2? 00:32:48.140 |
What does Paul mean when he says eternal life? 00:32:50.600 |
The NASB says God cannot lie, whereas the other translations differ. 00:32:56.260 |
Is this promise recorded somewhere in Genesis? 00:33:01.040 |
Before the beginning of time, when did God create time? 00:33:09.240 |
So these are questions that my mind will naturally go to, okay? 00:33:13.320 |
And many of my questions are not answerable, I find, okay? 00:33:17.520 |
But they're good to ask so that you slow down enough to just process through. 00:33:22.080 |
And then, so what I would do is if I have a good Bible resource and the translations 00:33:27.560 |
all kind of point to a slightly different understanding or meaning, then I'll look at 00:33:32.400 |
a Bible dictionary and I'll do a little bit of a bigger comparison. 00:33:37.420 |
So that's my process as I look through the whole thing and then I go verse by verse. 00:33:44.480 |
And what I want to leave you with is, as I was doing this, I noticed three things that 00:33:57.280 |
Chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, there's a future discussion and there's something that happens 00:34:05.500 |
and that's been given to the believer, and there's God our Savior. 00:34:11.520 |
And then chapter 2, verse 11 to 15, very similar theme. 00:34:17.760 |
Chapter 3, verses 4 through 8, a very similar theme. 00:34:21.720 |
So I just copied and pasted and I put it in like one little file so that I could look 00:34:27.320 |
at it and stare at it, and I noticed that there's a pattern here. 00:34:34.160 |
Paul is talking about the hope of eternal life, okay? 00:34:39.960 |
Chapter 3, heirs to the hope of eternal life. 00:34:44.640 |
And all of that has come across through the incarnation of Jesus, manifested, appeared, 00:34:58.520 |
And an attribute of God, a characteristic of God has showed itself to man, truthfulness 00:35:04.840 |
of God, grace of God, kindness and love of God. 00:35:11.260 |
And there's an expected response in the life of the believer, faith and godliness, sensible, 00:35:19.840 |
righteous, godly lives, regenerated, renewed, justified. 00:35:24.720 |
And with each section, there's a discussion on God being our Savior. 00:35:30.360 |
So when you spend time just going through just the whole of the book, slowed down, and 00:35:39.440 |
you just start making notes, you start seeing what you're going to be looking for in the 00:35:45.320 |
You start already making little like ticks as to like, "Okay, when I get to chapter 00:35:49.200 |
2 verse 5, I'm going to slow down and I'm going to really dive into that passage." 00:35:54.840 |
Especially since maybe the moms around me are either their stay-at-home moms or moms 00:36:13.400 |
When I'm looking at chapter 3 verse 1 and we're talking about authorities and rulers, 00:36:18.680 |
how am I supposed to, as a Christian in the face of a very wicked national leadership, 00:36:25.840 |
am I supposed to voice my opinion or am I supposed to quietly in a docile way just keep 00:36:34.560 |
What is the Bible saying about how I am to live out my godly life and what kind of good 00:36:41.320 |
deeds I'm supposed to be producing in my life? 00:36:46.200 |
So these are all things that come about as you're diving in. 00:36:53.020 |
So hopefully the next three, four months, now we're going to slow down and we're going 00:36:57.120 |
to take it like three verses at a time, prove to be very beneficial for you. 00:37:03.080 |
The more you dive in, the more you'll get out. 00:37:07.200 |
And every week when you come, you're not coming to learn, you're coming to share what you've 00:37:21.600 |
That will happen, but your primary reason for coming is, "Let me share with you the 00:37:27.840 |
things that I've gleaned as I've poured into this passage, as I've combed through the words, 00:37:35.000 |
and hey, what you're sharing really is benefiting me. 00:37:38.560 |
And hopefully what I'm sharing is stimulating you too toward loving good deeds." 00:37:43.520 |
And so that's why we're getting together, not to hear a sermon, but to just come and 00:37:50.440 |
fellowship through the study of His living and active in that word. 00:37:57.720 |
So next week, so starting next week, you're not going to have me talking too much. 00:38:04.760 |
We're going to do praise, and then you're going to go into about an hour of small group 00:38:10.520 |
And here's the thing, human nature, if you didn't do the work, if you didn't prepare, 00:38:19.280 |
You're not going to want to come and be the only like, "I didn't do my lesson this week." 00:38:29.900 |
Come anyway, but I guarantee you, you put in the time, you will be excited to talk. 00:38:41.160 |
Where an hour goes by and you're like, "Wait, PPC, give us another 15 minutes." 00:38:47.840 |
But you will get in what you...you will get out what you put in. 00:38:55.200 |
Four through six is a little bit kind of like it breaks the elder and overseer little category, 00:39:01.020 |
but I did that on like...I had no choice because it was either overview and then verse one 00:39:05.300 |
through three and like four through nine, or just kind of bite-sized pieces. 00:39:12.340 |
I already know that the division is kind of funky for chapter one. 00:39:16.860 |
So four through six is what you're going to be looking at. 00:39:20.000 |
And take time to just ask as many inductive questions of these verses, and then come up 00:39:28.140 |
Now that you've actually looked at the whole book, how do these verses fit into the context 00:39:33.760 |
of the rest of the section, the rest of the chapter, and the rest of the letter? 00:39:39.460 |
And then number four, write down some practical and measurable applications you can draw from 00:39:51.060 |
And I'm just going to come up for 15 minutes and do a little wrap-up or address something 00:39:58.940 |
So I'm going to just wrap us up in prayer, and then you're going to spend time in your 00:40:02.480 |
small group just praying for each other, praying for our time of study together, even organizing 00:40:09.100 |
like, "Hey, it looks like you're new and you're not quite sure exactly how to go about preparing 00:40:18.700 |
If you see somebody in your group who's newer, who's learning how to do this, hey, meet before 00:40:27.420 |
So you guys can come and grab dinner and then prepare it, finalize it together if you want. 00:40:33.960 |
But whatever it is that you can do to help each other, by all means do it. 00:40:38.780 |
And don't rely on your small group leader to do it. 00:40:41.300 |
Like everybody in the small group, help each other prepare and pray for each other. 00:40:48.700 |
So let me pray, and then for the rest of the time, for the next 15, 20 minutes, pray in 00:40:54.780 |
your small group, and then we'll call it an evening. 00:41:01.780 |
Father, we are very thankful that you provide for us this evening just to study, to learn, 00:41:15.020 |
And I pray, Father, that more than anything else, that you would grow in us a greater 00:41:18.940 |
hunger to know you, just a greater appetite to know your heart, just a greater longing 00:41:29.100 |
And I pray that you would empower each and every individual in this room really to discipline 00:41:35.700 |
ourselves with our time to put in to cooking ourselves a great meal so that when we get 00:41:42.020 |
together for this spiritual potluck, we'll really have a lot to share so that it would 00:41:47.020 |
be just a joyful experience for all of us who are involved. 00:41:51.420 |
I pray that you would give us insight, help us to draw near to you as we study. 00:41:57.180 |
And Lord, would you reveal your heart to your people so that we can respond appropriately