How marvelous, how wonderful is thy savior's love for me. With the rain of dim glory, his face I at last shall see. To be my joy through the ages, to sing of his love for me. Singing how marvelous, how wonderful that my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is thy savior's love for me.

Singing how marvelous, how wonderful that my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is thy savior's love for me. To be my joy through the ages, to sing of his love for me. Do you want to play through that song again, "His Mercy is More"? I'm down for that one.

For mine, can you turn up your volume? Yeah, I know. Wow, OK. And then turn to like, That's box three, right? Ah. Hello, hello, hello. You want to try it? Hello? OK. Better? All right, you want to play through it? Key of F, F, F, pass your mark. F.

F. Key of F, if you want to play with us. Sorry, no. Go ahead. What love could remember, no wrongs we have done. A mission all knowing, a curse not the sun. Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. Praise the Lord, his mercy is more.

Stronger than darkness, through heaven born. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. What patience would wait as we constantly roam. What Father so temper is calling us all. He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. Praise the Lord, his mercy is more.

Stronger than darkness, through heaven born. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. What riches of kindness he lavished on us. His blood was the payment, his love was the cost. We still need the debt we could never afford. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more.

Praise the Lord, his mercy is more. Stronger than darkness, through heaven born. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. Praise the Lord, his mercy is more. Stronger than darkness, through heaven born. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more.

, I don't know how to play that. Huh? The bass is pretty good on this thing. And there's a dial for it, so. (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) - You wanna practice or?

You guys good? (people chattering) What? - I feel like I have spaghetti all over my mouth. - Huh? - I feel like I have spaghetti all over my mouth. (laughing) (gentle guitar picking) - Might be a them thing. (people chattering) (gentle guitar picking) - What do you, do you mean like the bass?

(gentle guitar picking) - You're just getting rid of it like. - What do you mean? - Just how my guitar is tuned. Or it's just, I'm just playing guitar. (gentle guitar picking) - Okay, okay. (gentle guitar picking) (people chattering) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (people chattering) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) (gentle guitar picking) - Oh, Adrian, I'm following you.

I'm following you. (people chattering) I know, I need a boob. (people chattering) - Her face, her face is right there. - I feel like I always like, like I don't remember, anything in the past. I can't read my notes. (people chattering) I know what to do. - Not really, I'm not too.

(people chattering) (gentle guitar picking) (people chattering) - Are you gonna do a backstreet? Because they're like turkeys, so they don't have to be like, I'm like, they feel. - They will sleep, by my legs. - But like, because they like, bunch up. Not really. - I don't care. - I can see people, never unroll the number again.

- I'm gonna unroll it. (people chattering) - You like the shoes though? - No. - Different shoe choice? - No, I don't like the shoes. (people chattering) - I mean, yeah. (imitates turkey) What time do we know to start? - Actually, you know, I want, I stand in the middle, this third line, first.

You know that I delay, like this part? When I'm singing it, I'm like. - The singer can dance to, to, on the screen. - No, no, no, no, no, the third line. - Oh, oh. - It's like. (guitar music) Yeah, and I'm doing that every time. (guitar music) - Sing it.

- That's the only weird thing. Yeah. - Wait, what's wrong? (guitar music) (people chattering) (guitar music) (people chattering) (guitar music) (people chattering) (guitar music) (people chattering) (guitar music) (people chattering) (guitar music) (people chattering) (guitar music) - I'll do the stand like this. (people chattering) (people chattering) (people chattering) - It's really weird, I'm like, I'm missing you guys.

- Okay, we're gonna start at 7.05. - Oh, is it? I've lost the move. That's real sweet. (grunts) I'm nervous on this stand. - Yeah, you don't get nervous. - I'm the only one who's ever nervous. (people chattering) - All right, let's all take a minute to quiet our hearts and then all pray for us before we start worship.

(people chattering) (people chattering) Heavenly Father, I just thank you for this time that you've given us to come here tonight for Bible study. Lord, I thank you for your word that you've given it to us to study, that through it we could be challenged, we could be convicted, we could be encouraged and strengthened in our faith.

God, I just pray that tonight as we continue through 1 Peter, Lord, that your word would just do its work in our hearts and that in studying God, you would just continue to grow us. Lord, I thank you for this time of worship. Lord, as we sing now, just help us to reflect on these lyrics and to just genuinely lift up worship to you through these songs.

Lord, I thank you again for tonight. I pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. Can we all stand for a time of praise? (gentle piano music) What love could remember. ♪ What love could remember ♪ ♪ No wrongs we have done ♪ ♪ Omniscient, unknowing ♪ ♪ He counts not their song ♪ ♪ Thrown into a sea ♪ ♪ Without bottom or shore ♪ ♪ Our sins, they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Stronger than darkness ♪ ♪ New every morn ♪ ♪ Our sins, they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ What patience would wait ♪ ♪ As we constantly roam ♪ ♪ What Father so tender ♪ ♪ Is calling us home ♪ ♪ He welcomes the weakest ♪ ♪ The vilest, the poor ♪ ♪ Our sins, they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Stronger than darkness ♪ ♪ New every morn ♪ ♪ Our sins, they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ What riches of kindness ♪ ♪ He lavished on us ♪ ♪ His blood was the payment ♪ ♪ His life was the cost ♪ ♪ We stood 'neath the debt ♪ ♪ We could never afford ♪ ♪ Our sins, they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Stronger than darkness ♪ ♪ New every morn ♪ ♪ Our sins, they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Stronger than darkness ♪ ♪ New every morn ♪ ♪ Our sins, they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Our sins, they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is more ♪ Sing I Stand Amazed.

♪ I stand amazed ♪ ♪ In the presence ♪ ♪ Of Jesus the Nazarene ♪ ♪ And wonder how he could love me ♪ ♪ A sinner condemned ♪ ♪ And unclean ♪ ♪ Singing how marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ And my song ♪ ♪ Shall ever be ♪ ♪ How marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ Is my Savior's love ♪ ♪ For me ♪ Sing again I Stand Amazed.

♪ I stand amazed ♪ ♪ In the presence ♪ ♪ Of Jesus the Nazarene ♪ ♪ And wonder how he could love me ♪ ♪ A sinner condemned ♪ ♪ And unclean ♪ ♪ Singing how marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ And my song ♪ ♪ Shall ever be ♪ ♪ How marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ Is my Savior's love ♪ ♪ For me ♪ ♪ He took my sins ♪ ♪ And my sorrows ♪ ♪ He made them his very own ♪ ♪ And he bore the burden to Calvary ♪ ♪ And suffered and died alone ♪ ♪ Singing how marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ And my song ♪ ♪ Shall ever be ♪ ♪ How marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ Is my Savior's love ♪ ♪ For me ♪ ♪ And with the ransomed in glory ♪ ♪ His face I at last shall see ♪ ♪ 'Twill be my joy through the ages ♪ ♪ To sing of his love for me ♪ ♪ Singing how marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ And my song ♪ ♪ Shall ever be ♪ ♪ How marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ Is my Savior's love ♪ ♪ For me ♪ ♪ Singing how marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ And my song ♪ ♪ Shall ever be ♪ ♪ How marvelous ♪ ♪ How wonderful ♪ ♪ Is my Savior's love ♪ ♪ For me ♪ - You may be seated.

, All right. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Hello, hello. Testing, testing. One, two, three, four. Ah, ah. All right, well, hello, everybody. I'm glad you guys are here. This week was a little bit easier to prepare just in terms of the length, but it was still pretty dense, I assume, right?

Just so that we don't lose the context of what we've been covering, we're gonna start with last week's passage moving forward, starting from verse 12, so let me read this, and then I'll show you what some of the questions we're gonna be discussing are, and then we'll break up into our time of discussion.

In coming to him as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For this is contained in scripture, behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in him will not be disappointed. This precious value then is for you who believe, for those who disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God.

You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds as they observe them.

Glorify God in the day of visitation, amen. So there's a lot of Old Testament text in the passage from last week and then today as well. And the first two questions are pretty standard, just discuss what you've observed. But question number three, when you guys do have time, please discuss who are the people of God and what is their purpose?

If you did your study, you probably will know why this question is being asked. Okay, who are the people of God and what's their purpose? And then four, a little bit more applicational, what does it mean for a Christian to be living on Earth as an alien and a stranger?

So right now it's 719 at 820. We'll reconvene and we'll go into our teaching portion. So let me pray for us and then we'll dismiss into our discussion time. Father, we're thankful that we are here tonight. Lord God, I pray that this study tonight will not just be an academic theological exercise, but it will be transformative, that it would cause us once again to be humbled, to marvel, to be thankful, and all of that would stir within us a great motivation really to pursue holiness and to shine the light of Christ into this dark world.

Help our discussion not to be contentious. Help it not to be a time where we show off what we've learned, but help it to be really an edifying time where all of us are moved first and foremost toward worship, and then proper application. And I pray, Father God, that you would help our facilitators, our small group leaders, really to guide well.

And I pray for every single one of us that we will leave our Bible study tonight a little bit changed and a little more Christ-like because we fed well on your word. So we pray for your help. Would you guard, guide, and lead our time? And pray this in Jesus' name.

820. 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(congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) - All right, if you guys can turn your attention, appear real quick.

Let me pray for us, and then we'll get into today's passage. Father, as we spend some time just having a wrap-up of what we're looking at today, I pray that you would help us not to get lost in scrutinizing all the details, but rather that you would help us to just marvel in glory in just the whole of this passage.

And so would you help me explain what I need to explain clearly? And would you leave an indelible impression on all of our hearts through your word that we would leave here fed and changed? In Jesus' name we pray. All right, so our passage, what are the first two words in our passage today that abut you, right?

So because of this but you, I had to include last week's passage into my outline, because we're looking at the Jews, especially the Jewish religious leaders, rejected this Messiah, right? So because these Jews rejected the Messiah, they were appointed to stumbling, and they're stumbling, but I'm contrasted, or this person, the reader is contrasted with this, what just came before.

So I include that in there. And if you guys notice from the middle, the but you are, and then just so that I can visually follow that whole column of a chosen race, it's just all the descriptions of who a people of God is, okay? So this is just a key for you.

For the first week, so that C and the D up in the corner, the very first week I gave you an outline of kind of what I do when I track through the 105 verses of 1 Peter. So the teal blue, there is an emphasis on the return of Christ.

So that's just left there. The green, there was an emphasis on the call and the purpose of the Christian, and so the being built as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood and being aliens and strangers, that's kind of part of the call. So I just left it at that.

And because of this contrast, I just highlighted in gray all the non-people of God. The non-people of God, that's not even a word, but I'm just gonna call them non-people of God because I don't know if they're Gentiles, or if they're like Jewish folk who rejected. Regardless, I'm just putting non-people of God, and I'm highlighting that in the gray.

And you see the for they, for you, your former self, and then the Gentiles and they, so I just highlighted that. And then as I'm going through this, I highlight in the red all the very important words. And I notice that there are two so that's there. And you don't have to do it this way, but when I look at that, I'm like, the so that usually is telling me to do something, or there's like a purpose behind it.

So I pull that all the way to the side. 'Cause I feel like in my mind, in my reading, at this juncture, that's a very important point that I need to see, okay? So the so that's get pulled, and then I notice the thing that comes after it is exactly the same in the purple.

Nod your head if you see that. Proclaim the excellencies of God, so that they may glorify God. So the point is, the glory of God, the praise of God, the magnification of God, that's the point. So I don't wanna lose sight of that when I'm trying to figure out who are the people of God.

The Hosea 1 passage, what's it saying? Ezekiel 37, what's it saying? I'm gonna get lost in that, but this actually helps me kinda be tethered to, okay, the point is, God is ordaining things for his glory, and he's always been doing this for his praise. So my eyes are now fixed on this, and I'm not gonna drift too far from that, all right?

Now, one thing you might notice in your, when you're looking at all the quotations of the Old Testament in 1 Peter, and you do a cross-reference, and you look at the Old Testament passage, you notice that sometimes the wording is different, right? So just in the event you guys might be wondering what that is, is the New Testament writers did not have the Hebrew Bible with them.

Our Old Testament is translated from the Hebrew. You guys following that? Their Bible, which they quoted, was translated from the Greek, okay? 'Cause at that time, how many of you guys are non-American ethnically, racially? Yeah, I'm completely yellow. I'm Korean, right? I don't wanna read the Korean Bible. And you backtrack me even more, I don't wanna read the Chinese Bible, 'cause the Korean language, so my first Bible had a bunch of Chinese in it, and I was like, this isn't even Korean.

So the people of God at this time, they spoke Greek, they read Greek, and so that's why they needed a Bible that they could, the Old Testament, that they could read in the Greek. And so that's called the Septuagint, and oftentimes if you look at a commentary, it'll say LXX, and it's Latin for 70.

Supposedly, reportedly, 70 scholars of their day translated the Hebrew into the Greek, okay? So the Septuagint is the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament, and this was like 3rd century BC, so the original people who wanted this translation were Greeks living in Egypt, all right? So they had this as their Bible, and then it got passed down.

So you'll notice some differences when you look at the translation. It'd be like, "Wait, they translated it wrong." No, so even Jesus' quotes sometimes of the Old Testament, the wording may be a little bit different because our Old Testament is translated from the Hebrew. Their Old Testament was translated from the Greek.

Make sense? So I'll just read 1 Peter 2.6, being quoted out of Isaiah 28.16. "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, "a tested stone, a costly cornerstone, "for the foundation firmly placed. "He who believes in it will not be disturbed." This is from last week. But the 1 Peter quotes it, "Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, "a precious cornerstone, "and he who believes in him will not be disappointed." Different or the same?

Slightly different, okay? So just in the event that that's annoying you, now you know, okay? So an important question for me is, who are the people of God in this passage? So I'm actually gonna look up these quotes and find them, and so for my eyes-- Oops, sorry, I'm not on the-- So for my eyes, I wanna understand the context in which these original people were writing.

So Isaiah 43 is talking about the chosen race. How many guys got tripped up on the chosen race, chosen family? They all mean a little different things, right? Chosen generations. The Holy Nation royal priesthood had promises attached to it. Exodus 19, five and six, also repeated in chapter 23.

There are promises attached to it, so what's the context? So did these people break the covenant and get rejected completely? So all of these kinds of contexts, I want my eyes to see, so I will make a chart on the side of my 1 Peter passage so that I can see the surrounding verses around the verses that he quotes to help me, okay?

And if I have time, I will dig and dig and dig, go off on a rabbit trail, and start looking into all the historical contexts of the Old Testament. If I had time, I would do that, okay? So I'm not gonna go into all of these things with this, but this is the process by which I try to come to the conclusion, who are the people of God?

Now, so this is a question. Who are the people of God? In the Old Testament, the people of God were the nation of Israel, beloved and chosen of God. That's not hard, right? That's an easy truth to come to. If you guys are wondering why, for most of the Old Testament, they're not called the Jews.

Do you guys ever think that? Like, what's going on? Way later, when they were exiled, they had no land. They were from a land formerly known as Judah. So they had to call this displaced people of Judah, Uden, right? And eventually, they started getting called the Jews, and you see that mentioned often in the book of Esther.

You won't see it as mentioned often in, like, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, all right? So the word "Jews" is a signifier of, like, that's where--that's the region they were once from, okay? So the Judeans, the Jews, in the New Testament, from our vantage point, who are the people of God?

It's all people who put their faith and trust solely on the work of Jesus Christ. Amen? Race doesn't matter, right? Whether you're Vietnamese or Chinese or Tanzanian or Indian, if you put your faith in Christ or Jew, you are a people of God. The people of God are also often called the household of God, the church of the living God.

And you'll realize that Galatians 3 says the Holy Spirit gave Abraham the gospel in advance, okay? So those who received the Spirit of God are all people of God. So I get that, okay? Old Testament people of God were specifically of the Hebrew race, the nation of Israel, Jews.

New Testament, it's kind of like a--I want to say jjamppong. That's Korean for, like, a big mixed food. It's like a mixed noodle, all right? Jjamppong. So it's a--like, who are these people? What unifies them? It's faith in Christ. So then an important question that arises from that is, then has the church replaced the nation of Israel as the people of God?

Because if I just--at bird's eye view, 1 Peter 2, verses 4, the earlier parts, it seemed like they had their chance, they broke their covenant, and now they stumbled. The NASB actually calls it to their doom, right? And God appointed this. So they're done. So then has the church replaced the nation of Israel as the people of God?

I would say absolutely not. Okay, now this is going to throw a lot of you guys who are more theologically astute, and what's the--then how do you see the role of the nation of Israel, and are they the people of-- like, so what's happening here? So the whole of Scripture will say, no, the church has not replaced Israel as a people of God.

The promises that are given to the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, are still valid. Okay, now, this slide is maybe familiar, and I bring this up for a reason, all right? Exegesis, we talked about this in Titus, it's the process of drawing out the meaning from the Scripture in accordance with the context and discoveral meaning of its author.

That's what we want to do. We want to see--that's why we're doing inductive study. We want to see what God has to say. We want to be as accurate to what God has to say. Exegesis is, I am going to impose my opinion, my interpretation, onto the text. So when you're trying to come up with-- and here's a fancy word, eschatology.

When you're trying to figure out what happens in the end times, what are all the things in the book of Revelation, what are they symbolizing? Are we supposed to read it literally? Are we supposed to read it figuratively? When you're thinking through all of these things, you have to be careful not to eisegi.

You don't want to already have a decision made in your heart. I am a person who believes that the church has replaced Israel and place that paradigm onto the text and read every paradigm from that point on or every word from those lenses. What we want to do is see what the whole of Scripture has to say about the future, what the whole of Scripture has to say about the role of Israel in the future.

And until I have a firm grasp of the whole of Scripture, I will be humble and not dogmatic about whatever position I take. Are you guys following this? Okay. So we don't want to eisegit and place our framework and our paradigm onto a text. We want to see what the whole of it has to say to us.

And I believe that the whole of Scripture has to say that God is not done with the nation of Israel from where we stand. You guys following this? Okay. And I'll leave it at that. So then who are these Gentiles? 1 Peter 4, 3 mentions them again. "For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles," and we just looked at the fleshly lust stuff, right?

"having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries." So literally, the word "Gentile" means the nations or the unsaved world. Okay, that's how the New Testament uses the word "ethnos." So from a simple reading, you'll have to conclude these are all who are not Christians, both literal Jews and literal Gentiles.

You guys following? Okay, so this is an important question because it's like they're going to be giving glory to God. What does that mean? Okay. So I'm going to read verse 12 for you one more time. "Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds as they observe them glorify God in the day of visitation." So I have all kinds of inductive questions.

What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation?

What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? What is the day of visitation? And to understand it as, they're getting judged. "You are righteous. Every knee has bowed.

You are righteous." I don't think that's what it's saying here. In fact, the Gentiles, even at the end of times, can refuse to give him glory, as you'll see here in Revelation 16, 8-9. So for me, when I read this passage, I am keeping my conduct so good among the Gentiles that they're accusing me of stuff.

But as my good conduct is representative of Christ's work in my life, and as that power exudes through me, I read this as, "This Gentile may come to faith." 1 Peter 3 says something very similar about wives. "In the same way, you wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be," what?

"One over." So I'm looking at this as, just as it was so absurd for God to bring Gentiles into the people of God, just as it was unthinkable for God to bring these pagan, heathen, worthless people, uncircumcised, barbarian Gentiles into this royal priesthood, what we think of as unthinkable, of bringing that pagan, that dirty, like non-Christian, foul-mouthed person, by my conduct, I can win them over to the faith in God's time and way, if he so chooses.

So I, myself, should not get in the way of the ministry of reconciliation to the best of my ability. Are you guys following this? So I don't read this as, the Gentiles are going to also bow their knee. There is a passage there, but not this one. I read this as, you are enabled to win some over to the faith.

That's how I'd read that, just grammatically, and just from understanding the passage. Now, here was a point that was brought up in our discussion. An alien and a stranger exile sojourner, are they comfortable or are they uncomfortable? Super uncomfortable. I mean, in America, it's a little bit different, but even in America, super uncomfortable.

Should a Christian ever feel at home and super comfortable in this place? No. So if a Christian, or if an alien and a stranger is uncomfortable, like, he kind of should be used to that. It's a given, right? So this passage reminds me of, I've been an alien and a sojourner, and an, not an exile, but alien and a sojourner often.

So for you guys who don't know what I used to do in Korea, I used to be on 70 flights a year, outside of Korea, 100 days a year, traveling, taking people into the slums in different countries in the world. So I've been at very nice hotels, where like, I open up my balcony and there's a pool.

I could jump into the pool from my bed. So, super nice. But more often than not, I've been at very uncomfortable ones. I've actually slept in Indonesia on a bed where, like, right next to my leg, a centipede walked past me. I screamed. There was, in that same hotel room, I was so annoyed because the first four days I showered in cold water because I didn't know that you had to turn it the other way for the hot.

They had red for cold, blue for hot. I was so mad. I've been in hotels, all temporary, that my ears were bothered by. Ecuador, there were alpacas outside my room making alpacan noises. (Alpaca noises) Sounds like turkey dogs, okay? I was on the 18th floor in India where there are monkeys right outside my window slapping each other angry.

I am not happy there because I'm already jet lagged. I have to lead 20, 30 people on a trip and I'm not sleeping good. North Korea, the hotel that we were staying at, whatever it is, they put tigers on the curtain. Like, you know those Asian drawings? I'm like, what is this?

I am not impressed with your country because of this tiger curtain. I don't care how ferocious it looks. There were times where I actually had, in Uganda, where I had a, my hotel room was nice and clean except I had to use a squatter. Not pleasant, right? So, all of those places where I'm an alien and a stranger, I'm not thinking to change the curtains up.

I'm not thinking to make any radical moves. I know that I'm supposed to be uncomfortable because this is not my home. But it's temporary. Like, I'm passing through. This will end. I'm gonna go. But Compassion International, I'm wearing, well, this was not deliberate, but Compassion International is a blatantly Christian organization.

So, whenever I would take the 20, 30 people into the countries and we would stay at the hotel, I would actually tell them, and sometimes it was true, sometimes it was not, I would say, "Koreans are hated in this country." Sometimes it was true, okay? But I was like, "Koreans are hated in this country?

"So, let's do our best to represent not just Korea, "but Compassion International well. "I encourage you guys, leave generous tips." Because, first of all, the people who are working here are like the parents of the children that you're gonna meet in the slums. So, this is extra income for them.

They're working for it. If something gets misplaced or stolen, just be okay with it. And just pray for their salvation, pray for their help, that maybe they need it more than you. And everywhere you go, complain to me. Don't complain to the employees in the hotel. So that we could leave a good experience of a Korean group, especially a Korean Christian group, in the sight of the hotel employees.

And I would emphasize that everywhere. I don't know what that did for, like, the image of the Korean. Because a lot of times, in the Philippines especially, the sex trafficking industry is pretty bad. So a lot of times, middle-aged Korean men would come on golf trips and sex tourism.

And they would stay at these hotels. But we're there too. I was like, "Let us leave a good impression." Perhaps to change their mind of what Korean Christians are like. Because the world sees Korea as a Christian nation. Which I don't think it is. So, when I think of this passage, that's what I think of.

I'm an alien and a stranger. Suffering, given. Uncomfortable, that's a given. Just annoyance, it's a given. Things that I don't like, it's a given. I'm not going to be in a rush to change the curtains in a hotel that I'm leaving tomorrow. My goal there is to represent compassion well.

My goal there is to represent Koreans well. Do you guys follow? Do you guys understand this? All of the suffering that we go through is temporary. But the world does not have an answer for joy in the midst of suffering. And so, we're going to be starting to move in that direction in this passage.

All right? So, next week, it's eight verses again. I heard some groaning. Uncomfortable. Hopefully, this is a very helpful exercise. Thirteen to 20, it's going to be talking about two groups. Okay? So, go over that. Question five is what does it mean to be subject? Because that comes out a couple times.

All right? What does it mean to be subject? And I'm going to post this on Facebook, so you don't need to scramble to write. For today's discussion, I actually would encourage you guys with this little exercise, what three words would the Gentiles nearest and dearest to you use in describing your life?

And would you say that these words are accurate or slanderous? Peter's lazy. If it's accurate, I need to change some stuff in the midst of my Gentiles. Peter is self-righteous, Bible-thumping, like just hard, evangelical, conservative pastor. Okay, I just don't like those labels. Some of it is very derogatory and slanderous.

I can't do anything about that. If they call me fat and lazy, okay. And if that's true, I got to change it. So, the Gentiles in your life, what would they describe you as? And then the second and third questions are similar. How can your small group members pray for you as you, one, fight to abstain from fleshly lusts?

Some of it's like the desire to complain that the curtains are ugly. Okay. Three, how can your small group members pray for you as you witness and minister to specific Gentiles around you? And you guys understand where I'm getting these questions from, right, from our passage. So, let me pray for us, and then we'll dismiss into our time of sharing.

Lord, help us to be honest. Help us to be humble. Help us not to be overly in despair. Lord, but to remember, Lord, that you love us. And you did not come because we were lovable, but you came because we were helpless, because that's the kind of God you are.

So, as we reflect on your goodness and as we reflect on our frailty, I pray for your help to apply appropriately. And, Lord, I pray that you would help us to be vulnerable with each other and ask for help so that we can grow. And as we grow, so that you will receive the glory that you do in our lives.

We thank you and we love you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.