Union Church

Listen along as Mike Gaston wraps up our series through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes

1 Peter 5:6-14 - Mike G Teaching

 

Slide 1

 

Big Idea

Our faith in God allows us to navigate challenging times now, as we await 

better times ahead.

 

Slide 2

 

Challenging times now (vs 6-9)

We are called to humility before God

We have an adversary

Suffering is part of life

 

Slide 3

 

“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”

Jonathan Edwards

 

Slide 4

 

“Peter recognizes that a great barrier to putting others first and thinking of them as more important is the legitimate human concern, ‘But then who will care for me?’ The answer is that God himself will care for our needs. He is able to do so far better than we are (his hand is ‘mighty,’ v. 6), and he wants to do so, for he continually cares for his children. Therefore casting all your anxieties on him is the path to humility, freeing a person from constant concern for himself and enabling him or her to truly be concerned for the needs of others.”

Wayne Grudem

 

Slide 5

 

“… because he cares for you.”

 

Slide 6

 

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”

 

CS Lewis, Preface to The Screwtape Letters

 

Slide 7

 

“But he gives more grace. Therefore it says ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

James 4:6-8

 

“If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.”

Isaiah 7:9

 

Slide 8

 

Better Times Ahead (vs 10-11)

The description of God

The promises of God

The timeline

 

Slide 9

 

God will have the last word!

 

Slide 10

 

“Mark, my son”

 

Listen along as we continue through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes

 

1 Peter 5:1-5 - Faith

1 Peter 5:1-5

The vocation of pastor(s) has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans - Eugene Peterson

“By all our ministry activity to mistakenly be like God, we’ve actually made it hard for people to see or hear him.” John Calvin

Matthew 20:25-28

“It is possible for ministry leaders to desire greatness in ways no different from anyone, anywhere in our culture. Attaching Jesus’s name to these desires doesn’t change the fact that they look just like the cravings of the world.” - Zach Eswine

John 21:15-19

It is possible for ministry leaders to desire greatness in ways no different from anyone, anywhere in our culture. Attaching Jesus’s name to these desires doesn’t change the fact that they look just like the cravings of the world. - Zach Eswine

Ezekiel 34:1-16 

 

Listen along as we continue through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Peter 4:12-19

John 16:33 
Romans 5:1-5 
James 1:2-4 

Certainly there is unanimous teaching among the NT writers that there is no condemnation for those who believe in Christ and that they will be delivered from the destiny that is coming to those who disobey God by rejecting the redemption he provides in Jesus Christ. But there is ample teaching that Christians will nevertheless be judged and that it is their standing with Christ that will bring this judgment to a good end. Those who profess Christ are the first ones to be tested in God’s judging action, and it occurs during their lives and throughout history. Karen Jobes

1 Cor 3:10-17

“While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy. Suffering can refine us rather than destroy us because God himself walks with us in the fire. God will allow evil only to the degree that it brings about the very opposite of what it intends.” Tim Keller

Listen along as we continue our series through 1 Peter.

Notes/Quotes:

Jon reading
Title: Lock In

“We prefer a gospel in which God gives us healthy bodies and bulging wallets. And we too readily think that material blessing is the entitled reward of the gospel. To put it bluntly, the democratized West expects Jesus, comfort, ease, and acceptance from the world.”
- David Helm

“Indeed the only way in which I can make real to myself what theology teaches about the heinousness of sin is to remember that every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us—an energy which, if not thus distorted, would have blossomed into one of those holy acts whereof “God did it” and “I did it” are both true descriptions. We poison the wine as He decants it into us; murder a melody He would play with us as the instrument. We caricature the self-portrait He would paint. Hence all sin, whatever else it is, is sacrilege.”
- C.S. Lewis

Listen along as we continue through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Peter 3:13-22
Title: The Pilgrim's Path

“8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh…16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 
(2 Corinthians 4:8-11, 16-18)

28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. 
(Matthew 10:28-30)

“A wonderful text is this, and a more obscure passage perhaps than any other in the New Testament, so that I do not know for a certainty just what Peter means.… I cannot understand and I cannot explain it. And there has been no one who has explained it.”
- Martin Luther

“The exegetical questions basically come down to these: Where did Christ go? When did he go? To whom did he speak? What did he say? Different answers to each of these questions can be found, resulting in a labyrinth of exegetical options, each of which has no clearly overwhelming claim to certainty, [with one] calculating 180 different exegetical combinations, in theory.”
- Karen Jobes

Listen along as we continue our time through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Peter 3:8-12 - Anthony reading 

“This is the mission of God: to restore the creation and the life of humanity from the ravages of sin. The church’s function in this story is to participate in God’s mission; we are to be caught up in God’s own work of restoration and healing. This defines the identity and role of the church.” - Mike Goheen 

“How can Jesus expect me to love my enemies when I don’t even like them?” “Loving” in modern culture refers primarily to an emotional attachment of a greater intensity than merely “liking.” But Peter clearly interprets Jesus’ command to love to refer not to emotions but to acting rightly toward one’s adversaries, regardless of whatever emotions may or may not be involved.” - Karen Jobes

When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of his own deepest wishes, not against them. - Dane Ortlund

Listen along as we continue our time in 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

Faith: 1 Peter 3:1-7
Title: The Way Home

“Submission is not something being taken from me, but is something I’m choosing to give. The truth that Jesus, being fully God, willingly entered into this world, becoming fully man and submitting His will to God the Father and giving His life to justify us as well as the Spirit’s role of illuminating and pointing people to Jesus is proof that the differing roles God has for men/women and husbands/wives is not about value or worth. Submission actively happens in the Trinity. If Jesus submitted even unto death, how can I stand on my “rights” and ultimately demand to always be the one in authority?”
- Kathy Keller

“Renounce yourself, take up your Cross and follow Me. To recognize one's own nonentity and discover the secret of the Kingdom is not enough: the King of Love must be enthroned in our mind and heart, take undivided possession of our will and make of our very bodies the Temples of the Holy Ghost. This small particle of the Cosmos, which is our soul and body must be conquered, freed by a lifelong struggle from enslavement to the world and to the devil, freed as if it were an occupied country and restored to its legitimate King.” 
- Anthony of Sourozh, Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Listen along as we continue through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Peter 2:13-25 - Jack

1 Peter 2:13-25

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine! - Abraham Kuyper 

Romans 13:1-2

“The cross is not a sign of the church's quiet, suffering submission to the powers-that-be, but rather the church's revolutionary participation in the victory of Christ over those powers. The cross is not a symbol for general human suffering and oppression. Rather, the cross is a sign of what happens when one takes God's account of reality more seriously than Caesar's. The cross stands as God's (and our) eternal “no” to the powers of death, as well as God's eternal “yes” to humanity, God's remarkable determination not to leave us to our own devices.” - Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens

“Peter writes “Honor all people.” It is hard to imagine a more devastating critique of the Roman way, for with the pairing of these two directives Peter has flattened the status pyramid of the Roman world. He has just made one’s response to the slave next door no less than one’s response to the emperor. Without saying so explicitly, Peter has thus cast his Christian audience as imitators of the Father who exercises impartiality in judgment.” Joel Green 

“The Bread itself was hungry, Fullness itself was thirsty, Power itself was made weak, Health itself was wounded, and Life itself was mortal. So that our hunger would be satisfied, so that our dryness would be watered, our weakness supported, our love ignited. What greater mercy than that which presents to us the Creator created; the Master made a slave; the Redeemer sold; the One who exalts, humbled; the One who raises the dead, killed?” - Augustine

Listen along as we continue our time in 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Peter 2:9-12 - Faith
Title: Earworm

[Verse 1]
Guilty running down the side of the egg
I'm in love with the past, and the things that they said
Guilty running down the side of my head
I get by on the promise of future excess
Guilty running, guilty running
I put my back in waiting for something

[Chorus]
I keep waiting for the shoe to drop
Microplastics in my lemonade
I keep waiting for my friend to call
And forgive me of my bad faith
Guilty running, guilty, I'm running out of time
- Hudson Freeman

5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”  
(Exodus 19:6&7)

“They all make one family, a sort and species of people distinct from the common world, of another spirit, principle, and practice, which they could never be if they were not chosen in Christ to be such, and sanctified by His Spirit.”
- Matthew Henry

“26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
(1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

“The community that is created by the cross, is not just a warm family or aggregation of people giving one another emotional support. It is an alternate society with different habits, different customs, different loves. It is a foretaste of the heavenly city to come.”
- Timothy Keller

 

Listen along as we continue through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Peter 2:1-8

Psalm 19:7-11

Every other ethical system calls us to the costly effort of becoming what we are not. But in the full salvation already bequeathed to us in Christ, the new nature is already ours, waiting for expression, poised for growth, until its potential is triggered by our obedience to the word of God - Alec Motyer

What God desires from us, he graciously forms in us as we grow in our love for him. Ruth Chou Simmons