Revealed Will for Christian Servants #3

Driving home: However, it is even more grievous and more terrifying when the name and being of God are trivialized.

An example from Revelation 16:11 where men blaspheme God in the midst of plagues, illustrating open, defiant blasphemy.

It is a terrifying thing when men openly, shamelessly, and defiantly blaspheme the name and being of God. Have you ever heard anyone shamelessly, openly, defiantly blaspheme God to do something akin to what is recorded in Revelation 16.11, where God is describing how he will send plagues upon men, and it says that they will be slain. They will blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pains.

3:34 - 4:11 Read in full sermon

Driving home: However, it is even more grievous and more terrifying when the name and being of God are trivialized.

Contestants on game shows exclaiming 'Oh, my God' when winning, illustrating the trivialization of God's name without defiant intent.

Tune in to a game show, and when someone who is a contestant on the game show wins a prize that they didn't expect to win. Nine times out of ten, what are the words that come out of their mouths? Oh, my God. Oh, God.

5:04 - 5:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: However, it is even more grievous and more terrifying when the name and being of God are trivialized.

People on Antique Roadshow exclaiming 'Oh, my God' when discovering an item's high value, further illustrating the trivialization of God's name.

Watch the Antique Roadshow, one of the few programs that I can watch. Watch with a good conscience. No rotten commercials. Just old people carrying old stuff around to have it appraised.

5:42 - 5:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And far from being trivialized, Peter assumes, that God to these humble slaves, with unreasonable, unrighteous masters, would find the reality of God to be the sheet anchor to their stability in the midst of their suffer…

Immoral individuals at awards shows saying 'I thank God' or 'God bless you', demonstrating how God's name is marginalized and spoken without thought.

And to the contestants on the game show. Or if you were watching one of these silly awards things, and I don't watch them, but occasionally. I have seen a glimpse of one or two to know whereof I speak, and some immoral man or woman being praised by fellow immoral men and women, often women dressed in the most crass expressions of immodesty, being praised for that which promotes lawlessness, will at the end of accepting their rewards say, and I thank God, or God bless you. Well, God is trivialized and marginalized, pushed to the periphery of issues, to where his name can be spoken without any t...

6:42 - 7:40 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He provides an overview of Peter's letter, highlighting the pattern of gospel indicatives followed by imperatives, and situates the current passage within the second cycle of…

The directive in verse 18 is the apex of a pyramid, and verses 18-25 are the base, representing incentives or motives to keep the directive.

And last week we noted that the structure of the passage is very clear. Verse 18 is like the apex of a pyramid. That's the clear directive given to servants. Everything else in verses 18 to 25 is the base of the pyramid, incentives or motives to keep the directive.

12:22 - 12:40 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He elaborates on Peter's rhetorical question: 'What glory is it if, when you sin and are buffeted, you shall take it patiently?' illustrating that there is no honor in patiently…

A hypothetical scenario where slaves would not praise a fellow slave for patiently enduring punishment for goofing off, illustrating that there's no glory in suffering for sin.

When does one of you go around and start a buzzword among your fellow slaves? Hey, did you see the way so-and-so took that treatment from the master? He was out working all day. He put in overtime.

34:15 - 34:27 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He elaborates on Peter's rhetorical question: 'What glory is it if, when you sin and are buffeted, you shall take it patiently?' illustrating that there is no honor in patiently…

An employee caught goofing off on the internet instead of working, losing a company contract, and getting reprimanded, illustrating that there's no praise for patiently taking deserved punishment.

If you're supposed to be crunching out numbers for a projected project at work, and the boss comes in and finds you goofing off at the computer, fooling around on the internet, trying to secure the best bargain price for a vacation in the Bahamas, and the company loses a contract because you goofed off using company time to plan your vacation, and the boss, he lets you have it in lavender. And you go off with your tail between your legs. Is that anything praiseworthy? You goofed off.

35:12 - 35:43 Read in full sermon

The point: You Christian children, what you need to live with your less than perfectly righteous parents is this God-centeredness. Look beyond your circumstances.

Verse 18 lays the tracks, and the incentives are the 'steam in that engine' to drive believers down the track of obedience.

Observation number one. Note, first of all, the God-centeredness of this first incentive. Note the God-centeredness of this first incentive. As Peter is seeking to give fuel to these slaves to drive the wheels of their lives down the track that he laid in verse 18.

40:25 - 40:48 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explores why Peter made God-centeredness the foundational incentive and explains that this transformation from self-centeredness to God-centeredness is achieved only…

Martin's personal testimony of knowing God only as a 'ubiquitous eyeball' and judge, bringing terror, until he knew God in Christ through the Gospel.

I referred to this a week ago Sunday night in Sunday night I never had a time when I wasn't conscious of God but the thought of God brought terror to my soul why? I didn't know God in Christ I knew him as a ubiquitous eyeball who saw everything I did that's all God was to me was an eyeball and a judge on a throne and I tell you if that's all you know of God you're a witness the eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good I never doubted that I never doubted what the Bible said he will bring every work into judgement but I tell you I don't want to live before the face of...

49:58 - 51:27 Read in full sermon