Life Bad, God Good: Finding Hope in Trials | 1 Peter Study - Between Sermons // Audio

Episode Transcript
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Pastor Brent McQuay (00:00):
Foreign. Welcome to another episode of Between
Sermons. I'm the host, Brent, and I
get to be the lead pastor here
at Disciples Church. And we are continuing
our conversation from Sunday. And this is

(00:20):
going to be a really fun one
because we're doing my favorite thing to
do on Sundays. But I'll let Taisha
tell you all about that.

Ti'heasha Beasley (00:27):
What?

You don't know what my favorite thing
to do on Sundays is?

To break down every word, Walk through
the Bible. Every word. Every period.

Break into every word.

No, no.

I mean, we made it all the
way through. 12 entire verses. 50 minutes.

Yeah, it was. It was in. It
was a lot, but it was good.
I got a lot of feedback.

Sure.

So before we dive into that shade
right there. No, no, no, no.

It was a lot.

Pastor Asa Slaughter IV (00:58):
It was good.

It was good. No, we believe you.
We love here at Disciples Church when
you walk through the book of the
Bible.

We love it.

We love it. Right, Pastor Asa. And
speaking of. So, Pastor Asa, you're going
to help us with this conversation. So
welcome, welcome between Sermons.

I'm happy to be here.

You are?

Yeah. Okay. I'm always happy to be
here.

That's good.

Absolutely.

I just love that our church loves
the Bible.

Yeah.

Are there churches out there that don't
love the Bible? Don't answer that question.

That's name. No, I'm just playing. I
don't know any churches by name.

Yeah, it seemed like in service, it
seemed like when you announced it, I
wasn't sure. But then once it's going,
you can tell our church loves the
Bible. But when you say it, it's
like for sure, people don't know how
to respond.

Especially second service. Second service, it was
like, we're going to walk through a
book of the Bible and everybody's like.

Oh, my gosh. So before we dive
in, we started a new sermon series.
We're in the book First Peter.

Yes.

So I know you love our. In
a book series. They are really good.

Yeah. This is our third one now.

Yeah.

So we did Ephesians, we did James,
and now we're in First Peter. So
we got. Yeah, we got. We got
Paul, we got James, and now we
got Peter.

Some heavy hitters, and most of the
people you chose are very spicy. Is
it a reason?

Show me somebody in the New Testament
that isn't spicy.

That's spicy. Okay. So it's okay as
believers to have a little.

I would say that they're passionate.

They're not spicy.

They just. Passionate about the word. They
passionate about the mission. Yeah, that's what
that is.

Do you guys consider yourselves to be
passionate disciples of Jesus?

I need to be more passionate.

Okay, okay.

More.

I would say I'm more passionate about
that than anything else.

You guys have good answers.

Like, I. I will say I did
get excited last night. The first Bears
touchdown. I'm at soccer game or soccer
practice. So I'm watching on my phone.
I'm sitting in my car. They score
the touchdown. I go, yes. And the
guy sat in the car next to
me was like, oh, wow.

What'S going on with this guy?

That was right. Was our window down?
Was it up?

Like, that's what I'm like.

I don't even know how he heard.

Yeah, I don't know. Who knows?

So that's part of why I respond
to a question like that. Like, I
need to be more passionate, because I
was at the Bears game, and he
was smacking his car, and I was
jumping up and down. And sometimes I
jump up and down in the presence
of the Lord. Sometimes I don't. But
I don't think there's ever a time
and The Bears lose 65, 70% of

(03:29):
the time that I'm not jumping up
and down when they do something good.
So I need to be more passionate
than Jesus.

Okay. We're gonna all hold you accountable
to that here.

Get the jumping around here. If I
start running and jumping in service, don't.
Don't judge me.

Just stand. Just stand in the back,
and we won't bother you.

It's been a long time since somebody
ran a lap inside of the auditorium.
I can't say it's never happened. No,
it's definitely been a while.

We've moved the chair. Well, the new
stage is a little tight.

Yeah. Might be a little tough.

You might get tripped or get tossed.

Sound panels on the wall, they're gonna
be, like, knocked askew and.

Away from the whole experience.

We also got a security team that
might be, like, why is he running?
What is he running to?

Right.

Somebody stop him.

Right? That's true. That's true. We were
actually doing a little bit of memory
lane laning before we came into here.
We was looking at old 20, 22
sermons and things. So it's definitely, like,
from three years.

Listen, when you. No, when you started
off or old. Three years ago.

We're going to unpack that more after
this show, but it seemed pretty. We've
progressed. Like, God has done some amazing
things, and one is we take time
to walk through different passages, and I
love that. Not that we didn't do
that before, but it seems to be
one of your biggest passions, so. It
is. Yeah. So tell us a little
bit about First Peter First. How did

(04:56):
we land there? Was it just like
random or did you decide?

No, it wasn't random. If I remember
right, we had like, I think I
had like six different books of the
Bible that I brought to the team
that I was like, I would love
to do any one of these six,
but like, what would be a good
one to do? And like we, we
kind of weighed pros and cons. It
was like, okay, well if we do
another, we just did Ephesians. If we
do another writing of Paul, sometimes Paul's
letters, he, he borrows ideas from his

(05:21):
previous letters or he repeats himself and
it's like, well, it really feel as
fresh if it's another letter from Paul.
And so we kind of, we're going
back and forth and we finally just
landed on First Peter. Just like, yeah,
I like this one. But I, I,
I did say though, I was like,
you know what, I know it's only
five chapters. I want to do six
weeks with it though. I feel like
sometimes we just get into it without

(05:41):
giving it like the setup that it
really needs. And looking at First Peter,
the way chapter one breaks down, there's
a two verse intro.

Yeah.

And then there's. The next ten verses
are basically setting up, I guess it's
almost like an overview of what he's
going to talk about, but not, not
really an overview. What's the right word
for it? It's like the framework, I
guess the foundation of what everything else
he's going to talk about is going
to be based on this. We are
born again into a living hope and

(06:12):
we have an inheritance waiting for us,
secure in heaven. And he takes that
idea, he builds that foundation for 10
verses and then everything for the next
four chapters is based on. Since you've
been born again, since you have a
living hope, since you have an inheritance,
here's what you need to be doing.
And so it felt like we needed
to separate like that section. So I

(06:33):
was like, okay, let's take six weeks
to walk through these five chapters.

Yeah, yeah.

And I like that for a couple
of reasons. One is coming out of
called, it just kind of made sense
because we were doing character studies and
breaking down the character. So that intro
to Peter was really good. And it
just, it was a little.

Bit of a bridge because it was,
we got a little bit of Peter's
calling.

Yeah, yeah. So I like that part
of it. And then to Just the
overall setup, independently of the fact that
we was kind of doing call. I
don't know with Ephesians, we didn't really.
We didn't do that, I don't think.
Right.

No, we did a little bit of
like an overview, a little bit of
an introduction along with chapter one.

Yeah.

But it was. It was definitely one
of those where I think, if I
remember right, like, the first third of
my Ephesians message was an overview and
then the rest of it was chapter
one.

Yeah. Because I was thinking about that
earlier, like, when we do these types
of things, overview for each chapter is
probably really good. Yeah. Because just to
set up the scene, give the context
to what's going on. That was really
good.

Yeah. And you even mentioned in your
message at the top, like, context is
king.

Context, Context, context.

Yes. So we do. I don't know
if he spent a lot, a lot
of time on Peter. So let's set
up Peter. For those who don't know
who Peter is, I think we spent
a good amount of time on like,
the background and who Peter was writing
to. Who is Peter? How did he
become a disciple? Like a chosen one
who actually walks with Jesus? How did
he get that, that privilege and that

(08:04):
honor?

Because Jesus invited him and he said
yes.

Right.

Kind of. Kind of the way it
works for all. Now do we know
why Peter was chosen?

Not really.

I mean, there's nothing written about, like,
Peter was this great guy. No, he's
just a fisherman. Worked with his d.
The family business was fishermen. And yeah,
Jesus came along and was like, hey,
come, follow me.

What I like about the being chosen
part is we don't know necessarily why,
but it's a theme in the Bible
of people being chosen that somebody can
identify with or see themselves in or
realize that you ain't got to be
so perfect to be chosen by God.
So, I mean, we see that so

(08:48):
often. So I love that part of
it is that, man, Jesus picked some
all over the map type of people.
And then when I think about the
people that I know today, we got
a lot of all over the map
type of people, including myself. And, you
know, we've all been all over the
map. So it's cool. It's really cool
to see that, man. There's no excuse
to live a life thinking I'm not

(09:08):
good enough for what Jesus is offering.
Because if you read what is happening,
you're good enough. I mean, because it's
all about him to begin with. But
so I like that from what.

We see of Peter, Peter Definitely had
that like type A personality. He was
a little bit hot headed.

Yeah.

Like he just kind of runs his
mouth and says things and does things
and man, it, I, what did I
call him? I called him the, the,
the apostle of oh man, extremes. Because
it really was, it was like one
minute he's doing something that you're like,
wow, Peter. And the next one he's
doing something you're like, wow, Peter. But

(09:45):
it's a very different.

Yeah, yeah.

So like when he gets it right,
he gets it really, really right.

Yeah.

He's the one who basically tells, tells
Jesus. When Jesus like feeds a bunch
of people, then he starts preaching stuff
that the people are like, whoa, that's
a little hard to swallow. Like, you're
gonna have to eat my flesh and
drink my blood, all this stuff and,
and the people leave.

Yeah.

And Jesus looks at his disciples like,
you guys going to leave too? Peter's
the one that steps forward. He's like,
where are we going to go? You
have the words of life, right? Like,
where are we going to go? Like
he, I mean he's got brilliant moments.
He's the dude that's like, that's Jesus
walking on water. If it's really Jesus,
I'm going to go out there, walk
with him. Yes. Which honestly is still
the dumbest idea.

Oh my gosh. How you going to
call Peters?

It was the, it was a, it
was a bad idea. It was a
bad plan. Okay, so like if you
hear something in the night, say, don't
worry Tyisha, it's me, David. Would you
be like, okay, David, if it's really
you, then tell me to come in
there with you?

Yeah, that is kinda not smart.

I mean the logic of this, like
if it's not Jesus, oh my God.
The thing could still be like, yeah,
Peter, come on out.

Yeah, come on. And if it's the
devil, the father of lies. Yeah, Peter,
come on out.

The scripture says everybody thought he was
a ghost. And the ghost is like,
that's not a ghost, it's me, Jesus.
Okay, if you're not really a ghost
and you're really Jesus, tell me to
walk on water.

Right.

Okay.

That was human though.

How is that a good idea?

I mean I could just, I think
that was a human response, but yeah.

But then he walks on water is
it's amazing moment. Like, yeah, you got
11 guys in the boat that got
to watch one of their friends walk
on water. There's only one of those
dudes that.

Actually walked on water because of his
dumb.

Because of His. Because of his recklessness
and his craziness. But, like, right, Like,
I mean, just think about that. Like,
for the rest of his life, he
could describe to people what it feels
like to walk on water.

Only person, only one.

But then there's that thought in the
back of his head later in life
about how he denied Jesus. We're not
going to talk about the bad things
I did, but, you know, I walked
on water. Right, right.

Oh, my God.

What's amazing, you know, John would have.

Been quick to be like, you also
denied him.

What did it feel like to deny
knowing Jesus? To a little talking about
what it felt like to walk on.
And you know, John would do that
because he's the one that was like.
So all the, all the other disciples,
like, or all the other gospel writers
write about things that Peter did without
naming Peter, like some of the bad
things. And one of the disciples, blah,
blah, one of the disciples, like, you
get to the book of John and

(12:17):
it's like, Peter did it.

Right, Right.

It was Peter.

Yes. Now that you guys are talking
about it, it does make it feel
like, very realistic. Like, I know these
people in real life. These are real
people who have real flaws and God,
real personalities, and God chose them. So
before we get into the thick of
it, which disciple do you relate to
the most?

Thomas.

What? Doubting Thomas.

Yeah.

Really?

Always got questions.

Yeah. Doubting Brent. That made sense when
he said that.

Always got questions. So here's what. The
caveat that I'll put on it. I
don't think Thomas deserves the moniker Doubting
Thomas.

Okay.

Thomas had questions, not necessarily doubts. So
he asked questions, and we call that
doubt. But like, his questions actually led
to amazing moments. And some of the
great truths that we know from Scripture
are conversations based off of a question
that Thomas would. Thomas would ask a

(13:16):
question. How can we go where you're
going if we don't know the way?
Like Jesus says, I'm preparing this place
for you. And then Jesus has this
beautiful response. I'm the way the truth
and life. Like all that whole conversation
is based off of Thomas asking a
question. So, yeah, that's my guy. He's
the guy with the questions.

And part of his message was ask
questions, guys. It's okay to. As you're
going through getting context in the Bible
and learning the Bible and studying the
Bible, you need to be asking the
question.

So makes sense.

He asked questions.

He asked questions and got amazing answers
as a result. So I think it's
fantastic.

Okay.

And he made great declarations of Faith
based off of the answers. When. When
he tells the disciples, he's like, look,
I. I want to believe you, but
unless I see him for myself, I
just. I can't. Like, it's just. It's
too much. And so Jesus shows up,
personal visit just for Thomas, so that
Thomas can touch him in the holes

(14:17):
in his hands and the holes in
his side. And Thomas is the first
one to say, my Lord and my
God.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's amazing. What about you?

I don't know the answer to the
question, but I see myself in different
circumstances. So, like, you can see a
little bit of yourself and just what's
happening more than the overall person. So,
like, the whole, oh, I'm about to
cut this ear off as my natural
response to y' all about to attack
Jesus. I can see myself being that
aggressive unnecessarily.

I can see your throwing hands.

So it's like those type of things,
like, oh, I probably shouldn't have cut
his ear off. Jesus, my bad. Let's
love him now. I just.

Oh, my God.

So, you know, some of those things
I think is more story by story
things as you're going through it, you
start to identify with.

So I heard something here recently that
just. It was one of those, like,
cool moments where I was like, interesting
thought. It just sparked. So when Peter
cuts off the guy's ear, Jesus puts
it back on. It got rid of
any evidence. So, like, Peter could have
been executed for attacking the servant of
this guy. Like, but the ear gets

(15:18):
put back on, which means there's zero
evidence. Yeah, it was like, oh, man,
I never even thought about that. But,
yeah, Jesus got rid of the evidence.

Wow.

Like, that's really cool.

That's also so wild.

Gangster. And it's like, that's gangster.

It's so wild, though. The. The evidence
that this is the Messiah, like the
miracles that they seen him do, and
we as humans are still weak enough
to deny him in those of pressure.
That is amazing stuff. And, you know,
sometimes we think we got it all
together, and I would never do that.
But, man, you never know till pressure

(15:55):
is put on you what's actually going
to come out. So it's such an
interesting thing to think he saw over
and over again Jesus fixing stuff miraculously.

And yeah, it's a common argument from.
From atheists where they'll. They'll say, like,
not necessarily argument, but they'll say something
along the lines of, why doesn't God
just show up and prove who he
is? And it's like, well, he did
that 2,000 years ago. You remember how
it ended?

Yeah.

And. And so it's like, you know,
Jesus can be standing right in front
of you doing things that no one
else can do, no one else could
explain, and you can still be like,
nah, yeah, yeah.

I think that kind of goes into
a little bit of some of the
application of this sermon, which is like,
hope and even how the testing of
our faith is done. And sometimes it's.
It's difficult. Like, we kind of had
this discussion in our small group recently
with the message, and it was a

(16:50):
lot of reflecting that happened because people,
it's a mature moment when you get
to the point where you're like, either
I did this and this is the
consequence of what I'm going through, or
this is really a testing of my
faith. So I thought that was good
application you pulled out of that. How
do you think Peter got to that
place where he could write about that?

(17:11):
Like, what was something. I don't know.
You're not Peter. But what you can
gauge from the, the. His.

Well, and so, like, part of that
is why I walk through some of
his life and mention that this is.
He's writing this 30 years after Pentecost.
Like, think of, like, where, like, I
don't even have really. Well, I guess
technically I do. I got saved when
I was six. I mean, 30 years
ago today, I would have been 11.

Okay.

Like, 30 year history of walking with
Jesus. Like, what does that. How does
that change a person?

Wow.

And so, like, yes, when we look
at pre Pentecost, Peter, it's the good
and the bad. It's the highs and
lows. It's. It's the saying things he
shouldn't say, doing things he shouldn't do,
and then saying perfect things and doing
perfect things. He's all over the map.
Pentecost happens, though, and something like, really
triggers in him. Something changes the Holy
Spirit in him. And so now he's

(18:03):
been walking in the power of the
holy spirit for 30 years, for three
decades. You got to figure that in
that time the Holy Spirit has softened
some of his edges. You know, it's.
It's possible that he was in his
early 20s or late teens even, some
people will say, when he was following
Jesus originally. So now he's got maturity
that he didn't have then. He's aged

(18:24):
a little bit. He's got more wisdom.
So, like, I think that it's. It's
natural to think, okay, that's where this
is coming from. It's. He's lived 30
years of life. And now he recognizes,
okay, there's trials. Let me tell you
about trials. Like, okay, when. When we
first were there, we were being persecuted.
He's like, I spent time in prison
for my faith. I got arrested for

(18:45):
preaching the gospel. And so, like, if
you read through the Book of Acts,
some of the things that Peter experiences,
the miracles that he sees, the persecution
that he faces, and just, I mean,
we're getting a glimpse of a couple
of years in the Book of Acts.
So now multiply that out by 30
years. So this is just a guy
that's gone through life.

Yeah, yeah.

And he's. He's speaking from both his
personal experience, but also through the guidance
of the Holy Spirit.

Yeah, it. It just reminds me of
how some old church mothers would be
like, baby, just keep living. Yeah, just
keep living. Can you recall, Pastor Asa,
like, moments where that. That passage or
like, that testimony has come alive to
you, where, you know, you. It wasn't

(19:27):
necessarily a trial of, like, a consequence,
so we don't get to that, but
it was a moment where it was
like, I know that this is a
testing of my faith. Do you have
any moments where you can recall.

Yes, but not necessarily in the sense
of persecution, more in the sense of.

Of.

Tragedies and things like that, where it's
like, man, I got a choice to
either hold on to Jesus or be
derailed, or I got a choice to
either believe the word and have joy
and have hope or be derailed in
that way. So, like, more I would
say the testing of the faith going
through stuff where it's not human persecution
necessarily, but it's ups and downs based

(20:11):
on, as they say, life, and. You
know what I mean? So I got
plenty of those moments where I've seen
myself grow and. But see myself have
to really just rely on the word
of God, rely on what I believe
over what I see. But even though
I say what I believe over what
I see, what I believe is the

(20:32):
Bible, which tells us it's going to
be drama, it's going to be stuff
happening. So being able to not question
God in the middle of the stuff
and know that God is still on
the throne, he's still good, his word
is still true, and stuff happens, and
we don't necessarily always know why, but
stuff happens and the word is still
true. So I would say more in

(20:53):
that way. Yeah, more than. I was
thinking about that. I was. I was
re. Listening to the message this morning,
and in there, you told people to
reflect on or write down maybe some
Trials that they've experienced, that might be
experiencing now. And I was thinking. Or
persecution. I think maybe you said persecution,
but I was thinking, man, I, I

(21:13):
don't had it easy. I don't really
feel like I've been persecuted.

Don't say.

I mean, it just is what it
is. But I was thinking about it,
like, I can't think of circumstances where
I've been persecuted necessarily for my faith.
Now maybe I need to be more
active. But yeah, think of.

So the, the emphasis was on trials
because. Yeah, I think sometimes as Americans,
we. We like to claim persecution.

Yeah.

And I'm, I'm. It's. It's the wrong
day for me to talk about this,
but I'm going to talk about it
anyways. I just read an email from
one of our missions partners yesterday. He's
asking for prayer because one of the
pastors that he oversees that he's been
training in a part of the world
where Islam is more prevalent, a riot

(22:00):
started outside of his church that then
spilled into the church. They attacked him.
They attacked members of the church. They
started beating them to death, attempted to.
Like, they're. They're not beating them for
fun. They're trying to kill them. The
police came and in breaking up the.
The riot and everything, arrested all the

(22:21):
Christians. It's like they. They came into
the Christian church, attacked the Christians, and
the Christians get arrested, and it took
them almost a week. I think he
said to just get the pastor bailed
out because the government was, Was holding
him accountable for everything because he's preaching
the gospel. Oh, my God. So, yeah,
so when a. When a. When a

(22:41):
Christian in America is like, I'm being
persecuted because my boss won't let me
read my Bible on my break, it's
like, okay, that's an inconvenience. That's not
persecution. There's. There is real persecution that's
really happening right now all over the
world. So, yeah, I'm in a man.

This Americanized Christianity stuff is like a
real thing, and we do have it
very easy. And I mean, it's humbling.
And it definitely puts things in perspective,
how we go to God and we're
complaining about things.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's just like.

And. And it's not to say, look,
that. That you don't. You. That you
can't face persecution in the U.S. you
absolutely can. But there's a difference in
persecution where here you may lose a
job or you may lose friends. In
other parts of the world, you would
lose your life. It's just different levels
of persecution. But I think that trials

(23:36):
can. Are absolutely still a part of
the life of a believer. Whether you're
in the US or, you know, first
world or third world country, doesn't really
matter. There's going to be trials. The
trials are just going to look different.

Yeah.

You know, do you want your trial
to come with air conditioning or not?
Like, it's just, that's kind of the
difference.

Did you just. Okay.

I mean, am I wrong? Like, it's
just, you know, it's we.

Yeah, I get it. No, that's good.
It's a good reflective point. Just thinking
about trials, though. Okay, so you said
you compared like trout. Things that we
can bring on ourselves.

Trials and consequences.

Yeah.

So two different things.

How do we tell the difference between
those?

I was asked that question, like, right
as somebody was leaving. Well, how do
I know if it's a trial or
consequence? I'm like, did you do something
you shouldn't do?

Like, I mean, we do something every
day that we shouldn't do.

I felt a little bit bad because
I was like, I don't, I don't
mean to like insult your intelligence or
anything, but like, you know, when it's
a consequence, like, because, you know, you
did something you shouldn't do and you're,
you're dealing with it. So. Yeah, I
don't think there's a great mystery behind
is it a trial or is it
a consequence? Just stop long enough to
think, okay, am I doing something I

(24:48):
shouldn't be doing? Am I saying things
I shouldn't be saying? Am I saying
things in a way that I shouldn't
be saying them? Because sometimes people will
even claim, you know, well, I'm being
persecuted for my faith. And it's like,
well, no, you just, you just walked
up to a complete stranger and started
yelling at them and quoting scripture and
doing it. And when they were like,
hey, can you just leave me alone?
You're like, I'm being persecuted for my

(25:09):
faith. It's like, no, you just have
no tact. And so, like, we need
to work on your approach to people.
And so. Yeah. But yeah, there absolutely
is a difference between, I think you
called it self inflicted wounds.

Yes.

And trials. And there's, there's a lot
of things that we face because we
made the wrong choice. You married somebody
that God never told you to marry.
You went to a school or got
a job that you weren't supposed to
get. You. You got a job knowing
that you were going to have to
compromise morals and your, your ethical Standards.

(25:46):
You decided to have sex outside of
marriage, and now you're dealing with the
consequence of a baby. Like, it's. There's,
there's things where it's like, don't. Don't
label something you did to yourself as
well. God is testing my faith. It's
like, no, that's not how that works.

That's a tough.

Is that mean? I don't.

It is mean, but I don't want
to be mean. No, that's me. But
it's just me. It's mean.

I. I do. I've run into a
lot of Christians that are dealing with
consequences and, and try and make it
spiritual. Well, and I don't want us
to do that.

I can see that. But Peter made
a lot of. He could have walked
on that water and drowned. And that
would have been a consequence.

No, I don't think it was either.
Like, that would have been the result
of standing on water. Because. No. Like,
I'm trying to process through it, but
like, but, like, no. So that example,
is that a trial? No, but it's
neither. You just. You just brought in.

I was just trying to think of
something.

You just brought in. I was just
trying to think of something.

Well, I mean, realistically. Okay, think about
it like this, Taisha. If your son
does something.

Yes.

That clearly he shouldn't have done, knew
better to do. Now I get it.
Sometimes you do things that you don't
know better. Okay. Knew better, did it
anyway. And broke his wrist. I know
he just had a wrist, but I'm
just saying, if you would have told
him, don't go play basketball that day,
and he fell and broke his wrist.
Well, you broke your wrist. It's a

(27:16):
consequence of being disobedient. Well, technically, it's
a consequence of tripping and falling, but.
So I don't know. How would you
parent him in that moment? Would you
say, well, it's just a child, baby,
or would it be, you should probably
do what you know to do instead
of doing.

No, I know the difference between. I'm
thinking of some very specific things that
people are going through right now. And
I guess I would just be like,
yes. No, this is probably a consequence.
But, like, how do we approach. Approach
it? So that.

Sure. And that. And that. And that's
a. That's a different thing. So, like,
how do you do. How do you
deal with consequences?

Right.

I think that's a healthy question to
ask, because I think there's some people
that have the mentality of, well, this
is my consequence. So I Just got
to grip my teeth and bear it.

Right.

It's like, well, no, can we learn
from consequences? Can we, can we appreciate
the. What is happening is because of
this? So here's what I should do
in the future. Like, you know, the,
the guys repossessing your car, that's a
consequence of you purchasing a vehicle you
couldn't afford, of you, you know, stretching
a little bit further in your finances

(28:22):
than you really should have. Or it
could just be the inevitable consequence of,
hey, I had a great job that
totally could pay for this vehicle. And
then I lost my job. Like, so
there's, there's different things that can attribute
to issues that we go through. I
think the, the best lesson we can
learn is what's the lesson that I'm
learning? Yeah, right. So, like, okay, I'm

(28:43):
not going to do that again. I'm
not going to stretch in that way.
I'm not going to get a car.
Note that if I lost my job,
I'd be losing the car immediately. Like,
I need to have savings. I need
to live within my means. Like, so
we learn and we grow and we
develop. And so there can definitely be
a spiritual component to all that. I
think my issue is just when people
will ignore the fact that I did

(29:05):
something wrong and now I'm facing consequences
from. For it and jump straight to,
well, God's just teaching me this wonderful
lesson about blah, blah, blah. Yeah, no,
like sin still. Yes. Sin still carries
consequences, even for believers.

No, I believe that it's true.

And even for stuff that, yeah, God
has forgiven you for, but in the
natural, it may be something that you
still have to deal with to walk
out. So it ain't even. It's not
a matter of that. It's not a
matter of God's grace, mercy, forgiveness, none
of that. But sometimes you've gone past
the point of no return when it
comes to consequences.

And I'm sure you've had to deal
with that doing prison ministry.

Oh, absolutely.

Like, there's guys that are like, on
fire for Jesus in prison. Yeah, but
they stay in prison.

Get me out. Jesus. Well, yeah, he
could. They could start shaking and you
can walk out, but whatever. But you
actually did this. There's a consequence for
it. We will pray for you. We
will pray for favor, but that don't
mean that he's going to just let
you off for murder.

And just remember that all the prison
breaks in the Bible were all people
that were wrongfully imprisoned.

Right, right.

They were innocent.

Yeah, innocent. So, yeah, no, that's Definitely
a thing. But that's even a thing
just in our everyday life of. I
know in my group I could think
of. And I won't say names or
anything like that, but I could think
of conversations where I had to balance.
You did that to yourself with some

(30:33):
love of how to not send him
down this rabbit trail of condemnation by
basically pointing out the fact that you
caused this problem. Right. Okay, you caused
it. But now let's walk through what
you should do moving forward and how
God still loves you. That's not the
issue. So it is a balance you
can got to have when talking to
people.

Yeah.

And there are steps you can take
moving forward to do the best you
can to alleviate whatever the issues the
pressures are, but sometimes that's not comfortable.
Now, you may have to change your
lifestyle a little bit because of something
that you did, but the best route
of action right now is for you
to tweak your lifestyle to make things
better because you made a bad decision
over there. So, I mean, so it's

(31:14):
a lot of ways to deal with
it. Of course, we got to try
to walk in love and hear people
and pick our spots when it comes
to the toughness that you have to
give and give them the word.

But, yeah, I think that's part of
why I like the way I preach.
I'm making fun of myself because I
realized I was to about to say
something that seemed. Yeah, I like the,
the breakdown that I gave of. And

(31:49):
see, now you made me lose it.
But it's the, the choice between obedience
and gratification. Yeah, like that. That's usually
where most people's trials come in. Like
your trial is, man, my flesh really
wants this thing, but my faith says
no. And so this trial, the. There's
the testing now. Okay, is my faith

(32:11):
going to win or is my flesh
going to win? And the sad reality
is that sometimes the flesh wins and
sometimes the faith wins. And we want
the faith to win more and more.
That's the goal. But that's the trial
when it's okay, I'm trying to honor
God in this relationship, but we're not
married yet. But man, my flesh is
saying, tonight's the night. I got to

(32:33):
make a choice here. I got to
make this as a trial of my
testing of my faith. Is God more
important than my flesh?

And I think that's one of the
biggest things as a believer that you.
You deal with at least over here
is that is am I going to
follow God in this thing right here
or not? And then you get the
next chance, am I going to follow
God or not? And then when things
start to trickle the wrong way and
you can look back and see that
path of disobedience, you did it. God

(33:03):
was trying to save your life, but
you didn't let him. You know, and
that's usually, to me, there's usually a
rabbit trail of disobedience when somebody end
up in really bad places. Now, I
know accidents happen, things happen. But a
lot of times we blaming God and
we be even blaming the devil. And
it was you and your flesh being
disobedient over and over and over and

(33:24):
over again. And you end up in
peril because you've been disobedient over and
over and over and over again.

Which I guess technically means that you
can face consequences because you failed a
trial too much.

Well, there you go.

You failed the trial and now it's
a consequence. I mean, but it makes
sense to the passage that we're talking
about context, like, the purpose of these
trials is to strengthen your, your faith.
Right? It shows the genuine. But what
I hear a lot, just even having
the opportunity to serve the Gen Z

(33:57):
and millennial population is this misconception of
as soon as I become a believer,
everything is going to get better. And
then you have faster rent, get on
stage and basically say, God good, life
bad.

Figure it out, suck it up. It'll
be okay, right? Deal with it.

Deal.

Say that again. What was it exactly?
That.

But that was.

It was pretty much it.

God good.

First Peter. Life bad. God good. Hang
on, hang on. That's. That's what Peter
is saying through the whole thing. Like,
he's, he's talking to people who are
facing persecution, who are suffering because of
their decisions, because of their faith. He
goes on to talk about slaves and
masters, and he talks about husbands and
wives and goes on to talk about
all these different dynamics that basically the
setup is you're a believer and they're

(34:45):
not. You're born again, you're part of
a new kingdom. You're exiles. They're not.
And they're. You have to live a
certain way in this. Like, yeah, it's
life bad, God good.

So what. Okay, that's really good.

So if I, if I could distress,
like, I think the issue is, and
I don't know how long this lasted.
I don't know when it got started.
I would have to do, like, more
research to figure it out. But there's,
there's a window in our recent history
as Christians. And by recent, I mean
the last couple decades. Where the gospel
we preached was, if you give your

(35:23):
life to Jesus, everything will be good,
everything will be better. And there's some
truth to that. But the way it
was communicated gave people a wrong expectation.
It gave this expectation of, well, I'm
struggling right now, and I'm sick right
now, and I'm poor right now, but
if I make Jesus, Lord, I'll be
healed and I'll be healthy and I'll

(35:44):
have a nice job and a good
car and lots of money. And it's
like, yeah, no, that's. That's not the
gospel. Yeah, the gospel isn't telling you
anything about what's gonna happen between now
and the time you die, other than
God's gonna be with you. Good, bad,
ugly. You're not walking it alone. And

(36:04):
not only that, you got a body
of believers. You're part of a. A
family now. You're part of the body
of Christ. So there's others. Today we.
We had a funeral. And the number
of times the. The wife came to
tell me just how much the church
means to her that, you know, yesterday
at the funeral home, she's like, I
just don't want to be here. I
just don't want to be here. But
when she was thinking about being at

(36:25):
church today, she's like, I just. I
just want to be at my church.
I just want to be at my
church. Because she knows that there's people
that are going to be encouraging her
and loving on her and taking care
of her. That's what we have. We
have family. We have community. We have
a God who. Who walks with us.
We have a comforter who's with us.
None of that promises you're not going

(36:46):
to lose your job. None of that
promises you're not going to end up
homeless. None of that promises you're not
going to end up with cancer. Like,
that's just not the gospel. The gospel
is, Jesus died for you. You are
now saved. You are on your way
to heaven, and until you get there,
the Holy Spirit's going to be walking
this path with you. And it's beautiful.
It's amazing. It's awesome. It is good

(37:08):
news. It just doesn't promise a Rolex
and.

A Ferrari and a, you know, we
gonna get canceled. And I'm just playing
because here's the thing.

I don't think that anything that I'm
saying now. Now is controversial or unheard.
Yeah, it's because I. I do believe
strongly that we have. We are coming
out of. Or we have already come
out of that Window? Yeah, I think
there was a window. And that's, that's
where I'd have to do, like, church
research and church history. I don't know
if that window was 30 years, 20
years, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years,

(37:40):
I don't know. But there was a
period of time and we, we label
the prosperity gospel. And I think that's
true to a degree, but I think
it spread beyond just prosperity gospel because
there was people that were like, well,
I won't be prosperous, but I'll have
this, because God's gonna make sure it
happens. And it's like, yeah, no, that's
not, that's not what the Bible tells
us. But I think that we've come

(38:02):
out of that. I think there's a
lot of preachers out there that are,
Are on this new bandwagon of him.
Let's just be realistic with what the
Bible is actually declaring. You know, we
look at the disciples. They died as
martyrs. Like, they didn't have a lot
of wealth. I think Peter had a
house from one of the. I'm blanking

(38:22):
on the description now, but somebody was
using his home as a church base.
And so, I mean, he had enough
money for a house. Other than that,
the rest of them were like, they
wandered, they went from place to place.
Other people took care of them. Yeah,
you know, it's, it's. That's the, The
Bible we follow. It's not promising you

(38:43):
lots of cool stuff except for it
promised you Jesus. And that's pretty cool.

That is. It is awesome. And it
is awesome. And it's heavy.

It is. And it's like, I get
that, like, people want to hear when
somebody gets a diagnosis of cancer, they
want to hear God's going to take
care of it. They do. And I
get that. And if, If I get
cancer, I would love to hear. You're
gonna be healed. It's gonna be okay.
You're. You're not gonna die. You're gonna
live. We can't make that promise. The

(39:17):
promise is that, yeah, you'll be healed
in heaven, maybe before then. That'd be
awesome. Miracles do happen. God does do
healings. It's 100%. I still believe in
the supernatural taking place on this earth,
but the supernatural taking place is not
always guaranteed.

Yeah. Do you wanna add anything? Do
you wanna add anything?

But heaven's gonna be awesome.

It's gonna. Yep.

This is what.

And that's the inheritance. We didn't stray
that far from First Peter because that,
that's the message of First Peter.

Yeah.

You are born again. You have a
living hope, which is the, the eternal
Christ Jesus is our living hope. And
it's all through his shed blood that
we have all of this. But there
is an inheritance waiting for us. It
even says that it's secure for us
until the end comes. And so when
Jesus returns, that's when we get this
thing that was promised and that's when

(40:14):
we get to celebrate. And that's what
we're looking forward to as believers. We're
looking forward to that day and our
lives from now until then is about
bringing as many people on that journey
as possible.

What I was going to add after
I said, no, I'm not adding anything
and. But what I think is in
the Word is that God lays out
a lot of ways for you to
behave, things to do concerning your finances,
things to do to, to be healthier.
He lays out a lot of walk,
obedience to have a better life. That

(40:46):
don't mean stuff ain't going to happen.
But there's a lot of principles that
we can follow that more than likely
gonna make our life a little bit
better than what it is by simply
just being obedient and following those principles.

Yes.

It's gonna eliminate a lot of you
shooting yourself in the foot. Like the
Chicago Bears yesterday. I don't know how
I got eliminate, but it'll eliminate. Self
inflicted.

Canceled.

Again, being obedient. Yeah. A lot of
our issues sometimes are self inflicted. I
mean it's, it's being reckless with finances,
being reckless with how we eat and
not exercise. So there's a lot of
things that we can do if we
just follow basic biblical principles.

That's true. We can't have a bad
life.

100%. Yeah. And that's. Yeah. Thank you
for pointing at that out. Because it
isn't to say that like a believer
and a non believer are gonna experience
the same suck. Like.

Yeah.

Like. Yeah. There's some things that are
possible. Like a believer and a non
believer can both get hit by a
car. Random. However, there's a lot of
things that if you're doing what the
Bible's telling you to do, it is
going to set your life up better.
Like, I mean, the countless studies that
have been done about the strengths of
having a mother and father in the

(41:56):
home. Okay. Well, if you follow Christian
values, you should be experiencing that. Right.
Like, so there's so many things about,
in sociology and psychology that if you
have Christian values and you walk in
these Christian operations and dealing stuff. Yeah.
Life is going to be.

Yeah.

Better than if you don't.

That makes sense.

Just.

Yeah, because at first I was like,
okay, yeah, yeah. So why do we
want to be a Christian Again?

Why would I want to be a
Christian? And they answer to the why
is there's an inheritance for Christians? There's
no inheritance for non Christians. And if
you think that 60 years or 80
years is important, like, do the math
on infinity, that's good. Do the math
on eternity. If you think these 80
years, they would be better to live
80 years. Not with Jesus.

No. Yeah, I can testify. No, thank
you. Yeah, it's peaceful over here. It's
my saying. So why was it so
important for you, Pastor Brent, to kind
of start with the whole thing? Context
is king. Why was that so important
for you to lay out before we
jump into First Peter?

Because it's Bible study. Like, I mean,
that's, that's what we're doing. We're studying
scripture. I think that I'll be careful.
I think that the YouVersion Bible app
is one of the greatest inventions of
the modern age. The Bible in your
hands. Having DeVos available right there, like,
it is amazing. There's a reason why
it's got billions of downloads and stuff.

(43:27):
It's an amazing thing. However, I do
worry about what the verse of the
day does to people in their ability
to actually read and understand scripture. When
we, when we start looking for like
the bible, like a McDonald's drive through,
where it's like, just give me the
number seven real quick as I'm running
out, like, when we come to the

(43:47):
Bible with that mentality, like, you literally,
I said it yesterday, like, you can
make the Bible say whatever you want
as long as you don't worry about
the context.
I see and I hear people, Christians
and non Christians, do that all the
time. They'll just cherry pick a passage
that isn't even talking about the thing
they're going to say it's talking about.
But if you take it out of
context, it's like, oh, yeah. Oh, I
can see where, where you get that

(44:09):
idea from. And so just teaching people
to actually study scripture is. I, I
guess that's my, my passion in life
right now. I don't know if that's
going to last the rest of my
life or it probably will or what,
but yeah, but it is. I don't
see it changing anytime soon either. However,
I do, I do feel like I'm
on a mission right now of helping
people learn how to study the Bible

(44:32):
because there's so much goodness in it.
I mean, there's some beautiful things. I
mean, just what we did yesterday, just
looking at the word sprinkle compared to
or the elect exiles of dispersion.
Because, yes, these are sentences, these are
phrases, these are words that if you're
reading the verse of the day, first
of all, exiles, elect exiles of dispersion

(44:53):
is never showing up in the verse
of the day. Like, nobody's ever picking
that as the verse of the day.
However, it carries weight, it carries significance,
but only if you understand history and
what's happening. And the only way you
get there is by being like Thomas,
you got ask questions. And so, yeah,
my goal really with the, with the
walk through the Bible stuff that we

(45:14):
do, it's. It's one, it's to be
able to teach through a section of
the Bible. So it's not just, here's
a verse that says this, and trust
me on the context, but we're going
to jump over to this verse now.
And I do that in my preaching
too. And I. Part of me hates
it, but part of me, like, recognizes,
like, I. It helps people to know,
hey, this is just Brent's ideas is

(45:34):
grounded in Scripture. But there's so many
times when, like, I'm reading verse three
and it like, even starts with the
word but. And you're like, why does
he say but what happened before? Yeah,
but I don't have time if I'm
just using this verse to make this
point. And so even for me, like,
I prefer being able to just. Here's

(45:54):
the passage, here's what we're looking at.
Here's what we're going to learn from
it. Here's what the, the people were
trying to communicate. Communicate when they wrote
it. So, yeah, for me, I just,
I want to teach context. So, so
I do it for that reason. But
we're also doing this walk through the
Bible because I want to help people
when they study their Bible on their
own.
That it for me, preaching on Sunday,
it isn't about Sunday. It's like, okay,

(46:15):
what am I giving them? The audience
so that they have something for Monday
and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. And
honestly, like, I feel like if, if
I could teach people just to study
their Bible, it makes my life easier.
You know how many, like, counseling appointments
and meetings I have with people that
basically could have been solved if they
had done what the Bible told them
to do to begin with is that

(46:38):
just keep shaking, stop saying those things
out loud. Stop it.

And I think your issue, it comes
off like, it's the verse of the
day is the issue when at the
end of the day, you're wanting people
to get a hunger for God's Word
and actually taking this path, this journey
in life to get in God's Word
and to grow in it, which that's
what makes it so awesome, is that
if you actually get in it and

(47:05):
continue to stay in it and go
through it systematically by actually studying it,
go through it quickly because you got
a little time. But if overall you're
starting to spend more and more and
more time in God's Word, actually pulling
out what, what it's really trying to
say, praying through it, talking through it,
writing it down between now and 10
years, you should have grown in a

(47:26):
way where you don't need Pastor Brent's
counsel on how to love your wife,
because the Bible.

Has already told you how to love
right now.

Maybe it's something else that you haven't
come across that you need. You need
somebody to tell you. So it's just
wanting people to get on a journey
of take the word of God seriously
that to our answers to all of
it, period. That's the answers to this
thing. So if we would just take
that seriously, you can get some inspiration
from the verse of the day. Long
as you're studying your Bible too, or

(47:55):
long as that's giving you this hunger
to say, let me go see what
that's talking about.

That's why I pulled out my phone
idea.

It's not for it to just be
what you live by. Like that said,
whatever it said, you know, my wife
need to listen to me. The verse
of the day saying, my wife need
to submit. It ain't for you.

Or it's like, I'm totally gonna throw
my sister under the bus. She has
Jeremiah 29:11 tattooed to her, to her
ankle. And I'm like, you know that
verse that, you know, that verse was
talking to God's people right before they
went into exile. Like it was to
remind them that even in the exile
that God still has plans and purposes
for their lives. I'm glad that you
love that verse, but you know that

(48:35):
it has nothing to do with you
or like the I can do all
things through Christ who strengthens me. Amazing
verse. Do you real big?

It's not real big. It's a Bible.
It's open to Philippians.

What?

I realize I've never seen your back.

Thank God. He's never seen my back.
It's been there since I was like
16 years old, 17 years old.

But the number of 16 and 17
year old kids that Are using that
to be like, we're going to win
this football game.

Exactly.

And it's like the whole. The whole
passage is talking about persecution and suffering,
and I know how to have a
lot of stuff, and I know how
to have nothing. I can be content
in. In it because I can do
all the things. Like, it's a part
of like a whole. Yeah. Anyways. But
I pull out my phone just to
prove I do love the. The YouVersion
Bible app. So much so that I
have a shortcut. Oh, I need my

(49:19):
face. There it is. See, I got
a little button that takes me straight
to the Bible app every time. But
here's what I wanted to. To show
people or tell people.

Do you want a cookie? No, just
playing.

Yes, I do. Okay. When you go
to the verse of the day. Oh,
man. Now I'm. I'm here and I
can't find.

It isn't the verse of the day.
I just read it this morning, actually.

Verse of the day.

I just read it this morning.

Okay, so when you go to the
verse of the day there, it'll bring
it up. So the verse of the
day today is John 14, verse 1.
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe
in God. But yeah, believe all and
me. Right under that is a really
big button read. That says read full
chapter. Just do me a favor and
click that button and then keep reading.

(50:09):
Like, the verse of the day is
great. It gets you started. Read full
chapter.

Okay.

And this one's great because it's John
14, verse 1. But sometimes it's like
verse 12. It's like this is the
middle of a whole conversation. Yeah, read
the whole conversation.

Yeah. I did get convicted this morning
when I read the verse of the
day.

You heard Brent's voice. It wasn't the
voice of the Holy Spirit. It was
Brent's voice.

I did get convicted.

Friends voice saying, read more.

It was like, okay, let me. Because
it was really a lazy, like, alarm
went off. I try not to scroll
or anything. So I go to.

So you just checked. That was your
check mark for the day.

Yeah. So I went to it. And
then here's the kicker. I go to
that where you can hear like the
person doing the short, short devotional with
it to get my application from it.
It's horrible. So that. That is lazy.
But.

But okay, let's just say you were
really busy and that's what you did.

No, I was tired.

No, but let's just say you're brushing
your teeth and you just needed a
quick fix. Yeah, it's okay. Long as
you go study your Bible.

Yeah. And. And, and I'll go so
far as to say, would I rather
you read the verse of the day
than read nothing today?

100 social media. Absolutely. Yeah.

Like if, if all you can do
and if this is your baby Christian
or you've just got a chaotic day
and it's like, Brent, all I can
get through is two verses. Like, I
can't do a whole chapter. I can't
do. I can't do it.

Yeah.

Okay. It's a muscle. We're gonna, we're
gonna start working out right now. We're
just lifting the bar.

Yeah.

We're gonna get to the point where
you do the bar and a couple
of 45s, but right now you just
got the bar. Awesome. Yeah, keep doing
it.

And it's a process. So in my
group tonight, we are. So we're doing
First Peter. So we're doing it like.
We did the all church campaign with
Ephesians. We decided to take it for
our group. And what I've told my
group to do is read all of
it once a week. And then we're
gonna. And take notes, write things down,

(52:04):
go scripture by scripture and study it.
And each week we're gonna come back,
we're gonna talk about First Peter, we're
gonna talk about the sermon, but we
also gonna talk about anything you've been
learning through First Peter. I don't care
what chapter is in. Right. But how
did we get there? I started off,
we did Ephesians back in February, but
then there was, at some point, we
did a whole 10, 13 week devotional

(52:24):
together.

He's laughing at me because it's a,
it's a 10 week devo that I
was asking lesson plan. And I asked
him to explain to me. And he's
like, okay, so in week 11, I'm
like, whoa, you said 10 weeks? He's
like, yeah, well, actually there's 13 and
half a. And I'm like, but there's
10. He's like, well, there's 10 lessons,
but it starts with a zero lesson.
So that's like the 11th week.

It sounds like your first Peter example.
We're gonna do first Peter once a
week, one chapter a week for six
weeks. Same thing. Same exact thing.

The thing that I love is like,
so when I made the comment about,
like, for the astute people in the
room that know, I actually had somebody
come up to me later that was
like, yeah. My husband was like, how
is he gonna do six, six weeks?
There's only five Chapters. And then you
said, I'm like, see, there's other people
like me. I'm not the only weirdo.
Yes.

So how did we get there? Right?
So after we did that one study,
we went through Acts, and it was
like, all right, we're going through the
book of Acts. It's a chapter a
day. And we went a chapter a
day. But we've been going along this.
Just read it process. But now I'm
like, all right, read the whole chapter
each week and study it. And actually
go line by line and write down
what you're learning. And we got. You

(53:30):
technically have the whole six weeks to
get through all of that, but read
it at least once a week and
get through it. So it's just a
process of taking them from. Some of
them never reading. Some of them are
readers to. They've been reading a little
bit. We've been reading together here. Now
we're reading a little more now. Let's
actually study it. So it's a process,

(53:51):
and that's okay. It's just. Get on.
Start the process somewhere. If it's the
verse of the day, if that's the
first time you seeing God's word, and
it's the verse of the day, that's
awesome. Then go further, and then go
a little further. And then wherever he
is right now, Pastor Brent, he needs
to go further. He need to be
further five years from now than where
he is today. I need to be
further. I need to be further. December.

Yeah, you're right.

That's the point.

I want to be more like Jesus
today than I was yesterday. That's true.

No, that's the point.

That sparked something I was gonna say,
and I lost it. I don't know
what it was, but I was like,
oh, there's something I wanted to say.

It was. I saw it, too.

So good. It was like, right there.

He's trying to jump in. I kept
going.

It's all right. If it's really important,
the Holy Spirit will remind you.

Yeah, no, but I think it is
an encouragement because as you mature in
Christ. Which is what. And if you
get it, just cut me off. But
as I did get it.

But.

Okay, go, go, go. I was just
gonna say, as you mature, those devotional
times will become. You'll just grow in
it. That's all.

I was just going to highlight the
fact that we are living in an
amazing moment in human history. Because you
can study your Bible like never before.
Because, like, I get a lot of
people like. But. But, Brad, I don't
even know, like, I needed to look
into the word sprinkle. The way you
brought broke it down. It's like, okay,
but here's the beauty of life right

(55:13):
now. There's this amazing thing called the
Internet. And sometimes it's dangerous.

It is.

But it can also be an amazing
tool. And so Bible study at this
stage for a lot of people should
be highlight anything that stands out. Circle
any word that's like, that's a weird
word. Or I don't even know what
word, what that that word means or
why did they choose that word? Like,
just ask questions. Okay? That's. That's Bible
study. Ask questions. Who wrote it? Who

(55:42):
are they writing to? What are they
saying? And why are they writing? Like,
those are the four most important questions
and the what are they saying? That's
when you start highlighting words like, therefore.
We're gonna start Sunday with the word
therefore. Because verse 13 of chapter 1
says therefore. When you find the word
therefore, you gotta ask, why? What is
that?

Therefore.

Therefore. And so we ask those questions,
but we circle things, we highlight things,
and then you Google it, because why
not, right? Like, is every. Is every
link you get sent gonna be a
good one? Like, no, but you'll learn.
And you'll like, okay, like, if you
keep going to the Jehovah Witnesses website
because their stuff pops up a lot,

(56:22):
realize that that is a cult. That's
not. That's not a good interpretation of
scripture when they manipulate Scripture. And so.
But you'll start to. To learn as
you go. And you're like, okay, this
is more reputable. You can use free
resources like the Blue Letter Bible. You
can do Bible Gateway, and there's Commentary,
commentaries. Yeah, they're like the resources for

(56:44):
people, the average person to be able
to study the Bible today is greater
than it has ever been in human
history. I. I would even go so
far as to say right now, because
of chat, gbt and other AI stuff,
you probably have better access to information
today than you did this time last
year.

Yeah, I agree.

Like, just the way. The way things
are happening.

Yeah. It's to the point I have
to use it last because I don't
want it to t. Like, yeah, what?
Yeah, I'm getting from it. So it's
like, okay, let me go through. Ask
the questions. Do observation. You want to
think first, right?

You want to talk to the Holy
Spirit first. First. And then you go,
yeah, and then actually, I would probably
talk to some other people.

Yeah, but.

But the, the point of it is,
like, there's information Available. So you can
say, okay, what, what, what Stand, man.
I was watching some guy that talked
about how, like, his Bible study method,
now he'll go to chat GB and
he'll put in, like, a passage and
he'll say, tell me five things about
this passage the average Christian. Christian doesn't
know. And it's like, I'm like, that's

(57:45):
actually kind of a neat, neat way.

Yeah.

Right. Now, the average Christian might not
know it because it's not true.

Right.

So you got to be careful. Like,
you got to fact check the AI
because everything that they're quoting is true.

Yeah. And I think you. You brought
up the Holy Spirit. But I was
sitting here thinking and go into it
understanding that the Holy Spirit is counselor,
that he's teacher, and that that's actually
his job. So if your heart is
open to the Holy Spirit teaching you,
you can. You can bite on something
that maybe is not necessarily right. But

(58:17):
if you're open to the Holy Spirit
teaching you, he will steer you back
on course.

He will.

I don't know how long it's going
to take because you might go down
a rabbit trail for a long time,
but his job is to teach.

Yeah.

And some of that gets you back
on course is you, You. You come
to church and you feeling this impression
to say, I should ask Pastor Brent
this question today. And then you say,
nah, I ain't gonna do it. I
don't want to bug him. A lot
of times the whole Spirit is trying
to get you in, bugging me, or.
You know what I mean? It's not
always that, but it's like he'll point
things out to you that you had
wrong. And you may not even be

(58:50):
looking for it. But when you're open
to, like, I try to read scripture
and say, lord, all right, what do
you want me to see in this
today?

Yeah.

And that's kind of how I try
to go about it. And. But understand
that even if I don't get something
that is obvious to me today, that
things just come randomly at random times.
Like, oh, I was studying that a
while ago, and there's that answer I
was looking for. So be open to.
Before they had all the digital stuff,
there was the Holy Spirit. After all
the digital stuff, there's the.

Holy Spirit for sure.

So use all the tools and use
the Holy Spirit first, last, amen, 100%.

And that's still how I'll teach people
to study the Bible. Like, pray before
you read. So the Holy Spirit is
speaking to you while you're Reading. And
then after you're done reading, like, pray
again and be like, okay, whatever it
is you're trying to teach me, whatever
I'm needing help with, I see in
this passage that I'm not supposed to
be doing this thing that I'm totally
guilty of still doing. Holy Spirit, help
me not do that. Now that your
word is revealed it into my life.

(59:45):
Like, okay, let me help me with
this. Like, so, yeah, we absolutely should
be surrounding our Bible reading with prayer.
It should be part of the process
of studying.

Yeah, man, I think this was really
good episode on, like, for those like.

Pastor Brent McQuay (01:00:00):
To read the Bible. Did we ever
even talk about First Peter?

Ti'heasha Beasley (01:00:02):
We did. We talked about the trials
and the tribulations, and you briefly talked
about the exiles. But if you want
to nerd out right here.

I don't know that I need to
nerd out. I just. I think I
felt you landing the plane, and I
was like, no, it's.

Getting landed, but landing gear is extended.
It's beginning. But I was just reflecting
on this. I think this podcast is
going to be very good for, like,
newer believers, because that was such a
heavy passage, First Peter, like, to. To
go into. And it could be intimidating
as a newer believer to. To start

(01:00:35):
to identify, you know, what does that
hope in Christ really looks like? How
do I study the word of God?
Like, how do I count it all
joy with these trials and tribulations. And
so it was. It was. It was
beautiful for new disciples to unpack why
it's important to study his Word and
understand it and tools that you can

(01:00:56):
use to help you. And so I
think it was good.

Yeah. And that's. That's the beauty of.
So, like, First Peter, all we did
basically, was his introduction.

Yeah.

His setup. Like, it gives the basis
for. Actually, verse 13, starts with the
word therefore. And it's literally. It's verses
one through 12 set up the rest
of chapter one. But really, it's the
setup for the whole book.

Yeah.

And it's basically the premise is that
you're gonna face trials. They're not pointless.
They're actually obtaining for your salvation because
your salvation is by faith alone.

Yeah.

And the trials are testing your faith.
It's proving that. Hey, you didn't just
say, well, yeah, sure, I believe in
Jesus. No, you really fully put your
faith and your trust, your belief in
him. And it's a beautiful moment. And
so when you're facing those trials, understand
that there's a purpose to it. It's
actually for your benefit. Like, it's. It's
proving the genuineness of your faith. But

(01:01:48):
also in that we hold on to
over and over again, we hold on
to we are born again. Like you're
not who you used to be. When,
when you confess Jesus as lord of
your life, you are born again. You
are a new creation. The old has
passed away, the new has come. You're
walking in newness of Christ. Like there's,
there's this beauty of being born again

(01:02:09):
and you've been born again into a
living hope. Like the world doesn't get
the hope that we have. Like the
Bible makes that very clear. Today at
the funeral there's grief, yes. But man,
person after person after person got up
there and talked about how they're going
to see him again in heaven.

Oh, that's awesome.

Because Christian family, like, and it's the,
the faith and the hope that they
have is different. I've been at funerals
where nobody stops crying because it's the
end.

Yeah.

And this wasn't, this was, I think
his, his daughter in law even said,
you know, this isn't goodbye, this is
see you later.

Awesome.

Right? Because there's a, we have a
living hope because our hope is in
Jesus and he, he's eternal. So it
never goes away. And there's an inheritance
waiting for us. And that's what we
hold on to in the difficult moments
is that there is an inheritance. There's
a glorification that's coming. There's a heaven
that is waiting for me. Where, man,
I read a puritan prayer today about,

(01:03:01):
about heaven that basically just tells, tells
us to like show me or teach
me that heaven is all this wonder
and beauty and glory and, and lead
me to it now. Like it just
make that the focal point of my
life is that there's this inheritance waiting
for me. That's beautiful. And so we
hold on to that as we go

(01:03:22):
through trials and tribulations and suffering and
life when it's not so good.

Yeah.

Because life bad, God good. Hang on,
hang on.

Pastor Asa Slaughter IV (01:03:31):
And it says in there to rejoice.

Yeah.

Because of this hope.

And in this we rejoice.

In this we rejoice. And I think
it's, it's other than he said do
it so be obedient. I think that
it shifts you from your issues, your
problem, the thing you're facing. It's a
perspective shift when you actually begin to
receive, rejoice and give God thanks and
praise and he can focus you back
on the good that's in your life

(01:03:57):
and get you off that rabbit Trail
that sometimes you can go down when
you just focused on the issues. And
I think rejoice, praise, worship. I think
that does that. When you rejoice through
stuff, I believe it really changes your
perspective. So I like to practice doing
that. So do it. Rejoice, because there's
hope.

It's awesome.

That's good. Did you have a moment
over there?

I did. Like, the Bible's awesome.

Man, that was good to see.

Pastor Brent, I don't know if this
is real love.

This is real. We. We come at
each other.

I'm not really.

We come at each other all the
time as brothers and sisters.

You're getting cushy.

And.

Yeah, this makes me uncomfortable.

No, because we love each other through
the. The sly comments. No. So I
think that was a good way. We
don't have to necessarily do our land
and plane moments. I think that was
beautiful how both of you guys kind
of wrapped up. First Peter, unless you
have your takeaways.

I think, what's your takeaway? Because we've.
We've done all the talks.

That was my plan. No, I am
just encouraged. And I hope that's the
takeaway that a lot of people feel.
And so some of the questions I
was asking today, I was kind of
asking from a place of like, newer
believers or newer doses. Disciples.

Yeah.

Because being a believer, it can be
heavy, but it is worth it. And
we have the tools and the examples
in God's scripture to help us walk
out.

And, and when you really get this
message, everything that Peter is describing for
when you really get that, it's like
the, the guy that I got the
email from about the persecution that they're
facing. There was never a moment in
the, in the email where it was
discouragement or why is this happening? It
was pray for our strength that we

(01:05:46):
can continue in the work. Like, it
was like, they're holding on to the
inheritance. They're holding on to the faith
that they have. They know that they've
been born again, that they have a
living hope. So the idea of, because
of this attack and this persecution, the
physical violence they suffered, the imprisonment that
they suffered, that for some people, they
would say, well, let's just back away

(01:06:07):
from this. For them, that's not even
crossing their minds. Like, if, if anything,
this just fuels them to go further
because they're holding on to the message
of First Peter.

Yeah.

So good. So hold on, hold on.
On that note, that was so good.
This was a good episode. Let us
know your thoughts in the comments below.
And until then, we will be continuing
this conversation in First Peter for the
next couple of weeks. So go ahead
and read that chapter, listen to that
message, that first sermon, that intro sermon,
and we will see you next meet,

(01:06:39):
next meet, next meeting. We'll see you
next week. We love you here on
Between Sermons.

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Life Bad, God Good: Finding Hope in Trials | 1 Peter Study

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Life Bad, God Good: Finding Hope in Trials | 1 Peter Study