Lift Jesus Higher

LIFT JESUS HIGHER (1 PETER 5)

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Here is my top 7 pick from the “100 Best Last Lines from Novels”?

1. …you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. –Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable

2. . ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.’ –Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

3. It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow. –Toni Morrison, Sula

4. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. –George Orwell, Animal Farm

5. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. –J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

6. “All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”

–Voltaire, Candide

7. “Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is

another day.” –Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (1936)

http://americanbookreview.org/PDF/100_Best_Last_Lines_from_Novels.pdf

Peter the apostle is renowned and revered as the leader of the twelve apostles – captain of the apostles, captain courageous, the captain hook or captain sparrow of the seas! In Matthew 16 (Matthew 16:18) Jesus said to him, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” Most believers then were excited and expecting to hear Peter’s last word in his last chapter on the last days, now that Nero’s time .

What is the church’s role in a hostile and even hateful environment in the last days? How are we actively equipping brothers and sisters for the work of ministry in the last days? Why are we at war and who is our common enemy?

Shepherd the Flock

1 To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

My alma mater Dallas Theological Seminary’s new president Mark Yarbrough shared his difficulty raising sheep for their wool to be sheared twice a year. He said: “Well, the problem with that is that sheep are so stupid that, if they are full of wool and they have not been sheared, if you have a big storm system that comes through and it rains, they WILL go out into the open field full of wool I can only imagine the dialogue that goes inside of their brain: ‘What's that falling from the sky?’ You ever watched a cotton ball get wet? Here's the problem with sheep they are so helpless they'll go out and stand in the rain and it will weight them down by hundreds of pounds and if that sheep collapses and the Shepherd is not there, you have about thirty minutes to get them back up again it will cut off the circulation of their legs and you have to put them down.”

Mark Yarbrough, Sheep and Their Shepherd, DTS Chapel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkMj155uNHs

Does it surprise you Peter addressed the elders in the last chapter? It should not. Leaders are the first to be persecuted, prosecuted and purged. Their young and old and spouse are targeted, tracked and terrorized.

The term “fellow elder” makes its only appearance in the Bible in verse 1. To the elders, Peter called himself a fellow elder and a witness to Christ’s sufferings and a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed in the future. The fellow elder, witness and partaker are all nouns.

While the verb “suffer” occurs as many as 12 times in 1 Peter, the noun “sufferings” four times in the book, but each time inescapably is contrasted worth glory:

- “the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.” (1 Peter 1:11)

- “But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:13)

- “I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed (1 Peter 5:1)