Standing Firm in the Grace of God

• The following message by Aleister Beg is made available by Truth for Life. For more information, visit us online at truthforlife.org. We turn to your word, gracious God. Your word is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path, food for our souls, a map for our journey, uh everything that we need for life and for godliness.
• And we thank you for the privilege of being students of it. And we pray that the spirit of God will illuminate to our hearts and lives as we study now. And we pray in Christ’s name. Amen. In 1945, some of you were around. I wasn’t. In 1945, the Church of England uh their commission on evangelism produced a plan dedicated to the memory of Archbishop William Temple. The uh plan was entitled toward the conversion of England.
• I’m not going to allow myself to interact with that in light of the present state of the CV at home, but nevertheless, it was toward the conversion of England. It drew attention in its conclusion to leadership saying conditions vary from parish to parish. The determining factor being apparently the personality of the incumbent.
• More particularly in this the case in is this the case in villages where a spiritual leader can often make an astonishing difference. Now we can make of that what we wish and certainly much has changed in the ensuing 80 years. But one thing that has never changed is the strategic necess necessity for godly and useful leadership in the company of God’s people.
• uh we read through the pages of scripture and we rehearse church history uh to remind ourselves without question that the church of Jesus Christ does not advance beyond the spiritual progress of its leaders and Peter understands that perfectly uh for for all kinds of reasons and coming out all sorts of situations. So it’s no surprise that he see he begins to wrap his letter up here in the first verse.
• So he says, so he says, um, in light of all that I have written, he might have said, allow me to exhort particularly the elders among you. The word there for exhort in classical Greek is used of encouraging troops to go into battle. Uh when Paul uses the same terminology in Romans 12, he does so on the basis of his apostolic authority. Peter has introduced himself at the beginning of the letter as an apostle.
• But you will notice here that his appeal is not as an apostle but as a fellow elder. So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder. Now when we read the acts of the apostles, we realize that they went around, they proclaimed the gospel, they made disciples and before they left, they brought the newfound congregations together underneath the leadership as God intended and they appointed elders in the church.