Christian Identity
Grace and Suffering: Standing Fast in the Present Evil Age • Sermon • Submitted
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Please turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Peter Chapter 2. We’re going to be looking this morning at verses 4-10.
Scripture Introduction
Scripture Introduction
Now, I know it’s been a while since the last time we were in this book…
But revisiting it again now couldn’t be more timely…
And the reason for that is this book… and this passage in particular… speaks directly to some of the situations we see going on around us today and helps us to understand how we, as God’s people, should respond to them.
For example… race… race is a major issue in our country right now… and believe it or not, it’s an even bigger issue in the church because there are a lot of Christians who are bent on creating racial divisions within the body of Christ…
They seem to have have forgotten the fact that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female, but all are one in Him.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have differences… of course we have differences. But what that means is we are all “united”… we are all joined together in “one” body… the church.
And in the church, there is unity within diversity… There are no status distinctions among the new covenant people of God. No one has a special claim on God nor is anyone treated with less dignity than anyone else.
But this something that seems to have been forgotten…
All you need to do is spend five minutes on social media and you’ll see people within the church calling on other groups within the church to some form of “cultural” repentance based on things like the color of their skin…
Now, you won’t find that concept anywhere in the Bible… in order for there to be repentance, there must be actual guilt over sin…
Now, that’s one issue… another issue is this idea that somehow, the gathering together of the saints… in person… isn’t really all that big of a deal.
We live in a day and age where we can go on the internet and watch sermons from just about any preacher or any church in America.
Of course, this isn’t unique to what’s going on at this very moment… and please, don’t misunderstand me. There are legitimate reasons why people can’t make it to church during these particular times.
There are legitimate concerns that need to be considered, and I’m not by any means making light of those.
However, among the body of Christ there are some who are blatantly unwilling to come. Either that, or it’s just not a priority in their life.
It’s an attitude that says “I don’t need or want to be part of the church… it’s just me and Jesus and my bible and that’s all I need.”
Either that, or they’re at a different church every Sunday… not committing themselves to any one particular local body.
Both of these things are big issues, and Peter addresses both of them directly in this passage… and he does this by helping us to understand exactly who we are as the covenant people of God.
He addresses it by helping us to understand our identity…
And this is vital as we engage with and interact with the world around us.
You see, when we lose sight of who we are in Christ…
Or worse yet, when we don’t fully grasp who we are in Christ and what He accomplished through His death and resurrection, we completely lose our effectiveness as messengers of hope… as ambassadors for the gospel.
So if you would, please stand with me in honor of the reading of God’s word, and let’s explore this vitally important passage together.
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”
8 and
“A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Prayer for Illumination
Prayer for Illumination
Let’s pray…
Introduction
Introduction
As we open God’s Word this morning and we come to our passage, I want to draw your attention to something very significant…
In fact, this entire passage rises and falls based on what Peter tells us here… look with me at verse 4…
And it says this,
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,
You see… this verse… it’s what gives this passage meaning… it’s what gives this passage power…
And of course, the Living Stone is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself…
And what this passage does is it describes what happens to believers when we come to Him... together.
When we come to this point in our text, Peter has moved from focusing on us as individuals to focusing on us us as a community…
You see, coming to Jesus means being joined together with other believers…
If you take nothing else away with you this morning, I want you to take away that.
Coming to Jesus means being joined together with other believers…
It’s not something that’s optional… it’s not like an added benefit… It’s really the central aspect of what God is doing as He works in the world to draw people to Himself and unite them to His Son.
He’s forming a body… a body that, to function properly, needs to have all of its parts working together in the way that He designed them to work.
As we are going to see, God is doing some really incredible things as He unites people not only to His Son, but also to one another…
But before we get to that, I want to spend some time unpacking this idea behind the Living Stone… because again, everything else hangs on this…
And in order to do that… we’re going to have to spend some time in the Old Testament… because much of what Peter uses to build his theology of the Living Stone is drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures… and in particular, the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament used by Jesus and the Apostles…
And what Peter does is he strings several of these passages together as he relates Jesus Christ to Yahweh… and shows that they are One and the same.
So the first place we’re going to look is in Psalm 33, which is Psalm 34 in our English Bibles…
Now, you don’t have to turn there… I want you to stay here in 1 Peter 2… and I want to pay particular attention to v. 3… because what I want to show you how these things connect…
Psalm 33:5-8 from the Septuagint reads…
6 Come to him, and be enlightened,
and your faces shall never be put to shame.
7 This poor one cried, and the Lord listened to him,
and from all his afflictions he saved him.
8 An angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him
and will rescue them.
9 O taste, and see that the Lord is kind;
happy the man who hopes in him.
Now, look with me at 1 Peter 2:3-4… it says,
3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,
What Peter is making clear here is that the Lord in v. 3… who is clearly Yahweh in the Old Testament, as we saw in Psalm 33, is none other than Jesus Christ…
And he assumes that his readers have indeed tasted and seen that the Lord is good…
And then he takes this idea of seeking and coming to the Lord and applies it to believers as they come to Jesus Christ…
What he’s saying here is as you come to Jesus you coming to Yahweh… you are coming to the the true and living God Himself... He’s saying that they are One and the same…
Beloved, don’t ever let anyone tell you that the New Testament authors never make the claim that Jesus Christ is divine… Of course they did… it’s all over the place… they just did it by connecting Him to the Old Testament Scriptures…
They did it because that’s the Bible that they had at the time… They were proving Jesus Christ from the Scriptures…
Jesus Himself said,
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
And here, Peter’s not only identifying Jesus as Yahweh of the Old Testament, he also identifying Jesus as the stone… the Living stone…
And not just the Living stone, but the Cornerstone…
And this has tremendous significance… both to Peter’s readers and to us.
You see, according to Jewish tradition, the “stone” is identified with the Messiah.
Look with me at vv. 6-8…
Now… I want you to stay here in 1 Peter and follow along… but I’m going to read from the Old Testament… again, from the Septuagint…
First, from Isaiah 28:16, it says,
16 therefore thus says the Lord,
See, I will lay for the foundations of Sion
a precious, choice stone,
a highly valued cornerstone for its foundations,
and the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.
Next, Psalm 118:22… it says…
22 A stone which the builders rejected,
this one became the chief cornerstone.
And lastly, Isaiah 8:14-15
14 If you trust in him, he will become your holy precinct, and you will not encounter him as a stumbling caused by a stone nor as a fall caused by a rock, but the house of Iakob is in a trap, and those who sit in Ierousalem are in a pit. 15 Therefore, many among them shall become powerless, and they shall fall and be crushed, and people who are in safety shall draw near and be taken.
As you can see, Isaiah is calling on his hearers to “trust in the stone”… to “trust in Him”…
But what did Israel do? The stone was rejected… it was counted as worthless by “the builders”…
They examined Christ and found him unfit for building upon… so they rejected Him.
However, this stone that they reject is the very stone chosen by God… a stone that is precious to Him…
And what He does is He takes this stone… the one that the builders rejected and cast aside, and raised Him up and established Him as the Cornerstone…
And what Peter is doing here is he’s linking this stone to Jesus… He’s identifying Him as the Messiah…
And he’s telling us that Israel stumbled over the stone because they disobeyed the Word… they ignored what the prophet had said to them 700 years before… as they were destined to do.
They rejected their Messiah and they put Him to death… but God raised Him up… which is exactly what Jesus Himself said would happen…
And because He’s been raised, Jesus is the Living stone… the Cornerstone…
And as we come to Him… we too are made alive because of our faith… So the honor is for those who believe…
Now, one of the major themes in this passage is this… our experience of life is bound up with Christ’s…
He is the Living Stone… We are like living stones…
Just like Jesus was rejected by men, we too are rejected by society…
He suffered… in spite of being chosen by God…
We too will also suffer… not in spite of being chosen by God, but because of it.
Our destines are bound up with Christ’s…
And because of that, our understanding of life… our understanding of our situations… our understanding of our suffering… of our trials… our tribulations and even our blessings…
Our understanding of all these things has to be shaped by all that Christ has experienced… and most importantly, our understanding has to be shaped by His victory over suffering and over sin and over death.
You see, as we share His sufferings… becoming like Him in His death… we also share in His resurrection…
Everything Peter is talking about here in this passage hangs on this…
Christ as been raised…
The Living Stone has become the Cornerstone… the foundation stone upon which God’s new temple is built, and when we come to Him… together… He builds us up as a place of true worship and acceptable sacrifice…
And that brings us to our first point… when we come to Him…
God builds us up as a temple (v. 4-5)
God builds us up as a temple (v. 4-5)
Look with me at verses 4-5…
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
[Slow....] One of the greatest obstacles to Christians realizing their significance an their purpose is this idea that we don’t need to be in relationship with other believers…
This idea that we don’t need to be part of the community of the saints…
Look at how Peter describes the living stones as they come to Jesus in this passage…
He says, they are “being build up as a spiritual house”… they’re not lying around in isolation or in disorder… they’re not heaped in a pile or scattered across a field…
Each stone is put into place and they form a spiritual house… with Christ as the Cornerstone… for the purpose of being a holy priesthood that offers acceptable sacrifices to God…
And yet somehow we’ve formed this idea that it’s okay if it’s just me and Jesus and my bible… that’s all I need…
For some reason, we tend to focus a lot on our individual relationship with God…
And yes… our individual relationship with Jesus Christ is important… but just to give you a little perspective, in all the places in the New Testament where it talks about believers being a temple of the Holy Spirit, it’s only talking about us individually in one place… and that’s 1 Corinthians 6…
In every other place, it’s talking about us collectively… we are a temple of the Holy Spirit…
The Apostle Paul puts it this way… in Ephesians Chapter two, verses 19-21… he writes,
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
We’re going to revisit that passage again in a little bit, but for now, what’s important for us to understand is this…
We… as we come together… as we come to the Living Stone… as we unite our hearts together in worship… we're built up as a holy temple to the Lord where the Spirit of the Living God dwells…
I want you to think about that for a moment… [pause]
What is one of the key attributes of the place where the Spirit of God dwells?
That’s right… holiness…
What I want you to realize is that when we come together… and God builds us up into His temple… and His Spirit inhabits us…
We are standing on holy ground… [pause]
And that’s true of us individually, too… but all the more when we come together…
The problem is, I think all too often we take that for granted…
The place where God dwells is holy ground…
In the nation of Israel, wherever the Ark of the Covenant went was considered holy…
Listen to how it’s described when the Ark was brought into the Most Holy Place in the temple that Solomon built…
6 Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the Most Holy Place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. 7 For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles. 8 And the poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the Holy Place before the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside. And they are there to this day. 9 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. 10 And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
You see, this place where the Ark rested in the temple was considered God’s footstool… it was the place where heaven and earth met…
And the only person who could enter the Most Holy Place was the High Priest… and he did this only once per year.
And before he could enter, he had to purify himself… and he did this by washing himself with clean water and putting on holy garments… and then he had to make a blood sacrifice both for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people (Heb. 9:7).
And he did this because the place where God dwells is holy… and nothing impure can enter into his presence.
And now we… having been washed clean by the waters of baptism… having put on the Lord Jesus Christ as our holy garment… having been covered by His bloody sacrifice…
We are built up together into the Most Holy Place where heaven and earth meet and the Spirt of the Living God dwells…
Now, I want you to realize this has nothing to do with the building that we’re in, but with the people with whom we gather…
When we are gathered together as God’s people… when we come to Jesus who is the Living Stone and we do this together… when we pray together, when we sing together, when the Word is read in our presence…
We each take our place in God’s spiritual house and we realize our significance and our purpose… which is to to be a holy priesthood… to offer spiritual sacrifices…
Look with me at verse 5, it says
5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
In the Old Testament, the priesthood was limited to the tribe of Levi… and what that means only a portion of Israel could carry out the priestly duties…
But now, because of our union with Christ… because of His death, because of His burial and because of His resurrection… all of God’s people are priests… All believers have direct access to God…
And our purpose… as both God’s temple and His priests… is to offer “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”.
So… what, exactly, is a “spiritual” sacrifice?
Well, one of the man differences between our priesthood and the Levitical priesthood is that the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant has been fulfilled in the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ…
Hebrews 10 makes that clear… and there’s much debate among theologians and scholars about exactly what Peter means here by spiritual sacrifices…
As we’re going to see in a little bit, one of our functions as God’s people is to proclaim His excellencies…
But… is that really what Peter is getting at here? You see, I don’t think so…
One of the things that we know… as Christians… is that life consists of more than the material. It’s more than physical stuff…
Life is also spiritual… even in the Old Covenant sacrificial system, there was a spiritual component to the physical sacrifice.
For example, we see this toward Psalm 51… when David is repenting of his sin with Bathsheba, what does he say?
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Is David saying that the sacrificial system is meaningless? No…
He’s saying that the physical sacrifice is worthless without the spiritual sacrifice… the physical sacrifice is worthless without a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart…
So how do we apply that principle to what Peter is telling us?
Well, the physical sacrifice has already been made… so what do we bring when we gather together as God’s holy priesthood?
We bring our brokenness… we bring our humility… we bring our meekness… we exalt the name of our Lord and we acknowledge our need and our dependence upon His mercy and grace…
We bring repentance… I have believed for a long time that the true mark of the Christian is repentance…
It’s constant re-evaluation of our loyalties and our allegiances…
And when we realize that our loyalty and our allegiance is given to anything other than to Christ and His kingdom, we repent… we change our minds… we renounce our self-centered ways… we pick up our cross and we follow our King…
And this isn’t something that we only do individually… we do it together as the unified body of Christ…
When we come to the Lord’s Table in a little bit, that’s what we’re doing…
Coming to Christ means coming into relationship with others…
Coming to Christ means that we have to stop understanding ourselves as self-centered individuals but as each taking their place in the spiritual house being build up by God…
And as we do that God also…
God builds us up to be a royal priesthood and a holy nation (v. 9)
God builds us up to be a royal priesthood and a holy nation (v. 9)
This is the second point in your notes…
Now, we already touched on the idea of being built up as a holy priesthood…
Peter mentions it here again in verse nine, but the point he’s driving at is different.
Look with me at verse 9… it says,
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Now, in order for us to understand the significance of what Peter’s saying, we’re going to have to do a bit of history…
And for those of you familiar with the Old Testament, the words here in verse 9 are going to sound strangely familiar…
These are the exact words that God told Moses to say to the nation of Israel at Horeb…
In Exodus 19:5-6 we read…
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.”
Now, if we’re going to understand the significance of those verses, we’re going to have to do a little more history…
We’re going to have to go all the way back to Genesis Chapter 11…
And we pick up the account, beginning in verse one… it says,
1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
You see, as God began to repopulate the earth, man began to rebel again…
Man began to subvert the rule and reign of Yahweh by building a temple to other gods…
So in response, Yahweh confused their language and scatter them over the face of the earth…
Now, we have to keep in mind that this is before formation of Israel… this is before God’s call to Abraham…
Deuteronomy 32:8-9 picks up the account… it says,
8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
9 But the Lord’s portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.
So Yahweh scattered the nations, but he kept Israel for Himself…
They were to be His people… a royal priesthood… a holy nation… a people of his own possession…
And they were to be a light to the nations…
They were to be a nation of Law and of justice and of righteousness… they were to showcase the rule and reign of a nation who had Yahweh as their King…
And by doing so, they were to draw the hearts of the nations whom God had scattered… who worshiped other gods… and bring them back to Himself…
But what happened instead? Instead they rejected Yahweh as their King and sought a human king instead… just like the nations that surrounded them.
So instead of being a light to the nations, they became like the nations… and in doing so, they themselves began to chase after other gods and worship them…
Now of course, this didn’t interfere with Yahweh’s plan… in fact, His plan was much grander… If He was going to reclaim the nations, He was going to have to do it Himself…
So the nation of Isreal goes through periods where they reject the Lord, and He brings them back… they reject the Lord, and He brings them back…
And all this time, God was awaiting the time that He had appointed… the time when He Himself would reclaim the nations by sending His Son into the world to die… to redeem those under the law so that the Gentiles might receive adoption as sons (Gal. 4:4).
Now, this was a really provocative idea… that somehow, some way, salvation would come to the Gentiles…
You see, there was a lot of hostility between Jews and Gentiles… between Israel and the Nations…
We see this in a lot of the language they used to refer to them… For example, it wasn’t uncommon for the Jews to refer to Gentiles as “dogs” (Mar. 7:27)
They also referred to them as “the uncircumcision”.
Turn with me over to Ephesians Chapter 2, starting in verse 11…
It says,
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—
Now, this wasn’t a term of endearment… it wasn an insult…
If you remember a few weeks back, when Pastor Dave preached on David and Goliath… when David was making his case to Saul for letting him fight the giant, how did he refer to Goliath?
He called him “this uncircumcised Philistine”…
It’s akin to saying, “this unworthy dog…”
Another example of this hostility is in how they viewed the Samaritans…
The Samaritans were a group of people who lived between Judea and Galilee… These people where the product of intermarriages between Jews and Gentiles…
There was so much hostility between the Israelites and the Samaritans that Jews traveling from Judea to Galilee would go out of their way to go around Samaria rather taking the most direct route, which was to go through it…
That’s why the parable of the Good Samaritan was so offensive to the religious leaders of the day… what Jesus was basically telling them was, “this Samaritan… this dog… showed the man mercy… while you would have left him for dead”.
Then we get that seemingly strange encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4… the woman was astonished that Jesus was even willing to speak to her… Let alone offer her salvation…
But that was just the beginning… through Christ, salvation had come not only to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles…
Look with me at Ephesians 2:12
It says,
12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
So when Peter refers to this group of believers… these elect exiles from Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia… when he refers to them as a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession…
He’s making a radical claim…
He’s saying that this title that once applied only to Israel has now expanded to include elect Gentiles… people from Greece or Rome or Cappadocia or Asia or wherever…
The people of God… no matter their race… are a new race of people who have been chosen by God and born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…
God’s mission to reclaim the nations and bring them to Himself had begun…
Before His ascension, Jesus gave this charge to His disciples… He said,
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
And then He ascends… and on the day of Pentecost, the church was gathered to pray… there were about 120 of them… all Jewish followers of Jesus Christ…
And the Holy Spirit comes… and divided tongues of fire appeared and rested on them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues…
And all the people in Jerusalem… men from every nation under heaven… Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia and Judea and Cappadocia… Pontus and Asia… Phrygia and Pamphylia… Egypt and parts of Libya… visitors from Rome… both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians… they begin to hear in their own languages the mighty works of God…
And then Peter begins to preach… and when all is said and done about 3,000 were added to their number that day…
What started out as 120 Jewish followers of Jesus Christ ended with over 3,000 people from every nation under heaven…
You see, God had begun to reverse what He did at Babel…
No longer was the people’s speech confused so that they couldn’t understand… now they all heard and understood the same message.
No longer were the nations scattered… they were brought together and a new nation had formed…
A nation of people united by faith…
A nation built upon the Stone that the builders had rejected… the Cornerstone.
A nation comprised of people who were both both near and far off… people from every tribe and every tongue and every nation under heaven…
Beloved… that’s who we are… and I want you to understand that when we start making racial divisions within the church…
When we start referring to people as “White Christians” or “Black Christians” or “Asian Christians” or “Hispanic Christians” or whatever…
When we start doing that, be begin to destroy the unity of the body of Christ and we begin rebuilding the walls that Jesus died to tear down…
Beloved, among the people of God there are no White Christians or Black Christians or Asian Christians or Hispanic Christians… there are only Christians…
And when we start making racial distinctions within the church we’re preaching a gospel of division rather than a gospel of reconciliation… and that’s anathema!
May it never be… and yet, that’s exactly what’s happening right now in many churches throughout our country…
Instead of preaching a gospel that says that the enmity that exists between people of different races is a direct result of the enmity that exists between God and man…
And that if man is going to be reconciled to one another man first needs to be reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ…
They’re preaching a gospel that says in order for there to be racial reconciliation, certain groups of Christians, based on nothing other than the color of their skin, need to repent for sins that they haven’t committed…
Beloved, that’s the world’s solution… and it’s finding its way into the church…
You see, any form of racism… whether inside the church or outside the church… any form of racism is in direct opposition to the gospel.
Instead of the church being a light to the nations… the church is becoming like the nations…
Brothers and sisters… the greatest threat that we face right now isn’t persecution from the world… it's God writing Ichabod on the doors our churches for having abandoned the gospel of Jesus Christ…
May it never be…
We can never lose sight of the fact that the gospel is the only cure to the evils of racism in society.
It’s only through changed hearts and changed minds… it’s only through people being born again into a Living Hope…
It’s only through people being united by faith to the Cornerstone and becoming part of a new nation… God’s nation… a nation of people from every tribe and every tongue and every nation under heaven…
And that brings us to our final point…
This nation… God’s nation… has a purpose…
As we come to Jesus together, God…
Builds us up to be a people who proclaim His excellencies (v. 9, 10)
Builds us up to be a people who proclaim His excellencies (v. 9, 10)
Look with me again at verse 9 and then verse 10…
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Beloved, with all that we see going on in the world right now, we can’t lose sight of the fact that we are a people of praise…
God called us and formed us to praise Him…
God called us and formed us to proclaim His excellencies…
That is our purpose…
How do we confront evil in the world?
We do it by praising the One who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light…
We do it by proclaiming His majesty and His splendor and His glory…
We do it by proclaiming salvation through His death and resurrection…
How do we confront the evils of racism in our society?
We do it by proclaiming His mighty works…
We do it by proclaiming the One who broke down the wall of hostility through His death and resurrection and and created in Himself one new man in the place of the two, making peace…
We can’t lose sight of the fact that as we proclaim His excellencies we bring the only message that can truly heal the nations…
We are ambassadors of hope… and the world is in desperate need of hope…
But if we lose our saltiness…
If instead of singing God’s praises and proclaiming his excellencies we grumble and complain about our circumstances and having to do things we don’t want to do… we look no different from the world around us and we’re no longer good for anything…
If we’re not proclaiming His excellences… if we aren’t preaching a gospel of reconciliation through the blood of Jesus Christ… how will they hear?
And if they don’t hear, how will they believe? And if they don’t believe, how will they call on Him who saves? [pause]
Our purpose… as the people of God… people who have obtained mercy even though we don’t deserve it… is to proclaim the excellencies of the One who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light… [pause]
Conclusion
Conclusion
Toward the end of his life, the apostle John was in exile on the island of Patmos… he was brought there because of his faith in Jesus Christ…
And he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day… and he has a vision… and in this vision he hears a number… 144,000 from every tribe of the sons of Israel…
12,000 from each of the 12 tribes… that’s what he hears… but then he looks… and what does he see?
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Brothers and sisters… that’s the people of God…
11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
In the midst of all the chaos, we can’t lose sight of who we are…
In the midst of all the chaos, we can’t lose sight of what we are called to do…
And if you’re here today and you don’t know Jesus Christ… if you haven’t called on Him as Lord and as Savior… I want to ask you this question…
When you look at the world around you… where are you finding your hope?
Is it in our political leaders? Is it in the “experts”?
If the last 4 months hasn’t taught you anything, it’s taught you that none of them really have the answer.
But I hope you’ve seen today that there is One who does… And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved…
So call on Him today… right now… right where you’re seated…
And if you want to know more about what it means to put your faith in Jesus Christ, I want to invite you to come and talk to me after the service.
It would be an honor and a privilege to tell you about the Savior… the Living Stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious…
Let’s pray…