Submission to Authority
1 Peter 2:13-17
Transcript
G'day everyone. This is where you say g'day back. Good morning everyone. My name is Raz, it's good to be with you this morning. I hope everyone slept well last night because today's going to be pretty uncomfortable for most people. Today's going to be a little bit tough for us and that's because so far Peter's been talking a whole lot about who we are, why we're classified as elect exiles, what makes us misfits, why Christians are different to everyone else in society.
And it's been okay, we've been understanding a little bit more about our identity, but he's turned a corner. Last week he turned a corner and now he's going to start telling us what that means for our lives, how that changes, how we behave. And today we're going to be reading the section where he talks about submission to authority. It's one of those sections in scripture. Doesn't happen often for me, but it's one of those sections in scripture that I think everyone would be a little bit more comfortable if it just wasn't there or if it could just be ignored for some reason or if we could just delete little sections that annoy us.
It's like if I, if for some reason, and it's probably lucky that I didn't have this option, but if for some reason I was invited to the Bible writing club and I had my choice of what made it in or not and I was on the phone to God or Jesus or whoever and there was sections that was like, don't murder. I'd be totally stoked. I'd include that. Don't murder. Don't steal. Don't steal.
Got it. Don't lie. Yeah. I kind of like it sometimes, but I'll include it for now. Honor your mother and father. Yeah, I'll use a pencil for that one.
Honor your mother and father. Be subject to every human authority. Hang on. Can you repeat that one? Be subject to every... God, I...
The reception's a little... AT&T. I can't really... I think I'm in the... I'll call you back tomorrow. Be subject...
I would just skip it. And no one would ever know. But I wasn't invited. And here it is. In our Bible. Be subject to every human institution.
I think that human nature instills in us a certain distrust, a certain defense mechanism against human institutions, especially human authorities. We don't trust our boss to pay us right, so we invent pay stubs. Everyone can keep track of how much they're paid. We don't trust banks to keep our money safe, so we keep records of it. We don't trust schools to educate our children, so we do it ourselves. We invent homeschooling.
We don't trust the monarchy, so we invent America. But we don't really trust America and democracy all that much because we still feel the need to keep guns in our back pocket just in case that government gets out of line, right? Amen. Amen. Just in case. So seriously, we have this problem with authority, and we're not good with it.
And Peter's done good so far. He's talked well. He explains why we're misfits, why we are different from society. And then he turns this corner and he says, be subject to every human authority. And we're just like... And for that reason, I think today is going to be pretty tough for us.
The passage itself is actually pretty straightforward. We're going to step through it. We're going to talk about it. But it's pretty straightforward. It's not too hard to understand. What's difficult is how do we apply what he's actually saying.
So we're going to spend a bit of time talking about what the Bible actually says. Then we're going to spend most of our time talking about what it actually means, how it impacts our life. Before we open up, let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the opportunity we have to learn from your word. Help us to sit under the authority of scripture today. Fill us with the spirit.
Convict us. Just help us to digest what you have for us from 1 Peter today. Pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. If you've got a Bible, open up to 1 Peter chapter 2. If your one looks like this, it's on page 657.
And we're going to be starting at verse 13. It's got a big heading, an ugly heading it says, Submission to Authority. Like I said, Peter turned a corner last week. He was talking about a whole lot about who we are, what our identity is. And he's turned this corner and he starts giving instructions, ways that we ought to live as a result of who we are and what our identity is. So we're going to start in verse 13.
It says, Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it's to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. Let's go back up to the top.
Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Hmm. I don't know about you, but for me, that's tough. Let me tell you what I, what I wish that said. I wish it said, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, unless that human institution is run by morons. Then you get to do whatever you want to do.
Or, be subject to every human institution, unless that human institution makes really dumb rules. Then you can just ignore the dumb ones and keep the good ones. These seem like much nicer, much prettier Bible verses to me. But, I turn to 1 Peter, I look at it and there's just this line, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. And I keep wishing it said more. I keep wishing there was some clause to get you out of doing it.
Some way of like manipulating it and thinking, oh no, it doesn't say that really. Like a, like maybe an emoticon, like a winky face or a, a lol JKS or a, something like, I even looked in the Greek and they didn't have emoticons back then. So that didn't help me out at all. There is no way about it. It's just simple. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution.
Just sitting there in the Bible, being authoritative for my life, grinding my soul. That means simple things. We're supposed to listen to our boss. We're supposed to listen to our schools, listen to the police, listen to the government. Nobody really wants to do any of that, right? Maybe, maybe in an ideal world, where all of those things actually worked the way they're supposed to.
Or, if they worked exactly the way I wanted them to. Maybe we would be okay with it then. But when your boss makes you stay late, when the schools start telling you what clothes you're allowed to wear, when the police tell you you're not allowed to drive 90 miles in a school zone, who wants to listen to that junk? No one. He goes on. Whether it's to the emperor's supreme, or to governors as sent by him, to punish those who do evil, and to praise those who do good.
Now this bit's a little bit tricksy. Back in Peter's day, the emperor was like supreme leader, ultimate authority on everything, dude. We don't have anything quite like that. This is the guy who could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, because he's the emperor, and you don't have a say, because you're not the emperor, he's the emperor, so you be quiet. He is not Obama. That is not a valid jump.
He's not Obama. He's Kim Jong-un. He's the guy who tells you, if you don't have the right haircut, I can kill you. So there's the emperor, who's the supreme leader dictator, and then he says there's a governor. Now the governor is a representative of the emperor.
He's also pretty powerful. He can do some pretty crazy stuff. He's got a lot of authority, but to make big changes, he needs the authorization of the emperor. Neither one of these positions of power translates well into American society. But Peter says you're supposed to submit to all of them as well.
They have more power than anything that American society has. To disagree with the emperor was to have your head chopped off, and he said submit to him. It's different for us. Obama can't just say off with his head. He disagrees with me. We have certain freedoms, certain rights as Americans.
Well, you do. I don't. They allow free speech. They allow the right to protest. They, well, they don't allow for it, but there's things like civil Acts of disobedience that exist, and they're more acceptable in our culture. We'll talk a little bit more about that later, but it's not a direct equivalent.
He goes on in verse 15. For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Basically, when you act obediently as a law-abiding citizen, like a real law-abiding citizen, not like the movie, people around, they won't be able to give you grief. They don't have accusations. They don't have any ammunition against you saying that you don't actually care about what the Bible says. I'm pretty bad at this.
I think a lot of people are pretty bad at this, but I'll tell you about me. Stop signs. I've been continually convicted lately about stop signs because my wife harasses me when I do not stop completely at stop signs. Stop signs can be dumb, right? They put them in some weird locations. There's a street at the end of, like our apartment is here, and then you go up that street, and it's just a bend in the road.
It's not an intersection. It's just a bend in the road. There's a stop sign there. What? Seriously? I'm the worst at this, and I just think, that's a dumb stop sign.
I can just run that. No one's ever, like, no one's going to stop me. Everyone else thinks it's dumb. There's no, I'm definitely not going to get hit. There's no other roads. Dumb stop sign.
I'm just, no. No. Christina is like, Razz, there's a stop sign. Razz, you should stop me, stop me, and it's a stop sign, and then it comes back at every other stop sign, every other stop sign, and it's that stop sign, you don't stop at this stop sign. I'm the worst at this. I really am, and I'm convicted, because ever since I've been talking about this sermon with Christina, she's been dialing it up a little bit, like, you know this is real.
Yes, I know. I'm sorry. I'm the worst of sinners. I'm the worst of sinners. I'm not good at this. I apologize.
I repent. But seriously, what happens is, when you break laws simply because you disagree with them, when you think, this is dumb, it doesn't apply to me, this rule is stupid, bad policy, bad law, I'm just going to ignore it, you're actually not proving anything. I don't prove anything by ignoring it. I give the world excuses to think I'm a hypocrite. When you disregard meaningless laws, when you disregard anything that you think is meaningless, you're discrediting yourself as a moral authority. And that's what he's saying to avoid.
That's what he's saying. Don't fall to the ignorance of fools. Don't be a fool in the way that you act. You cannot silence the ignorance of fools when you act like one yourself. There's a right way, which is submitting to the rules, the policies, the authorities. And there's a wrong way, which is, my way is better than that.
Now, fools make foolish arguments, like I did. This one doesn't make sense. This stop sign doesn't apply to me. That is a foolish argument. Fools make foolish arguments, and it just gives everyone else ammunition. Let me give you a silly example of foolish arguments from fools.
This is near and dear to the hearts of many Mill City folk. There's a consistent debate out there about which would be the best Mexican grill fast food restaurant. If I were to silence the ignorance of fools, I have options. I can do illegal things. I could destroy every Moe's in existence. That is an option.
There would be no more argument that Moe's is better than Chipotle because Moe's no longer exists. Now, I would be a fool to do that. I would spend the rest of my life in jail. I would have proven my point, but I would have failed to be a law-abiding citizen. There's an alternative method, and that method is called appealing to objective reality. Objectively, and you can use your superior intellect whenever you're against one of these Moe's folk.
Use your superior intellect. Chipotle is objectively better than Moe's. Period. Easy to prove. You can put them side by side and eat them both. Now, a fool, a fool will come back with foolish arguments.
Like my stop signs don't apply to me. A fool will say something like, they don't greet me on the way into Chipotle. Fool! That does not apply to anything to do with food. I do not care if they greet me or not. They don't even greet me when I go to Moe's anyway.
I think they know that I like Chipotle more. I asked if we got free stuff for them not greeting us, and apparently there used to be a rule, and it's not anymore, because they're not good at greeting you. That's not even a good excuse. That's not a rule. That's stupid. That is foolish.
But you don't let them know that you think that's foolish. I'm sorry. I'm getting really distracted. I'm passionate about this, okay? Hopefully one day, the ignorance of fools will be silenced using good methods like superior intellect. Let's move on.
That was distracting. Verse 16. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Christians are free. Free from the law, free from sin, free from evil. We talk about this all the time, but what Peter's saying is that as we have freedom in Christ, as we're free as Christians, we choose to be orderly.
We choose to submit ourselves to human leaders. Peter's saying here that Christians don't use the freedom that they have to go out and ignore human authorities, to break laws, to do whatever they want, and think, I'm free in Christ, so I can just ignore that stop sign. It's the classic case of rebellion, saying, Christ loves me, so I can do whatever I want. I'm free to sin, I'm free to do whatever, because Christ's love covers all of my sins. Christ didn't die to free us so that we could sin. He died to free us from sin, to protect us from the power that sin has to control our lives, to destroy us, to control every action that we do.
It's what Chet talked about last week with the passions of the flesh. We're free of that because of Christ's sacrifice. That's what it means to be free as a Christian. Verse 17 says, Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. This section is a little more important than it might seem. It's four simple instructions, but there's a little bit of a hierarchy at play.
He starts with, Honor everyone, love the brotherhood. That means that we treat, we treat everyone with respect. We treat everyone with dignity. We're all created in God's image. We're all created equal. There's no one that's better, no one that's worse.
And that means there is, there is never a reasonable time to speak bad about people publicly. That means there is never a reasonable time to rant online about other humans. Even if it's cryptic and they don't know it's actually them. There's no names, it's people, it's just someone. There's never an appropriate time if we're honoring everyone to rant about each other. Called to honor everyone.
And he says, love the brotherhood. That's his way of saying, when he says love the brotherhood, it means there's a certain different way that we treat the brotherhood. And by brotherhood, he means the family. He's specifically talking about the church. There's, it's not often that when it comes to everyone or the church, that there would be some kind of opposition. But when there is, which is rarely, there would be a certain extra something that goes towards church.
You would, you would have an extra amount of love for people who are in the church. Basically what he's saying is, because we're elect exiles, because we're misfits, misfits look out for each other. In general. But at the same time, we honor everyone. And the next bit is, fear God, honor the emperor. This is a, this is a surprisingly big one.
We've talked about how the emperor has no direct equivalent in American society. But for the purposes of this verse, and because in verse 13, he says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. You can pretty much sub in any human authority. Fear God and honor your parents. Fear God and honor your boss. Fear God and honor the government.
That's how it works. They are to be honored, treated with respect. They are not to be treated like you would God, as in fear and reverence, but they are to be treated with respect. Now, when push comes to shove, Christians have this extra allegiance to God. The fear, the reverence aspect. If, if a human authority and God's moral law are diametrically opposed, we would go with God's moral law.
That's what he's saying with the hierarchy of fear God, but honor the emperor. Now, we are not always going to agree with things that our leaders say and do. Very rarely will we agree with the things our leaders say and do, but even then, he's telling us to honor them. America is proudly democratic, as it should be. I'm all about it. But every now and then in a democracy, someone that you don't like is elected.
Every now and then. Sometimes, for some people, it feels like someone you don't like is always elected. But, there will be people in power that we don't necessarily like. But just because we don't like them does not mean they're fair game for slander and hate, which is too easy to fall to. And when he says, fear God and honor the emperor, he means it. Fear God and honor the government, he means it.
Be honorable in the way you talk about them. With things like Facebook and internet anonymity, it's so easy to see a picture with a slogan that shows why someone's such an idiot and we can just like it and we can share it and it's just this public persona of us driving garbage online when we're not being honorable to everyone. We're not being honorable to a human authority. We're not being honorable to the government and we're not being honorable to the emperor, if he existed. We're to honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. Treat people with respect, dignity, even if you don't like them, honor them.
So that's the Bible comprehension part. It's pretty simple. Unless a human institution is diametrically opposed to God's law, to what God has said for us, then we're to follow the human institution. Now you might be tracking along pretty easily so far that that's all pretty digestible. It's a little uncomfortable. We don't love that kind of information, but it's not painful.
But when some government, boss, organization imposes something on you that you really, really don't like, you're faced with a choice. You obey or you disobey. And the question becomes, what should a Christian do when they disagree with a human authority? That's what we're going to spend pretty much the rest of our time talking about. What should a Christian do when they disagree with the human authority? Now let's start with something pretty easy.
In our society, there's a whole lot of freedom. In America, all about freedom. You get to choose things like which career path you want. That was a little different than in Peter's day. If you were born into a carpenter's family, you would be a carpenter. If you're born into a farmer's family, you'd be a farmer.
We get to choose, which means we kind of get to choose bosses in a way. We kind of get to choose which organization we work for. So what does it look like to fear God foremost and honor our boss? Fear God and honor the organization. Well, your boss is probably going to make you do things you don't want to do. The organization as a whole is probably going to have some dumb policies.
And I know from experience that that can be pretty dang annoying. I worked as an electrician in Australia for a number of years. This annoyed me more than most people, but on a construction site in Australia, it doesn't matter who you are, what your profession, anything like that, you must wear a hard hat, safety glasses, hearing protection, gloves, high visibility vest, and steel cap boots. I don't know if it's the same here, it's probably something pretty similar. If you're on a construction site, that's what you've got to wear. I did a lot of brand new apartment buildings and stuff like that.
So we would go in, everything would be done, landscaping's done, elevators are running, lights are all on, paint is done, everything's in except humans and furniture. And because it's still technically a construction site, you would have to wear your hard hat, glasses, hearing protection, gloves, high visibility vest, and steel cap boots in case you needed to kick someone or be seen by someone, be seen by the forklifts that weren't there anymore, all of that kind of stuff. Bump your head on something. So the thing that I would hate the most is when they're doing their final inspections and there's a light out and I would, because I'm going to a construction site that day, I'd have to wear my hard hat, my glasses, my gloves, my hearing protection, my high visibility shirt, my steel cap boots so I could change a light bulb in a finished apartment.
Now I see the point of your rules on a construction site but this should no longer be a construction site. It annoyed me like crazy and so I would just ignore some of them like I wouldn't wear a hard hat. Here's another one. This one's funnier. This one's better. This is something you can practice for yourself.
When you go to Chick-fil-A, which isn't going to be today, dang it, but you can do it any other day, you go there and you say thank you to a Chick-fil-A employee. They are obligated to say my pleasure and you can thank them again and they will say my pleasure. It is Chick-fil-A policy that if somebody thanks you, you must say my pleasure. So you thank someone and they give you their pleasure and then you thank them again and you say, no, seriously, thank you for what you do and they say my pleasure. You can try that one on repeat and it's an actual thing. Now, for the most part, that seems like a good policy until someone like me or Chet goes in and says thank you too many times and we start really frustrating some Chick-fil-A employees.
It feels like a dumb policy, but when you're a Chick-fil-A employee and that happens, is it really that hard to just submit to the rules? To submit to the wearing a hard hat? To submit to whatever it is? Maybe your company changes the rules on clocking in and it's now clunkier, it takes more time, it's frustrating, maybe it takes five minutes. Excellent. That's the first five minutes of your work day done.
It's going to frustrate you, but it's not that big of a deal. Workplace stuff is typically not that big of a deal. Now, realistically, even if your boss is unfair, even if he really is a jerk, nine times out of ten, 99 times out of 100, the right call is going to be follow the instructions of your boss. Even if they're frustrating, even if they're dumb, even if their policies are stupid, even if you disagree, the right call is going to be to follow your boss. It's a better witness, it shows them that you take them seriously, it honors them. Now, the fear God, honor your boss thing comes into play.
If your boss starts telling you, do things that are illegal, lie to clients, rip them off, steal things, then you have an obligation to fear God instead of honoring your boss. You may get fired. That might happen, but in that case, your boss is a jerk anyway. You get to move on with your life, and at least you've valued your dignity and relationship with God above your boss. Now, what happens if it's not just your boss, it's like a governmental thing? How do you fear God and honor the government?
That can be pretty difficult. The government makes you do a lot of things you don't really want to do. When you go to an airport, the TSA makes you take your shoes off, they make you take your laptop out of your bag, they make you chug your water, they make you do a full body scan, I don't want to do any of that. The Bush administration introduced the US Patriot Act, which meant that the government was essentially allowed to spy on all of its citizens. They could read text messages, record phone calls. Nobody really liked that.
The Obama administration introduced the Affordable Care Act, friendly one known as Obamacare. It forces a lot of people to pay extra things for healthcare that they wouldn't have previously purchased and they're now forced to. People don't like that. No one likes being told what they can and can't do. No one likes being told to take their shoes off when they think it's stupid. No one likes any of that stuff.
Government gets their hands into things all the time and we don't want our phone calls recorded. We don't want to take our shoes off. We don't want to pay extra charges because no one can tell me to do anything right. I have a right. I have individual rights. I have liberties.
This is unfair. The problem with that mentality of thinking is that at no point in time does the truth, at no point in time does the gospel ever emphasize individual rights. At no point in time. I know this is hard to stomach. This is hard to digest. This is very countercultural.
But at no point in time does Jesus, does Paul, does Peter, does God ever emphasize individual rights. It's just not in there. Let me be super specific, super clear, and abrasive. the only right, the only right that humans have, the only thing we can stand before, a holy God, the only thing that we can stand before him and force him to give us, the only right that we can demand from God, is his wrath and our punishment. punishment. The wages of sin is death. We all sin, we all deserve death, and the only right that we have, the only thing we can demand from God is that he punish us for it. It's the only thing.
Our individual right is that we be destroyed. The gospel does not emphasize individual rights. God has rights, Jesus has rights, he sacrificed those rights, he set them aside so that he could come down to earth, be tortured, be killed on our behalf to free us from sin. We only have any rights that are given to us by the free will of God. Outside of that, we have none. None.
We're never told in scripture to fight for our individual rights, we're never told in the gospel that we deserve anything outside of death. And so far, all the way through 1 Peter, all the way through this letter so far, he's told us that we're misfits. He's told us that even with the rights that America gives us, we have to be equipped to have them violated. Christians are equipped to suffer. Christians are the ones who are equipped most to not have rights anymore, to have their rights denied to them. that's the uncomfortable truth of the gospel. Now, while I'm up here being all abrasive and stuff, hypothetically, and just in case you are armed this morning, this is a hypothetical. hypothetical.
Hypothetically, the government may eventually, might, may eventually start imposing laws that impose on the Second Amendment. They would be an unpopular government. They would not be popular around Mill City Church, they would not be popular in the South, they would not be popular in much of America, but it could happen. They might start with ammunition, box limits, caliber restrictions, they might include crazy taxes on ammo, so you've got to pay through the nose to get what you want. Then they, once they're done with ammunition, they might come after automatic weapons, semi-automatic weapons, ARs, gone, can't have them anymore.
Then maybe they come for pistols, no more concealed carry, no more any, like you can't walk on the street anymore with a gun, done, can't even own a pistol anymore, too dangerous. Then they could come for shotguns, air rifles, BB guns, airsoft guns, pea shooters, pitchforks, sharp sticks, knives, whatever you've got, they're going to come for it. They could overrule the Second Amendment, they could introduce another amendment that says there's no more Second Amendment, they could do it all in one foul swoop, and then your right to bear arms is now gone. It is now illegal to own a gun. That would be a crazy day.
Most of you are probably thinking, over my dead body, right? That's the South mentality on this, but it could happen. What would Peter say to us, what would Peter say to Christians if that was to happen? I don't think you really need me to tell you. It's written there. You can read it.
It's written on the screen. Let's get it up on the screen. It says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Just got real, right? Not the most popular of thoughts, right? Now you feel why I thought this was going to be a hard sermon, right?
Peter tells us that unless the government is starkly opposed to God's law, unless starkly opposed to God's law, we submit to that human institution. In this case, if the Second Amendment was overruled, Peter would tell Christians, give back your guns. Unless it's opposed to God's law, we follow human laws. That is uncomfortable, right? Well, here's a reality check for us. Peter was writing in a different time.
We like to use this excuse sometimes that it doesn't apply to us because things were different for them back then. Everything was different. It's a different culture. It's a different whatever. Here's a reality check for us. Peter was writing to Christians in the time of Emperor Nero.
When he said, submit to human institutions, whether it be to emperors, supreme, or to governors, as sent by him, he was talking about Emperor Nero. When he said, fear God, honor the emperor, he was talking about Emperor Nero. Now, the history buffs in the room know that Emperor Nero has a pretty bad report. No one really liked him. Here's what Tacitus, Tacitus was a Roman historian. Here's what he wrote about Emperor Nero's treatment of Christians.
This is Nero when he was in power. This is how he treated Christians. Besides being put to death, they, that's Christians, besides being put to death, they were made to serve as objects of amusement. They were clothed in hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs. Others were crucified. Others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed.
Nero used Christians as candlesticks in his house. he continued, Tacitus continues, it was felt that they were being destroyed not for the public good, but to gratify the cruelty of an individual. That is the dude that Peter is saying submit to. That guy, Nero, using Christians as candlesticks in his house, Nero, submit to that guy. We hear all this stuff about submit to the government and we try to get out of it and we do whatever and he's saying submit to that guy. We fear tyrannical leadership. We fear what would happen if the government took too much power, too much control.
We fear tyrannical government. We don't even know what that means. We don't even know what that is. Peter was writing to the people with a tyrannical government, not us. Now, are there times when the government is wrong? Yes.
Should we stand up to them? Yes, I think so. But, it comes under this idea of fear God, honor the emperor. Fear God, honor the government. There must be an aspect of this is opposed to God's law, and that's why I'm standing up to it. You all know Martin Luther King Jr.
You know what he fought for. At the point in time when he was around, when he was a big name, the government was wrong. Racism was wrong. Segregation was wrong. The systematic oppression of black people was wrong. You all know that he pushed for civil disobedience.
He told his followers, to go out and deliberately break the law. He told them to do that. That would not be honoring the government. He told them to do that and to accept peacefully any of the consequences. But listen to what he says about it.
This is from his letter from a Birmingham jail in 1963. He writes, one who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. If you peacefully break a law that is a government law and that law is opposed to God's law, do it openly, do it peacefully, accept the consequences, and hope that the community sees that the law is unjust.
That's what Martin Luther King said. His movement is one of very few examples, very few examples of a time when this concept of fear God, honor the government, was actually done well. It looked for him a whole lot more like a letter from prison than it did revolution. It looked a whole lot more like weakness than power. It looked a whole lot more like Jesus than Mel Gibson in the Patriot. God.
Now we're focusing pretty hard today on what it looks like to submit to every human institution while we're fearing God and we're honoring everyone. And I know that that's not easy. I know it's uncomfortable. I'm not telling you to ignore politics and not be politically active. Be politically active. Be involved.
Vote. Want good things for this country. That is a good and honorable thing. Use your voting power to influence the direction the country takes. We get to exercise these kinds of personal freedoms as the human institution that we submit to allows us to. The American government says you've got the freedom to vote.
Vote. But we have something so much better than control of the government. We have something so much better than control of the government. Being in control of the government, being in control of the government is not what Peter says is the goal. It's the exact opposite of that. He's telling us to be misfits, be outsiders.
The goal is to be who Christ has made us to be, in his image, living our lives to propagate the gospel. We weren't told to overthrow evil governments. We weren't told that. We were told to fear God and honor them. keep in mind that when he said that, he was talking about Nero. You want to talk about an evil leader, Nero's the guy. Fear God and honor Nero.
Fear God and honor the government. Like I said at the beginning, this is, for me, one of the toughest sections of scripture. And I know that as Americans, it rubs like sandpaper against you as well, your flag-waving, hot dog-eating, baseball-loving, NASCAR-attending souls. I know it's hard. This is the truth of what Peter's telling us this morning. As the band comes back up, I want us to know this from what Peter says.
The gospel is better. The gospel is more fulfilling and more powerful than individual rights. The gospel is better than your individual rights. There will be things that you have to submit to that you don't want to, but the gospel is better. Your hope, your hope is not in the USA. Your hope is not in some old, crusty documents signed in ink by old white men.
That is not where we put our hope. Our hope is in the cross signed with blood by the Son of God who sacrificed his rights on our behalf to free us from sin. When you have to take your shoes off at the airport, when you have to pay health care you don't want, when the government spies on your text messages, even if the government starts taking guns away, the gospel is bigger, better, and more powerful. Your identity in Christ supersedes your identity as an American. Your identity in Christ supersedes your individual rights. Your hope isn't in America.
Your hope is in Christ. Christ. That is what it means to be a misfit. That is what it means to be an elect exile. And that is what equips us, even when it's hard, to be subject to every human institution. Let's pray.
Father God, we humbly submit to you and know that it's your will that we submit to human institutions. I pray that as we leave today we can be convicted of the ways, the insignificant ways where we just set aside the law, set aside policies, set aside our bosses, set aside our parents, pray that we can repent of that. God, we want you to be the focus of everything in our lives. When you say submit to human authorities, Lord, I pray that we can take that seriously. God, we know that we have so much more in the gospel than we're offered by the government. We have so much more in the gospel than we're offered as Americans.
I pray that we can submit to you, submit to Christ, and know that all of our hope is found in him. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Amen.
Community on Mission
1 Peter 2:9-10
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. I'm excited. We're getting to continue our series in 1 Peter, so we're just walking verse by verse to the book of 1 Peter. We like to take books of the Bible and just study them and try to learn as much as we possibly can from them.
So we're going to start off with a little bit of interaction, so you've got to be paying attention. I'm going to say two things that are kind of pitted against each other, and I need you to just loudly and possibly angrily vote. So Pepsi or Coke? Pepsi! Neither wasn't an option, but okay, so that sounded about even. I think if you're talking about the drinks, Pepsi or Coke, most people go with Coke, but if you're talking about like Pepsi products versus Coke products, it gets different.
Okay, Mac or PC? Mac or PC? All right. Dunkin' Donuts, Krispy Kreme? Krispy Kreme! Amen.
Thank you all so much. That means so much to me. Moe's or Chipotle? Chipotle! Android or iPhone? Android!
All right. Jordan or LeBron? Anybody care? Jordan! Jordan. Okay, thank you.
All right. Xbox or girls? Sorry. Sorry, it was too easy. When I was making that list, I couldn't help myself. Okay.
All of us have been in discussions that were surrounded around these kind of things. Like we get into these arguments. We argue about donuts. We argue about food. The few, you argue about the way phones work. I mean, you've sat in on these conversations.
A few of my favorites are, if you're ever in the Chipotle-Moes argument. Chipotle people really care about Chipotle. Moe's people are like, I like queso. And Chipotle people are like, no. You must. I've had someone look at me and go, Chet, Chipotle is objectively better than Moe's.
So if you get into these conversations, I think the argument is it's like it's organic or something, which I think means they rubbed dirt on the food. That's what it tastes like. Or like the chickens were happy before you killed them. I don't... This cow tastes like he was pleased right before they killed him and I ate him. If you're ever in that argument, though, this is always the argument I make, which just really makes Chipotle people angry.
So they're arguing about ingredients. They're arguing about organic. They're arguing about stuff. And I always go, yeah, but when I go to Chipotle, nobody greets me. Nobody says, welcome to Chipotle. And I just like people to greet me.
And it makes them so mad because that should not apply to how the food tastes. They want to argue ingredients. And I'm just like, they said hello. And I felt warm when I walked inside. But we all form communities around things that we love.
We all gather around something that we enjoy, that we appreciate, that we find beauty in, that we find satisfaction in. And then we desire to tell other people about them. We want to include more people in that. We watch a movie that we like. We tell a bunch of people. We eat at a restaurant that we like.
We tell a bunch of people. We find other people who enjoy what we like. And that's how we form friend groups. So you've got people that they all enjoy video games or they all enjoy this sport or they all enjoy watching this show and they form communities around it and then they try to convert other people to it. And what we're going to see in 1 Peter is that that's actually in a lot of ways what the church is. It's a group of people formed around Jesus that want more people to know Jesus.
Find beauty and excellence and joy and hope and life in Jesus and want to share that, want to spread that. And so because that's a natural human thing to form communities around something and to proclaim its excellencies, it's honestly one of the things that the church is designed to do. So I'm going to read first. We're all going to read 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10 together. That's where we're going to be this morning. And then we'll pray and we'll kind of break it all down, study it together.
So 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10. It's on page 657 if your Bible looks like this, if you've got one of these in the row. If you don't own a Bible, take this one with you. We want you to have a Bible. So 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10.
And Peter's writing to a group of churches in what's modern-day Turkey, talking to them about how to live inside of a culture where the church doesn't really fit, where the thought process the culture has doesn't really line up with what the church has. And as we've been studying through, he's been really hammering on, this is who Jesus is, this is who this makes you. Because of what Jesus has done, this is who you are. And now in the next couple weeks, he's going to start turning and being like, because that's true, here's what life looks like for you. So 9 and 10.
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. 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. Let's pray. God, those two verses are beautiful. And they tell us a lot about what you've done for us, what you've accomplished for us through Jesus, through your cross.
And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to see that clearly today. That those who don't know you might clearly understand what you have offered them. And those who do know you might clearly understand what you have given them. And Lord, we praise you and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so Peter, when he starts off in verse 9, he's going to give us a bunch of Old Testament imagery that kind of tells us what the church is now.
So he's going to give Old Testament pictures. It's going to be found in stories in Genesis, in Exodus, in Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel. He's going to give pictures from those books that help us understand who we are as the church now. So what he's going to say is these Old Testament pictures apply to us now because of Jesus. And so he starts off with, you are a chosen race. And what picture he's pointing to is Abraham.
Abraham was just a guy. And God just picks him and says, I'm going to make you into a people. I'm going to make you into a family. I'm going to make you into a race. So he was not Jewish.
God just picked him and said, you are going to be my people. You're going to, all of your lineage will be my people. And through you, the whole world will be blessed. And so he picks Abraham and he turns him into a people, into a race, into a family. And then he says a royal priesthood. And so after the people of Israel live over in kind of Canaan area, and then they go to Egypt and are enslaved for 400 years.
And then Moses shows up and he sings that song about letting his people go. And they do sing songs, but that's not one of them. And they don't sing until later when they get out. But anyway, he shows up and they get out. They go wandering into the desert. And God basically says, now I'm going to teach you what it looks like to be my people.
And you're going to be a priesthood. You're going to be the people on earth who relate to me. And I'm going to show you what that looks like. And so Peter says, that image applies to us. And then God, once he taught them what it looked like, actually gives them a nation. He actually gives them land.
He draws their borders for them and says, go. This is the land I've given you. Go take it over. And so Peter says that those images of a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation are now what has been given to us through Jesus. What is the church? And the church is all of those on earth who've placed their faith in Jesus, in the cross, and that he died for our sin, that he rose again, and that in him we have life.
And hope and joy and that he's the king of everything. And so what that means is we're a chosen race. The church is a family. We now have a family line that trumps all other family lines. We now have, we are made into a people. The church is.
That we will exist in eternity as brothers and sisters. That's why Christian people say, good to see you, brother. That's what they mean. That's what they're talking about is that we've been made into a family. And then he says you're a royal priesthood. And what that means is that all of us are on the same level.
We get to relate to God. And all of us are priests. Are people who get to relate directly to God through Jesus. So there isn't like a special class of Christians that get to be priests and get to relate to God. No, we all are. We're all made into a royal priesthood.
I was talking to a guy who's looking at getting baptized here in August when we have our baptism gathering. He's a recent Christian. And I was talking to him about stuff. And he said, yeah, I'm a Christian, but I'm not like Christian 2.0. I was like, dude, that doesn't exist. There is no Christian 2.0.
You're either in because of Jesus or you're not in. But all of us will stand before God and have Jesus cover us. We're all under Jesus. Some of us are under Jesus, but also we've added stuff to it. That's not how it works. And so we're all a priesthood.
We're all people who get to relate to God and show the world what it looks like to relate to God. And then he says you're a holy nation. And that image there, I've been recently reading through the book of Revelation. And people get super geeked out over the book of Revelation or they just completely avoid it. Those are the two type of people. Someone who wants to draw a chart and show you a picture of a dragon.
And someone who's like, I've never read it because it scares me. Really, the book of Revelation is just about Jesus. But there's these beautiful pictures of heaven. And there's one that I've been recently just has been imprinted in my mind. And it's that before God's throne in heaven, in eternity, it says that there were thousands upon thousands of people praising him in every tongue, from every tribe, in every language, in every nation, in every people. Do you know what's beautiful about that?
It's telling us something that's going to happen in the future. There are 6,000 people groups right now on earth that do not know about Jesus. There's nobody proclaiming the gospel in their language. Nobody. There's no Bible translated into the language. There are no current missionaries reaching these people.
6,000 People groups. And what the book of Revelation says is they're going to be there. That Christianity doesn't have a culture. It doesn't have one overriding culture. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is invited in.
And God has already set the borders and said, I'm claiming these people. These people are going to be mine. And my church is going to march forward to the borders and invite these people in. So the same way that he said, these are your borders and this is where your nation is going to be, the church gets to be a part of seeing more and more people meet Jesus that he's already said these are going to be mine. These are the borders I've already drawn. This is who's going to be invited in.
And so that's the church. And so what Peter's saying is this is who you are. This is your identity. So in our culture, what you do is your identity. So I do this, therefore I am this.
I do this, so I'm this. And what Christianity says is Jesus did this and he gives you your identity. Your identity comes from Jesus and then you do things out of your identity. But your identity has already been set in Jesus. And so Peter's been saying because Jesus died, because he's made us into a people, because he rose again, because we have a certain hope, now this is who we are and therefore we. And he goes into what we do.
And so what he says is you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that Jesus has claimed us, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Jesus has rescued us, has saved us, has made us into a people that we may proclaim his excellencies, that we may tell more people about how amazing he is. And we do this naturally. Some of you saw Guardians of the Galaxy. Then you saw it again.
And then you told everyone you'd ever met that it was the greatest movie you'd ever seen. Some people watched Terminator Salvation and wrongfully went and told people it was a good movie. But there are things that you appreciate and you enjoy and then you go tell people about. You go invite people in on. And what it says is that we've been turned into these people and that we might proclaim his excellencies, that we might make much of Jesus. Now, in our context, the question comes up, is that okay to do?
Is it okay to tell people about Jesus? Aren't we supposed to just kind of keep our beliefs to ourself? Isn't it annoying or even kind of rude for me to come push my views on you? That we have this belief in our culture that is, all ideas are equally good and valuable. All ideas, all beliefs are equally good and valid. And so it's wrong for you to push your ideas on someone else.
It's wrong for you to try to convert someone to what you believe. We've heard that. But all ideas are equally good, equally valid, and it's wrong for you to try to push your beliefs on somebody. So if you're a Christian, if someone asks you about what you believe, or if you build a long enough friendship with somebody you can share, but other than that, you don't really need to be trying to convert people to your belief. You don't need to, if your neighbor is a Muslim, you don't need to try to talk them into being Christians. Because all ideas, all beliefs are equally good and valid, and you don't need to push your ideas on anybody else.
Now, there's a couple of things wrong with that. One is, that sentence, that idea isn't even logically coherent. Because whoever makes that statement is saying, all ideas are equally valid except for the one that says they aren't. And you don't need to try to convert people to your ideas. You need to believe and be converted to mine. Does that make sense?
That's what that sentence is. All ideas are equally valid except for the one that says that they aren't. And you don't need to convert people to your beliefs, you need to be converted to mine, which is a very Western, pluralistic belief system, that all ideas are equally valid. Go to the Middle East, they don't believe that, so what you're saying is Western American culture and the way we hold ideas is actually better than the way other cultures hold their ideas. So immediately, it doesn't stand up in other cultures, and it doesn't even make sense logically, because the only way for that sentence to be correct is for it to be incorrect.
That's the problem. So it doesn't hold up logically, and it's not true. So let me free you up as a Christian. We don't believe that. Yesterday, and I was so happy they didn't come from South Carolina, but yesterday, Klansmen from North Carolina came to our state house to hold a rally. That's a belief system, and it is not equally good or equally valid.
They need to change. They need to believe something different. I was listening to NPR this week to interviews of women who had been captured and held by ISIS, and so they were translating for them, and one of them, this lady was talking, she was 21 years old, she was talking about her ISIS captors who were trying to force a nine-year-old girl into a bathroom with them, or this one guy was trying to force a nine-year-old girl into a bathroom with him, and so she said she fought him, and he fought back and said, I will kill you, and her response was, I'm willing to die for her. She's worth dying for.
Now, ISIS is a belief system, but it is not equally good or equally valid, and they need to change and be converted, and so as a Christian, we have freedom to not believe that idea because it's not true, and for most people, when asked, they will agree that all ideas aren't equally valid. Even though they'll say that statement, you can't get them to believe and agree that the KKK, their ideas are just as good as Mother Teresa's because they're not. Some bring life, some bring joy, and some enslave and harm, and so let me free you up. It is okay to tell people. It is okay to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus, and let me tell you one of the main reasons why.
He is excellent. This is actually good news, and so Peter, in this context, in this text, is going to show us three beautiful truths about Jesus that are real for us because of the gospel. Three beautiful things that Jesus has accomplished for us that are actually excellent, actually beautiful, actually good, actually true, and that we want to share with other people. So we'll start at verse 9 again. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
So this is who you are, this is who you've been made by Jesus, 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, the first beautiful truth about Jesus for Christians is that he's called us out of darkness. That, ultimately, we know, the Bible teaches this, that God created the world and it was good and it existed in a beautiful relationship with himself, and then humans rebelled. They ran from him in pride, and that Satan, who is a real being, helped lead people astray, and ultimately, everyone is a part of one kingdom.
You're either submitted to and following Jesus in the kingdom of light where there's joy and peace and hope and fulfillment and satisfaction, or you ultimately are following Satan who's doomed to be destroyed by Jesus, that hell is designed for Satan and those who follow him. And most people don't believe they're following Satan. That's not how that works. But either we're in the kingdom of light that follows after Jesus that have been rescued by Jesus or we're in the dark. And for many of us, we were called out of darkness. We were called out of darkness.
We didn't have hope. Didn't have joy. We were chasing after things that would never fulfill us, never make us whole, never bring us satisfaction, that constantly forced us to be enslaved to them in order for us to have any sense of life. They didn't do what Jesus did, which is Jesus does this, so this is who you are. They said, you do this, you work, you slave, you prove yourself, and then you get to. Then you get to achieve.
Then you get to be good enough. Then you get to have done it. He's called us out of darkness. And that's beautiful. And for Christians, you kind of understand what that means. You know what it means to be called out of darkness.
And for non-Christians, for people who don't believe, I'm sorry, I think that point probably was super confusing and sounds weird. The other two are going to be a little more, make a little more sense. But for Christians, you understand what it was like to be in the dark, to be without hope, to be without joy, and then to actually be freed up and to walk in light, to be invited into all that Jesus has offered. The second beautiful truth, the second beautiful, captivating thing about Jesus that he's done for us is in verse 10. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. And by a people, it means you weren't a family, you weren't a race, you weren't connected.
So some of us, before we became Christians, you had a family. And they were good. They were nice. They believed in you. They loved you. They accepted you.
Some of you, before you became Christians, you had friends, real friends that were beyond surface level conversations at work, that you actually could be around and enjoy being around and you could be open with who you were. You could be real about who you were and you were still loved and accepted. But for many of us, that's not true. It wasn't true for us before we became Christians. Our family, at best, was neutral. They didn't actively harm us.
For some of us, they did. The people who were supposed to love you, guard you, protect you, accept you, defend you, build you up, actually tore you down, assaulted you, harmed you. Your family had a very negative effect on you. For some of us, we had zero friends or just some friends we had in high school that we talked to a couple of times, maybe on Facebook, said happy birthday to each other. Some people we talked to at work, but we didn't have real friends. Honestly, and some of you may be in this position now, you believe your options are be real about who I am, be open and honest about what's going on in my heart and how messed up I am in a lot of ways and have zero friends, or be fake and have some friends.
But they aren't really my friends. They don't really know me. They just know the personified version, the fake shell I've made up. And what it says is that because of Jesus, we're a people. We're a family. And here's how this works.
All of us have our identity wrapped up in Jesus, which means that it can never be taken from us by any of our actions. All of us have our identity set in Jesus and therefore it can never be taken from us. It can never be removed from us because it's set in Him. So all other communities accept some sins, some failures, some brokenness, and not others. So you can be in a biker gang.
And there's some brokenness that bikers will accept. Like stabbing people. And maybe stealing or burning things down. There's like brokenness that biker gangs are cool with. But cowardice, disloyalty, you're not welcome anymore.
You can be a part of a group of people that gets their identity from being tolerant. And as long as you're tolerant, you're tolerated. But anybody who's close-minded or narrow-minded or bigoted, they're not at welcome because it's tolerance that makes us good. If you're a group of people that are friends because you're smart, I was never a part of this group, but if you were a part of a group of people that got your identity from your intellect, then you have to look down on people who are dumber than you. You have to because your identity comes from being smart. And the truth is, as Christians, our identity comes from Jesus, which means that all we need is brokenness.
All we need is need. All we need to do is admit that we need Jesus and then we're in. All of us. All forms of brokenness are welcome and we get to be honest about it because our identity comes from Jesus, not from ourselves. Do you see how beautiful that is? If you're in a community group, they're stuck with you.
Do you know how beautiful that is? The church is stuck with me. I was in my group the other day a couple weeks back and we were just talking about stuff and I had to confess to them that I'd realized that in my relationship with Jesus, I wasn't really pursuing holiness. I wasn't really pursuing Jesus as much as I was just trying. Like I felt like I was okay if I could just kind of surface level feel like I was doing better than them. So I told my group that I really wasn't pursuing Jesus as much as I was just trying to kind of measure myself against them and as long as I felt like I was doing better than them, I felt okay.
Do you know how petty and weird that is? You know how awkward that is to say? That's messed up. I didn't want to tell anybody. I was kind of annoyed when I figured that out. When the Holy Spirit was like, you realize that you're not pursuing me, you're just measuring yourself up against other people.
I had actually removed my identity from in Jesus. I had forgotten what was true and was trying to operate in something else and so I got to confess that because my identity identity is in Jesus, not in any of that. And that's beautiful that because of Jesus we've been made into a family. We get to get past conflict. Some of you have friendships, relationships, even family relationships where the first bit of conflict, you just don't talk to each other for weeks, months. Because of Jesus, we've been made into a people and we get to forgive and we get to be in relationships and we get to work past.
It's beautiful. We've been made into a family. The third beautiful truth that is real for us who are Christians, real for us because of Jesus, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. mercy, everyone on earth will either pay for their sin or have Jesus pay for their sin. Mercy just means that we have something coming to us. We've earned something.
Something's coming our way and then God relented. He was merciful. We didn't get what we deserved. And for Christians, that is true and that is beautiful because all of us are in trouble outside of Jesus. All of us have been prideful. All of us have run from God.
All of us have trusted ourselves more. All of us have chased after things other than Him. All of us have promised ourselves that we would be fulfilled, that we would have joy, that we would have hope in all kinds of things other than God. We've messed around with such small, trivial things like just being comfortable and having a good life, just having a nice retirement. We've chased after sex and addictions and personal freedom and all of this stuff that ultimately is a rebellion against the Holy God and we all stand condemned. And for Christians, once you had not received mercy, but now you have.
Now you have received mercy because of Jesus. because of what He's done. Do you know how much hope and life and freedom that gives? You ever almost gotten a speeding ticket? Like you deserved it, but you didn't get it? Do you know how much joy that brought to your heart? I'm for real.
Go home today. If you just drive home and don't get pulled over by a cop, that was nice. If you drive home, get pulled over by a cop, deserve to get a ticket, and don't, that was somehow better. Like your day was made better by not getting a ticket that you deserved. You call people on the phone. I can't tell you when Ann and I were dating how many times I got a phone call after she had left my house in the evening and she'd call me up and say, guess who got another warning?
Which was a bunch of mess because I would on that same road get tickets because no one thinks I'm cute or nice or innocent. She called me one time and said the cop got sad when he saw me. She said I could tell he wanted to write a ticket and got to the window and thought I was like 12 and probably shouldn't even be driving but was like... There's something about almost getting a ticket that frees us up that gives us joy and the truth is for Christians we once had not received mercy and now we have because of Jesus. And there is freedom and joy and hope and life and it's excellent. Jesus is excellent and we proclaim his excellencies.
We share this with anybody we possibly can because the truth is everyone we know is either going to have Jesus pay for their sin or they are going to pay for their sin. Everyone in this room will either stand condemned under the weight of your own sin or you will stand free because Jesus stood condemned under the weight of your own sin. Here's what this means when it says we were called out of darkness we were made into a people and we've received mercy it means that because Jesus took what we deserve we can have what Jesus deserves. So we were in darkness and he was in light but he took on darkness so that we could have light.
He had eternal family acceptance between him and God between him and the Holy Spirit and on the cross God sends darkness over the earth and turns his back on Jesus and that relationship between Jesus and the Father is broken. Jesus was separated from his Father so that we could have eternal family. And Jesus stood condemned in our place so that we can receive what he received. He took no mercy so that we could have mercy. He took punishment and guilt and pain and shame and destruction and was crushed so that we could be free. So that we could have life so that we could have joy.
Jesus stood in our place guilty and condemned so that we could have mercy. Either Jesus pays for your sin or you pay for your sin. And all of those in Christ know that we were in the darkness and now we've been called into light. We used to not be a people. We used to not have real relationships. We used to have ones that were consistently there was this tension of we had to hold it together and now we've been given a family because of Jesus.
We've been given an identity a new name a new hope because of Jesus and ultimately we were guilty but now we've received mercy because Jesus took no mercy. And that we are Jesus took what we deserve so that when we stand before the king we get what Jesus deserved which was honor acceptance love freedom hope mercy family and light. and that is good news because it's not about us. We didn't earn it we didn't achieve it it wasn't our morals that got us there it wasn't our ability to be intelligent it wasn't our ability to work it out it wasn't our culture it wasn't our rule following it was Jesus and that is good news that is beautiful news. Last week my cousin Bumi was in town and he was he was down helping us run a firework store because my family runs firework stores and so every 4th of July and New Year's I have to go run a firework store which is kind of annoying but also kind of a redneck so I really like fireworks changing the world one explosion at a time and he was down and he loves to eat at like local places and stuff and so last week he was about to leave and I told him I said okay when we got done you know doing load loading everything back up and putting everything back I told him alright we can go either to Egg Roll Station or La Rivera and it's La Rivera is a Mexican restaurant but it's like very Mexican they don't speak English it's La Rivera La Tienda something something Mexican something like I don't speak Spanish I don't know what it says but it's La Rivera it's right down here on 378 and we said you need to have Egg Roll or La Rivera sketchiness isn't an option but both of the food is delicious they might get shut down any day more Egg Roll than La Rivera La Rivera is a little bit cleaner and nicer but anyway he chose La Rivera and so we went there and he it's a small place and so we were all at different tables and I'm eating with the guys in my community group and Logan and Boomer are at the same table and they're eating Logan's my brother so they're cousins they're eating together and they're just I mean they're pumped they're looking at the menu and getting excited and they're pointing and being like oh they got Mexican cheeseburgers I didn't know those existed they put eggs and sausage and bacon and beef like what is this place like they were so excited and they kept like showing me stuff and then I actually ordered while we were eating I ordered a thing called horchata which is like rice milk which I don't know who looked at rice and was like I wonder how to milk these things but they made rice milk and it's like creamy and good and they put cinnamon in it it's really cold it's kind of like drinking what's left in the bowl after cinnamon toast crunch it is amazing and so I'm drinking that and it's kind of like a dessert drink and while I was drinking that I was just talking enjoying eating my meal which was great and this guy comes walking up with a pitcher and he looks at me and goes do you want more horchata and I like was just stunned I can still see him in my mind and he glows a little bit I didn't in my wildest dreams think I could get a free refill on this drink like I just assumed it would be like if you were at when you get done eating at Chick-fil-A not today because it's Sunday but when you get done eating at Chick-fil-A walk up there with your milkshake and say I'd like a refill and see how they look at you they will not say my pleasure they will say give me money but at La Rivera they have a pitcher and a guy who floats and he comes by and says do you want some more so I was like I look probably like a 13 year old when a girl talks to him like I just was like yes like he laughed at me because of how excited I seemed and I drank way more of rice milk than I should have it's kind of heavy I did not feel good the rest of the day but it was worth it but while we're eating there I look over and Logan and Boomy are reading the menu and they slowly just start looking more concerned and then kind of frustrated and I don't know what they're talking about but they're pointing back at each other and they're cutting their eyes at me and I'm like I don't know so eventually I looked over and I was like what?
I don't know so eventually I looked over and I was like what? My cousin Boomy lays his menu down and he looks over at me and he says how long have you known about this place? Immediately I knew I was in trouble and I was like four months but somebody was there who keeps up with time better than me and had eaten with me before and they said no we ain't here like I said four weeks
And they said no we ain't here like six or eight weeks ago and I was like shut up and I was like six, eight weeks and he looked at me and Logan looked at me and they said four weeks was too long because I had known about something excellent I had known about something beautiful and I hadn't told them hadn't invited them in on it and the truth is if we as Christians have been called out of darkness have been given a family that is eternal
And we have been given hope and freedom and received mercy and we tell no one we don't form communities with the sole purpose of proclaiming the excellencies of Jesus what are we doing? it's real and it's beautiful and it's life giving and it matters we want to tell everyone that's honestly as a church that's what we're about that's why we're groups on mission that's why we stand up every Sunday and say we want you to join a group and here's why
Because we've been made into a family we've been given the identity of a family and we are designed to tell more people about him to go out of our way to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus because of the hope and the life and the freedom and the joy and the eternity that he's given us that's why we talk about groups so much that's why my group is about to multiply and it's really sad we're going to go
From one group to be in two groups and it's always sad because you have these really good relationships but our group is a family but we exist to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus and so if we have the opportunity to see more people welcomed in if we have the opportunity to see more people invited in if we have the opportunity to be in more places so that we can share the gospel with more people as we can see
More people come to know that this is true it's worth it I want us to see something when we started planting the church we drew a map we didn't draw the map we drew a circle on a map and it doesn't include the circle just is kind of around this area so West Columbia is kind of the forgotten middle of our city you got Columbia and nice things go there nobody's putting a dueling piano bar in West Columbia and then you got
Lexington and nice things go there and we felt called to West Columbia and I know we've got a lot of people in our church family that are in different areas but when we got started we drew a little circle that was cut off at the river and cut off at I-20 and we just said we wanted to start praying about what it would look like to plant a church here and how many people were there and there's about 60,000 people in a four square mile
Or four mile radius from just a dot that kind of covers up so it's where we meet and it's just kind of that area 60,000 people that live there and if you've ever been on Augusta Road or Sunset around five you probably believe that 60,000 people and the best estimates we've seen is that about 20% are involved in churches evangelical Protestant churches where they're proclaiming Jesus 20% so that means about 48,000 people most likely
In our city in that little circle that doesn't even include where some of our groups meet don't know Jesus 48,000 people in darkness without family who have not received mercy that will stand before the king of the universe and get what's coming to them that will accept their punishment for their sin and we know that there's hope and freedom offered through Jesus I know that when I stand
Before God I will not receive what I deserve but I'll receive what Jesus deserved because he took what I deserve it's 48,000 people so there's a person lives near you older lady and she's just in the dark she's a nice lady but she just doesn't know about this and ultimately she's living her life for just some comfort for some enjoyment she feels like if she can just
Retire early and be comfortable then that'll be good she'll have been successful she can just have a nice family she doesn't know Jesus and she's in the dark somebody works with you goes to school with you and they are desperately lonely they don't have family they don't have the freedom to be real about their brokenness they don't know Jesus and every person that you work with go to school with live in the same neighborhood with 48,000 of them
Don't know Jesus haven't received mercy don't have life don't have freedom don't have hope don't have all of the three things offered to us by Jesus 48,000 of them 48,000 people in our city don't know what Jesus has accomplished for us the hope and the life that we have because of him 48,000 people and we exist as a church to proclaim the excellencies
Of Jesus because of them because we have the hope and the freedom that he's given us one of the reasons we don't do a lot of ministries is because these 48,000 people are in your neighborhood shop at the same place you shop or a part of the same rec league sports as you are we don't want to take up all your time in the week we want you to be around them we want your group to spend some significant time in relationships
With each other getting to know these people because there's 48,000 in a little circle if we had done a five mile circle around the state house we would have to have poured out double that and we have excellent beautiful glorious news that brings life and joy and freedom and hope and so we as a church are communities on mission
Communities with the purpose of seeing more people and more people and more people have what we have which we didn't earn we didn't achieve which we haven't accomplished which we don't keep but was freely given to us by Jesus who took what we deserve so that we can have what he deserved that's the church a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people
For his own possession that we might proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness and into his glorious light into his marvelous light father we thank you for your goodness and your grace we thank you for your freedom we thank you Lord that for those of us in christ
We have been called out of darkness for those of us in christ we have received mercy we have been given a family we have hope and joy and life and we pray Lord that you would rescue and redeem and capture and save and pay the punishment for 48,000 people in our city that are right
Around us Lord we pray that our groups would get to to be intentional about building relationships with real people who have no hope no family no life and ultimately will not receive mercy which is offered freely through your cross and through your son we pray Lord that we would get to be a part of seeing more and more and more people
Rescued by the beautiful and excellent news of the death the brutal painful death of your son where no mercy was shown so that we might have mercy where the relationship between y'all was broken so that we might have family and where darkness was cast so that we might be welcomed into light God help us
To proclaim this message Jesus you are excellent amen for the remembering so we were even more and so we were going to Euh
Christ the Cornerstone
1 Peter 2:4-8
Transcript
Well, good morning. We're in First Peter. It'll be page 657. If your Bible looks like this, if your Bible doesn't look like this, it may be on page 657, but probably is not. But we are in, we're just walking verse by verse through the book of First Peter.
If you do not own a Bible, grab one of these, take it home with you. If you don't have a Bible with you, use this one today. But if you own one, leave it for someone else to take later who doesn't own one. But that's our gift to you this morning. We're walking verse by verse through the letter of First Peter. It's a letter written by the Apostle Peter to a group of churches in what is modern day Turkey, just kind of explaining to them what it looks like to live as Christians in a context, in a culture that is not Christian.
It doesn't have Christian values, doesn't have Christian beliefs, is not Christian. And so he's writing into that context to try to explain to them what it looks like to be faithful, to follow Jesus in the midst of a culture that's really not going to be favorable to it. When I was in, I played football in high school and I was decent. I wasn't terrible. I was decent and ended up being recruited to play football in college by several smaller schools, mostly schools I think that wanted to increase their team's GPA overall because that was really what I had going for me was grades more than football, I think.
But I ended up going to Presbyterian College and playing football there. And the original coach that recruited me, or the head coach at that time, his name was Tommy Spangler. And he was a very intense and angry person. And he liked defense and he oversaw the defense and was very good at defense, didn't care much about offense. And he was amazing when it came to figuring out a defense. To the point that when I was a freshman there and he was explaining the defense, we would have different blitz packages and they would change depending on where.
It would be a whole different thing. Same play. It would be called like, you know, our bomb blitz. And then if they just moved a little bit, he would change the whole thing. And I remember sitting in practice thinking, are all these older guys just nodding along like they know what he's talking about? Or do they actually know what he's talking about?
And he was very good at defense. And he, I mean, to the point, borderline genius. But he did not know how to talk to humans. So he had that not going for him. And I remember when I got there, I first learned way more colorful ways to use expletives that I had never even entered into a whole world of colorful ways to use language to harm people's souls that I had never, ever entered into before. And he was a very intense, very angry guy.
And the way he coached what he wanted out of his players was aggression and effort. That's basically it. If you were kind of angry and you tried hard, he would find a spot for you. And I fit perfectly into that realm. With him as head coach and all you needed was anger and aggression and effort, I was on that team. Like I could do that.
I could show up early to things. I could try to harm people. That was about all I had going for me. And then after my freshman year, we got a new head coach. And so when a head coach comes in, everything changes. Everything flows out of, off of the head coach.
And so this head coach is terrible. He wanted you to be good at football. And so I no longer fit well into the system. He wanted you to be like fast and athletic. And I no longer had a spot. I was like, oh, this is going to, this is terrible.
Because he came in and he was just a whole different setup. And the whole team changed. And what we found was after that first year, you either had guys that fit well under this coach or fit well under this coach. They either liked the way it was or they liked the way it was now. They liked what had been or they liked what was going on currently. And there wasn't a lot of wiggle room.
It was either you were in the new system or you were in the old system. You fit in the new system. You fit in the old system. And the head coach made all of the difference. And here's what we're going to see that Peter says as we read this passage today. He says that Jesus is the difference maker for all of history.
That he is the, what he's going to use the word is cornerstone. But he is what comes in and changes everything. And you either fit or you don't. You're either in the system or you're out of the system. And it's all based off of Jesus. And so as we read through today, we're going to see very clearly how divisive Jesus is.
And how everything flows off of and builds out of and out from him. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop into 1 Peter chapter 2. God, we thank you for the opportunity we have to study your word. And we pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would change us. Would lead us to believe. To trust fully in you.
And that as Christians, you would build us into your servants, your people. And that you would genuinely be our cornerstone for all of life. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. So Peter's going to start off in this section we're reading today.
Talking about what happens when you become a Christian. What it looks like for Christians when you come to Jesus. And then he's going to go into Jesus being the cornerstone. And kind of explain how divisive that is. So verse 4.
As you come to him. So Peter's writing to the church. He's talking to Christians. As you come to him. That's Jesus. A living stone.
Rejected by men. But in the sight of God. Chosen and precious. There he's referring to the cross. That Jesus came in. And he's just using living stone as imagery.
Jesus came into history. And was rejected by men. Came in as king. As God. Declared he was king and God. And men rejected him.
Didn't want him. And sent him to the cross. And that in that same moment. Of absolute rejection by men. God accepted his sacrifice on our behalf. That in the punishment that was placed on him for sin.
God chose him. He's precious to God. And he is definitive in history. As the. Savior and king. That he's.
Rejected by men. But chosen and precious. So as you come to him. Verse five. 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.
Okay. So he just used three images there. From the Old Testament. Try to implant in our brains. What it looks like when we come to Jesus. So the three images are.
Spiritual house. Which he's talking about. The temple. Because he then links it to priests. And sacrifices. So in the Old Testament.
They had the temple. Which was the. The image and presence of God. In some ways. It's like it was. Not the image and presence of God.
Because God. Put his image on humans. But. When the temple was created. It was this. Sign.
This place. In Jerusalem. That showed. The active work. And presence of God. That that was where God.
Interacted. And chose to place the spirit. And interact with humans. Was in the temple. And so in the temple. You had.
The whole temple was holy. And only priests could go into certain parts of it. And then. There was. The holy of holies. And when you went into the holy of holies.
You had to tie a rope around yourself. Because it was possible. That God would kill you. If you went in. In an unholy way. In an unrepentant way.
And they would need to be able to get you out. That's why you had a rope tied around you. So that they could pull you out. Because no one would be able to go in and get you. Which just seems like a scary Job. All right.
You ready to go in? Yeah. All right. Tie the rope around you. Because we're not coming in after you. If he strikes you dead.
Like maybe you should wear a bell. So that we know. If you're still walking around in there. Like. Give two tugs. If you don't tug back.
We'll go ahead and start pulling you out. It just. So there was. There was the temple. Which was the active presence of God. Where he was.
Choosing to place his spirit into work. And then there were the priests. Who were the people of God. That were specifically to go before. God. On behalf of the people.
To serve. On behalf of the people. And the priest. Did not get an inheritance. And the inheritance was land. They didn't get any land.
Their inheritance was God. So their hope wasn't in land. It was in God. And so the priests. Would go before. God.
On behalf of people. And then the sacrifices. That they offered. Were to atone for people's sin. That they would. Kill.
Lambs. And bulls. And goats. And doves. On a regular basis. To cover the sin.
Of the people. And to. Bridge the gap. Between God. And man. And so.
Ultimately. We see in the New Testament. That Jesus is the absolute fulfillment. Of the temple. He is God's image and presence. Active work on earth.
He's the absolute fulfillment. Of the priests. Who were to go between God. And man. And he's the absolute fulfillment. Of the sacrifice.
Where he was perfect. And spotless. And died on our behalf. But. What Peter says. Is that in.
Some ways. When we come to God. When we come to Jesus. We are built up. Into the temple. Into the priests.
And into the sacrifices. So what that means is. Now the church. Is the active work. Of God on earth. The image.
And presence. His work. On earth. And. We're the priests. So we.
We get to go before God. On behalf of those around us. We get to go before God. On behalf of our co-workers. On behalf of our neighbors. On behalf of our city.
We get to. Go before God. And plead with him. To work on their behalf. That we get to sacrifice. For them.
And then it says. Offering spiritual sacrifices. Through Jesus Christ. Acceptable sacrifices. Through Jesus Christ. And that's honestly.
As Peter's going to. Talk about this. It's really all the other stuff. He's talking about. It's going to be. Suffering.
On behalf of other people. It's going to be. Being obedient. When we don't want to be. Following after Jesus. In so many ways.
It's. It's. It's. Really our entire lives. Poured out. For Jesus.
And for the good of those around us. And so Peter says. That when you come to Jesus. That's what he does. He builds you up. Into the spiritual house.
He makes you into this people. And so. That's why. We don't call this church. First of all. The word church.
Is the translation of the word. Ekklesia. Which means gathering. Or assembly. So. But we don't call this church.
Like when people say. Let's go to church. That actually doesn't make sense. That's why we don't have a temple. There's no one set place. Where God is active on earth anymore.
Because. He's. His spirit has come into his church. Into his people. That we are built up. Into the temple.
Into the priests. To offer sacrifices. So you don't go to church. We are the church. We are the. The people of God.
Built up into his active presence on earth. So you can't miss church. When people say. Yeah. I'm really busy. I'm not going to be able to do church for a while.
That sentence is completely incoherent. If you are a Christian. It doesn't make any sense. It would be like looking at my wife. And being like. Yeah.
I'm super busy. I'm not going to be able to do family for a while. I'm not going to be able to. People for a while. It's like. What are you talking about?
That doesn't make any sense. But we've been built into. His people. Into the church. That's why when people say. How good is it to be in the house of the Lord?
He doesn't have a house anymore. It's just people. We're not in his house. This place isn't holy. That's why we honestly don't mind meeting in a school. We like this school.
Because it actually is a nice auditorium. And it's not super expensive. But we can meet anywhere. As God's people. It doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be nice.
It doesn't have to be a sanctuary. It's not a holy place. Because his spirit has come into us. And made us into the church. So. Peter says.
This is what happens to believers. When you come to Jesus. And then he keeps going. Verse 6. For it stands in scripture. Now he's going to refer to.
Isaiah. Psalm. A Psalm. And Isaiah again. Behold. I am laying in Zion a stone.
Zion is another word used for Jerusalem. This is God speaking. Behold. I am laying in Zion a stone. A cornerstone. Chosen.
And precious. And whoever believes in him. Will not be put to shame. 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. And a stone of stumbling. And a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word. As they were destined to do.
So Peter very clearly says. Jesus is the cornerstone. And the two options. Are believe. Not believe. Those are the two options.
When it comes to Jesus. You either believe. Or you don't believe. Everybody in this room. Fits into one of those categories. You believe.
Or you don't believe. And then he is going to talk about. What it looks like. Specifically for those who believe. And for those who don't believe. And so he says that he is the cornerstone.
Now we don't use cornerstones anymore. The way they use cornerstones. If you look at certain buildings. There will be like a decorative cornerstone. That will be like. Built by the women of Edgefield South Carolina.
It is good. But that cornerstone wasn't actually useful. They had to like. Stick it in there later. The way they use cornerstones though. Was when they were building a building.
They would pick. The best stone. That was the most square. That was the largest. And best. And they would set it.
And once it was set. Everything else was built off of it. So the cornerstone. Was the most important stone. Because the rest of your building. Was built off of your cornerstone.
That you would set the cornerstone. And then every. All of your lines. Traced off. And went back to the cornerstone. So when he says that Jesus has been set in history as the cornerstone.
For those who believe. So behold I am laying in Zion a stone. A cornerstone chosen and precious. Chosen and precious. And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. As Christians.
Here is what it means for us to set Jesus as the cornerstone. To believe in Jesus as the cornerstone. So if he is. The way the building is constructed. Here is how this works. What do you fall back on.
When things get out of whack. What do you run back to. To reline everything up. Because if he is the cornerstone. And you are building a building. And you get over here.
And suddenly things don't line up anymore. You trace your way back to the cornerstone. Because that is where everything is lined up with. And then you reset it based off of the cornerstone. So for a Christian.
Where do you run? Where do you run when life gets tough? What do you turn to. When everything seems like it is falling apart? Is it Jesus? Is it something else?
That is one of the ways to think about Jesus as the cornerstone. When everything goes poorly. Do you just try to control the situation? No matter how that works. Do you just try to regain your sense of. I am okay.
I have my hands on the wheel. We are alright. If I can just kind of manipulate. Maybe I have to lie a little bit. Maybe I will have to do some things. I am not really comfortable with.
But I got to regain a sense of control. You just. When there is conflict. When there is difficulty. You just go power. You go flash bang grenade.
Is that you? You throw plates at your house? This is a safe place. You can raise your hand. I am just kidding. It is a safe place.
But don't raise your hand. Talk about it with your group. If you are a plate thrower. But what do you do? What do you lean into? Some of you when life gets tough.
It is just going to be Netflix. Netflix and Cheetos. Napping. Like that is your go to. I am going to watch Daredevil. And drink a half a bottle of Z-Qual.
And hope everything is good in the morning. What do you run back to? Because if Jesus is the cornerstone. He is where we turn back. He is where we run. To reset our life.
The other way that you can think about Jesus as a cornerstone. Is how do you move forward? So if he is the cornerstone. You build off of him. How do you move forward? So for Christians we would say.
Okay Jesus is king. He is God. He is everything. We know that he is revealed to us through his word. So I am going to study scripture.
And I am going to begin to see what my values. My priorities ought to be. How I ought to view the world. How I ought to understand purpose. Then I am going to think about what kind of major I should have.
Then I am going to think about what kind of Job I should get. Then I am going to think about what marriage ought to look like. Then I am going to think about how I ought to raise children. And when things get out of whack. I am just going to work back through the process. Back to Jesus.
Back to how things are set up. That is what it means for Christians who believe in Jesus as a cornerstone. Is that we set our lives off of him. And here is what is beautiful about that. Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. It will not go badly for us.
In the long run. Peter is not going to say it will not go badly for us in the short run. He is actually going to talk a lot about how we will suffer. And things will go badly for us here. But that ultimately.
We won't be put to shame. That Jesus stepped in to save us. To rescue us. To make us his. That he died on our behalf. And that if we trust him.
He is the cornerstone. He is the foundation. And it will work out. That we will be rescued. That things will be okay. Okay.
But then he says this. So the honor is for you who believe. But for those who do not believe. So mostly on Sundays. We are talking to church family. We are talking to Christians.
Because the Bible mostly talks to Christians. And we believe that we all grow. As we study the gospel. As we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is. And what he has done. So we don't as a church family do a whole lot of.
Come be a Christian. Here is what it looks like to be a Christian. Because honestly they are very similar. It is always the gospel that moves us forward. So if you are not a Christian.
You need to hear the gospel. And if you are a Christian. You need to hear the gospel. But as Peter is walking through this. He splits it up. And very clearly says.
This is for those who believe. This is for those who don't believe. So for those who do not believe. The stone that the builders rejected. Has become the cornerstone. So builders being humans.
Didn't like Jesus. Didn't want him to be the cornerstone. Didn't want everything to be built off of him. Didn't think that was a good idea. And so they rejected him. And then God.
Because he is God. And can do what he wants. Made him the cornerstone. And said he sits in history as the cornerstone. That all of life is built off of. It says this.
So he is the cornerstone. And a stone of stumbling. And a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word. As they were destined to do. Jesus is offensive.
We've said this before. Most of our culture. Maybe some of you in here today. You know two things about Jesus. That he was the nicest person ever. That if you met Jesus.
He would hug you. Y'all would laugh together. He was just wonderful. And you know that he was brutally murdered. By people who hate him. And those aren't super coherent thought processes.
Because it's not like. You know that lady lives down the street. She's a grandmother to like 12 kids. She's got a lot of enemies. People hate her. And I think it's because.
She gave him oatmeal raisin cookies. And they thought they were chocolate chip. Good enough reason to kill anybody. No. Those aren't really coherent. There's not a.
There's not a. Super nice. And. People hate you. Want to murder you. They don't really go together.
There weren't people just walking around. Being like. I am so ticked off at Mother Teresa right now. Don't even get me started. Hugging orphans. It's going down.
Oh my goodness. Like it doesn't happen. Jesus was offensive. And he is offensive. To all cultures. In all times.
In all places. Always. There will always be. In any culture. Acceptance of some things. That the Bible says.
Acceptance of some things. That Jesus is about. And rejection. And offense at others. And I'll give you an example. In our culture.
In the U.S. of A. If we talk about. God is loving. Amen. God's gracious. He forgives you.
Hallelujah. He died for you. Yeah he did. That sounds good. He's humble. Yes.
He forgives. Everything. Yes. And he's a judge. That sits over top of sin. That sits over top of all history.
And you are declared guilty. Because you fall short. Whoa. And he sends people to hell. Hmm. I don't like that.
That doesn't sound super good to me. But if you move that. If you move this personal God. Who's gracious and loving and forgiving. And Judges sin. And has wrath for sinners.
And sends people to hell. To the Middle East. They have the opposite problem. God's a judge. Yeah he is. God is wrathful.
Yes he is. God destroys people. Yes. God will crush his enemies. Yes. God will send people to hell.
Yes. God is gracious. Loving. Humble. Personal. And he came and died for you.
No. That's nonsense. That's incoherent. Why would he forgive. Those who don't deserve it. Why would he love.
And redeem those who haven't earned it. This is ridiculous. And he's not personal. And he's not loving like that. And he wouldn't die like that. And it's ridiculous for you to think.
That the great creator of the earth. Would humble himself to the point of death. It's nonsense. See that's offensive. In the Middle East. At all points.
Jesus is going to offend your culture. In some ways. And so today. We're going to take. Just a second. To look at three ways.
That I think he is specifically offensive. To us as Americans. Three ways that Jesus is offensive. Now he's offensive in these ways. To other cultures as well. But we're Americans.
All but one of us. That I'm aware of. And. We're going to look at. Ways that he is offensive. Specifically to us.
In our western culture. Jesus is offensive. Because he claims supremacy. Jesus says that he is the king. Of everything. You see some of us are going to believe this.
And some of us are going to not believe it. And stumble. Some of us are going to believe. And build our lives off of it. And some of us are going to not believe. And stumble over it.
Be offended by it. That's how it works. And Jesus proclaims that he is supreme. That all other gods. All other philosophies. All other thought processes.
Bow before him. And that ultimately. His enemies will be his footstool. You walk into a king's chamber. And there is a former king. Bent over.
On all fours. And the king props his feet. On his back. The king with his feet. On his back. Is the one in charge.
That's how it works. And Jesus eventually. Will have his enemies. Be his footstool. He is supreme. And our culture likes to say.
No, no, no. All views of God are equal. We're all like blind men. Trying to describe an elephant. Y'all heard this before? Religion is like a bunch of blind men.
Trying to describe an elephant. So one guy is holding the trunk. And he says. An elephant is like a snake. And one guy is pushing on the side of the elephant. And he says.
An elephant is like a great big wall. And one guy is holding the elephant's tail. And he says. An elephant is furry and small. Like a mouse. And he doesn't smell so good.
But the truth is. When we say stuff like that. What we have assumed. Whoever argues this. Is true about religion. What they have assumed is.
The only way you can tell that story. Is if you are not blind. And you can see the elephant. And so their complaint. That they're levying against religion. Is that it claims to see spiritual reality.
And the way that they do that. Is by claiming to see spiritual reality. See we don't like the idea. That somebody has. A hold on truth. That is real.
And that is supreme. And Jesus steps into our culture. And says. I don't care. I am the king of everything. I rule and I reign.
Over everything. And all knees will bow to me. And all tongues will proclaim. That I am king. And that is how it is going to work. And that ultimately.
I will return. And everything will submit. To my authority. Fully and forever. And our culture doesn't like that. And we will either.
Believe it. And build our lives off of that truth. Or we will not believe it. Be offended by it. And stumble over it. Jesus is offensive to our culture.
Specifically. And that he Judges sin. So our culture will get on board. With the statement. That we are all human. And we all make mistakes.
But then we start getting into this. But. There is no real objective. Right and wrong. Like you have got to choose for yourself. You have got to figure out for you.
What is right and wrong. You have got to look. And decide for you. What is right and wrong. And that different. Who is to say.
What is right and wrong. But even in that. We would. All of us in this room. If you have genuinely sat. And answered the question.
Do I believe. That there are things. That are actually. That people are doing. In this world. That they should actually stop.
Regardless of whether or not. They think it is right or wrong. That there are things going on. Currently in this world. That people should stop. Or be stopped.
Whether they think it is right or wrong. That Boko Haram should be stopped. That the Nigerian girls. Should be returned. That ISIS should be stopped. That child soldiers.
Should be like. There are certain things. That we will look. And say sex slavery. And trafficking. Should be stopped.
And we will look. And say I don't care. If they think it is okay. I don't care. Like. So we admit.
That there is an objective reality. And here is what Jesus does. He steps in and says. That the objective reality. Belongs to him. That the objective ruling.
Belongs to him. And that he Judges us. Based off of it. And that all of us. Fall short. That Gandhi.
And Mother Teresa. Fall short. And will be judged. And will be held accountable. For their failings. Will be held accountable.
For. All the bad things. That they did. All the times they lied. Stole. Cheated.
Whether they were. Mostly good in life. They will be held accountable. For where they fell short. All the good things. That they did not do.
That they should have done. And all of the times. That they did good things. With messed up motives. All the times. That we were generous.
Just because we wanted people. To think we were generous. All the times. That we were. Really gracious. To somebody.
Because we really just wanted them. To like us. Had nothing to do with generosity. Had nothing to do with graciousness. Had nothing to do with kindness. It was just about us.
And that ultimately. Jesus sits as judge. Over all of that. There's a video now. Out by Stephen Fry. Who's a British actor.
And he was asked. I think. Some along the lines of. What would he do. If he met God. God.
And he goes into a three to five minute. Tirade. Probably the best way to describe it. And in that. He sits in judgment over God. And says.
I would. I would take him to task over. This. And this. And this. And this.
And if he is real. I have no desire to believe in him. Because of. The things I see in the world. That I dislike. And our culture.
Does that quite often. We say. Well if there is a God. Then this is messed up. And if Jesus is a God. Then he shouldn't do this.
And this isn't okay. And what we have done. Is elevated ourself. To the judgment seat. And we've. Lowered God.
And we've lowered Jesus below us. And we get to pass judgment on him. And so people will say stuff like. Who does Jesus think he is to judge me. Who are you to judge him. Honestly.
Any person in this room. If we were going to choose. Who got to be judged. Just based off of name recognition alone. I think Jesus wins. Time magazine.
Man of the millennium. If we got to pick judge. Probably not you. I mean sure. You're super smart. You did eighth grade twice.
And you don't really know how to do your family budget. And you should be judge and king over the world. But. But Jesus. Shouldn't. And our culture doesn't like.
That he's going to roll up one day. And everything's going to be based off of what he says is right. And what he says is true. And what he says is good. And honestly. We are either going to believe.
And build our life off of him. Or we're going to not believe. Stumble. And be offended. Another way that Jesus is. Specifically offensive to our culture.
Is the exclusivity of the cross. So we hear quite often. That. Always lead to God. That everything you believe is just as valid as someone else's belief. And that all gods are basically equal.
That all God. All belief in God. All gods are the same. Which honestly. If we brought an imam up here. A rabbi up here.
And a Buddhist monk up here. We would all heartily disagree. That all gods are equal and the same. Buddhists don't believe in a personal God. An imam wouldn't believe that God would die. A rabbi is not going to believe that God is Jesus.
Or that Jesus is God. We're not going to agree. That all gods are basically the same. And here's what's really funny about that statement as well. What you are saying is. Your view of spiritual reality.
To say that there is one spiritual reality. And to push that onto other people. Isn't true. Isn't okay. And the way I know that. Is by saying that my view of spiritual reality.
Is true and okay. Your definitive view of spiritual reality. That you push onto other people. Isn't okay. But my definitive view of spiritual reality is.
Does that make sense? That you're making a definitive statement about spiritual reality. When you say that all gods are the same. The same way that Jesus makes a definitive statement about spiritual reality. When he says he is the only God and king forever. And so as long as we'll agree that we're all on the same page.
That we have an exclusive belief on the spiritual reality. And I think we're okay. And here's what Jesus is going to do. Here's what he says. Here's what the Bible definitively declares. Only Jesus can rescue you.
Only Jesus can redeem you. Only Jesus can make you okay. Only Jesus can sacrifice for you. Only Jesus can pay for your sin. Not your morals. Not your goodness.
Not your philosophy. Not your niceness. Not your ability to be intelligent. Jesus. Through the cross. And only through the cross.
Jesus can rescue and redeem you. Jesus and only Jesus is the cornerstone of all of history in the world. And we're either going to believe that and build our lives off of him. Or we're going to stumble and be offended by him. The band's going to come back up. And we're going to sing and make much of Jesus who is.
Our cornerstone. And for Christians in this room. Realize that Jesus is building you into his active work on earth. That you have a purpose. That you have a purpose. Because he's making us into his active presence and work on earth for the good of those around us.
That we get to be a new priest. Who get to serve not on our behalf but on the behalf of others. And that we get to pour our lives out in sacrifices. For the good of those around us. That you're in your job. In your neighborhood.
In this city. In your community group. For the good of those around you. And for every person. In this room. Who does not believe.
I'd like to ask you to believe. Not know. Not have all the answers. Not see everything. But believe.
Place your hope in Jesus. Jesus. And here's why. He is supreme. He is the ruling. Reigning.
King of the universe. Creator of all things. That all things bow to him. That all things belong to him. That he is supreme. Above all thought processes.
All philosophies. And all gods. That is true. You are broken. You do fall short. You have not lived up.
To the objective standards. Of the ruling. Reigning king of the universe. And you will be judged. And found guilty. You don't even live up.
To your own. Really small standards. That you set for yourself. And the ruling. Reigning king of the universe. Has higher ones.
And you have lived your life. In rebellion. In defiance. In pride. And selfishness. Elevating yourself above him.
It is true. He is the definitive. Cornerstone. Of the universe. And. The ruling.
Reigning. Supreme king. Of all things. Humbled himself. And became a human. Lived.
And. The way you never could have lived. Not in defiance. Not in pride. Not in rebellion. In kindness.
And grace. And love. And acceptance. And then he took. All of your pride. All of your rebellion.
All of your defiance. All of your lust. All of your greed. All of your selfishness. All of your shame. All of your guilt.
All of your guilt. Onto himself. And he died for it. and through that sacrifice we can be made right before God through that sacrifice we can stand before the ruling reigning king of the universe and be made okay and be declared innocent and holy and blameless we can have our account swapped with Jesus's and every person in this room will believe and not be put to shame or will stumble in disobedience and be destroyed this passage doesn't talk about it but I think it's helpful for us to know this every single one of us when God designed the world we're designed to exist for eternity and through our rebellion we brought death into the world but ultimately our souls will live on and on and on and on and on forever and those who place their trust and their hope in Jesus not their intelligence not their morality not their goodness not their philosophy not their ability not themselves but in Jesus will be welcomed because he's paid for our debt and we'll spend eternity living on and on and on in his family in his kingdom in his grace and his love and his forgiveness will swallow us in joy and hope forever because of the cross because of the death and because of the resurrection that forever sealed this for us through Jesus and those of us who are offended by Jesus and stumble over him will pay the due penalty of our rebellion of our pride of our selfishness of our self-sufficiency in eternity in hell eternity in a what the bible describes as a lake of fire where the fire is not quenched and the internal torment never stops and we will live there on and on and on and on and on and on Jesus is the cornerstone of history and for christians we want everyone to know that and everyone to spend eternity with him if you are a christian in the room you have been built into a new temple a new active presence of God on earth where you are a priest who no longer has an inheritance here but God is your inheritance and you exist for the good of those around you to sacrifice for their good because every single one of your neighbors every single one of your co-workers every single person in our city will either believe in him and not be put to shame or will stumble and fall over him and be offended by him and when the bible talks about cornerstone in other places it says it will be crushed by him that his enemies will be his footstool that all of us will be judged by the supreme king of the universe who has done enough to rescue us who has absolutely redeemed and saved us and that is the point of history is to worship and follow God for his glory and for the good of those around us as christians that we might believe in him and see everyone else around us believe it matters it's real he is supreme he is the judge and he did save us if we believe and if you're in this room you can be saved not by your morality not by your goodness but you can be saved from your sin and from the ruling reigning king of the universe who will have wrath on those in rebellion if you believe if you trust in what Jesus has already done for you on the cross and that is true for every person in this room and every person you will ever see every person you will ever work with every person you will ever live near that is true and ultimately our days are fleeting it will be over we will face the cornerstone and the king of the universe and either be saved by his absolute grace and sacrifice on our behalf or stumble over him in our offense at him where we have been sat in judgment over him in our pride and self-sufficiency and be crushed and I'd like to ask you if you're in this room believe trust Jesus no other God no other thing in this world that you can chase after forgives you loves you and died for you as Jesus has and if you're in this room and you're a christian realize that you're being built up to be God's active presence on earth for the good of those around you to sacrifice your life for his glory for their good because it's all at the end of the day God we pray that you'd help us believe that you through your holy spirit would give us faith and Lord that because this church exists because our community groups exist that less people in our city will be offended less people in our neighborhoods less friends that we know and love and less family members will stumble and be offended will stumble and be crushed and that Lord more and more and more people will believe in the sacrifice and the atonement that's already been given freely for them and we praise you that you did die on a cross instead of crushing us that you Jesus was crushed for us that you've given us a way of hope and that he rose from the grave forever sealing that hope for us that it is sure and secure as sure and secure as he lives now before you interceding on our behalf and so God we pray that you'd help us believe and set our lives around you in Jesus name amen