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Gospel Proclaiming Life

1 Peter 2:11-12

Transcript

My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here, and it's good to see everybody this morning. We're walking verse by verse through the book of 1 Peter right now. As we just kind of go through the summer, we're just studying this book, studying this letter that was written to a group of churches. One of the things about our culture that's a bit weird is we think that knowing something a lot of times is the same as believing it. So if you have information, if you know something, then you believe it.

But the reality is that if we know something, it doesn't always translate into believing it. If we believe something, we'll actually act on it. We'll actually do. Belief shows up in action. So I was eating sushi.

I like sushi. I don't like a lot of sushi. I like rice and avocado and a little piece of crab is kind of what I like when I say I like sushi. And it's good. And some cream cheese. That's what I like.

So I just described a California roll. That's what I like. But my brother had never, my younger brother Vince had never eaten sushi. And so we were eating. I told him it was good and he should try it. And so we were eating sushi.

And whenever they bring sushi, if you've ever eaten sushi, they bring the sushi out and it's cut up into little chunks. And then on your plate, there's usually some pink stuff that looks kind of like maybe some form of fish or like brain cells or something. And that's called ginger and that stuff is amazing. And then there's green stuff, which is terrible. That's called wasabi. It's made out of the same stuff they make cats out of, which is pure evil.

And I think in Japan, it's known as dragon snot because it's really, really spicy and fiery and terrible. And so we were eating sushi. And about midway through, I had an idea, which was I'm going to see if I can get my younger brother to eat as much of that green stuff as possible. It seemed like a great idea. So I told him, I was like, hey, man, I know you're eating that you like.

It's pretty good. You've got to try the green stuff. It is the best part about sushi. He was like, really? I was like, dude, yes, really. Would I ever lie to you?

I didn't put it on that heavy because he knows that I would. So I was just like, yeah, it's good. And I was being, you know, nonchalant. But I was like, yeah, it's good. And you should put it on there. And so he's like, OK.

You know, he's like, what is it? I was like, Play-Doh, because that's what it looks like. But he kind of, you know, he's holding his little thing. He pokes it in there and just kind of gets a little bit on there. And I was like, no, dude, you've got to. It's like gravy.

You've got to get in there. You've got to, it needs to be covered in it. And he's like, really? I was like, yes. Now, if he was observant, he would have noticed that I was halfway through my plate and had not touched that stuff. And I'm telling him it's like gravy and he should put it on everything.

And so he, I mean, he just smooshes it all down in there. It's covered. And I'm like, roll it around. Yeah, there you go. And so he sticks the sushi in his mouth. And for half a second, it was like, like he was thoughtful.

And then he went, and just, I mean, just all over his plate. It was really gross and hilarious. And then immediately, because I'm his older brother and I both want to trick him and train him. I was like, dude, look at my plate. I never touched it. It's a life lesson for you.

I care about you. I want you to learn. But the truth is, I didn't believe that wasabi is good. I still don't. And if I had, I would have done something. I would have eaten it.

I would have partaken in the goodness that is wasabi. And so when I'm explaining to him, you should like this. You should do this. He could have looked quickly at my plate and known, nah, you don't believe that. That isn't true. My wife knows this because every once in a while I'll be like, this is really good.

And she'll go, you eat it. And so every once in a while, if it's worth it, you just have to eat something really gross and act like you like it just to see their face later. Most of the time it's not worth it. And you're just like, nah, never mind. But it's not that good.

I lied to you. But that's what Peter, Peter's letter is kind of taking a turn. And here's what he's saying. He's been spending the first part, the first chapter that we kind of read through. He's been spending saying, this is who Jesus is. This is what he's accomplished.

This is who you are because of that. And then the rest of the letter and these few verses we've looked at last week and this week, he's turning and saying, okay, now in a very specific way, if you believe this, not just know it, but actually believe it. If it's really true for you, here's what life looks like. And he goes to some really specific situations. So he goes into work, to what it looks like just your day to day.

He goes marriage. He goes suffering, which is a universal thing for everybody. He goes, this is what life looks like in these very specific situations because this is true and because you believe it. And so that's the turn he's making. So what he's saying is, if you really believe that Jesus is the king of everything, that you were utterly sinful and in need of him and he died for you and that the only way you're okay is by faith in him.

And that since that, since he died and rose again, that you are secure forever because of the resurrection, that your hope is certain forever because of what he's already done and that you have a new identity. Then this is what it will look like. So it is not do these things and you'll get to be this. It is because this is true, because you actually believe this, because it's heart level foundational for you, life looks different. And so that's what we're looking at today. And specifically, he's going to talk about saying no to our passions, to our desires and saying yes to God's glory and the good of others through effort, through work, through deeds.

And so we're going to hop in 1 Peter chapter 2, page 657. If your Bible looks like this, it's very close to the back. It'll be close to the back in most Bibles, but really close to the back in this one. Okay. So 1 Peter 2 verses 11 and 12 is all we're looking at today.

And this is where he's really kind of making this turn. And then we'll see through the rest of the book, he gets way more practical because he's already said all the really big, beautiful, weighty stuff. And he's going to turn it into, okay, now if that's true, it's what life looks like. So I'm going to pray and then we'll read this together. God, we just thank you that we get to gather and study your word. We praise you that you are using this letter that was written so long ago that it wasn't just written to them, but it was also written for our benefit and for our good, for your whole church through history to study, to learn from, to grow and to know things about you and to know things about life and universal things like suffering that we need to grow in and be equipped for.

And so God, we just praise you and we pray that your Holy Spirit would work, that you would teach us, that we would grow as we study your word this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. 11 and 12, beloved. So again, he's talking identity. I urge you as sojourners and exiles, again, identity, it's who you are as these people. And we'll talk more about what he means by that in a minute.

To abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles. And really what he means there is the people who don't know Jesus, honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Let's read that one more time. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Okay, so in our culture, we have a kind of a big narrative, which is that you are the sum of your desires. You are the most fulfilled version of you is the version of you that gets to do what you're passionate about. That gets to be who you were made to be. That you get to look inside of you and find whatever you like, whatever you love, whatever you desire. And if you get that, then that's where life and freedom are found. That's where joy is found in getting to pursue your passions and getting to chase after whatever it is that you feel inclined to go after.

That's freedom. That one of the biggest sins in our culture is to mute somebody, is to make it to where someone can't chase after their dreams. Can't pursue what they desire. So in every movie where there's like a love interest and there's like a super unhealthy relationship or this person cares about this person, the bad guy is the one that stands in the middle because he's limiting the freedom and the ability to choose and to chase after what would ultimately bring joy and freedom and fulfillment, this filling up of our passions and our desires. So we're told constantly that you just need to find out who you are and then fulfill that.

And that's where you'll find rest and peace and joy and life and freedom. That's where heaven is. Peace, really, is for you to figure out what it is you really care about, what it is you really want to be, who it is you, and then go do that, go accomplish that, go become that. And that's where you'll be free. That's where you'll have life. That's where joy will be found.

And we hear it all the time. Don't let them in. Don't let them see. Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal. Don't feel.

Don't let them know. Well, now they know. It's time to see what I can do to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free. Let it go.

We're told this over and over again. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free. That I've looked inside of me. This is who I really am. And as long as I get to express that, as long as I get to chase after what I'm really passionate about, that's where freedom is found.

That's where joy is found. That's where life is found. That's what crickets sing to our children. That's what crazy ice witches sing to our children. She loses her mind when she gets up on top of that mountain. I'm sorry.

That song is scary when you watch her do it. But that's what, no right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free. I've broken through. I get to test the limits and see what I can do. I get to be all the me I can be.

And that's where freedom is found. And that's where life is found. And that's where fulfillment is found. And we're told that over and over again. And Peter in this section is directly addressing that and just putting the brakes on it and really saying, no, you misunderstand. That's not actually how your passions work.

That's not actually how your desires work. That's not actually where freedom and joy and life are found. So let's look at 11 again. Beloved. Which just is a fancy word for saying those who are loved or those that I love. I urge you.

I urge you. I plead with you. As sojourners and exiles. So, okay. I plead with you out of your identity. I plead with you as the people that you are.

And the people that you are as Christians, he's talking to Christians, he's talking to the church, are people who have trusted Jesus and said, because Jesus rescued me, my hope, my life, my freedom are found in him, not here. And I have an eternity of hope and life and freedom with him. And so all of those things aren't found here for me. Because of the resurrection, it's made certain and secure. And that's who I am. And so that's what he says.

Sojourners, exiles, what he means is your home isn't here. You're traveling through. So as those people rescued by Jesus with a different home, with a new king, with a new kingdom, a new nationality, a new nation. This is what it looks like. This out of your identity, out of what Jesus has already done. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain.

Which means don't partake in. Don't give in to. Abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Your passions, your desires, some of them are for good things. But they're all, they all get off and they all get twisted and they wage war against your soul.

Now when we wage war, there's really two goals. There's power. There's this aim to have control over a territory, a people. So there's ultimately like enslavement. And there's death. That's kind of the goal of war.

Now sometimes you're protecting. You say, well what about wars when you're defending yourself? Right, okay, but who started it? Okay, now we're Americans, so every once in a while we'll start a war in the name of defense. I know we do this. He was looking at us.

Had to take him down. But for the most part, throughout history, war is not a, it's not a defense thing. It is a enslavement, captivity, control, power, and death. That's what war brings. So your desires, isn't that scary?

Your desires are working to enslave you and kill you. You're the scariest thing in your house, so you need to lock your doors from you at night. Like you are dangerous to yourself. Your passions are at war in you. Jeremiah 17, 9, it's a prophet in the Old Testament. He says, The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately sick.

Who can understand it? Your heart, your desires, your passions have lied to you, led you astray, harmed you more than anything else has. Your passions, your desires seek to enslave you and wage war against you. And he says, fight it. Abstain from it. Don't partake in just chasing after your passions, chasing after your desires.

Now, okay, we see this clearly in things like drug addiction. It's a deep passion. It's a deep desire. It promises freedom. It promises joy. And what does it do?

It destroys. It robs you of life. It enslaves you. We see it clearly in things like that. We don't see it so clearly in pursuing success or financial comfort. But it does the exact same thing.

So if your overall goal is just to achieve, just to accept, to succeed, just to reach a certain status, and you think that if I get that, I'll be free. If I can just be free to pursue it, and if I receive it, if I actually achieve it, then I'll have life, then I'll have comfort, then I'll have peace, then I'll have freedom. Okay. So you do what? You spend your life. You spend your energy and your time, your livelihood, your effort, your life slaving away for it, working for it.

And here are your options. You fail. You aren't successful. You don't get the house you want, the promotion you want, the recognition you want. Does it forgive you? No, it crushes you.

You're not who you thought you would be. You're not who you dreamed you would be in high school. You're not, you never became more wealthy than your parents. You never achieved the recognition you thought you would get. And it crushes you. Or you stay really close to it your whole life.

And you spend your entire life slaving away for it. And it enslaves you. Or worse, you get it. And you realize that all the promises of life, all the promises of joy, of freedom, of success, of happiness, of rest, were lies. Because if the truth was that success and happiness and recognition and fame would fill us up, would make us complete, then Hollywood would be the happiest place in the world. Rock stars would be the happiest, most at peace, most at rest people that exist.

But we can just look and see that that's not true. See, our hearts are sick and twisted and bent. There's something deep-seated wrong with us. And we can't just trust our passions. Because humans are messed up. We know this, right?

There's a deep thinker of the 1900s and he says this. His name is Jack Handy. He says, I can picture in my mind a world without war. A world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it. He used to write deep thoughts for SNL.

But the truth is, we believe that there's something just off in humans. There's something just wrong with us. And that makes sense. Like I've been reading a book called Perilandra and this guy goes to another planet and he has to try to explain humans to a group of, to a civilization that doesn't understand sinfulness and greed and brokenness. And none of the conversations make sense and they keep asking him questions like, why would someone do that? Why would someone do that?

And he has to keep saying things. She's like, ah, because people only care about themselves. You know, because we're all messed up. And like we understand these things and we completely understand that if there was a world without war and without hate, we absolutely could attack it and take it over because they wouldn't expect it. That's brilliant. It's genius.

We could just have a new world. There's something off in us, twisted in us as all of a human race. And to sit and say, well, I trust myself and my passions won't lead me astray doesn't make any sense. And so what Peter says is your passions are actually at war against you to enslave you and destroy you. Now, some of us are caught up in sin, addicted to pornography. We get ourselves into unhealthy relationship after unhealthy relationship after unhealthy relationship.

We are constantly putting others down to make ourselves feel better, to make ourselves look better. We're constantly lying and posturing ourselves around to try to look better. And we're consistently just being defeated by sin. You're in a war. Your passions are at war with you. My dad would teach us as when we were growing up how to fight.

And one of the, he taught us a bunch of rules and he taught us equalizers. So I'll explain equalizers to you. Equalizers are things that you use to make a fight more equal. And more equal you mean in your advantage. So he would teach you things like, all right, if you're about to get in a fight and the guy's really big and he's going to beat the fool out of you.

So let's say a really big guy comes to you. You're in middle school. You know how middle school is where like some people hit puberty when they're 12 and grow a beard. And some people hit puberty when they're 14. And from 12 to 13, it's just terrible for them. And so just, you know, guys are, some are getting really big, really strong.

Some, you know, like especially with like guys that stay back a couple of grades and they like drive themselves to middle school. And so what he was saying was, one of those guys like pushes you and says, meet me in the bathroom. We're going to fight. He's like, don't fight him in the bathroom. He will beat the fool out of you and no one will stop it. Fight him in the middle of the cafeteria.

Just jump on him and start punching him and hope that teachers break it up really quickly. He said, now, if you're going to win the fight, sure, go fight in the bathroom. Fight out behind the gym. Fight somewhere where you can just beat someone up for a long time. But if you're going to lose, I think he would teach us things like a lunch tray is an equalizer.

People sitting down is an equalizer. People not looking at you is an equalizer. But one of the other things he taught us was that in a fight, the first punch is very important. And that if you can hit someone while, if you can be fighting while they're still talking, your chances of winning have increased exponentially. Now, I realize for all the teenage guys in this room, I've given you a bunch of unhelpful information that your parents will not have to try to undo. But the point is this.

Some of us are being destroyed by sin because we're still talking while it's fighting. Some of us are being owned by our passions and our flesh because we don't know we're in a war. Because you don't realize that your heart wants to enslave you and destroy you. And you're still talking and the war has already begun. The war for your soul has already begun. He's talking to Christians and he says, abstain from the passions of your flesh which wage war against your soul.

Think about it like war. Realize you're in a fight and you begin to be able to think about it more correctly when it comes to how you address sin in your life. You're not as comfortable with it. If a murderer is in your home, you don't think, well, he seems nice. Like if someone breaks in my house at night, I open a drawer and I get a 45, I don't poke my head out the door and go, hey man, what you up to? You broke the window.

Seems fishy. We cool? Anna, he says we cool. He's just going to hang out a little while. Can you stay down there? Can we just quarantine?

Let's make a deal. We'll stay here. You just hang out on that side of the house. But we do that with sin. Hey, can you just be a little controllable? Can you just be in this zone?

No creeping over, no taking over. Just a little bit, just an acceptable amount of slavery. Just an acceptable amount of death. Realize we're in a war. Your passions are out to enslave you and destroy you and own you and claim you and steal your soul and you'll be able to respond to it a little bit better. You begin to think about not making the same mistakes twice.

So what's what Peter says? He says, first thing, as those who have been changed by Jesus, don't just trust your heart. You know that Jesus had to die to change your heart, to rescue you, to redeem you. Don't just believe that the ideas you come up with are all good, are all valid. Take them to scripture. See if the God of the universe who is good and who loves you so much that he died for you tells you it's a good idea.

Begin to learn from him to see whether or not check your passions against scripture. Does this line up with you? I have a new heart because of Jesus. Does this line up? Is this something you're working in me or is it just me chasing after the same old stuff? Is this just passions of my flesh?

That's what it means by flesh is that it comes from you, not from the spirit, not from God working in you. So we begin to question our motives. We begin to question our hearts. And we abstain from all the stuff that's just our flesh trying to chase after something it wants. And we begin to line it up with scripture to see what it says. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles. Okay, Gentiles means all people who aren't Jewish. But when he's writing to the church, he means all people who aren't Christians, all people who don't believe what you believe. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Okay, now that seems weird. A couple of things.

One, there's a few things we just have to break down in that sentence before we can even really talk about it. One is, if you're doing good deeds, why are they saying mean things about you? Like that's just immediately, it's like, okay, what, if I'm being nice, they speak against me as an evildoer, but I'm doing good deeds. Why would they do that? Like, why would they mock me for doing good deeds? Really, being a Christian means you believe things that the culture doesn't believe.

And so people will say stuff like, well, religion's why we have so much war and so much pain and so much harm. Or if there weren't religions, then we would be okay. And when you're reacting to something in a situation, they'll act like you're dumb, you're simple, you're weak because of how you respond to things because of what you believe. And so what he's saying is be around long enough. Be in relationships with people long enough so that they actually move beyond their preconceptions and actually get to see how you live. How life affects you when things are good and when things are bad.

Be around people who don't know Jesus long enough so that they can begin to see what it looks like to know Jesus. So that eventually they'll glorify God, which means give him glory, honor him. The word glory in Hebrew actually just means weight so that God will have weightiness in their life. So if I showed up here today and one of you told me that my shirt was ugly, that would hurt me, hurt my heart. But if my wife had told me earlier that she liked it, she has more weight.

I don't really care what you think about my shirt. And you should check your face. But my wife has more weight. She has more sway in my life. And so what it means when it says to give God glory, it means that he has the most weight, the most sway, the most say over how our life works. And so he says that live a life around people who don't know Jesus so that at some point they'll know Jesus.

They'll become Christians. They'll place their faith in him. God will get glory and weight and sway in their life because they'll have seen how you lived. They'll have seen that you just didn't know stuff but you actually believed it because you did stuff because of how it showed up in your life. Now, immediately we think, okay, so what he means like be nice, be a kind person, be generous. And he does.

But I don't think many people look at you and go, you know what? You're so kind. I bet you really believe something deep down that I don't believe. I don't think that really happens that much. Because there are kind and friendly people who don't believe what we believe. There are generous people who don't believe what we believe.

He's going to actually, as he begins, because he's making the turn in this letter, he's going to say, no, no, no, here are deep things. Heart level things. Weighty things like how you deal with suffering. How you handle a job where you get no credit. You actually get blamed for things you didn't do. So let me ask you a question.

If you're in a job, how could you be in a job where you get no credit? Where you get blamed for things you didn't do. Where nobody appreciates you. Nobody appreciates your work. There seems like there's no room for advancement. How can you stay in that job and still have a good attitude?

How can you be willing to stay in the job in the first place? Immediately our cultural answers are like, I don't know, you're a moron. Seems like a good guess. You have low self-esteem so that you believe you deserve this. You just don't understand that there's room for advancement in other places. You've just become complacent.

How can, he's going to talk about marriage and he's going to talk about specifically wives with bad husbands. How can a wife stay in a relationship with a husband who's terrible? Maybe not physically abusive, but abusive. How can she stay in a relationship where he doesn't respect her or honor her or love her and still have hope and joy? She's scared. She somehow has a psychological thing going on that she believes she deserves it?

She's an idiot? And so Peter's going to go through this and what he's going to say is that no, it's actually a level deeper. It's beyond those surface level answers we give. I'm really competitive. I keep it in check because I don't want to be a jerk, but I'm very competitive. And so like when my wife and I got married, her mom gave us a Wii.

And so we'll play little like simple Wii games and I'll get way too into them. And my wife isn't very good at video games, so I will destroy her. And we'll be playing simple games and I'm like, oh yeah, son, because it's a Wii. So you got to like move your arms and stuff. And it's a little more dramatic than being like, oh yeah, son. So anyway, I'll be just beating her in like Wii tennis and just getting way too carried away in it.

Every once in a while, like because I'm gracious, I'll let her win. The worst thing though is when she is beating me and I am trying and she looks at me and says, you letting me win? And I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Sure am really nice right now, feeling generous. And I just want to beat her so much more in the game.

But like I take it too seriously. And she can lose at stuff and she doesn't care. She can lose a game and it doesn't bother her. It doesn't steal anything from her soul. Is that because she's simple minded? Weak spirited?

Is it because she's a fool? Is it because she's ignorant to how great winning is? No. It's because her heart and her soul and her worth are somewhere else. You wouldn't look at her and say, if she doesn't understand how great it is to dominate someone in a competitive child's game, she's weak minded and feeble. No, you'd say she just doesn't care.

Because she doesn't care. Her worth and value don't come from this. Like mine do. Apparently. I may need to think about that and repent some. And so actually what Peter is going to say, what he says as we read the rest of this, is that you can stay in a job, not get recognition.

You can live a life that the world would not look at you and say, look at how successful they are. And you can have people around you mocking you. You can spend a life not chasing after your passions. Not doing what everyone else around you is doing. You can actually spend a life where you do good things and say no to some of the stuff you desire because. You can suffer with joy and hope because.

You can be a wife in a bad marriage that is not good and you do not leave it because. Not because you're weak. Not because you're simple minded. Not because you're feeble. But because your hope and your anchor is somewhere so much deeper.

So much real. So far beyond this horizon that circumstances can't touch it. And let me tell you something. That's freedom. All the other things we chase after. We have to work.

We have to slave for. And it's all based off of circumstances. As to whether or not we have joy. As to whether or not we have life. As to whether or not we have freedom. And what Peter says is that because of what Jesus has done.

We can actually have our anchor sunk so deep. Our goal and our hope so far beyond the horizon. That circumstances can't touch it. And that's life. And that's freedom. Jimmy Fallon recently was at his house and fell.

And his ring got caught on the table and almost ripped his finger off. And he had to go to the hospital for a couple of days. And he read a book by Viktor Frankl called Man's Search for Meaning. And in that Viktor Frankl was a survivor of the Holocaust. And was in a concentration camp in Germany. And he writes about how people were able to get past.

Get out of. Actually thrive or survive the concentration camps. And what he said was it was the people who had hope that actually made it out. And then he kind of just through this book defines what that looks like. What hope looks like. And he talked about the people who just gave up.

He said the symptoms were often sudden. But you knew what to look for. They would do the call in the morning and they just wouldn't get out of bed. And no amount of urging or beating would get them out of bed. And they had just lost hope. Their spirit had absolutely broken.

And that was it for them. They weren't going to get up. They weren't going to follow commands anymore. And they were going to die. And he said there were two people. Types of people.

Who actually could have hope and make it out of the concentration camp. One who had their hope beyond the concentration camp. And he said it was often that they would get their life back. That this was some sort of a dark phase in life. But eventually they'd go back to being successful.

They'd go back to being well off. They'd go back to just having their home and their normal life. And he said many of them when they got out were actually worse off out than they were in. Because they realized that none of that was true. They didn't get their homes back. They didn't get their position back.

They didn't get their money back. They were not successful. Many of them became very depressed. And many of them committed suicide. And he said the third category were those who had their hope fixed beyond the horizon of this world. Who actually believed that there was a God who was good.

And who would work things for good. And that those were the ones that actually were okay in the concentration camps. And were okay when they got out. That their hope was set somewhere else. And that's what Peter is turning and beginning to say to us. Because our hope is so anchored in the cross.

Because our hope is forever anchored in an empty tomb. Because we have been made into a new person. Then we can live our lives saying no to our passions. Saying no to chasing after every whim of our lying heart. And we can actually live in such a way to proclaim God's glory and goodness to those around us through our actions. That we can actually believe it.

So that we eat the wasabi. That it's actually real to us. So we don't chase after what the world says brings hope. And we live our lives serving and loving others. Because we know that the chief end of human existence is to glorify God and to be with him forever. And that's the hope that we have.

That we would be attractional communities of people. So changed by God's grace. So wrecked by the gospel. That people around us would see our lives and eventually realize that there is something so deep. And so anchored. And so real.

That we don't respond to the world the same way. That we actually have a hope that's untouchable by circumstance. That we can be enslaved on earth. And still be more free than many people who aren't behind bars. Because our freedom doesn't come from us. It comes from Jesus.

It doesn't come from our what's going on around us. Our success. How people respond to us. It comes from something that's already been secured in the cross. And given to us fully and forever through Jesus. And that is actually where freedom and life and joy are found.

Because they're untouchable. And so that Christians would be people who've already been given everything. So they can lose nothing. I urge you as sojourners and exiles. I urge you to respond out of your identity. To abstain from the passions of the flesh.

Which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct. Which means live your lives. Among those who don't know Jesus. Among the Gentiles. Honorable.

So that when they speak against you as evildoers. They may see your good deeds. And glorify God on the day of visitation. Live in such a way around people. That eventually they'll trust Jesus. Because they'll see that you have something.

That circumstance doesn't touch. That suffering doesn't touch. That whether or not your marriage is a happy one doesn't touch. That whether or not your job is successful doesn't touch. And they'll see that you've been given such freedom. That even when earthly limitations are added.

It can't claim you. It can't own you. And that's real life. That's real joy. And that's real freedom. And that's what Peter's going to turn and say through the rest of this book.

That through Jesus. Through what he's done for us. We ultimately can be free. To not chase after small things. But to live our life for God's glory.

And that just joy and hope and peace and life found in that. The band's going to come back up. We're going to sing and make much of this God. Who has rescued us. Who has redeemed us. Who has turned us into a people.

Untouchable. Because of the cross. That our sin no longer claims us. Because he died for it. That we've been given a hope that is beyond the horizon. That we've been given freedom and life.

That circumstance can't touch. And so as Christians in this room. If you believe wasabi is good. Eat it. Take it from just knowledge. To sink into your heart for belief.

And live as if it's true. Don't chase after the passions of your flesh. That lead you astray and enslave you. Spend your life. Around people who don't know Jesus. For the glory of God.

Living in such a way. That you have freedom and life and joy. Regardless of your circumstances. And that's what we've been called into. And that's what we've been given through the cross. Through the resurrection.

That's the hope that we have. Let's pray. God we thank you. That we do have freedom and life and joy. Not by chasing after. Seeking to prove ourselves.

Or to find ourselves. We don't have to go claim an identity. You've already given us one in the cross. You've already given us one through Christ. We don't have to claim success. We don't have to claim the end.

You've already given it to us. You've already provided everything for us. And so God we praise you today as Christians. That you've given us everything. And that nothing can take it from us. We pray Lord that for our church family.

You would help us war against sin. War against our desires. That we would turn away from all the things. That seek to enslave us. And that we would bask in the freedom. That you've given us.

And we pray Lord that we would live our lives. Around people who don't know you. In genuine friendships. In real relationships. Where we get to love them. And walk through life when it's good.

And when it's bad. So that eventually. You might visit them. That eventually. They might give you glory. And that one day we'd all spend eternity.

With you. We love you and we praise you. In Jesus name. Amen.

Guest User 7/19/15 Guest User 7/19/15

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

Guest User 7/12/15 Guest User 7/12/15

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

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Truth and Love

1 Peter 1:22-2:3

Transcript

Hello again. We never do this, but I just want to take a second to do this. Just take a second and introduce yourself to the people that you're sitting near. Just take a second and do that. Turn around, say hey. Now don't get crazy.

I know how you guys are. Hey guys. Hey guys. Thank you. All right.

All right. Yeah, I actually thought that would be kind of like opening up a can of worms if we did that for too long. But I just want to just remember that we're in a room full of other people and we're getting to experience this together. And there's great joy and life to be found in that. But my name is Matt.

Again, I'm one of the pastors with Mill City Church. And I'm really excited to be looking at the scripture that we're looking at today. We're in the fourth week of our series. Where we're studying the letter of 1 Peter. And the title of our series is Misfits. And we've gotten a lot of really good feedback over the last three weeks.

Because what we're looking at is very appropriate with kind of what's going on in our culture. Apparently it's made for some really good discussion in some of our groups. And I'm excited about that. And hopefully today will be a continued forward motion in us growing and understanding what 1 Peter is talking about. And specifically, the section of scripture that we're looking at today has meant a lot to me based off of what's been going on in my life personally in the last month. And just so that we're all kind of on the same page.

For those of you who don't know, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world on June 8th. Come on. Come on. Guys. Guys. She's in here.

I want her to remember this. Come on. Come on. Come on. Give it up. Give it up.

Emerson baby. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that there wasn't more enthusiasm. But it's been great. It's been crazy. It's been difficult.

But it's been absolutely wonderful. And I'm glad they're here this morning. This is Emerson's first time hanging out with our church family. But Katie went into labor on a Sunday night. It was about midnight. And so we went to the hospital.

We got to the hospital. They wanted to make sure that she was actually in labor. And so it was about three and a half hours until Katie got an epidural. For those of you who have had children, epidurals seem like they're a really good thing. But when that lady finally showed up and said she had the epidural, I actually breathed a sigh of relief.

I think I was a little more anxious even than Katie was. Because watching her go through that pain, I thought I was going to have to throat chop a nurse. And I just didn't think that that was an appropriate thing for a pastor to do. So the son came up on Monday morning. And the nurse came into the room. And she informed us that the midwife that was supposed to deliver our baby had had a family emergency and was not going to be there.

And a doctor that we did not know was going to deliver this baby. And so it was like, okay, that makes this a little bit more uncomfortable. But it honestly was one of those small blessings that we can now look back on. Because as it came time for Emerson to be born, there were some complications that the doctor actually would have had to be in there anyways. The midwife wouldn't have been able to handle that. The doctor would have had to be in there.

So they rushed a team full of people in. As soon as Emerson was born, they rushed her to a table. They started cleaning her off. They started hooking her up to all kinds of machines. They put her in an incubator and started rolling her out of the room and said, Dad, you're coming with us. I'm freaking out at this point.

We're like racing through hallways. We end up in the special care nursery where there are more people with more machines to hook her up to. And they're just going as fast as they can. And they're talking hurriedly to each other. And I guess finally one of the nurses realizes that I'm standing there just like white as a ghost freaking out. And she turns around and says, we've got our stable.

It's going to be okay. You can come back in an hour. Second time I almost throat chopped to nerves. I was freaking out. And so, listen, I was just overcome with emotion. I walked out of the room.

And the first empty room I found, I just walked in and I lost it. I just started crying because I was so overwhelmed with emotion, not knowing what was going on. And so I went back to Katie. And they came and told us later that during labor, Emmy had breathed in amniotic fluid. Into her lungs, causing her lungs to be really weak, making it hard for her to breathe. And basically the whole process had kind of put her body in a state of shock.

So that for the duration of her stay, she was going to have to be in a special care nursery. So we knew we kind of had a long road ahead of us. She was hooked up to a CPAP machine to help her breathe. She was hooked up to IVs. And she had a feeding tube. And that's not the way you picture it going, right?

That's not what you're walking into this thinking. It's not the storybook ending. But we had the best nurses, had the best doctors. They took great care of her. She continued to get stronger. They took her off the CPAP.

They started feeding her. And when they started feeding her, rather than using the IV and the feeding tube, they said, for her to go home, she's got to feed eight times a day. Eight times in 24 hours. You do the math. That's every three hours this baby has to eat. Which means that, which meant that we had to be at the hospital every three hours.

If you've ever spent the night in a hospital, oh my goodness, you're a trooper. Like you should get a badge. There should be a sash and you should have badges. But we were never so relieved that when the nurses came in and said, your baby's healthy, you can go home. And we got to take our little girl home. And the last couple weeks have been incredible.

Because I just sit and think about the fact that two months ago, Emerson was inside Katie. A year ago, Emerson didn't even exist. I think about the miracle that that is. That God shaped her and molded her and has a plan for her life. I sit there and I stare at Emerson and I look at her little hands. And I look at her little feet.

And I watch her sleep and I watch the rise and fall of her chest. And I listen to the crazy noises she makes while she sleeps. You know, she sleeps with her mouth open. But she doesn't snore like me yet. It's coming. It's in her future, I'm sure.

But I just sit there and I look at her. And at the same time that Katie and I were going through all of this, I was studying this section of scripture and I realized that God's plan and his timing were perfect. Because what Peter's going to do to help us understand the gospel, he's going to talk about the gospel in terms of birth and infancy. So that in the same way that a mother gives birth to a baby and it's born into a family and then sustains its life by feeding it, Peter's going to say that the gospel gives birth to us into a new family. And then it's that same gospel that continues to sustain us during life.

The gospel, the good news of who Jesus is, is what brings us into the family and what sustains us for all of life. So as we look at this together, my prayer is for Christians that you're reawakened to these two beautiful truths that we're going to see today. That as we talk about them, as we dive into them, you're going, no, no, I want that. That actually gets to be true for me. And if you're in this room today and you're not a Christian, my prayer for you is that you'll actually see the beauty of the gospel for the first time. And not just what the gospel can save you from, but what the gospel actually saves us for.

So I'm going to pray and then we're going to dive into the scripture together. Let's pray. Father, I thank you that your word speaks into every aspect of our lives. God, there's nothing that we go through, no situation that we'll come across that your word doesn't instruct us in. And I thank you for this letter and I pray that through your Holy Spirit, you would allow us to see the gospel for the beautiful truth that it is and how it impacts our lives on a daily basis. In Jesus name, amen.

So if you've got a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We're going to be in first Peter. If you don't have a Bible, grab one of the blue and white ones that we have on the chairs. It's going to be on page 656. We're going to be looking at chapter 1, verse 22 through chapter 2, verse 3. And I know what some of you guys are thinking.

You're going, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's not stopping at the end of chapter 1? He's not stopping at verse 25? How scandalous. Just remember that it's a letter. The chapters and the verses were actually added later just for reference.

And so it's one big continual thought. Each little thing is going to build on the next thing. So we're going to look at this little chunk. And what we've been looking at in this series is that Peter is writing to a group of Christians about how to follow Jesus in a culture that doesn't line up with their faith. That first century Christians and first century Roman citizens were not besties. They didn't get along super well because they didn't have the same value system.

And what Peter is writing to them is how do you exist in life in a culture that doesn't agree with what you believe. And it's very timely for us to be reading this in light of what's going on in our culture. I want you to think back to your parents' generation or maybe your grandparents' generation. Christianity and our culture back then used to line up pretty well. The same type morals, same type values. But over the last couple generations that gap has continued to widen more and more and more.

So what our culture says about certain things and what we believe and what our culture says are beginning to move further and further apart. So what our culture says about sex, what our culture says about gender, what our culture says about marriage, about love, about power, about success is very different from what we believe. And what we're trying to do in this series is ask the question, okay, if that's true, what does it look like to follow Jesus in light of the culture that I live in? Okay? So that's what we're shooting to do today.

Let's pick it up in verse 22. We're going to go ahead and read the whole chunk just right up front to get the big picture. And then we'll walk back through it bit by bit. Okay? So verse 22.

Let's read it together. Here we go. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn infants. Long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Okay? So that's the whole chunk.

Now let's jump back up to the top. We're going to walk through it bit by bit. Okay? Verse 22. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth.

Since this is a letter, this is basically a continuation of the same ideas that Peter has already written and that Chet's already talked about in the last three weeks. And in fact, this phrase pretty well bridges the gap between everything that he's already said and everything that we're going to look at today and in the rest of the letter. And if you change the order of those words around to make it a statement, it says this. Our souls have been purified by our obedience to the truth. Our souls have been purified by our obedience to the truth. And when Peter says truth, he's talking about the truth of the gospel.

So that our souls have been purified. Our souls have been made right by our obedience to the gospel. And here's the gospel. That the God of the universe, the creator of all things, created humanity to exist in a perfect relationship with him. But our first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God's good and gracious commands.

They sinned against God and they forever fractured the relationship that we were supposed to have with him. And what we see in the Old Testament is God's active pursuit to restore that relationship. He calls out a people to be his people and he says, I'll be your God. And he gives them laws and he gives them commands and he gives them the sacrifice system to teach them about who he is and how to live in a relationship with him. But the people continue to fall.

They continue to sin. And they cannot obey. No amount of work, no amount of effort could ever bridge the gap that had been broken. But God spoke. He spoke through prophets and said, one day I'm going to send a savior that will fix that relationship. That will restore it forever.

And then Jesus, the son of God, shows up on the scene. And he lives the perfect life in worship to the father that we could never live. He dies the death for our sins that we could not die as the sacrifice for our sins. And then he raises to life. He comes back from the dead showing that he had conquered sin, death, hell, and Satan. That's the gospel.

That's the good news. And when Peter says your souls have been purified by your obedience to the truth, what he's saying is it's the gospel. Your souls have been purified by repenting of your sins and placing faith in Jesus. Jesus, the gospel is the story of all stories for Christians. And so as he's coming out of what he's already written and going into practical applications of what that looks like, he reminds them that the gospel is what matters to them. The gospel is what changes everything.

Their souls have been purified by their obedience to the truth. And when Peter says truth, he's talking about the gospel. That's what Peter declares through the whole letter. That's what we've already seen. And Peter's writing to a group of people that they've already raised their hands and said, I know I'm busted. I know I'm jacked up in desperate need of a savior.

We've placed faith in Jesus. Now, what does it look like to follow him in our culture? And Peter says, don't run from culture. Don't retreat into Christian getters. Don't run from it. Don't primarily fight culture.

Don't necessarily wage war against it. Don't conform to culture. Don't be like them. Be holy. Be set apart. Peter says, follow Jesus in obedience.

Obedience to the truth. Obedience to the gospel. Following Jesus. Being willing to sacrificially suffer for the good of those around us. Why? Because Christians have a hope of the resurrection.

We know that this is not ultimately our home. That one day we'll go to be with our savior. And so if it means that for now to put the gospel on display, that we would be willing to suffer. We're willing to do that. Okay. What about this?

What do I do when our faith, when Christianity says this and our culture says something else? And I like what culture says better. Peter says, obey. Follow Jesus. And the reason you can follow Jesus even when you don't agree, even when you don't understand, is because he's proved that he's good, he's for our good, and he's trustworthy. And he's done all of that through the cross.

The gospel is the story of all stories for Christians. And that's what Peter's reminding them of here. He said, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, by your obedience to the gospel. And from here, what we're going to see are two beautiful truths that Peter's going to pull out and bring to light for this group of Christians that are living in exile. Okay. So jump back to 22.

We'll go ahead and we'll keep reading this time. Verse 22. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. And what Peter just said there is he reminds them that the gospel, it's not just about what the gospel saves them from. That's what we just talked about. The gospel saves us from sin, saves us from death, saves us from hell, saves us from the enemy.

Peter wants to point them towards what the gospel saves us for. And Peter says that it's for brotherly love. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. But since you have been born again, there's that picture of birth. Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. What Peter is saying here is that those that have placed faith in Jesus have been born again.

They have been made into a new creation. They've been given a new identity. And not only that, since they've been born again, they've actually been born into a new family. See that picture of birth that he's painting there? In the same way that when a baby is born, it is born into a family. Peter is saying that the gospel actually gives birth to us into a family.

It's the gospel that makes us into a family. Like it says, since you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable. I just want to take a second real quick and help us understand what he's saying there by perishable versus imperishable. Because that can get, we can get a little tripped up there. Okay, perishable. My daughter Emmy was born through perishable seed.

She was born through perishable seed, which means that one day I'm going to pass away. My wife's going to pass away. Emmy's going to pass away. And the Freeman family line is going to end. And what Peter says is that you've been born again into this family through imperishable seed. That the gospel brings us into an eternal family.

Since Jesus is an eternal God, the family that he invites us into is an eternal family. Through the gospel, we're born again and brought into a family. When it came time for Emmy to be born, I was kind of on the fence about where I was going to be located in the delivery room. Several of you had given me some advice about where I should stand. I was very thankful for that. And I was just kind of, I was waffling back and forth about where I was going to be in the delivery room.

But there was this one kind of crazy intense nurse when it, when it really came time. And let's just say that my choice was stolen from me. The option to stand in the corner of the room and go, that was taken away. And let me say in clear and certain terms, my wife gave birth to Emmy. Emmy exists in this world because of my wife. And in the same way that Emmy exists in the world because of Katie, she was actually born into a family.

Emmy was born into a family where I'm her dad and Katie is her mom. And my parents were in the waiting room. Katie's parents were in the waiting room. My grandparents were in there, her brothers and sister. Emmy was born into a family. And what Peter's saying here is that the gospel in the same way makes us into a new creation by placing faith in Jesus.

And since that's true, we're born into a family. That's, that's the first beautiful truth. The gospel makes us into a family. So if you're a note taker, that's the first thing you want to write down. The gospel, the gospel makes us into a family. That point was actually going to be the gospel births us into a new family.

But I decided that probably wasn't the best thing to do. I think we get the point, right? The gospel makes us into a family? Yeah, okay, good. So he goes on from there.

It's not just, it's not just that the gospel makes us into a family. It's that part of the reason that we are saved is for the family. Read it again. Verse 22. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. So not only are we saved into a family, but we're saved for the family.

We are saved for a sincere brotherly love that we should love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Brotherly love. Family love. And I love that because it's actually a beautiful picture of what the gospel accomplishes for us. That God is our father and Jesus as his son bridges the gap between us and him. And through Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, he actually brings us back into a right relationship with the father.

He reconciles that relationship. And since that's true, Jesus then also restores our relationship with each other. That we're actually able to have brotherly love for each other because of what Jesus has done. And let me say this. I know that as soon as we start talking about family, not everybody in the room is really excited about it. Some of you might have had a family where you had a dad who was abusive, had a mom that peaced out when you were five.

Maybe you had aunts and uncles that treated you poorly. And when you think about family, it actually brings up a lot of negative, hurtful emotions. Maybe even the family that you exist in now is very, very difficult. And so there's a little bit of pushback when we start talking about that the gospel makes us into a family. But here's the truth.

All of us know what a good family is supposed to look like. All of us deep down inside know that a father is supposed to love and to protect and to serve. That there's supposed to be genuine love and genuine care and closeness and unity in a family. That's one of the reasons I love that God chooses to relate to us as father. Think about it. We just celebrated Father's Day a couple of weeks ago.

Think about how beautiful that is. That God chooses to relate to us as father and he invites us into a family that is held together by the perfect love of Jesus. And that by existing in those family relationships with other believers, that's actually how you grow. That's actually how you begin to grow in your understanding of the gospel is by being in those relationships. You haven't just been saved into a family. You've been saved for the family.

And part of what Peter's saying here as he's writing to the elect exiles, what he's saying to us, that this is part of the way we set ourselves apart in our culture. That when our culture begins to look at the way that we live in relationship with each other, the way we serve, the way we sacrifice, the way we give our time and efforts to each other, they're getting a picture of the gospel. This quote comes from a book called Total Church. It's written by some church planners in the UK. It says this, Brotherly love is not a byproduct of being born again. It is its purpose.

Christian community is not a happy byproduct of our salvation or a convenient help to individual Christians. We have been saved to be God's people, to be Christ's bride, to be a new family. We are saved for the family. Part of the reason, part of the way that we grow in relationship with Jesus is by being in relationship with other believers. Sometimes I get in conversations with people when I'm talking about who we are as Mill City Church and the way we organize and the way we do things. And they'll say things like this, I'm a Christian, I'm just not a part of a church.

Or I'm a Christian, I just don't want to be a part of a church. I don't really see the point. I can follow Jesus on my own just fine without a group of other people. And the problem with that is that the Bible is not going to back him up in that position. That the majority of the New Testament is actually talking about how you grow in relationship with other believers. And in those conversations, I really don't want to make someone feel guilty.

I don't. What I want to help them see is that they're actually missing. That there are aspects of the gospel that you cannot grow in outside of being in relationship with other believers. It puts the gospel on display in a way that you cannot by yourself. And that's hugely important in our culture. I want you to think about our culture for a second because it's really self-centered.

Our culture says that the goal of your life is for you as an individual to be happy, to be successful, to be free. That your goal as an individual is to be happy, to be successful, and to be free. The problem with that is that the underlying current in that message is that other people exist for you. Other people exist only so far as you can be happy, as far as you can be successful, as far as you can be free. And what the gospel does is it flips that on its head and says that since Jesus has saved you and brought you into a family, you now get to exist for other people. You get to exist as a family serving other people.

Because it's in those relationships that you can only put aspects of the gospel on display. I want you to think about this. Let me give you a couple examples. Reconciliation. Because Jesus has reconciled us back to God, you can't reconcile outside of being in a relationship with somebody else. There's got to be some kind of conflict, some kind of drama.

That's how you grow in your understanding of the gospel and how you put it on display is by being reconciled. Repentance. Repentance is confessing our sin to God and confessing our sins to each other to seek about restoration. There's got to be some type of close relationship for that to be realized. Love. Love isn't just a feeling.

Love is an action that is expressed with other people. Generosity. You can't be generous outside of being in relationship with other people. Hospitality. You can't be hospitable outside of opening up your home to people on a regular basis. And all those things are pictures of the gospel.

And what our culture says is, you do what's right for you. Take care of yourself. And whatever time you have left, whatever money you have left, whatever resources you have left, give that to other people. And the gospel flips it and says, since Jesus has lavished his love on you, pour yourselves out for other people. And there will be great joy in it. But you will grow in your understanding of the gospel.

You'll fight for those relationships. You'll sacrifice for those relationships. You'll begin to treat someone that you met one year ago like flesh and blood family because the gospel is actually beginning to influence that relationship. From the very beginning of our church family, from the very beginning of our church, we've had people who aren't Christians hanging out with our community groups. And that's beautiful. People who don't yet believe what we believe.

And that's beautiful. Because what they're seeing is a group of people who genuinely love each other and care about each other and hold fast to their faith. And they extend that same love and welcoming to them, that it's a safe environment for them to actually learn and grow closer to Jesus. And I love that. That's absolutely what it looks like to have brotherly love, that by being in relationships with other believers, you're actually putting the gospel on display. And in all honesty, I could sit up here and tell you story after story after story.

And I'd love to share some more with you afterwards. But let me give you just a few examples of what this brotherly love looks like. And I'm not going to use names. I'm just going to kind of pull some stories from some of the groups that I know about. But some of you know that we had our air conditioning went out last summer.

Hashtag HVacalypse if you followed, if you were keeping up with the times. There was somebody that was in my group that for a solid week took all of his spare time, came and fixed our AC unit, and didn't ask for a dime in return in the blazing heat of August. Just sacrificially gave time because he was extending brotherly love for me. I know a guy who works 50 to 60 hours a week. One of the hardest working guys I know that on one of his only days off drove a hundred miles round trip to go help somebody move. I've heard stories of families that weren't able to pay for cars, to pay for a vehicle, and an entire group pitched in to help them do that.

I've heard about mortgages being paid for. I've heard about people going into the hospital and people bringing food and going to visit. And let me tell you this. The gospel making us into a family never became more real to us than when we were in the hospital with Emmy. The way that our group and the way that this church family rallied around us during that time was unbelievable. Calls, texts, emails, people bringing us food, people coming to see us in the hospital, people coming to our house.

The outpouring of love was crazy. There were times when I sat and tried to think of all the people that had reached out to us and it just blew my mind. And I can't imagine what that looked like to the nurses and the doctors as they came in because they were seeing brotherly love. They were seeing the gospel on display. And it was beautiful. And that's what the gospel does.

As we actually take the time and actively pursue those relationships with other believers, we start to understand the gospel in a brand new way. And what can happen sometimes, this can happen sometimes in our groups, is our mode of thinking begins to shift towards the fact that my group exists for me. That can happen, that can show up in the, are people meeting my needs? Are people reaching out to me? Are they inviting me? Are they listening to the things that I'm saying?

And what's cool about the gospel is it just frees us back up to realize that our group doesn't primarily exist for us, but that we exist for our group. Which means that we get to be the person that goes and works on somebody's air conditioning. If you're one of the three people who knows how to do that. It means that I'm going to answer my phone at 10 o'clock. It means that I'm going to go help that family move. It means that when I know there's a need, I'm going to open up my wallet.

Because it's part of how I grow in my understanding of the gospel and how the gospel gets put on display in our world. And honestly guys, that's just the tip of the iceberg. It is. It's just the tip of the iceberg to what this existing in the family that the gospel makes us into. It's just the tip of the iceberg. But I want us to keep moving.

Let's pick it back up in verse 24. Because Peter's going to point towards the eternality of this family. For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. See the progression?

The word endures forever. The word is the gospel. I'm sorry. The word is the good news. The good news is the gospel. See how it goes?

The word endures forever. The word is the good news. The good news is the gospel. And since the gospel will endure forever, the family that it makes us into will endure forever. So when you think about the sacrifice and the time and the effort that you're putting in to build relationships, when you think about how tired you are on a Thursday and you're trying to go hang out with your group, realize that every bit of time and effort you're putting into, you're putting into that here on this earth is only practice for the eternity that you've been invited into.

You're just getting warmed up. It's just a warm up for what's coming. Verse 1, chapter 2. Let's keep going. Peter says this, So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

So since the gospel makes us be for brotherly love, out of the family we've been invited into, it says we're for brotherly love, that means there's going to be certain actions that we're called to do and other actions and behaviors that we're called away from. That if we're called to brotherly love, there's going to be actions and behaviors that we're called away from. That's what all of these have in common is that they can be against other people. And the reason that Peter's bringing it up is because these people were living in relationship with each other. These were real things. These were real conflicts that were actually happening.

These are real things that can show up within your community group, but it's the gospel that leads you away from them. It's the gospel that then reshapes your understanding that these aren't good actions. Malice? Hate? Deceit? How could you hate someone when you realized that Jesus took the wrath that you deserved from God on your behalf?

How could you hate someone? Deceit? Why would you need to lie? Jesus paid for your sins on the cross and you've been invited into a community of openness and honesty. Hypocrisy? You don't need to fake it.

You don't need to fake it because your actions aren't wrapped up in the things that you do or don't do. You've got new value. You've got a new identity in Jesus. Envy? Why would you want something that someone else has? You've already been given everything you'll ever need in Jesus.

In fact, the gospel flips it for you and you get to be open-handed with the things that you do have. Slander? No, we get to encourage people with hope. We get to be people who bring the good news. See how the gospel impacts that? The gospel shapes the family and it shapes the way we relate.

And the gospel helps us when these show up. That actually we get to grow in our understanding of the gospel even when this stuff shows up in our community group. Let me show you how. Let's say you're talking about somebody and a Christian brother or sister calls it out and says, listen, you're talking about them, that's not an appropriate thing for you to be doing. You realize that you get to go to Jesus and ask him for forgiveness. And that part of that repentance is that you go and talk to that other person.

You get to ask for their forgiveness. You get to be open and honest because of the gospel. And then that person in turn gets to offer you forgiveness, gets to offer you grace. And in that relationship there gets to be reconciliation, restoration, and a great expression of love. You see that? The gospel even shapes when we screw up.

It even shapes when we screw up. So we've been called into this family for brotherly love, which means there are going to be things that we do for each other and actions that we're called away from. And in this next section of scripture we're going to see the second beautiful truth that Peter's pointing us to. So let's continue on. Verse number two. Like newborn infants.

Again, so birth and infancy. We're seeing it right here. Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Here's the second beautiful truth. The gospel sustains us for life. So the gospel makes us into a family, but the gospel also sustains us for life.

In the same way that newborn infants cannot survive without the life-sustaining milk from their mothers, we as believers should long for the pure spiritual milk so that we can grow, so that we can be sustained for life. And the question is, what's the milk? It's the same thing that Peter's been saying over and over and over again. It's the obedience to the truth. It's being born again. It's the gospel.

Not only does the gospel give birth to us into this new family, but it's actually the gospel that sustains us for growth in all of life. And let me try to help us understand what that looks like. See, I grew up with this false understanding of Christianity that was this. I understood the gospel that Jesus saves me from my sin, and I'm given new life in him. And then you kind of move that to the side, and the rest of life is me reading the Bible and trying to figure out what does it take to make God happy so that he'll bless me. So basically, the gospel was step one and then set it to the side.

And now it's like, what do I need to do? What are steps two through whatever? And what Peter's saying here, and what I've come to understand, is that my actions are not separate from the gospel. That it's actually the gospel that motivates all of my actions. It's what we've already said in the context of those family relationships. When there's strife, when there's drama, when there's conflict, when we're called to love, we get pictures of all of that in the gospel.

And now what I've realized is if the gospel is this big circle, all of my life is inside that circle. That there's not one thing, one thing that I go through in my life, not one word that I could utter, not one action behavior that I could do that the gospel doesn't motivate. And as I grow in my understanding of the gospel, who Jesus is and what he's done for me, it begins to answer the questions. It begins to help me understand how I should make decisions. What I should do with my life, what the purpose of life is, what my thoughts and feelings should be about gender, about sexuality, about marriage.

It's by growing in our understanding of the gospel. And Peter says, long for it. Long for the pure spiritual milk so that you can grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. And when it says tasted that the Lord is good, he's talking to Christians there. He's saying those that have tasted the truth of the gospel for the first time, they've tasted it. I can stand up here and I can tell you how good banana pudding is.

I can. I can tell you about it. I can tell you that it's one of God's greatest creations right up there with bacon and golf. Don't argue. You know it's true. All right, I can tell you that, but until you actually take a bite of banana pudding, you have no idea why I'm so crazy about it.

But after you take that first bite, oh, buddy, it's game on. And anytime you hear someone say the word banana pudding, they can get the B out. But you're like dropping whatever you got and you're taking off to figure out how you can be the first person in line to get banana pudding. You've tasted it. You've tasted it. And what Peter is saying is if you've tasted that the Lord is good, continue to go back to the gospel time and time again.

It's what sustains your life. Long for it. We should be in hot pursuit of the gospel because we've tasted that the Lord is good. We've tasted that the message is true and that it's beautiful. And I'm going to show my cards here because it's going to help us explain things going forward. The gospel is understanding who Jesus is and what he's done for us.

And primarily one of the ways that we do that is through reading the Bible. One of the primary ways that we grow in our understanding of the gospel to be sustained for all of life is by reading the Bible. Now, are there other ways to do that? Sure. You can listen to sermons like you're doing right now. You can discuss things with your group.

You can read books. You can read blogs. You can listen to music. But all of those things find their roots in the Bible. All of those things are based off of the Bible. So go to the source.

The Bible is primarily how we grow in our understanding of the gospel. And there's a couple of things I want to pull out here. Peter says that in the same way newborn infants long for pure spiritual milk, we should long for the gospel. So, Emmy. Emmy, my daughter, is the best baby in the world. You know, I'm not partial.

It's just true. And when it comes to babies, she's got a pretty even temperament. She's pretty chill. She doesn't get upset about a whole lot. But to be honest, there's not a whole lot she can do.

Sleep, eat, poop, pee. That's about it. Eating is her favorite. She's just like her daddy. Okay? So, Emerson can be doing anything.

She can be sleeping. She can be playing. But babies eat all the time, so they get hungry all the time. This is what happens when Emerson is hungry and she's waking up from her nap. You ready? Ready?

That's pretty good, right? That's pretty good. She loses her mind. She goes crazy because babies are wired in such a way that they will cry insatiably until they get some food. And what Peter is saying is that in the same way babies long for milk, we as Christians should long for the gospel. Should put in time, effort, work to grow in our understanding of the gospel.

The second thing is this. I want you to think back to Peter's time. There was no formula. There was no Gerber baby food. That if a baby was not able to nurse from a mother, it did not make it. That's why it was so important.

And when he's writing to the people, they understand that. That it was important for a baby to be able to nurse, to survive, to be sustained for life. When Emmy was in the special care nursery, at first they had her hooked up to IVs and she had a feeding tube. So she wasn't eating on herself. And it was not until she could feed on her own, without IVs, without a feeding tube, she didn't get to go home. And the same thing is true for us as Christians.

The gospel is what sustains us for life. And if we're not having a regular intake of the gospel, it's going to be difficult for us to understand how to follow Jesus. It's going to be hard for us to survive. And I hope you can see the connection between these two things. These two beautiful truths that Peter's pointing out in the gospel. That as you exist in these family relationships with each other, as you begin to pour out brotherly love for each other, you're growing in your understanding of the gospel, and you're pointing each other back towards Jesus.

Back towards the truth of the gospel. And as you read and study and grow in your understanding of the gospel, it's then going to point you back towards these family relationships that you exist in. It all works together and it's God's good and gracious gift to us to lay it before us like that. Think about how wonderful that is. Think about the 45 seconds of joy you had right at the beginning of the message as you got to say hey to someone that you haven't said hey to yet. Maybe you got to introduce yourself to someone new.

That those family relationships actually bring the gospel to light. The gospel makes us into a family and we're saved for that family. And that we get to grow in all of life sustained by the gospel. And as we come to a close this morning, I've got two ways that we can practically apply this as a church family. And a lot of times we don't land this practically. We usually don't land this practically, but this sermon lends itself to it.

Since the gospel has born us into a family and we're to be for that family, part of the way you can practically apply what we've talked about this morning is this. Number one, join a group. Get in a group. A huge portion of the New Testament talks about how we grow in our relationship with Jesus with other believers. Now, if it was up to us as a whole church family, if it was our whole church family was trying to get together on a regular basis and try to sync up our schedules, it would be nearly impossible. That's why it's so important for our community groups because it's smaller groups of people that set aside time to study the Bible, to pray together, to share meals together, to encourage one another, to help out when life gets tough.

It is beautiful. I want you to join a group. I want to invite you to do that. And some of you are going, ah, man, the practical application, I'm already a part of a group. I'm going to join another one? I'm supposed to be a part of two groups?

Here's how I want you to apply what we've talked about this morning. Fight for nothing less than what we've talked about. Don't let your community group be just a once-a-week meeting time where you get together, pray, and study the Bible. It gets to be so much more. Fight for time. Sacrifice for time because you understand that it's how you grow in your understanding of the gospel and it's what puts it on display in our culture.

Another thing is this. The gospel sustains us for life. So the second practical application is this. Read the Bible. Read the Bible. Get into God's Word.

To be gospel-centered means being word-centered. We believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. There is no error. And it was given from God to human authors written down to reveal who God is and how we're to live in a relationship with him. That by reading the Bible, we're going to grow in our understanding of the gospel. And here's the deal.

The more you read, the more you study, the more you'll begin to understand, the more you'll actually want to. And that both of those things will start to work together. The family relationships and reading the Bible will then push you towards the gospel. And I grew up. Listen, I grew up as a part of a church. And I heard sermons and lessons all the time about read your Bible.

The Bible's good. The Bible's God's Word. And they just went right over my head. I don't know how I missed them. And when I got in college, one of those sermons finally stuck. And the guy challenged us to read the gospel of John.

So I read the gospel of John. And then I read Acts. And then I read Romans. And then I read the New Testament. And then I read the Bible. And then I read the Bible again.

And then I read the Bible again. And the time that I'm spending in the Word is helping me grow in my understanding of the gospel. It's helping me grow in my love for Jesus and my need and desire to follow him. And so here's how we're going to conclude this morning. Usually the band comes back up and plays a song. We're not going to do that today.

Because I want to actually give you the opportunity. I want to give you the opportunity to do what we've actually talked about this morning. So here's what we're going to do. I want all of our group leaders, male and female group leaders and their apprentices, to just kind of spread out throughout the room. So y'all can go ahead and move.

You can go ahead and do that. Do that. They're so shy. Part of the way we exist as church families is in our community groups. And so I just want to take a second just so that you understand, like, who the leaders of our groups are, where they are. Like, clump together.

If y'all are in the same group, be together. There we go. I want to tell you a little bit about who they are, who the leaders are, where they meet. So this is Dave and Sherry Howeweiler. They have a group that meets on Thursdays in the Harbison area. This is Charlie and Stacey Earp.

They have a group that meets on Tuesdays at 630. They meet in – wow, I got a whoop. Well done. But they meet off of Fish Hatchery Road in the West Columbia area. Chet and Anna Phillips, Dan and Sean Stoyku. They have a group that meets at 630.

Is that right? Seven? Seven o'clock on Thursdays in kind of the Lexington area. You got Josh and Nadine Pabone and Raz and Christina Bradley are not here with us. They're on vacation. But they have a group that meets in downtown at the Canal Side Lofts.

It's a very trendy group to be a part of. But they meet on Wednesdays at 630. And then I'm going to stand right down here front. My wife and I have a group that meets on Tuesday nights at 630 in the West Columbia area. And here's what we're going to do as we finish up. When we're done, I'm going to pray.

The music's going to come back up. I want you to just go stand with your group. If you're a part of a group, I just want you to go stand with your group. Hang out. Just catch up. Talk.

We usually hang out for a while after we're done. And just enjoy those relationships. Just be reminded of what the gospel has made us into. Maybe you can talk about your favorite firework. What color it was and the sound that it made. It'd be really great to hear that going on all over the room.

It'd be like a firework show again. If you're not a part of a group, I want to invite you to join one. I want to invite you to be a part of one. And here's how you can do that. If you're not a part of a group and you came with a friend, just go to the group that that friend goes to. So when we get up, just go with them.

Go meet some of the people in that group. They're not all crazy. So just go meet some of them. If you're not here with a friend and you're just here on your own and you don't know which group to be a part of, just think about which group, which day, and which time is most convenient for you. Or maybe it's the location. Maybe it's the one that's closer to your house or closer to your job.

If none of those categories work for you, just choose one. And Charlie says choose him. But here's the deal. I know we have guests with us here today too. This is beautiful. Whatever church family you are a part of, you don't want to miss out on this.

And if you call this your church family, we want you to plug in and be bought in here. And part of the way you can do that is by being a group, being in a group. And for all of us, I want us to grow in our understanding of reading the Bible. So each week we've been sending out group discussion guides to our group leaders and personal studies. The personal study for this week is a reading plan for the letter of 1 Peter. It's a five-day reading plan with questions.

We want us all to get in a regular rhythm of reading the Bible and growing together. So I'm going to pray. The music is going to come on. And we're all going to move. Okay? Okay.

All right. So I'm going to pray. God, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the truth of the gospel that it makes us into a family. God, and I pray that through our groups you would help us grow, help us realize that it's the gospel that should motivate our actions. And by being in these family relationships and through growing in our understanding of the gospel, we're actually putting it on display for our culture.

We're putting it on display for the world. And so, God, we thank you that through Jesus you've brought us into your family. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.

Guest User 6/28/15 Guest User 6/28/15

Grace and Obedience

1 Peter 1:13-21

Transcript

Well, good morning. We're in our third week of walking through the letter of 1 Peter, so we'll be in 1 Peter chapter 1. That's on page 656 if your Bible looks like this one. So there's some of these floating around in the rows if your Bible doesn't look like this. 1 Peter is right in front of 2 Peter, so if that helps. But we're just walking through line by line through this letter that the Apostle Peter, one of Jesus' disciples, wrote to the early church, to churches in what is now modern-day Turkey.

And we're just walking through and trying to see what he said to them and how that applies to us and what we can learn about Jesus and what we can learn about what God was doing then and doing now. And so I'm going to pray, and then we're going to kind of hop in on some of what Peter's saying here. And God, we thank you for this opportunity that we have to open your Word and to study it, and we pray, Lord, that you would teach us through it. And that as we study it today, that you would help us to grow in what it means to follow you. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. We're going to be in chapter 1, verse 13. We're going to start there, and then we'll kind of set the stage for what we're doing today. But therefore, okay, so whenever you see therefore in the Bible, it just means he's referring to what was just said. Like when someone says something like, you are hateful to your children, therefore you're a bad parent or whatever, like those kind of things. It's based off of what I just said, this conclusion.

And so when he says therefore, what he's referring back to is the fact that we have hope through the resurrection of Jesus. That Jesus Christ died and he did not stay dead. That three days later he came back, and in that we have hope and life and joy forever in Jesus. So therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the Revelation of Jesus Christ. He starts off by saying he's writing to a group of people who are not the majority in culture. So this is new for Christians in the U.S.

That Christians in the U.S. used to have kind of the, they had a central position, they had a position of influence. And up until recently that's kind of been the case and that's slowly changing or actually kind of rapidly changing. Where some of the ways we've described it is in the last round of musical chairs, cultural musical chairs, the church lost its seat. And we're still awkwardly kind of standing and feel a little uncomfortable about how that transition went down. That we no longer have a seat at the table. We used to get invited into making political decisions, inviting into policy decisions.

When there was a moral issue, the church got to go throw its weight around. We are no longer the biggest kid on the playground. The church is no longer the biggest kid on the playground. That's what has happened. And so you'll hear people, Fox News, say that the church is under attack. Or that we're being persecuted.

Or there's an assault on Christmas. Christmas? No. No. First of all, our entire like retail economic system is based off of Christmas. We're not getting rid of that anytime soon.

Just so you know, Christmas starts before Halloween if you work retail. Halloween does not exist unless you sell Halloween costumes. But we, there's, that we're under attack, that we're being persecuted. The truth is, no, we just don't have the position of influence we used to. The church is no longer as important as it used to be. And so in our culture where we were used to that, it suddenly feels like we're under attack.

But we're not. If you grew up as a Christian and you went through high school as a Christian, you probably weren't beaten up for that. You probably weren't mocked for that. Now, if you went through high school as an openly gay person, you might have been mocked for that. If you went through high school overweight. I mean, like, you are more likely to be persecuted for being overweight in high school than for being a Christian.

But in our culture, Christianity no longer has the clout that it used to. We're no longer, we're being pushed some to the margins. And so what Peter's writing to this group of people who are on the margins, they're in a culture that does not line up with their thought process, that doesn't have the morals that they have. They don't get legislature that is in their benefit. And what he says is, prepare your minds for action. And I want us to think about that for a second.

As Christians, we have to prepare our minds more now than you had to 50 years ago. Because our culture lined up so well with Christianity on so many fronts, that there were a lot of things you didn't have to think through. As of day before yesterday, I believe, Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage is now legal. It's the law of the land in all 50 U.S. states. Christians now have to think more than they used to. We have to prepare our minds more than we used to.

Because now it's like, okay, how do we love? How do we show grace? How do we welcome? How do we invite? And how do we hold on to what we believe the Bible says about marriage? And how do we hold on to what we know to be true?

And still, there's more thought that has to go into this than used to. And there's so many more situations that we now have to process through. How am I a Christian at work? How does my Christianity apply here? How does my Christianity apply here? What's it look like for me to be a Christian neighbor?

There's more thought that has to go into preparing for what it looks like to be a Christian in our culture than it used to. So he says, prepare your minds for action. Be sober-minded, which just means think clearly or don't be drunk. Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the Revelation of Jesus Christ. How beautiful is that? That our hope rests fully on the grace that will be brought to us.

That Jesus is going to show up and bring grace, which just means unearned favor. It's beautiful. And what we've been saying as we've been reading through this is Peter's writing to this group of people who don't really fit in their culture, who don't line up with the culture's values and beliefs. What we've been saying is that Peter's going to call us to not run from culture, to not fight culture, to not just conform to culture, but to actually follow Jesus in obedience, suffering for the good of those around us. That we're going to follow Jesus in obedience, suffering for the good of those around us.

And for Christians, a question comes up pretty immediately when we start to do that. What if, what do we do when, and this is what Peter's going to be answering for us, what do we do when, all right, church and culture used to line up pretty well, and that shift has begun, like there's been growth there in that gap. What do I do if I'm a Christian? And I see what the Bible says about sex, but I like what our culture says better. Seems like a more compelling argument. Sounds nicer.

I see what the Bible says about gender. I like what our culture says better. I like the idea of this better. I see what the Bible says about take any issue you want, money, success, power, goal of life. And I like what our culture says better. I think this narrative makes more sense.

I like how it, like it feels better to me. I've thought about it and I like this one better. I'm a Christian. What do I do when, I see what the Bible says, but I like this better. What happens when our culture begins to shift and I kind of line up with our culture more? That's the question I think Peter's going to help us answer today.

And I think that's something that all of us as Christians have to wrestle with. What happens in those moments? What happens to bridge that gap? If you're here today and you're not a Christian, Peter is not writing to you. He was writing to the church, to those who had followed Jesus in Turkey. So I'm glad you're here if you're not a Christian.

I hope you stay, enjoy hanging out, hearing what we're talking about Jesus. And here's what I hope that you get out of today. One, I hope you see that our culture's narrative, our culture's story about where freedom comes from is actually pretty lacking. And I hope you see that your Christian friends who do follow the Bible are a little more logical, that their thought process makes a little more sense than maybe you thought it did. Because there's a little bit in our culture the understanding that if you're a Christian, that's great, you can be a Christian, but you kind of need to be stupid. Or at least if you're intelligent, you need to not apply your intelligence to the Bible.

Is that fair? Is our culture kind of like that? We agree with that? Like there's a little bit of, okay, you're a Christian, you checked your brains at the door? That's nice. That was cute of you.

Oh, you're a Christian, you actually believe the Bible says what it says? And you're like, yeah, really though? Yeah, really. Okay, I've got some questions for you because I don't see how you can be an intelligent adult and believe this stuff. And so I just want us to see that there's a little bit less of blind obedience, a little bit less of just follow because God says to, a little bit less of just believe it because it's there. And it actually makes a little more sense than that.

So what happens when I'm a Christian and I disagree with the Bible? What do I do? How do I respond? All right, so Peter's writing into and he's going to kind of start answering this for us. 14. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

Okay. As obedient children. How many people love that statement? Like our culture, we love obedience, don't we? Oh, it's our favorite. That's not true.

We don't like the idea of obedience. When we think obedience, I think dogs. They should be obedient. Children. But our culture is even pushing back on that one.

There's a large group of people that say that your job as a parent is to not enforce your will on your child, your views. No, your job as a parent is to help them find themselves and express themselves. Archer, who's my son, is three months old. And I can tell you right now, I don't need to help him express himself as he gets older. He's already kind of mean. You don't want me to take that parenting style and then come hang out at your house.

Your son set my dog on fire. No. He expressed your dog on fire. Like, he's just finding himself and he found that he's an arson. He found that he likes to bite children. No, okay.

Like, we think, okay, some of us will say, no, there needs to be some obedience with children. There needs to be some level of, no, I'm your parent. You're going to do what I'm telling you to. I'm bigger than you. Like, let's, this is how this is going to work. But the idea that we as adults, as rational thinking humans, should just be obedient children, doesn't sit super well with me.

There's a little bit of like, okay, maybe. Maybe. And I think some of us are like, okay, yes, I will be obedient if you convince me. I'll be obedient, but we got to talk first. You got to, you got to win me over. You got to explain to me why I'm obedient.

Let's go back to me having a son. When he's 12, and I say, this is how this is going to work. And he says, okay, yes, I'll do that. Explain to me first why that has to work. If every time he obeys, it's because I convinced him first. He doesn't obey.

He agrees. If I have to win him over to obey, that's just agreement. That's not obedience. Some of us are Christians, and we're like, I obey super well. Maybe, maybe you just agree really well. Maybe you and the Bible are just very agreeable.

Maybe you just kind of line up with it pretty well. And you're not actually really obedient. You're just kind of in agreement. The question is, what happens in the disagreement? What happens when you don't agree? What happens, what, what bridges that gap?

That's where obedience shows up. So what he says is, he's talking to Christians, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Okay. And we talk sometimes about like, don't be conformed to culture. But what he says is, don't be conformed to the old version of you.

If you become a Christian, you should change. Some of your views, some of your desires, some of your hopes, some of your beliefs about what the world is about, some of your values about how things ought to work should begin to change, because you're no longer ignorant. My dad used to call us ignorant all the time. Ignorant just means you have, you lack information. So unlike he called us dumb, we had the ability to learn things.

We were just ignorant. So we would say stuff that was just ignorant. It's like, man, you just, you just don't know any better. And he kind of said, you ignorant. That's how he would say it. You'd be like, you'd be mad about something.

He'd be like, boy, you ignorant. And you'd be like, what? And he'd be like, that's not how that works. And he explained it to you. So what he's saying is, you used to not know any better.

But now that you know Jesus, you've actually gained new information. And your belief about life and hope and joy and where existence is found should begin to change. And you shouldn't be conformed back to your old passions. You shouldn't just follow every little desire that you have. And that in those gaps, in that disagreement, that there should be obedience. That's where obedience shows up.

So let me, there's a good way to tell whether or not you or Jesus is in charge. in the areas where you disagree, what happens? In the areas where, where the Bible says this, but you feel this, what happens? Do you do what you think? Then Jesus isn't a king. He's your spiritual advisor. You sit on the throne, you make the decisions, and he comes to you and says, I've got some suggestions.

You say, I'll hear them out. Jesus, what you got? That sounds smart. I'll do that. That sounds smart. I'll do that.

Nope. Got anything else? When there's disagreement for a Christian, the question of kingship comes in. The question of obedience comes in. Who's in charge? And he says, don't be conformed to your former passions.

Our culture believes that you are the sum of your desires, that your identity is found in fulfilling your desires. So whatever you like, whatever you want, that's who you are. That's the type of person you are. This is seen really clearly in the Snickers commercials, which I think are great. You've seen the Brady Bunch one where Machete is in it? And he's like yelling, and he like slams his, and they're like, they're like, I don't know, Marsha, they tell her she has to take, eat a Snickers, and then she's like, oh, I'm better now.

Or my favorite one is the one with Betty White, though. They're playing football. They hand it to Betty White, and she just gets creamed, and they're like, eat a Snickers. He's like, why? And they're like, I don't know what they say. He plays like a sissy when he's, you know, they call him Betty White.

He eats it, and then he's able to play football again. And there's this idea that if you don't fulfill your desires, you're not you when you're hungry, is the way those commercials end. That you are the fulfilled version of your desires. That's why we use heterosexual and homosexual as identity labels. You are this person. You are this person, because we believe that your desires, your fulfilled desires is the true version of yourself.

And so what he says is, no, you actually, your passions should change. You shouldn't be fulfilling your old desires. They should actually change, because that actually isn't who you are. That changes. Also, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Can I address ignorance for just a second?

Christians, Christians, please, please, Christians, Christians in the room, Christians, Christians, Christians, please listen. Read your Bibles, and say things that this says. Can we do that? Can we do that, please? First of all, everything you've heard that is in the Bible is not in there. Just because someone wore a suit and shouted it, and they were sweating, does not mean it is in there.

It's one of the reasons that when we get together, it's like, their Bibles, open them, read them. It's one of the reasons we want to read a whole letter together. So we can't just take one verse and say, this is what it means. It's like, no, bro, we just read what came before it. That isn't what it means. It says, therefore, let's go back and see what he's talking about.

That's what it means. We can't just pull one verse out somewhere, and just, one of my favorite things about reading the Bible for myself, was that I learned that half of the stuff I had been told, was not in there. It's like, man, I actually like this a little better. There were some things that I was like, man, I wish I hadn't read that. Where Jesus' kingship shows up. He's like, hey, let's talk.

And I'm like, no, let's not. But, but it's good. But there were some things, one of my favorite things, and this is, maybe I shouldn't say it was my favorite, but I did appreciate learning this. Some of the stuff I had heard about alcohol, it was not in here. That like, if you drink it, it's a sin, and you'll go to hell. It wasn't in there.

Jesus actually, one of his first miracles, is that he turns a bunch of water into wine, like a bunch of water into wine. And he actually does it in ceremonial washing jars. So he says, oh, y'all like religious stuff? Watch this. Wash your hands in that. Party can continue, your religion can't.

Choo, choo. And you read the Bible, and you're like, wow, I didn't realize that was in here. There's Christians. Let's not be ignorant. There are times that people will come on, and say things like, well, you know, if you're a Christian, then you believe this. And they'll quote something from Leviticus.

And it's like, no, I don't, because Jesus is our ultimate fulfillment of the law. So I don't believe that. But the New Testament does say, like, just read. That's all. That's all. I'm going to get off my soapbox.

Read your Bibles. Don't be ignorant. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. It's the action. Since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. So that we as Christians, our passions should change, and therefore our actions should change.

And as we follow God, we should look more, and more, and more, and more like him. We should look more, and more, and more, and more like Jesus. That we should not only not do the stuff we shouldn't do, but that we should do the stuff we should do, so that we should be gracious, and loving, and welcoming. That we should be the most sacrificial, you should be the most sacrificial person at your job. You should be the person who's most likely to pick up a shift for someone else. You should be the person who's most likely to go out of your way for someone else.

That we should be generous. that we should be welcoming, that we should be joy-filled, that we should be loving to everybody, that we should be more and more distinct, more and more set apart, which is what holiness means, that God is ultimately distinct and set apart from us, and that we should look more and more like him. That as Christians, because of Jesus, our behavior, our passions, and our desires should change. So what do we do when culture says this, and I like it better, and the Bible says this? What do we do when I disagree with what this says? Obey. Doesn't that just make you feel warm and fuzzy inside?

The answer to that question is obey. Do what the Bible says. Follow the Bible. Now, that leaves us feeling a little bit empty, and so we're going to keep reading, because he gives us a really compelling reason for that. A really beautiful reason for our obedience. He keeps going.

And if you call on him as father, so that's Christians, calling him as father. God, do you see how beautiful that is? We just celebrated Father's Day, and Father's Day for people in our culture is a couple of different things. It can be a celebration of your father, because you had a really good one. It can be mourning, because you had a really good father, and he's no longer with you. It can be mourning, because you had a terrible father.

You don't celebrate Father's Day. It just brings up all these horrible memories. And what is so beautiful about the God of the Bible is that he says, I'm your father. And the reason that we mourn when we have a terrible father is because we all have an idea of what a father is supposed to be like. He's supposed to love. He's supposed to defend.

He's supposed to welcome. He's supposed to make us feel comfortable. He's supposed to make us feel okay in our own skin. He's supposed to go out of his way to shelter and defend and to lead and to protect and to guide and to instruct. That's what fathers are supposed to be like. And so the God of the Bible says, I'm a father.

See how intimate and beautiful that is? And he says of the ways he wants us to see him and to view him and to relate to him, he says, I defend and I protect and I instruct and I guard and I welcome. Some of you had fathers who you had to prove yourself to them before they would love you. And that's not how a father is supposed to act. Some of you had fathers that instead of defending you, harmed you. And that's not how a father is supposed to act.

And we have a father who is eternal and says, I protect and I defend and I lead and I instruct and I guard and you don't have to prove yourself to me. That's beautiful. If you call on him as father who Judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Exile for Christians means that you're a Christian. Your home is now in heaven, but you are still here. That we are sent here on a purpose.

We talked about that in week one. We have a mission and a goal. Okay. I don't really. This verse is good. It starts off good.

And if you call on him as father, yep, like that relationship, who Judges impartially. Okay, hold on a second though. If he's my father, I want him to be very, very partial. Like if my dad is a judge and I'm in a competition, I want him to give me a better score than I deserved. I want my talent to be terrible and him still be like 10. That was great.

But what it says is he Judges impartially. I don't like that he Judges or that he's impartial. According to each one's deeds. Also not good. Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. I don't think many of us read, oh, according to our deeds.

Sweet. Slam dunk. God, if God saw me, he would just know I'm the best. I mean, some of you, maybe you sat down and looked around the room and were like, pretty awesome compared to these people. Especially that guy. Like, you know, like maybe you did that.

Most of us, when we see that he Judges impartially according to our deeds, go, oh, this is not going to work out as well as I had hoped. Is he great on a curve? Like if he Judges. Let me explain to you how a good judge works. I use this all the time, but I think it's very clear. A good judge does not equip the guilty.

Right? That's what a good judge does. So let's say you're a doctor. You're a doctor and you're a good doctor. You save on average and it's documented. Three, four lives a week.

You're like house, but it doesn't take you as long to figure out what's wrong. You just walk in and you're like, oh, they contracted a disease that nobody knows about. Boop, give them that, they're good. There's no, like, you think it's that and then they get sick again, like in every episode. You're crushing it. But you have one little vice.

About every three months, you sneak into someone's house and murder them. At night, usually. So, okay, four to five lives a week. Some murders a couple times a year. Now, you stand before a judge and you say, judge, I can verify how many people I've murdered and how many people I've saved. And the people I've saved far outweigh the people I've murdered.

And the judge says, oh, go free. Because you're more good than bad. No. The judge says, guilty. Open and shut case. This was not difficult.

And if we call on him as father who Judges impartially and we're mostly good, mostly doesn't cut it. What it just said was, be holy as he is holy. How many of you want to stand before God and say, I'm just like Jesus? You know how loving he was? Same. You know how humble he was?

Same. You know how gracious he was? Same. You know how many times he sinned? You know how many times I've sinned? Same amount.

None of us. That is terrible news. That we have a God who is a judge and he Judges impartially based off of our actions and our conduct. And it says, fear him. We have a fearsome God who is big and who is capable of crushing us and sending us forever into an eternity without him. Jesus at one point says, don't fear men.

All they can do is kill you. And it's like immediately, Jesus, I think your perspective is different from mine because that sounds pretty bad. And he says, fear him who can kill you and after he has done that, can send your soul into hell. Fear him. And it's like, well, that does sound scarier. Now, the beautiful thing about this passage is that when it says fear, it actually doesn't mean be absolutely terrified of, be absolutely afraid of.

What it actually means is have an appropriate fear because God is fearsome. And one of the best ways I can think about this is we were growing up at different times. You know, little kids think that there's like monsters in their bedroom, like in the closet or under the bed or whatever. And so there were different times where we would call my dad and be like, there's monsters in here. And he'd be like, all right. So he'd come in.

He'd be like, where are they? Under the bed. Okay. And then he'd like check. And he'd be like, nope, not under there. Some in the closet?

Yes. And he would check and be like, nope, none here. And he would like make us get out and look. He would check the closet and say, see any monsters? Nope. All right, you sure they were here?

Yep. Are they here now? Nope. Okay, get back in bed. And then he would walk over and he'd cut the light off and go, see, we're okay. There are no monsters in it.

Shh. And you'd be like, what? He'd be like, shh, shh, shh. Under their back. He's like, there's one coming out of the closet right now. Oh, my goodness, he's humongous.

He's got fangs. He's got venom. He's got venom. He's got, he's going to eat you right now. And then he would cut the light on and be like, oh, no. It was our imagination.

There was no monster the whole time. And you're like, well, thanks. I'm not going to be able to sleep. That was way scarier than monster than I had invented. Thanks for inserting some of your imagination into mine. And so then he would leave.

And you'd get him again. They're back. And he would come back. And about the third time, this is what my dad would do. He would look at us and he would say, look at me. There are no monsters in here.

They are not in your closet. They are not under the bed. They do not show up when the lights are cut back off. Look at me. I am the scariest thing in this house. And you need to be more afraid of waking me up again.

There's an appropriate amount of fear for a Christian towards a fearsome God. He's still the one we run to when there's trouble. Does that make sense? Like he is fearsome. He is dangerous. He is holy.

He is completely set apart. And he is the one that we get to run to and call on as father. If you are not a Christian, you should fear him. And if you are a Christian, you should fear him. But you know that he's the one you run to as your father.

That's how that works for a Christian. And here's what he says. And if you call on him as father who Judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Okay, if you were paying attention to what we read earlier, this suddenly doesn't match up. Hopefully your brain tripped over itself a little bit. Here's what it just said.

You will be judged based off of your deeds. That God is a judge and he will sit before you and he will roll out the account of your actions and you will be judged based off of them. But what did verse 13 say? It says, It says, Eye cracks open and we walk before God to be judged that Jesus shows up and just says, Here's grace. Here's something you didn't earn. Here's something you don't deserve.

Here's something you didn't merit on your own. Here's something you weren't good enough for. You weren't religious enough for. You weren't moral enough for. Here's what you don't deserve here. Here's something you don't deserve.

Gives us grace. How does that happen? It's actually found in verse 18. And it's the reason why when there's a difference between culture and what we believe. What I actually like and what the Bible says. This is the reason why we'll obey.

Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. Not with perishable things such as silver or gold. But with the precious blood of Christ. Like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world was made manifest in the last times. For the sake of you who through him are believers in God.

Who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. The reason that our God Judges impartially and that Christians are given grace. Is that Jesus died in our place. And the word it actually uses is ransom. Which means to buy back a slave. Or to buy back a prisoner of war.

That we were enslaved to our passions. That we were enslaved to what we thought would bring us life. That we were enslaved serving sex and money and power and success. And that Jesus bought us back. That Jesus shed his blood on our behalf to pay for our debt. That we have a God who Judges impartially.

And that he impartially judged Jesus on our behalf. That he declared him guilty on our behalf. And that Jesus because of his sacrifice we get to be declared innocent. And when he shows up he brings us grace. That he swapped places with us. Do you know how beautiful that is?

Do you know why when I disagree with the Bible I can obey it? Because of that. Because there's freedom found in being set free by Jesus. That's what it says he did. He ransomed us. He set us free.

Some of you in here are chasing after your passions. Because you think that that is what brings freedom. You think that being autonomous. And being able to make your own decisions about what's good. And what brings life and joy. And what's right and wrong gives you freedom.

It does not. And here's why. There are always constraints on us when we make decisions. The goal would be to find the constraints that are the most freeing. You have to have some constraints to be free. That's how it works.

So a fish has to be constrained by water in order to be free. If I go to Logan's house who's my brother. And he's got a big fish tank. And I grab his fish and I say go free little fish. And I throw them in the backyard. That was not very nice of me.

To the fish and to Logan who paid for them. Because they are not free. They need to be in that tank or in the ocean to be free. And they're more free in some ways in the tank. Because nothing is going to eat them. And in the ocean they're free to be eaten.

And in some ways more free because they have more space. But the truth is there are constraints that offer freedom. And then there are other things that we pour ourselves out for. That do not offer us freedom but only offer us slavery. If you know how to play piano or you're gifted musically. And you spend day after day, hour after hour working on your craft.

Working on the piano. There are a lot of things you're going to say no to. And in some ways working to play the piano that way is going to limit your freedom. But eventually you'll be able to play the piano beautifully. And freely in a way you never would have been able to had you not constrained yourself. So there are constraints that actually bring freedom.

And the truth is as we run around chasing after our passions. Here's the difference between Jesus as king and anything else as king. Anything else as king. You serve it. For your life. For your joy.

For your hope. You sweat. You labor. You pour yourself out for it. So if money is your passion.

Success is your passion. It demands work. It demands your time. Your slavery. Your action. And here's the thing.

When you fail. It does not forgive you. When you fail. It does not pay your debt. And if you get it. It actually never satisfies.

Jesus. Jesus. Paid our debt. So that because we failed. He could forgive us. When we fall short.

He forgives. He took our place. And he does not demand that we work. To earn his favor. So that we have a God.

Who Judges justly. And that our conduct. Should be holy. As we pursue him. And at the end of our days. That does not matter.

For a Christian. Do you know how beautiful that is? Do you know how freeing that is? That I get to work. To strive. To be holy.

To be obedient. And I get to fail terribly. And I get to rest fully. Confidently. Assured. On the grace that will be mine.

When I show up before God. I will have no fear. When I walk in front of the king. I'll have some respect. And some reverence. But my hope.

Is fully set on Jesus. Not on my actions. Not on my ability to be good. Or moral. Or holy. And here's why.

As a Christian. I can obey. When I disagree. Because when Jesus died. For my freedom. He proved.

Once and for all. That he is not out to enslave me. That he is not out to steal my joy. But that he is good. He is for my good. And is ultimately.

Trustworthy. Y'all seen the movie Taken. Or Taken 2. Or Takthrina. They stuck the 3 in the middle of the word. So it doesn't say Taken anymore.

Have y'all seen any of these movies? With Liam Neeson's. Y'all know what I'm talking about? Now Liam Neeson's. Like. He.

Okay. So in the first movie. His daughter gets taken. Nobody saw that coming. And. He's talking to the guy on the phone.

And he's like. The guy's like. We got your daughter. I don't know. He says like. Give us money or something.

Like he's working out a ransom. Or he just says. We're going to kill him. And Liam Neeson says like. I will find you. I will kill you.

I have a very particular set of skills. Which does not include. Not having his daughter taken. Because this happens repeatedly. It does include getting her back. And he's like.

You can take her. All of you will die. And the guy on the other phone. Is like. Whatever. Okay.

Taken 2. Taken 3. If his daughter gets a phone call. Phone rings. She picks it up. I hadn't seen the other ones.

I got all I needed out of the first one. Let's just assume she gets a phone call. And he says. I don't have time. To explain everything. But here's what I need you to do.

I need you to. As soon as I hang up. I need you to set the house. You're in on fire. I need you to go get in the car. I need you to go to this gas station.

At exit 22. And then I need you to drive as fast as you can. After you've filled up all the way to Tulsa. And then he hangs up. If you are his daughter. What do you do?

You burn the sucker down. You get in the car. You get gas at exit 22. Whichever one he said. If you can remember what it was. And you drive to Tulsa.

Is that ignorance? Is that silliness? Are you a fool? Are you not free? No. You know something that trumps all of that.

And it's that your father is good. He's for your good. And he's trustworthy. And even if you don't have all the answers. It still makes sense. And the truth for Christians.

Is that we can forever. Look to God on the cross. The God of the universe. Who is willing to suffer. And die. And bleed.

His precious blood on our behalf. To rescue and ransom us. From sin. And guilt. And shame. And judgment.

And punishment. And we can forever say. That I don't know why this is a rule. I don't know why this is how he says marriage ought to work. I don't know why he says. This is how the family should be structured.

But what I do know. Is that he's good. And he's trustworthy. And he's for my good. And that has been definitively. And forever.

Answered on the cross. And I have no doubt. Am I intelligent? Yes. Do I think through things? Yes.

But at the end of the day. Do I know something that trumps. All of the other reasons I can come up with? Yes. And that it's the God of the universe. Died.

To ransom me. From slavery. And he is not out to steal my freedom. Because he's the only one who gave it to me. And he's not out to subjugate me. Because he's a good father.

Who I can trust. And who I can know forever is good. And for my good. That's Peter's reasoning. He says that we would be holy. And that we would follow God in obedience as children.

Knowing that he's ransomed us. Knowing that he cares more about your freedom than you do. Because he's already bled and died for it. And knowing that forever he is good. And for your good. And absolutely trustworthy.

And so when he steps in on an issue and says. I know you don't understand all of this now. But this is how this needs to work. You can say. I don't understand your reasoning. But I know that you're good.

And I know you're not out to get me. And I know you're not out to crush me. And I know that even if I mess this up. My hope is fully set on the grace that will be given. Not my ability to obey well. And that is what drives Christians to obedience.

Not fear. Trust. Not shame. Not guilt. Not punishment. The punishment has already been poured out.

And our God is good and for our good. And we can trust him. The band's going to come back up. And we're going to praise Jesus. That at the end of our days for Christians. That we can stand before a holy God.

That has called us to holiness and obedience. And we can have failed and failed and failed and failed. And we can stand before a holy God and be given grace. That our obedience does not save us. And that we have a God who cares infinitely more about your freedom than you do. And has proven that he is ultimately good for our good.

And infinitely trustworthy when he went to the cross. And bled and died to rescue us. And that calls us to obedience. And frees us up to be obedient without fear of punishment. And knowing forever that we have something that answers the question for us that we need answered. Does he love us?

Is he good? Can he be trusted? And the cross answers that. He does love us. He is good. And he can be trusted with everything.

And we may not get all the answers. And we may never agree with him in this lifetime. And we may die struggling and fighting to be obedient. And then we'll walk before him with our hope fully set on Jesus. Who is obedient in our place. And died to set us free.

Father we thank you. That you're good. And that you're for our good. And God we thank you that you're ultimately trustworthy. And we pray Lord that for all of the Christians in this room who are struggling. Fighting with you mentally.

Fighting with you physically. Struggling with themselves. Struggling with their passions. God we pray that two things would happen. One. One.

One. That they would be able to set their hope fully on the grace that is offered to them through the cross. And two. That that grace would propel them to obedience as they know. They know. They know that you're trustworthy.

And God for those in this room that are not Christians. We pray Lord that your sacrifice would be applied to their account. And that they would place their hope and their trust in you. And that they would quit chasing after passions that did not die for them. That will not forgive them and will never satisfy them. And that they will learn that there's hope and joy and absolute freedom found in you.

Because nothing in you is based off of our actions. But only off of yours. Thank you Lord. We love you. In Jesus name. Amen.