Anchored #4 - Grounded in Divine Activity, Grounded in Divine Identity (1 Peter 2:4-10)

Redeemer Bible Fellowship

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you, so feel free to keep that. We have been in a sermon series for the last few weeks that we've entitled

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Anchored, Anchored Stabilizing Truths for a Shaky World, Stabilizing Truths for a

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Shaky World. We've been working our way, verse by verse, passage by passage, through Peter's first letter, 1

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Peter, and this afternoon we come to 1 Peter, chapter 2, and verses 4 through 10.

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1 Peter, chapter 2, and verses 4 through 10. I don't have the verses up on the screen this week, so hopefully you have a

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Bible nearby. If not, like I said, we have some at the back. We can grab one for you if you need them.

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So, 1 Peter, chapter 2, and verses 4 through 10 will be the text that we look at this afternoon.

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It's our custom usually that we stand in reverence of God's Word as we come to the text we're going to be studying together, so if I can invite you to stand with me, 1

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Peter, chapter 2, and verses 4 through 10. I'll just read, so just listen along, and hopefully if you have a copy of God's Word in front of you, you can follow along in your own

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Bible. 1 Peter, chapter 2, and verses 4 through 10.

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Peter says, as you come to Him, referring to Jesus, a living stone, rejected by people but chosen and honored by God, you yourselves as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built up to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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For it stands in Scripture, see, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.

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So honor will come to you who believe, but for the unbelieving, the stone that the builders rejected, this one has become the cornerstone, and a stone to stumble over and a rock to trip over.

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They stumbled because they disobeyed the Word. They were destined for this.

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But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the

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One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are a people.

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You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

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Pray that God will bless that reading of His Word and grant us understanding. I'll pray, ask for the Spirit's help, and then we will get to work in this text today.

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Let's pray together. Our Father and our God, we thank You so much for Your Word. We thank

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You for its truth. We thank You that it provides us insights and understanding for the world in which we live.

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We pray that as we look at this text and what it teaches us about You and who we are and how we relate to the world around us, we pray that You would, as we pray every week in the words of the psalmist, open our eyes, that we would see wonderful things out of Your law.

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Father, as we pray that for us, pray for Coram Deo Medford. Thank You for Pastor Brian and Pastor Jason and the folks there at Coram Deo.

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Pray that they would know Your blessing. Be with them as they seek to faithfully honor

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You in the preaching of Your Word, in gathering together, and in enjoying biblical church life together.

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That's our prayer for them and it's our prayer for us even now as we come to Your Word, asking all these things in Jesus' name and for His sake, amen.

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Amen. This afternoon, I want to speak to you from the subject of grounded in divine activity, grounded in divine identity.

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Grounded in divine activity, grounded in divine identity. My short professional career was spent entirely in the big city of London where I was born and raised.

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And for a number of years, I worked for an insurance company in their digital marketing department. And I had, it was an open plan office, and I was not too far from a window.

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And right across the street from us was a construction site. When I got there, they had only just started doing construction, there was nothing.

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But most people would hate that, it's not a great view, all that usual stuff, but I actually enjoyed it.

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You see, I love cities and one of the things I love about cities is watching really tall buildings go up. I find it very fascinating.

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And so for months, I watched the builders work on the foundations for this high -rise office building, as I later discovered it was going to be, right across from us.

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And the thing I found really interesting was when they were building this thing, they spent so much time on the foundations.

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It seemed like months and months passed by and they were still working on the foundations for this thing.

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In fact, when the rest of the building started to go up, it seemed like it shot up like a weed in comparison.

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Being the occasionally curious one that I am, I remember going up to the crew of workers on that day and saying, one day on my lunch break, walking up to them and just asking, honestly, you lot took forever on the foundations of this, what's all that about?

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And builders like being talked to, at least in London they do anyway. And so the clear leader of the group, big burly guy with an

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Eastern European accent, kind of took a swig of his tea and because we're in England and everyone likes tea, he just took a swig of his tea and he looks at me and he says, before you go up, and I'm gonna try and imitate his accent because I do a bad job of it, but before you go up, you have to go down.

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Before you go up, you have to go down. And it made sense once he said that, because after all, if this building, which was huge, if this building was going to be secure that height and at that size, you needed deep foundations for that to work.

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The life and witness of God's people in an interesting way is kind of like that when you think about it. As God's people, we can't function on shallow foundations.

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We need to go deep. Do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7? Tell me there with me if you have a

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Bible nearby. Matthew chapter 7, just one moment. Jesus said something right at the end of the

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Sermon on the Mount, arguably the greatest sermon ever preached. In Matthew chapter 7 and verse 24,

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Jesus said this. He said, therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

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The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds pounded that house, yet it didn't collapse because its foundation was on the rock.

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But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn't act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

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The rain fell, the rivers rose, the wind blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.

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That was Jesus' understanding of the way the spiritual life works.

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If we're going to survive the storms of life, and I also take the view that he's also referring to that final day of judgment, both in this life and the life that's to come, if we are going to make it, we need deep foundations.

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We need something solid to plant our feet on. That's what Peter is really giving us as we come to 1

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Peter 2. As I said in our opening message, you can really divide the body of 1

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Peter into three. You've got this section that really started in chapter 1, verse 3, and we're finishing up today, where he deals with the reality of our salvation, how that anchors us.

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Beginning next time and for the next few weeks, we'll start thinking about the role of submission as God's people and how that anchors us.

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And then finally, we'll see how we are anchored in the return of the Savior. We're still in that first section, thinking about the reality of our salvation, and really

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Peter is wrapping this up. He's about to land the plane, at least for this section, before he takes off again in chapter 2, verse 11.

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Now you remember from last time that we ended on this wonderful theme in chapter 2, verse 3, of the reality that if you've come to Christ, you've indeed tasted that the

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Lord is good. But this section is unique because while it's still kind of carrying on that theme of the believer knowing and experiencing the goodness of the

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Lord, this section is unique because it now starts to open up into the question of so what. If he is indeed this good, if he is indeed the source of our growth, as we talked about last week, if indeed he has done all these wonderful things for our salvation, so what?

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When I was learning to preach, my pastor back in London used to say that if you have not answered the question of so what in your preaching, you've not preached, you've lectured.

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Well Peter understands that principle as well. It's not enough to just say, here are some true things that God has done, we need to ask the question, okay, so what?

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And that's really what he answers here. Who are we because of what Jesus has done? Why does the church, the body of Christ, the household of God, the people of the

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Spirit, why do we exist? Peter seeks to answer that question.

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And the way he does it is interesting as we're going to see, we're going to spend a lot of time in the Old Testament because Peter just digs deep into the

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Old Testament and allows the Old Testament to answer the question of what is God doing in our salvation.

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As he takes us on what's going to be a brief but a no less important journey of discovery, as it goes deeper into the gospel and its implications for us as God's people,

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Peter's going to teach us one real big idea. There's only one, if you don't remember anything else I say this afternoon, remember this, that Peter's going to teach us that in Christ, believers have become transformed into God's worshipping, honoured and privileged people.

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In Christ, believers have been transformed into God's worshipping, honoured and privileged people.

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Understanding who we are as God's people and understanding what God has done for us is crucial.

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If we think that we contributed to making us what we are, then we run the risk of dangerous pride.

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Have you seen this in some Christians? There's a pride with which they carry themselves, almost as though we did something to make ourselves what we are.

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But as we read the Bible, the Bible doesn't give us room for pride. But if we think we contributed something to what we are, then we run that risk of pride.

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But on the other hand, if we recognise, okay, I'm not what I need to be.

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So if our answer to that then is, well, I need to try and make myself something that I'm not, when, and I say when, not if, when we fail, we'll find ourselves drowning in crippling despair.

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Have you met Christians who are like that? For whom the Christian life is not a joyous, wonderful pursuit of Jesus, it's just a constant reminder of how much they're failing.

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Well, can I put it to you that that happens when we lose sight of what God has done and who we are because of what

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God has done, and we make it all about us. You will either become a prideful person or you'll become a despairing person.

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And the reality is, as the people of God, even in a world where we are beset with trials and sufferings and everything can really beat down heavy on us, we often need to be reminded of what

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God has done and who we are because of that. Since none of us want to plummet from pride or drown in despair,

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I think it's safe to say that what Peter has to teach us this afternoon is actually pretty valuable when you think about it.

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To make sure that we can track with Peter's flow of thought, I want you to consider with me three identity markers of God's special people that give hope, meaning, and purpose when times get difficult.

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Because remember, Peter is writing this to Christians who are suffering. He's writing this to Christians who are not exactly living life on easy street.

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And yet, as he writes to them, part of what he writes to encourage them, remember the theme of this book, 1

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Peter 5 verse 12, this is the true grace of God, stand firm in it. Part of how he encourages them to stand is that he takes a step back and says, look what

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God has done and look at who you are. So, three identity markers of God's special people that I want to consider this afternoon.

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The first identity marker we need to remember that, we need to remember when times are difficult, the first thing we need to remember that is in Christ, we are a worshipping people.

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In Christ, we are a worshipping people, verses 4 and 5. Well, like I said,

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Peter picks up his thought, really this is one flowing sentence, he hasn't broken the sentence yet, verse 4, picks up the thought we looked at, we ended with last time, verse 4, as you come to him, come to Jesus, a living stone rejected by people but chosen and honored by God.

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By the way, when Peter talks about coming to Jesus, he's not just referring to our initial act of coming to Jesus in faith.

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I think he has that in view, but I think he's going a little further too. He's talking about the fact that we continually come to Jesus.

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Think about this, when you became a Christian, you came to Christ in faith. But the Bible also teaches we regularly come back to Christ for communion, for ongoing fellowship with him.

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Our fathers in the faith used to call this our union and communion with Christ. That not only when you became a

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Christian were you united to Christ, but you were, when you were united to Christ, that opened the door, as it were, to a whole realm of fellowship and communion with him.

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We're joined to Christ by faith, and because we're joined to Christ, we're able to have a living relationship with Jesus.

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It's interesting, Peter describes Christ as a living stone, a living stone, which is an interesting way to describe him.

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After all, think about this, we don't think of stones as living things usually. They're not living things.

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But if you know your Old Testament, God is called a stone or a rock in multiple places.

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I'll draw your attention to just one of them. Deuteronomy chapter 32 verses 3 and 4, this is

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Moses kind of giving the end of his sermon series that we know as the book of Deuteronomy.

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And in chapter 32, Moses says this, for I will proclaim the Lord's name, declare the greatness of our

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God, the rock. His work is perfect, all his ways are just, a faithful God without bias, he is righteous and true.

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When the Bible uses this language of God as the rock, it's speaking to the fact that he is the source of stability, that he gives assurance, that in him we find steadfastness.

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It's not saying that he is some sort of dead monument somewhere, no, it's the idea that he is a living and an active foundation for his people.

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And this living stone Jesus that we come to, did you catch how polarizing he is?

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Look at the end of verse 4 with me, as you come to him, a living stone rejected by people, but chosen and honored by God.

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If you think about this, if you've read the Gospels, currently doing a reading plan through the

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New Testament, we had to read through John's Gospel, and it was fascinating to me when I was reading John's Gospel, how much people didn't like Jesus when he was around.

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We often think of people thinking, everyone liked Jesus, after all he was like the surfer dude who was really nice.

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But actually, if you read the life of Jesus in all four of the Gospels, he's really not liked by the people around him.

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He's misunderstood, he's rejected, in fact, he's ultimately murdered. Jesus wasn't really liked by the people around him, but that was man's perception of Jesus.

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It's interesting, Matthew's Gospel picks up on this two times, twice, the Father speaks from heaven and what does he say about Jesus?

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Matthew chapter 3 verse 17, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.

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Matthew 17, 5, same words, this is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased, and in fact he adds an instruction to it, listen to him.

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Man's valuation of Jesus was not that high, but God's valuation of Jesus is that Jesus is priceless.

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And if I can pause for a moment, if that's God's valuation of Jesus, that Jesus is precious, as Peter puts it, that he is chosen and honored, if that's

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God's valuation of Jesus, what do you think your valuation of Jesus should be?

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Again, I never presume that everybody I speak to knows the Lord, so for a moment, can I speak as though I'm speaking to people who maybe don't know the

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Lord for a second? If God views Jesus that highly, what should be the response of us when it comes to Jesus?

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Well, we should view him as equally precious. We should be willing to come to him, to run to him for dear life, recognizing we have nothing in ourselves, that everything we need is found in him.

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Peter goes on, verse 5, he says, as you come to him, a living stone rejected by people but chosen and honored by God.

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You yourselves, as living stones, are being built to be a holy priesthood, excuse me, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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As we come to faith in Christ, and as we continually come to Christ in faith to commune with him,

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God is doing something in and through us as his people. We are being built up into a spiritual house,

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Peter says. And it's interesting, it's not just any kind of house. The language here seems to carry this idea of being a temple, that each individual believer and each local church body becomes a building block in this temple, this place of worship that's being built in the

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Lord. And I know that for Peter, this was not an original idea, because as you read other writers in the

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New Testament, they all say the same thing. So in 1 Corinthians 3, Paul will tell the Corinthian Christians, don't you know that you yourselves are

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God's temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you? And he's speaking to the church corporately at that point.

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In 619, he'll apply the same principle to individual Christians in talking about sexual immorality.

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And he'll say, listen, don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? So not only is the church

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God's temple, but each individual Christian, because the Holy Spirit lives within us, is

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God's temple. In Ephesians chapter 2, Paul will talk about this and he'll say, verse 21, in him, referring to Christ, the whole building being put together grows into a holy temple in the

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Lord. In him, you are also being built together for God's dwelling through the

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Spirit. In the old covenant, God's house was a physical structure in one place in Jerusalem.

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But here's the beauty of this glorious gospel age in which we live. In this age,

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God's house is not localized to one place. God's house is global. God's house is spiritual.

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God's house is made up of those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ. But did you catch what

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Peter does in this text? Did you notice that he doesn't just say that we are the temple? But again, look at verse 5.

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He says that we're not only the temple, he says, we, the spiritual house, are being built up to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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As Peter likes to do, he's going to do this a lot in this letter, you've seen some of it already. He likes to mix and meld his metaphors a little bit.

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One metaphor kind of seamlessly bleeds into another one. Think about this.

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You don't typically build a priesthood. You build a temple for the priesthood to work in.

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But Peter says here that actually if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus, God has made you part of the temple that serves

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Him. He's made you part of the priesthood that serves

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Him. And he says that we're a priesthood for the purpose, he says, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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This language of sacrifice is all over your New Testament. I included the references in this week's study guide. In Hebrews 13, 15, we're told that our praise and our worship as God's people is an offering.

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Therefore through Him, let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise that is the fruit of lips that confess

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His name. Have you ever thought about that? That what we do in worship each week is an unbloody sacrifice, if you will?

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That we are offering up to God the fruit of our lips, confessing

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His name, saying about His name what He says about His name. The next verse,

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Hebrews 13, 16, says that generosity and mercy are sacrifices. So Hebrews 13, 16, don't neglect to do what is good and to share, for God is pleased with such sacrifices.

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In Romans 15, I won't read this one, but if you're taking notes, Romans 15, verses 15 and 16,

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Paul says that his evangelism and gospel witness was an act of sacrifice.

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And probably the most famous passage of all that talks about this in New Testament, Romans chapter 12, verse 1, Paul says,

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I urge you to present yourselves as a living sacrifice, which always, by the way, has struck me as an interesting phrase to use.

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Sacrifices aren't usually living. If you don't believe me, read your Old Testament.

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They're living for a little bit, but they don't live all that long. But Paul says, no, no, no, no, no. You're not a dead sacrifice.

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No, no, no. God's people, you are a living sacrifice. God through Christ and through the

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Spirit makes us a priesthood to offer up sacrifices to the Lord. This truth that the

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Christian is part of a priesthood, this was one of those great truths that was recovered in the Reformation. It's not quite as famous as justification by faith or sola scriptura or the

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Bible alone being the word of God, but this was one of the truths that the Reformers fought tooth and nail for.

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They called it the priesthood of all believers. Some of you may have heard that term. The priesthood of all believers was the truth that instead of a class of priests who mediate between us and God, through Christ, who is our great high priest, every believer has the right and the privilege to come before the

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Lord. Not only do they have that privilege to come before the Lord, they have the privilege to offer sacrifices of praise, of worship, of witness, in fact, of our very lives to the

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Lord. The Reformation recovered this truth, but can I be honest and say that I think we've lost a little bit of this in our day?

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That we've kind of lost sight of the priesthood of all believers? Allow me to get practical for a moment.

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So many churches model themselves in a manner that suggests that you've got God, you've got the individual

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Christian, but in between God and the individual Christian, there is this other group of people.

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And this other group of people, whether it's one guy or a group of men, they serve

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God while the rest of us outsource serving God to them. What do we call this middle group?

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Well, if you're a Protestant like we are, we typically call them pastors and elders, don't we? How do you see this?

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You may think, oh, that's a bit harsh. Think about this with me for a moment. How often do you see this? I can tell you as a kid who grew up in a pastor's home, has a lot of friends who are pastors, and somebody who's now serving in one, if you want to know, in fact, you want to know how a church, how a believer, how a family has succumbed to this mindset,

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I'll ask you one question. When you think of ministry, who's the first person you think of?

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You typically think the pastor, don't you? In fact, what do we say, though? He's in the ministry.

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I'm going to go ahead and throw a flag on the field for a moment because Ephesians chapter four tells me actually every Christian is in the ministry.

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Ephesians chapter two that we just read says every one of us is a temple for God by the Holy Spirit. We just read it here in First Peter that you yourselves are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices.

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And by the way, First Peter is not written to just the pastor of the church. Now let's be clear.

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I do believe that pastors have a unique role in the life of the church to be sure. I believe in ordained ministers and elders.

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I believe in deacons. Yes, there are certain people who are set apart to serve in unique ways.

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I'm not denying that. Not at all. I'd have to tear up massive portions of my New Testament for that to make sense.

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No, I'm not denying that at all. But I am saying this. An implication of us being made a spiritual priesthood is that we don't have priests.

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In the New Testament understanding, we are all priests under the great high priest.

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And I say that because there are some traditions where they call their ministers priests. But I've often said, if you're going to call them priests, call every person who comes to the church a priest too.

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If they're a believer and they know the Lord Jesus, guess what, they're a priest too. Every single one of us has sacrifices to offer to the

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Lord. Sacrifices of worship and of witness and of praise and of caring for one another.

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So maybe the question is not, who's the priest among us? The question is, how do we exercise the privileges of our priesthood?

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Maybe the question is, how can we play our role in the sacred service, that's what ministry means by the way, it just means service, in the sacred service that we're all called as God's people to offer to the

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Lord? In Christ, we are worshipping people, a priesthood created by God to offer us spiritual sacrifices.

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But there's a second identity marker that he gives us in our text. Not only are we worshipping people, secondly, in Christ we are an honored people.

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In Christ, we are an honored people, verses 6, 7, and 8. So in verse 6,

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Peter quotes from Isaiah chapter 28, so he says, For it stands in Scripture, see, I lay in Zion a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.

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Isaiah 28, which we'll actually get to in our readings of Isaiah at some point. Isaiah 28 is a prophecy to the remnant of God's people, calling them to place their trust in the soon coming kingdom of God and the king of that kingdom.

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It's written to a nation who actually made an alliance with pagan nations, hoping that the pagan nations would save them from disgrace.

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But God says, no, that's not going to save you from shame. God says believing in him and believing in the one that he would send would ensure that believers are never put to shame.

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And I believe that Peter takes that language and rightly says God is speaking to his people then and he's speaking to his people now.

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That since we've come to Christ and we found in him not just a little rock, but a cornerstone that we can stand on.

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Since that's the case, verse 7, so honor will come to you who believe.

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God honors his son and because we are in his son, God honors his people.

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And again, you have to remember this in the context of what Peter is saying to these believers who are beleaguered and worn out.

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For these people, being a Christian was not the most socially valuable. It was not the most prestigious. In fact, we'll see in 1

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Peter, Christians were definitely not the most liked people in the world.

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The world sees Christ as nothing. In fact, do you see the description that Peter says? He says for the unbelieving, the stone that the builder rejected, this one has become the cornerstone and a stone to stumble over and a rock to trip over.

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Peter flows from Isaiah 28 to Psalm 118, the verse announcing the coming of the

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Messiah. And Peter says for the unbeliever, Jesus is a stone to stumble over and a rock to trip over.

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That word trip over is interesting. It's one word. It's where we got our word scandalous from. That Jesus is scandalous to this world.

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Again, this was not a foreign concept in the New Testament. Paul could say in 1 Corinthians 1 .18 that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

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1 Corinthians 1 .23, he says we preach Christ crucified. He's a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the

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Gentiles. The two major groups in the ancient world, Jews don't know what to do with them and the

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Gentiles think he's mad. And I think sometimes we lose, again, we lose the force of this, especially in a society where for a long time

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Christianity has been socially acceptable. It's been perfectly fine to be a

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Christian. But I'm going to say something that is pretty controversial. While I do heartily affirm that Christians should endeavor to be kind and to be sweet and to be the saver of Christ to men and women made in the image of God, I don't think a angry, rude, disrespectful, brash

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Christianity does anything for anyone. While I believe that, I think at times we can subtly get into the mindset that says that if we're nice and inoffensive and we shave off the rough edges of this gospel that people can't stomach, they might like us a little more.

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But can I just be honest and tell you that being nice and inoffensive and shaving the offense of the gospel doesn't make non -Christians like the gospel anymore?

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I've been reading through the New Testament, it's fascinating. Jesus, by the very nature of his gospel, was one of the most offensive people to have ever lived.

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He told men that they were sinners, he told men that they needed to be made right with God, and he told men that if they didn't, that they would perish.

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That is really not a great example of how to win friends and influence people, and yet we see here that the text tells us that Jesus was most honored of all.

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Jesus, by the very nature of his gospel, was the most offensive man to have ever lived, and it might be that for those of us who are believers, the sooner we accept that reality, the sooner we might actually make some headway in gospel proclamation.

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But Peter isn't quite done, he's still explaining why it is that non -Christians don't receive Jesus, and he gives us another reason, do you see it there at the end of verse 8?

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He says that they, the unbelieving, stumble because they disobey the word.

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They were destined for this, that as they hear the word, and the word here is a reference to the gospel, that as they hear the gospel, the good news of a savior called

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Jesus, and the call to repent and to believe in him, as they hear that, the text says they stumble because they disobeyed that word, they reject the call of God in the gospel to repent and to believe.

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I think what's more interesting in this passage is the fact that Peter goes on and says that they were destined for this.

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Now this isn't the message to get into a debate about the doctrine of election and what happens to the non -elect.

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If you do want to study more about that, one, we're studying that on Wednesday nights, you're more than welcome to join us. If you can't, on our listening table we have two copies left of A .W.

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Pink's book, The Sovereignty of God, I encourage you to read that. I'm going to quote

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Pink a little bit here, commenting on this very verse, A .W. Pink says this, quote, here then,

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God expressly affirms that there are some who have been appointed unto disobedience.

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Our business is not to reason about it, but to bow to Holy Scripture. Our first duty is not to understand, but to believe what

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God has said. I get it, it's a tough pill to swallow, especially when you hear it said out loud like that.

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But Peter says it here and he doesn't say it with any apology. He says that those who disobeyed the word were destined to disobey the word and thus to stumble.

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Peter would have us to understand that believers believe because God destined them from the foundation of the world to believe.

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Unbelievers don't believe because from the foundation of the world, God decided to leave them to the just condemnation that their freely chosen sin begs for.

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Easy to say, but hard to swallow, isn't it? But here's Peter's point. Peter's making this point really not to talk about this doctrine of election and reprobation as some call it.

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Because here's the thing, that might be true of them, but Peter's not really talking to them.

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Remember, he's writing to Christians. His point is that's them, that's not you.

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The Christian doesn't live under the threat of condemnation and shame. The Christian doesn't live under the same weightiness that the unbeliever lives under.

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No, if the Christian rightly understands who they are, we live under the promise of honor. We are not those who have been trodden down into the dirt by God.

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We are those who have been raised up out of the dirt by God. The Christian lives under the promise of honor.

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And can I put it to you that when we are weighed down by the pains and struggles of life in a godless world, we should remember that we are blessed to be an honored people in Christ.

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And brothers and sisters, I hope that we would never forget that reality. We're worshiping people in Christ, offering spiritual sacrifices, we're an honored people in Christ.

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Thirdly and finally, Peter would have us to understand that in Christ, we're a privileged people.

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In Christ, we're a privileged people, verses 9 and 10. In contrast to the shame that awaits those who have been destined for destruction,

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Peter digs in even deeper, and he digs deeper into the identity of the Christian. In verse 9, which is a very classic verse in Peter, 1

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Peter 2, 9. But you, unlike the unbelieving, unlike those who are destined for destruction, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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Peter pulls four sets of allusions from the Old Testament into one verse. For time's sake, if you grab the study guide,

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I put all these references there so you can read them in your own time. This idea of the chosen race, the chosen people.

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God says that in Deuteronomy 7, Deuteronomy 10, Isaiah 43. And that was true of Israel as God's people under the old covenant, and it's true of the church as God's people in the new covenant.

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Not only that, he says that we are a royal priesthood. That would be Exodus chapter 19, Isaiah 61.

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Revelation will pick up this language later, Revelation 1, 6, and 5, 10. In the ancient world, kings would often have their own sort of cadre of priests who basically serve the gods on their behalf.

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And Peter pulls on that language from the Old Testament and says, listen, you are the priesthood that serves the king of kings directly.

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He says that we are a holy nation, third of all, a people who are set apart for the

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Lord, a people who enjoy his special presence and favor, as one writer puts it. And finally, he says that we are a people for his own possession.

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God's unique and precious possession. As God would say to his people, you only have I known of all the nations.

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We know that this was a common theme in the apostolic preaching, because Paul will use the same language in Titus 2, 14, that Jesus purchased for himself a people for his own possession.

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And think about this, for a people who felt less than, less than, these lofty and elevated privileges would remind them, just as they remind us in 2022.

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They remind us that our earthly position is not the final measure of who we are or what we are, that because we're not seen as valuable in the earth realm, that doesn't mean that with God we are unvaluable.

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But Peter is quick to note that with great privileges come great responsibility as well.

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These privileges are not so, as it were, we can pat our pillow and float to glory on a bed of ease, because Peter is very clear in saying there's a reason why we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.

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End of verse nine, he says, all of this is true so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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God's privileged people are privileged for the purpose of proclaiming his praises.

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There's a lot of discussion these days about what is the mission of the church. Some people will tell you that the mission of the church is to fix and cure all kinds of social ills.

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Others will tell you that the mission of the church is to pursue all kinds of justice. Some will tell you that, no, it's none of those, the church exists for mercy ministry, that's why we're here.

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Other people will tell you that, well, the church exists for the purpose of creating a community.

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That, you know, we live in an age where people are more fragmented than ever. Churches exist so that they can be community. Now, I would say that most of those are byproducts, and I say most, the justice conversation is one for another time, because I think most people use that term and don't know what they mean.

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But for now, here's a novel idea. Rather than trying to come up with the mission of the church, what if we were to just ask the

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Lord of the church what the mission is? He tells us quite plainly in Matthew chapter 28, the mission of the church is to go and to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you.

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Luke chapter 24, he tells his disciples explicitly that repentance for the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all the nations.

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That's why the church exists. And as men and women and as boys and girls are saved through the proclamation of the gospel, a praise team develops, a group of people who resound

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God's praise grows and their voice resounds as those redeemed people turn around and they tell other people about the goodness of God in the gospel.

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Allow me to get personal for just a moment. I'm going to slow myself down for a moment here. Here at Redeemer, we've spoken a little bit about our need for gospel outreach in our church.

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And I've said before that my desire is that we wouldn't just talk about it, but that we would be actively doing it. What's the population of this city that we live in?

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I'm a church ponter, so I kind of have to know demographics and numbers and all of that fun stuff. Did you know the population of Medford is almost 86 ,000 people?

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According to census data, just under 86 ,000. Year on year, the number rises by about 1 ,000 people.

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When you look at all the information we have available, 28 % of those people, so those of you who are better at math than me, which is most people, 28 % profess to be

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Christians. Now when you look at all of those numbers, it's fascinating because they kind of throw in groups that I would argue are not

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Christians. So if we remove the non -Christian groups who are falsely advertising, the number drops from about 28 to 20 or thereabouts.

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So that's 20 % of people, one in five, who would say that they are a

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Christian. For now, I'm not even dealing theologically with whether they're truly converted or not and all the rest of it.

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Let's just go with they profess to be Christians, under 20%. That's close to 69 ,000 people in our city who don't know

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Jesus. That's a number I think about a lot. Now I'm not delusional enough to think that one church can save all those people and I praise

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God that there are other churches in our valley who are faithfully ministering to people by all means. But can

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I ask for a moment, if we say that we are a gospel preaching, Bible teaching church, and if we say we take every word of God's word seriously as we say we do, can

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I put it to you that the question that this text presents to us is easy to ask, but just as it's easy to ask, it's costly to answer.

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You see, this question, this text presents to us a question, as I was preparing this, I had to pause for a moment. I just wrote the question out.

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The question of a text like this, a text that tells us the purpose for why we exist.

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If God has told us what our purpose is, the question becomes brothers and sisters, it's a rule. It's a question we all want to ask.

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The question is, what are we doing about that number?

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The question I had to ask myself this week was, what am I doing about that number? And faith family, you know me,

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I am not big on guilt trips. I don't think they actually work. I don't bring this up to guilt us into doing something we're not interested in.

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I would put it to you that I say this because this text gives us some perspective about why we're here.

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And the question we have to ask is, if we know why we're here, how are we doing with the mission?

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How are we doing with the mission? Well, I'm almost done. And Peter in great fashion,

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I think Peter himself, as he writes on the inspiration of the spirit, he knows that he has dropped something heavy on these people.

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Because look at verse 10, Peter ends on a note of encouragement. Look at verse 10 with me. He says, once you were not a people, but now you are

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God's people. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

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That's a quotation from Hosea chapter two in verse 23, where God speaks about his people saying after that he had judged them, he had said that they should be called no mercy and no compassion.

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But then he says, no, actually, call them mercy and call them compassion because I will show them mercy and compassion.

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In the gospel, those who were not a people are now God's people. In the gospel, those who had not received mercy received mercy.

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In fact, did you notice my three points in this sermon began with the same two words? I said in Christ, we are worshiping people, an honored people, a privileged people.

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Here's why I say that. Did you notice that Jesus is called a living stone in verse four?

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And what are we called in the next verse? We're called living stones. Jesus is said to be honored, and then we are said to be honored.

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You see, when the Christian is united to Christ, everything that Christ is becomes ours.

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Ultimately, anything that we've just talked about, anything that we've just said, the only reason that any of us can do any of this is not because we are great and wonderful people.

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It's not because we have some great spiritual privilege above anybody else. It's precisely because God in the gospel has joined us to Christ, that when we were sinners who were enmity with God, God sent his son who lived a life that we couldn't live, who died a death that we rightly deserve, who went to the cross and rose from the grave and is now seated at the father's right hand.

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Because of that great and glorious work, we are united to Jesus.

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And that's why we can be what God has called us to be. Not because we're threatened into it.

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Not because we're, as it were, bludgeoned to death by the weight of guilt.

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No, it's precisely because of what Jesus has done for us that we're able to be that worshipping honored and privileged people.

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And if you're here today or you're listening to this later on and you're hearing us talk about this, you're like, I don't know the first thing about any of this.

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Can I invite you to come to the Jesus that we've been talking about? Can I invite you to lay down your sin, lay down your self -reliance, lay down your self -righteousness and come to Jesus?

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Because it's in him that we find meaning, hope, and purpose for all of life. And Father, we are so grateful for the hope and the purpose that we have in Jesus.

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Father, we thank you for texts like this, which graciously yet pointedly remind us of who we are and what you've done in Christ.

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Father, help us that we would be a worshipping people, offering up sacrifices that please you.

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Help us to remember that we are an honored people, that because of your son, we receive honor. And Father, help us to be a privileged people who remember that our privileges are given to us for the purpose of proclaiming your great name.