Cornerstone Of Hope - [1 Peter 2:4-10]

Well, I would invite you to open your Bibles this morning to 1st Peter, Chapter 2. 1st

Peter, Chapter 2, as we continue to move through this short epistle that is just packed with so much truth.

And you know, sometimes I stumble around trying to figure out what I want to talk about in the beginning, and this week it arrived in my mailbox, and I love when that happens.

Allow me to quote from one of the great theologians of our time. Jesus had a house and a seamless robe, which was very valuable.

But compared to heaven, he was very poor. So some preach that since Jesus was poor in earthly material things, we too should be poor if we want to be like Jesus.

However, the scripture says that he became poor that we might become rich, and this is an all block caps.

He became poor that we might become rich, exclamation point. But of course, the argument goes that the riches

Jesus brought us are strictly spiritual. And of course, spiritual riches are a part of what

Jesus brought us. Naturally, that's part of what he brought us. But may

I ask, was Jesus poor spiritually while on earth?

Now follow this logic. Was Jesus poor spiritually while on earth? Certainly not.

The word declares that he contained the Holy Spirit without measure. We could quibble about that.

Jesus, all caps, bold, never became poor spiritually.

So therefore, ergo, Jesus's poverty was to make us both spiritually and materially rich.

You can't make this up. You just get it in the mailbox and you go, oh, that's good. I like that. Type it up. Well, let's try to put that understanding of what

Jesus did and see how it meshes with some of the things that we've already talked about.

I looked this up online in Wikipedia. Talking about Cappadocia, one of the areas to which

Peter wrote, said Cappadocia contains several underground cities, largely used by Christians as hiding places before they became a legitimate religion.

I like that. A legitimate religion. Well, why were they hiding? Because they were ashamed of Christianity?

No, because they were being persecuted. Well, wait a second now. This great theologian said we were going to be rich materially.

Why didn't Peter, when he was writing this letter, promise them, his readers, material wealth?

Why not? In fact, he did quite the opposite. He specifically told them that their inheritance, indeed the inheritance of all the saints, of every believer, was in heaven and protected by God himself, and therefore not susceptible to decay or defilement.

Now, if your hope is in money, can't that be taken away? Can't it burn?

Can't it be devalued while you're on sabbatical? Can't financial systems collapse and nations even disappear from the face of the earth?

If you read through the Bible, you go, hey, where are those, what happened to those whateverians, you know, all those people, those ites?

Where did they go? They're gone. Because nations come and go.

Money comes and goes. Bank systems fail. But an inheritance that is preserved by the power of God that awaits you in heaven can never be taken away.

That is hope. That is something worth clinging on to, not material things of this world.

1 Peter 2, verses 4 to 10.

And coming to him as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God.

You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For this is contained in scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in him will not be disappointed.

This precious value then is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

For they stumble because they are disobedient to the word. And to this doom they were also appointed.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God.

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

This morning as we go through this passage, I want to draw your attention to three timeless truths about Christ and the blessings that accrue to believers as a result of his work, so that you will be, in effect, living billboards for Christ.

Now if that idea of being a billboard sounds trite, just wait until we get to verse 9.

Beloved, I want you to see who you are as a consequence of what Jesus has done and who he is.

When you have these truths in the forefront of your thinking, you will not only have hope, but you will have joy.

Boundless joy that will cause you to want to praise God to friend and stranger alike.

You will be an endless, as it were, advertisement for Jesus. It used to kind of bother me when

I would hear preachers who just seemed so, you know, maybe I'm just too, and you guys might laugh at this, but maybe

I'm too academic sometimes. But I remember hearing a guy come into chapel, and basically he just seemed like my grandpa kind of thing, except I never knew my grandfather.

But if I did, this is how he would have seemed to me. And he was just like, he said, have you ever said to someone, let me tell you about my

Jesus. And I thought that just seemed too comfortable to me, but this is the idea. It's that love, that desire to share what

Christ has done. That's what we need to possess. Let me give you the first timeless truth.

As a result of the resurrection of Christ, you are part of his eternal body.

We know that we're part of the body of Christ, but it is an eternal body that is being shaped, formed, molded, and fitted by God.

Look again at verse 4, which describes believers as habitually, repeatedly coming to Christ.

We just see these few words here, and coming to him. And no, when I say habitually, repeatedly coming to Christ, this doesn't mean that every week you come forward and answer the altar call, which we don't have.

That's not the idea. The idea is that you are drawing near to him, that you are approaching him.

MacArthur says it this way, it is a conscious coming into God's presence with the intent to remain.

Now I speak to people each and every week who come to church and squeeze a few minutes a day of Bible study and prayer into their lives, and that's not the idea.

The idea in coming is to have this sense of a constant presence of the

Lord in your life. Your Savior is to be constantly on your mind. Am I demeaning scripture study and prayer?

No, I'm not. Those things are vital. But it is a conscious attitude of coming to him, recognizing and welcoming that you are in his presence constantly, whether you want to be or not,

God is with you at all times. Do we act like that? To just kind of give you an illustration of this sort of ongoing presence, it's going to seem a little out there.

But in the job I used to have, there were people, a dwindling number of them, a number of people who smoked.

And I'm telling you, I'm not even exaggerating. By the time they took lunch and smoke breaks, at most out of an eight -hour day, four hours were spent at work.

Those smoke breaks went on forever. I was just like, every time I looked at their office, they weren't there, and when

I went outside, there they were smoking. Smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke. And it came to be that I just thought, you know what?

Whenever they're not on the phone or doing whatever they're doing at work, they're just thinking about smoking.

They just can't wait to go out and get their next smoke break. Now, I'm not suggesting, if you follow the analogy,

I'm not suggesting that smoking and thinking about God are the same thing.

What I am suggesting, though, is that he ought to be on in the background, even when we're doing other things, so that when we've cleared our slate, so to speak, so that when we have the time, we can set apart time to think about our

Lord. If you are willing to make him a priority, this kind of priority, you will think about him during your lulls in the day.

Again, you can't avoid work so that, you know, you can't say, hey, some people get a smoke break,

I'm on a Christ break right now. That's not the idea. The idea is to have this ongoing desire for fellowship with him.

E .F. Harrison said it this way. He said, no other faith can claim a living founder who has passed through death and has risen to a triumphant station at God's right hand, there to be, now note this, there to be continually available to the immediate fellowship of each one who trusts him.

Jesus is available for continual fellowship with you. Are you available for continual fellowship with him?

That's the idea of this coming to him constantly. Again, look at verse 4.

And you'll see the first reference to the resurrection, even if it seems a little obscure at first.

And coming to him as to a living stone. Jesus is described as a living stone, not

Livingston. I knew plenty of those growing up, had a whole family of them. Stones, though, this is really an interesting way he has of saying this.

Stones are dead. We say, you know, he's dead as a rock or dropped like a stone or something like that.

But we wouldn't think living stone together. Edmund Clowney puts it this way.

He says, Christ is the living stone, not just because he is a living person, but because he is alive from the dead.

God set his cornerstone in place by the resurrection.

It is by virtue of the resurrection that he is the firstborn among many brethren.

It is by virtue of the resurrection that Jesus can give life to others. Now, this word stone in the

Greek is lithos or lithon in this particular word here.

And it is typically used in reference to stones that are particularly specially shaped and formed to use in the making of buildings or homes, structures.

Hebert says it refers to a prepared stone, one that has been shaped for its place in a building.

So in other words, it is one that is particularly shaped and ready to put into place.

And that's going to be key as we move through this passage. But Jesus is a living stone.

He's resurrected from the dead, not dead, but seated at the right hand of the father.

Looking again at verse four, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God.

Now, the Greek language has many unique features that aren't always readily apparent in the

English. In this case, there are two words that appear in the Greek, men and day.

Those are the two Greek words. And they could be understood and they can appear in different places in a sentence.

But basically, it means on the one hand and on the other hand. When you see those two things and there'll be a number of things in between, but it'll be on the one hand this and on the other hand that.

And so it's a comparison. So when he says, which has been rejected by men, that's on the one hand.

And then on the other hand, but his choice and precious in the sight of God.

What a contrast. How two camps, two views of seeing this living stone.

On the one hand, he is rejected by men. And on the other hand, he is choice and precious in the sight of God.

Now, Jesus was rejected by men, rejected by men for the chosen task, for this purpose that they saw.

And what was that task? Well, it's clear to what Peter was referring to. He was referring to a group of people, the

Jewish leadership, who were expecting a Messiah who would be a political deliverer.

Well, if we looked, we would see over and over again, Jesus saying that his kingdom was not of this world.

He was a big disappointment to the Jewish leadership, but he was also a threat to them. And it was the

Jews, specifically the Jewish leadership, the Pharisees and the scribes who pushed for the execution of the

Lord. Now, the verb rejected illustrates this. Men, these

Jewish leaders, tested the stone. They looked at it.

They tried to see how it would work within their paradigm, and it didn't fit.

Jesus was not what they wanted. And isn't this what we see every time we try to witness to somebody?

We had a repairman in here recently, and we began talking about worldly mundane things.

But I knew once we started talking that the gospel wasn't too far down the road.

And, man, when we got there, he had distractions, things that he wanted to talk about.

Well, what about the fact that there's a God and there's evil in the world?

And, you know, normally I tell people, hey, don't deal with that. That's just a distraction. They just want to take you off the road.

You don't have to answer those kind of things. But I answered every one of his objections, whether it was the problem of evil, the problem he has with organized religion and secrecy and all these other things, and I shot them all down.

And I said, look, we even have everything that we believe is on our website. You can read all about it. We have our sermons on our website.

We don't have any secrets. But, I mean,

I have no reason to think that he repented. But unbelievers want a God of their own design.

These Jewish leaders wanted a Messiah that fit their mold. Unbelievers want

God the way they want him. That's the way it's always been and the way it always will be. If they don't see the

God that they want in the Bible, they'll create one of their own. Mankind today wants a

Savior who asks for nothing and provides everything, rather than one who asks for everything and promises no life of ease on this earth.

Peter's quoting here from Psalm 118 .22. I'm not going to go there.

I just want you to be aware of that. But Peter uses, he changes slightly, but he uses men and not just builders because Psalm 118 .22

says, The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Again, the idea that Jesus fulfilled prophecy from the

Old Testament. But Jesus, or Peter, changes it from builders to men.

And what that really does is heighten the contrast. All men everywhere, apart from the grace of God, do what with Jesus?

They reject him. They see him as unsuitable. They don't want a

Savior like that. But verse 4 tells us how

God values this living stone. It says,

He's choice and precious. The idea of being choice means that He was considered absolutely the best, the best possible selection, excellent, beyond compare, and precious, of considerable worth, valuable.

He's worthless to unsaved man, and of considerable worth, value, excellent, the best to God.

God says this living stone, Jesus, is the best, of considerable worth, of great value, and men reject

Him because He does not meet their preconceived standards. Verse 5 helps us to comprehend the impact of Jesus on those whom

He has saved. First notice, it says that we have been granted spiritual life.

You also, as living stones, also, as in a similar manner, as in Jesus is the living stone, and you also are living.

Christians are partakers in His life, His death, His resurrection, and His nature.

Now that gives you hope. If you're Peter, and you're writing to people, you want to encourage them, you don't say, listen, if you believe enough, you can have a lot of money.

You say, listen, you are living, you are never going to die. Your hope is in the perfect life, death, resurrection of Christ, and those things cannot be taken away from you.

You are going to be conformed in the image of God's dear Son. And as you habitually spend time with Him, as you are conformed more and more into His image, this will be more and more true of you, and you will indeed resemble

Him as He is the living stone. You will be a living stone as well. So we've been granted spiritual life, but secondly, we've been granted spiritual responsibility.

Again, look at verse 5, second part of it. As living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Every Christian is being incorporated into a great spiritual building, a spiritual house, not a physical house, a spiritual house.

We are spiritual stones, living stones being gathered together, formed, shaped into a spiritual house.

What a great description of the church. Again, as we've said many times, the church is not a building.

Certainly when I grew up as a child, when we went to church, we went to the building. That's what we were thinking about.

But going to church is meeting with the people of God. It is serving the people of God. Scripture refers to the church universal as the body of Christ.

It is also the bride of Christ, and here it is a spiritual house. Again, think about the contrast between what

Peter was teaching about the values of the established religious order and what he was teaching here.

A stone rejected. The cornerstone, as we'll see, rejected.

When the temple in Jerusalem still loomed large, when it still cast its shadow, when it still existed, when it was still the focal point of the

Jewish religion. But a spiritual house as opposed to a physical house with the express purpose of spiritual sacrifices instead of physical sacrifices.

There are no more need for physical sacrifices. No more animals need to be killed. Jesus paid the price once for all sin.

There's no more need for a temple. God is not in a building.

God resides among and within his people. And still, this truth results in a responsibility.

Believers are not only the abode of God, but are to function as his priests.

You say, wait a second. How come we don't sell collars in the bookstore? How come we don't teach

Latin? Why don't we sit in confessionals? That's not the idea. That's not the picture. We're not priests in that sense.

Every believer is a living stone, and every believer is a member of the holy priesthood.

This isn't some kind of sacerdotal religious system. In other words, it's not based on a hierarchy.

It's not based on a priest having to give you certain rights or functions.

That's not the picture at all. How do believers function as priests? Well, first of all, the scripture here even says that you must be holy.

This is something that Peter's previously mentioned. It has the idea of a priest who is set apart for God's purposes.

And if you are not, if you are in fact a Christian and you are not functioning in, if your life is not holy, if you're not living up to that standard, well, if we were to look at the

Old Testament and see what happened when Old Testament priests did things that weren't according to the teaching of Scripture, the results were not pretty.

We could talk about Nadab and Abihu and others who thought that they could do without proper authority, without a proper lifestyle, that they could do the function of a priest, and the results over and over again resulted in the judgment of God.

The same is true of us. We must be holy in order to function as the priests of God.

But second, you must be involved in the offering of spiritual sacrifices.

Well, what are spiritual sacrifices? Some ideas would be things like this, service to God, praises to God, serving the body, being generous with those in and out of the body, and withholding nothing from God.

I mean, immediately I think about Ananias and Sapphira. In fact, when I was talking to that repairman this week, and he said, well, the

God of the Old Testament was wrath. And I always love that because I always love to go to Ananias and Sapphira and go, you think he was bad in the

Old Testament? Check him out in the New Testament. God doesn't change. His standards don't change.

But you must be involved in the offering of spiritual sacrifices. And Peter establishes the standard.

He says these spiritual sacrifices have to be acceptable to God. And to be acceptable literally means to receive to oneself with pleasure.

In other words, these sacrifices, these spiritual sacrifices must be received by God with pleasure.

That's what makes them acceptable. Well, what would make them unacceptable?

Wrong motivation? Some kind of ongoing sin in your life?

In any case, what would make believers think that they could function apart or in the place of Christ?

Peter knows that these spiritual sacrifices are to be acceptable to God and they are to be made through Jesus Christ.

There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Anything of value that we could possibly offer to God is only by Christ in us.

We have nothing to boast of. We boast of Christ. It is His work through us. And it is only through His intercession that we have access to the

Father. Our sacrifices, in a very real sense, are brought to the

Father by the Son. One writer says,

Now, here's one that you don't often think about. Whether it is reproof that restores a brother.

That's a good work. You confront somebody who's in sin and they repent. That is a good work.

Loving and helpful action toward someone. Studying God's word. Listening to the word preached.

Or speaking a righteous word is a spiritual sacrifice in Christ's name that glorifies

God. That is an acceptable sacrifice. And that is the responsibility that we bear as priests who are to be holy.

We are to perform these spiritual sacrifices. The picture is, we are now the temple of God.

We are His priests. And we bring forth, not animals, but spiritual sacrifices which we then bring to Christ the

High Priest who then offers them up to the Father. Timeless truth number one.

As a result of the resurrection of Christ, you are part of His eternal body. You are part of His priesthood.

Timeless truth number two. As a result of the election or the selection of Christ, you are eternally secure.

Now, that will give you hope. Look at verse six. For this is contained in Scripture.

Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone. A precious cornerstone.

And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed. Again, Peter references Psalm 118 verse 22 and some other

Old Testament verses. Zion is a reference to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem where one day the

Lord Himself will return to rule and reign. And when God refers to Jesus as a choice stone, well, sometimes it can be a little bit lost on us as modern readers because, as I said before, we don't really get it.

But in the construction of the temple, I mean, we look at the old buildings, the wonders that were done in antiquity, and we think, wow, how did they ever do that?

What, did they hoist those stones up there and then shape them and file them? Nope, they did it all beforehand. All the work went into the preparation.

So when they built the temple, craftsmen selected, shaped, and cut stones to fit together in predetermined ways.

The jail I used to work at, they did what was called tilled -up construction. They just had these huge concrete slabs and they would pull them up with cranes and when they got them all up there, they put a cap on the top and then they just kind of glued all the sides together.

It sounds dopey, but that's what they did. And that's how it was. And it gave the building a certain amount of protection against earthquakes and everything because it could just vibrate back and forth.

Not very soothing during an earthquake, but Jesus was chosen for a specific task for which he was uniquely qualified.

He was the cornerstone. And we've heard that in many ways, the capstone, other things, but here's the basic idea.

The entire building, the entire spiritual building that we're talking about, the inhabitation of God, is planned ahead of time and it's all based on this cornerstone.

This is the picture. God is choosing and fitting for himself a spiritual habitation.

And he's laid out the blueprint for this structure based on Jesus Christ as the plumb line, the standard, the determining architectural feature of the entire structure.

That's what it means when he's the cornerstone. No matter where you want to put it, I don't think, based on my study, I don't think it goes up at the top, but it doesn't really matter.

The point is he is the focal point of the entire structure. And because this is

God's sovereign plan, those he saves and includes in his dwelling place cannot lose their salvation.

Again, look at verse 6. And he who believes in him will not be disappointed. This is one where it says, he who believes is a participle.

As I've said on several occasions, it's the same one that we see in John 3 .16 and it carries the same idea.

It is not an indication of choosing to believe. It is a description of those who do believe.

Participles often have this idea of a characteristic of being part of your

DNA, of who you are. And this is a present participle, so it describes those who have belief, ongoing, consistent belief.

And that belief, that faith, has been granted by God. And what is the result?

It tells us right here. They will not be disappointed. And that doesn't mean you thought you were going to get a new toaster for Christmas and instead you got fill in the blank.

That's not the kind of disappointment we're talking about. This verb, and sometimes, as I've said, the English language sometimes fails to capture the essence of what we're talking about.

But this idea of being disappointed means the shame and disappointment that comes to one whose faith or hope is shown to be vain.

Now shame is something, we talked about it briefly in the new members class this morning. Shame was something that was to be avoided in the cultures of those of that time.

And most of the Asian cultures, anyway. Some of the Greek cultures, not so much. But our culture today is pretty shameless compared to, you know, if you go to Japan or you go to Asia, India, China, other places, there's still this concept of face and maintaining face and not being shamed.

It has to do with your behavior, the way you're perceived by others. And here we have

God's guarantee that those who believe will not suffer shame.

In this life, and certainly in the time of Peter's original readers, that did not mean they weren't going to be persecuted.

That didn't mean that they weren't going to be despised. It meant that Jesus Christ would never leave or forsake them.

He will never leave or forsake you. And furthermore, Christians will not arrive on Judgment Day only to have their countenance fallen, their hopes dashed, having put all their effort, all their faith in Jesus Christ.

You will not be disappointed. You will be upheld. But sadly, not all will experience this.

Verse 7. This precious value, then, is for you who believe, for believers.

But for those who disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone and the stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

For they stumble because they are disobedient to the Word. And to this doom they were also appointed.

For Christians, Jesus is of inestimable value. That's a lot. A value set by God Himself.

To what or whom can you compare Him? For what would you trade

Him if you love Christ? What is more valuable? But to unbelievers,

He is first a stone of stumbling. Unbelievers, again, is a participle.

It is a negation of the participle describing believers. In other words, it is saying to the ones who don't believe, to the unbelieving ones, to the ones who are marked by unbelief, they are not ignorant, but willfully, habitually, reject faith in Christ.

And this is the same Greek word that we saw earlier for stone. Lithos. So again, it is a stone with a purpose in the building.

It's actually, again, we're talking about Jesus, the choice and precious cornerstone. And it has been rejected.

And it's been left, as it were, the picture is, it's been left to the side of the construction site.

So unbelievers walk into it, injuring themselves over and over again.

Jesus is also described for the unbeliever as a rock of offense or Petra Scandalou.

This was a large rock, a boulder on the side of a cliff, something that could not be physically overcome.

The unbelievers then stumble habitually over the stone because they do not allow themselves to be persuaded.

They are disobedient to the gospel. And they ultimately meet their doom against the great rock.

Now, if you have the New American Standard, you'll notice that doom is in italics. That means it's not the original.

But that is the unavoidable result of unbelief. Peter is not implying that God caused their doom when he says they're appointed to it, but rather that they were consigned to their doom because of their unbelief.

And they cannot rescue themselves. It's not up to them to rescue themselves.

It's not, as I've said, sola bootstrapsa. John 3 .18. John 3 .18,

Jesus says the same thing. He who believes in him, or this is John writing, he who believes in him is not judged.

He who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten

Son of God. It is not due to anything other than unbelief, willful unbelief, that these people will go to a

Christless eternity. First, timeless truth. As a result of the resurrection of Christ, you are part of his eternal body.

Second, timeless truth. As a result of the election of Christ, you are eternally secure.

And third, as a result of faith in Christ, you are to proclaim the work of Christ.

You are priests with a purpose. Look at verse nine. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.

Stop right there. In contrast, but you, believers, are described first as a chosen race or a chosen people.

Believers have a common heritage, a common lineage, a common, as it were,

DNA. Being born again by the Spirit in Christ unites us in a way that transcends all genetic links.

We have a common spiritual denominator that trumps race, culture, and even family.

J. Adams says this. This term removes all boasting and yet establishes a dignity of heredity that enables a chosen one to point to God as the father of his race.

We are all united, a united people. We are also a royal priesthood.

The Puritan Stibbs said this. Most Christians are here described as sharing with Christ in kingship or sovereignty as well as in priesthood.

They are, therefore, a true hierarchy called to reign as well as to serve.

Believers are royal not because of what we've done, but because we're related to the King Jesus.

We serve in His court. We will rule and reign with Him. And because of our union with Christ, we have become priests in the likeness of Melchizedek, who was appointed by God, not the result of any system, and not because of any relation we have or that Melchizedek had to Levi or the tribe of the

Levites, the tribe of priests. We're also described as a holy nation, the fulfillment of what

Israel was supposed to be, a nation set apart fully for the purposes of God, not yielding to idolatry or any other sin, but singularly devoted to the

God who chose us. Now, what does it mean to be a people for God's own possession?

The next description. Some versions say, and this is the way I grew up in the King James Church, some versions say a peculiar people.

And, you know, we used to say, well, he's very peculiar. And that was fine when it was written.

Did you know that the word peculiar actually comes from the Latin for flock? And it had the idea of ownership or possession.

So it didn't mean that they were weird. It just meant that they were a peculiar people, an owned people.

Same idea. For God's own possession. We exist for the purpose of being

God's people. We are to be holy. We are to be about God's business.

And he gives us, and Peter does, in verse nine, two purposes. Two purposes as God's possession.

First, well, let me read it.

So that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

We are first to proclaim the works of Christ. Why, I mean, think about it.

Have we been given all these privileges so that we can hide under a bushel? No. Proclaim, the word, the verb, means to report widely.

Proclaim throughout. Tell everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain and everywhere.

And we're going to sing that song in a few minutes. And it's not just that Jesus is born, but that he lived a perfect life.

That he died a sacrificial death in the place of sinners and was raised on the third day.

That's what we proclaim. This word here, excellencies, manifestations of divine power, miracles, his works.

Do you ever go, you know, somebody says, hey, what religion are you? And you just kind of go, yawn,

I'm a Christian. There's nothing boring about that. You are a

Christian by the miraculous power of God. What is a miracle? A miracle is God so intervening in the space -time continuum to do something that would not be done naturally.

And naturally, left to your own devices, you would happily, joyfully, go straight to hell.

And God intervenes. God interposes himself. God so changes your desires that you flee to him.

That is a miracle. Every single Christian is a work of God, a miracle of God, an extension, an example of his miraculous power.

So we go and we proclaim the mighty works of Christ. How? By saying what he has done in our lives.

We proclaim his excellencies, his works. And second, we proclaim the mercy of Christ.

Look at that. He called you out of darkness, out of your futile way of life, and into the light.

This idea, this darkness that we are called out of, it indicates basically a purposeless life.

And when you talk to people, when you talk to unbelievers, you understand in a very short period of time when you get them to explain to you what is important in their lives, you understand that they have no purpose, no hope.

They are on a treadmill. They are like little gerbils on a treadmill. And the end of it is hell.

And you were taken off that treadmill. And you have been transferred into his marvelous light, the eternal light of hope.

Look at verse 10. For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God.

You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. We were once not a people.

We were all individuals. No common DNA. All bound for hell. No link to God apart from the sin that separated us from him.

But by his mercy, we have been transformed into the people of God.

Now, received mercy is a passive participle, indicating, as I've said on several occasions, you guys are going to get this participle thing.

Participles describe an inherent feature of those that it's used to describe.

Believers have been made passively permanent recipients of the mercy of God.

It is something that is done to you and it cannot be changed. If you've been mercied, you can't be unmercied.

He has compassion upon us. That's the idea of mercy. And he has given us forever that which we did not deserve.

Now, isn't that something that should be shouted from the rooftops, printed in 100 -point font?

Should we not be walking electric billboards proclaiming the mercy of our saving God? I think about this time of the year, about New York Times Square, and all the things, all the lights and everything that are going down there.

Why isn't somebody just walking around saying, I have been saved by the mercy of God. I had no claim on Christ and God saved me.

God has given us hope in a person whom Peter described as a living stone, a cornerstone, the one on whom the entire body of Christ, every single one of us, was patterned, on whom every single person was fitted and worked around so that we all fit together exactly as God designed.

We are being formed into the living house of the living God. We have been promised eternal life.

And given the great privilege of heralding, even advertising, proclaiming, shouting all that He has done for us.

Your hope, beloved, does not lie in money.

It does not lie in the things of this world. Money burns. Gold can be stolen.

Objects of metal, even though they have great value, they rust. There is nothing on this planet that is not subject to decay or theft.

And God did not send His Son, the Lord Jesus, that we might be rich materially, but that we might be rich in Him.

And what we have received is valued beyond our capacity to measure.

Mercy from the sovereign judge of the universe. What is to be more treasured than that?

By the mercy of God, you have been enabled to see the cornerstone as God sees

Him. By the power of God, you are being fitted into His dwelling place.

And by the grace of God, you have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light.

Go tell it on the mountain. Let's pray. Father, You have once again set before us great hope, not in the things that the world values, but in things that they despise, that they have rejected.

Indeed, they have looked at Christ and found Him unsuitable.

Father, You placed a high value on Him.

He's Your beloved Son in whom You are well pleased. Father, we too would have rejected

Him were it not a part, or were it not for Your mercy, for Your great love with which

You loved us. It is by Your enablement that we see

Jesus for who He is. Father, would You make us a people of God, a royal priesthood, those who would make spiritual sacrifices through Christ to You.

Lord, would You give us hearts that yearn to have sweet fellowship with our Lord, not for a few minutes in the morning, not for a few hours on Sunday, but Lord, at every possible occasion, would

You drive our hearts, our thoughts, continually to Your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.