All right? So, this morning is, I'm gonna be in 1 Peter 2. And it's, as we get into it, I'm gonna tell you why I'm saying this now, you'll see. The Holy Spirit works, and He does things. And I prepared this sermon, and Tamara prepared the music, and we didn't know what each other were doing. And her music goes with the sermon, because it's about praising and worshiping. And I love that when that happens. I've noticed it a few times when Joe's teaching and I think back to the songs, go, oh yeah, that is the Holy Spirit. So he's here, he's alive and well, and he wants to come into your life. So I'm gonna look back a little bit at the text, but if you remember, We looked back, and this was, I can't remember when I taught last, doesn't matter. Chapter one, we talked about some of Peter's accomplishments and his failures. And I'm sure you remember his denying Jesus. It's written down for everybody to see forever, right? Great, that's one of the things in the Bible. It's me forever. How would you like to be like him? Have your name in the Bible with a failure. But later, he was used to bring many to Jesus, and there was over 3,000. Now we want our name in the Bible, right? Yes, that was victorious. We saw him step out in faith, literally, out of a boat, and realize his situation has started to sink. We can relate to that. We step out in faith, and this is what happens sometimes. We love Peter for his failures because we relate to them, and because of his successes, because we can hope in them. we can see how forgiving Jesus is after being denied by his people we always have hope so Peter continues on this letter in this next chapter which as you know that wasn't broke up in chapters when it was written but he continues on with a warning so first Chapter 2, verse 1 says, therefore. Well, okay, it's Calvary chapter. We have to go back and see what it's there for, right? Because we don't know what just happened. So I'm going to go back to verse 22 in chapter 1. It says, since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, In sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. Because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Now this is the word by which the gospel was preached to you. So let's pray. Father, I thank you, Lord, for this morning. We get to gather, worship you corporately in song and in word. Lord, as we go through your word, Lord, I pray, soften our hearts this morning, Lord, because some of this is not easy. It wasn't easy for me to study it, to hear it. So Lord, I just lift this time up to you, and I just pray that you would work in us and through us. In Jesus' name, amen. So we can hear here, he's saying, okay, you have purified your souls, you've been born again, Now, therefore, lay aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking. So he says, this has happened in your life, but there's still things that need to go. So malice, and these aren't words that we use a lot, so I'm gonna just give you a little explanation of those. Some versions say rid yourself or get rid of malice. Malice meaning harboring up evil thought towards another person. Glad I've never done that. Malice nourishes antagonism, builds up grudges, and secretly hope that revenge, harm, and tragedy will come to your enemies. James 1.21 says, therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save our souls. In 1 Corinthians 5, 8 it says, These are one of those things that will deteriorate that, the malice, the deceit, dishonesty, playing tricks on somebody, not fun tricks, but messing with people, lying, flattery can be deceitful, right? We can flatter with our lips and not mean it. Hypocrisy, we all need no hypocrisy. I used to say it all the time before I was saved, our church is full of hypocrites. I was going out partying and the guys over there talked about going to church. Like, why would I wanna go? It's not until the Lord showed me. Well, that's not what I have. Meaning many, so the King James Version says hypocrisies, meaning many different kinds. Acting like someone you're not. You know, you come here on a Sunday morning and you know, oh, bless you, brother. And then you're living in complete sin. That shouldn't be. Now, having said that, if there's something going on in your life, come and talk to people and pray for you. Look, this is a hospital, right? We have, there's broken people outside, there's broken people in here, there's people going through stuff that are hard and maybe you have some sinfulness in your life that you just can't seem to shake. There's people here to help you. Come talk with us, okay? I'm not here to judge you, I just, I know the struggle. So anyhow, that's a need in our lives. Envy or jealousy. Vine Dictionary describes it as a feeling of displeasure produced by observing or hearing of the advantage and prosperity of others. You guys know what jealousy is. I'm sure we've all been jealous of something. Evil speaking, and this is a giant one, right? Backbiting, gossip, slander. You know, it's funny because slander is against the law in this country, I believe. I looked it up, it is. And there's a lot of slandering going on around in our muddy government stuff. But defamation of character, saying something against somebody's character to make you look better, really. Gossip can be the same thing. All these sins are violations of a fundamental commandment to love one another and love our neighbors as ourself. The best of Christian needs to be warned of these things because they can become a very slow compromise and drifting away from our Lord. And you guys know, You've been in boats, and I grew up on the ocean, and there's thousands of lakes in Maine. I mean, they're miles. Moosehead Lake is 25 miles long. I don't know. It could be dead calm. The water could be completely flat. If you untie your boat and take a nap, you're not going to be there when you wake up. The wind's not blowing, but a lot of the lakes up there are spring-fed. You have currents and stuff underneath, things that you can't see that will move you. There's springs, there's underwater rivers that go through the lakes. You guys have been swimming before and you feel warm spots and cold spots. That's a different current. You can't see that on the surface. So, you know, there's a whole lot in there about drifting away from the Lord, that slow, continual, sometimes it'd take a long time to drift away, but you're drifting. So verse two says, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Desire it. Like a baby goes for milk, the desire to be nourished. We should be like that desiring God's word as though we can't get enough. It is meaning proper food for the soul, the pure milk. When I first gave my life to the Lord, I really wanted to know what the Bible said. I was 42. I was kind of like behind the curve, except there's some here older than me that came to the Lord. And I really wanted to know what it said. I went to a church in Maine that taught it simply, and I'm like, wow, that stuff's in the Bible. And I prayed, and I said, Lord, give me a hunger for your word. And he did. And I also prayed for him to give me a hunger for the lost, which I did. And that's another whole thing there. Matthew Henry, Joe and I's favorite commentary, Commentator, this milk of the word must be sincere, not adulterated by the mix of men who often corrupt the word of God. Because we're up here preaching, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be looking in your Bible to make sure what we're saying is true. Okay, now we want to be on track, obviously, and so, you know, oh, by the way, side note, rabbit, where's Adalicio? Rabbit trail. Thursday night, Ricky Billet's teaching. So if you haven't heard him teach, come out and listen to him. He's actually a really good teacher. He's one of our teachers here, so, and he's not here, so I can pick on him. But I really enjoy his teaching, so please come out. So the milk. We don't want man's word, we want God's word. We try to expound on it, we try to explain things, but it's our words compared to his which there's no comparison. 2 Corinthians 2.17 says, For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God, but as of sincerity But as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. We're not peddling. We're not trying to convince you to buy something. This is something that can change your life. We speak in the sight of God in Christ. He is watching us. We are speaking these things, and we know we have to answer to Him. And there's no profit in God's Word except gaining souls. Now, if that's your family member, that's a huge profit, right? Like, yes, my child, my grandchild gave their life to the Lord. I feel that I've just gained a lot, right? The pure milk of the word so that we'll be strengthened. You have to grow. If you're not growing, you're backsliding. You say, well, I'm just kind of stagnant. No, you're not, you're backsliding. If you're not growing, you're backsliding because you're not getting in the word, Time goes by the farther, longer that you're not in the word, and then you end up like, yeah, I haven't opened my Bible in two weeks, or whatever. Verse three. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. I love that. We know having the knowledge of God that he is good. He says, you have tasted, you have seen, you shall lay aside all these things that we just talked about that can destroy you. If you leave them in your life, they will grow. They're gonna consume you. We are without excuse. We already know, he just talked about, we already been through the part of purified souls. So God is gracious. Have you experienced God's grace? You're here, you have experienced God's grace. Now if you're new and you haven't, you will if you continue, if you continue to seek him. You acknowledge him in your life. There's so many ways we can do that. Standing up against tyranny, we can stand for righteousness, you know, the unborn, that's always a big one, you know, that's, Whether you guys know this or not, Joe mentioned abortion. It was a long time ago, and somebody left this church because he got political. What is political about abortion? It's moral. People make it political, but it's a moral issue. We need to speak about moral things. If they go against politics, then, oh, well, that's in the next section about authorities and government. We're not going to get to that. Maybe you're new here, and you're like, I have no idea what this guy's talking about. Well, you might be old and not know what I'm talking about, but just keep seeking Him, and He will reveal these things to you. You will then see and taste that the Lord is gracious. You will see that. Verse four says, coming to him as a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious. ESV says, as you come to him, this indicates the daily personal relationship with Christ, beginning at but not limited to the time of conversion. As believers continue in fellowship with Christ, they are being built up as a spiritual house, which we're gonna get to in a minute. So when I say a precious stone, what do you think of? Like a diamond, sapphire, ruby? I don't know. I don't have any. What if I say someone's precious? I think of a baby, a newborn. or when they're not crying, or they're kind of innocent, you know what I mean? Like they haven't learned the tricks and stuff till they're like, what, two months old? I want. How precious is Jesus Christ in your life? And that's a giant thing to think about because do I have more opportunities to talk about Jesus? Oh, I actually talked to the ones that went out to the blues festival yesterday and had some encounters from the class, the evangelist, what are we, are we calling it evangelism class? They went out and anyhow, they had a good time. And there's probably some entertainment involved, some entertainment value to that as well. But how precious is he in your life? Are you willing to go out of your comfort zone to share with people? He is worthy. He is worthy of our praise. We just sang that. He is worthy of the most grand thing we can think of. What do we have to offer? Well, he doesn't want our money or our house. He wants us. He wants all of us, not just part in and part out. You know what happens when you straddle a fence? It doesn't feel good. You can't be, you're not gonna be happy either one or the other. So he is praiseworthy. I have this short reel that I was convicted, you probably will be. Not my intention to make people feel uncomfortable. I don't know who needs to hear this. You go to church, and you worship the Lord, and you leave there going, worship didn't really make me feel a certain way. It didn't really do anything for me. I couldn't really get into it. You went to worship and you thought, that worship really got me pumped up. You start thinking about how it makes you feel. You are not worshipping God, you are worshipping yourself. You are worshipping your emotions. Ouch. But, think about that. We're worshiping ourselves. At first, I was thinking about how I love to worship. I do. I sat there for a long time. Tamara says, you might as well come up here and sing. I mean, even today, she's like, well, when you preach, do you wanna sing too? I'm gonna sing over there. I love to, but then I thought, what about the songs I don't really care for that really don't make me feel like I'm in the presence of the Lord? Well, that's not a song issue, that's a heart issue. When I first, I've told this before, but I started going to church in Maine and my pastor there is pretty bold and blunt and taught God's word and that was great. I loved it. The part I couldn't get past was the worship part at the beginning because I'm a rock and roll guy and Ozzy Osbourne didn't make that many worship songs. or a Metallica, or they really didn't, you know? And so I'm like, man, this worship, get over so I can hear what God's word is. And then as I listened to it and understand who Jesus was, then it came to the point of, oh wow, I get to worship the Lord, and I get to worship with my brothers and sisters here. Now, I have a family here that I really love, and I'm not gonna say, but they've taught their kids something that's, stuck with me for so long. How many of you have to go to work? How many of you get to go to work? We get to worship. I love that. I never have said I get to go to work. I always thought I have to. I'm like, no, I get to. Man, like my health is good. I still do stuff. I still work. But we get to worship Jesus. We get to be here. Sometimes I don't feel like it. I mean, you can be on the worship team and not feel like it, but man, when you start singing those songs, something changes. You're putting yourself aside, and there's this greater thing. Well, I don't feel like I'm in his presence. Well, you are, especially here, two or more are gathered. Me and my wife worship, I play guitar. We sit at home, we worship, it's great. But we're worshiping ourselves and we're not happy. Now, I'll clarify, there's some songs that aren't worthy of worship. There are some songs, Christian songs out there, that are Jesus boyfriend songs, that you can sing it to your boyfriend or girlfriend, or Jesus, and it kinda works. It doesn't really talk about Jesus. Those are trash. I just, I'm sorry, I am blunt. I used to, the kids at school would say, this is a good song, so I'd print it off, and I'd read the lyrics. And one of them says, joy, joy, joy, my heart, joy, joy. OK, great. Has nothing to do with Jesus in it. Or they say, this country song is not bad. Let me print it off. Like, ooh. There are songs that are for making money, for people making money. And I know Tamara, and of course, she's sitting here, so I'm sorry, but she takes a lot of time to pick through the music, looks at the lyrics, seeing what's being said. And sometimes, you know, you shouldn't sing that song because so-and-so wrote it. I'm gonna say what Jack Hibbs says, who cares? If it brings me into the worship, into the throne room of Jesus Christ, don't tell me something that you heard about who wrote it. And I know, I've read that, saw that, and I'm like, you know what, that's right. Because half the songs that I sing, I don't even know who wrote them. I don't know anything about their history. I mean, if they're, you know, Satanists, then obviously we won't be singing those. But where's our heart for worship? And look, I wrote this before I knew who was gonna be here. So if you get offended, I'm sorry. Well, I'm not. If the Lord's telling me to say it. When we come into the church, do we get here late? If we get here late, do we stop and talk to people during worship? Now, I don't know about you guys, but it's happened for a long time. The reason I sit up front is so I get distracted really easy, so that's not, that's not, you know, I've always done that. But you know you can be in the throne room worshiping and then somebody, and I've been told to be quiet before in the entryway out there because they talk too loud. I'm not casting stones. But I'm worshiping and then all of a sudden I hear this. Well, now I'm not worshiping anymore. Now my attention was just taken from Jesus to whatever I'm eavesdropping on. I don't mean to, right? So do we get here late? Do we talk during worship? Actually, when we're in Maine, we used to, if you came during a song, we'd have you wait out in the entryway until the song's over and come in. And it's hard to do if you have a lot of people, but again, I wrote this yesterday. Don't know who's gonna be here. Do we leave early? We gotta go, we got things to do. You know, I had a discussion with a young couple, and one of them was late all the time. And I actually sat down and talked with them and said, and one of them that was not late said, well, when you're late all the time, it makes me feel like I'm not important. Is worship important in your life? If it isn't, if you're not there, then pray for that, right? God can change, God changed Saul to Paul, okay? God can change us. Just because I'm a weirdo and I'm early, on time is late. But these are just things that the Lord has really been speaking to me about for quite some time. Long before I was on the worship team, by the way, you guys. It has nothing to do with me standing there instead of here. We have a privilege that we can come here and worship together. We will be doing that in heaven for eternity. I think we should get used to it now. I can come here and say, Lord, all's I've got is myself to offer to you. Because again, he doesn't want our stuff. You know, God loves a cheerful giver. But you know, giving also is not money, it's time, it's a lot of things, but he wants us. So we should be in the heart of coming in here, and again, I'm talking to myself, too, that I would clear my mind and be fixed on you, Jesus, because this is your time. I know he has all week. I understand that. We go out, we talk with people. That's worship. There's nothing wrong with that. We have the privilege to come here and do this. And I think we make too little of our privileges. an irreverent bunch of people. And like I said, I've been spoke to about talking too loud out in the empty way when you guys are in here worshiping. But we're out there waiting and we get excited. And then someone has to say, hey, psst, I just saw somebody turn around. So I get it. I just think we can all do better. I just think that there's room for, I mean, is there room for improvement in our lives? Right? So I'm not here to make anyone feel bad. Look, sometimes things happen. I'd rather have you here late than never. My goodness, right? So that's all. Now the second part of this verse. I mean, I don't know what else I can say. We're all a bunch of goofballs. But there's improvement for goofballs. You think about, well, I'll get into that later. It has nothing to do with this. In the last part of verse four it says, Rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious. So Jesus is precious. We wanna hope it doesn't say on our tombstone, chosen by men, rejected by God. Because in Luke he said, you call me Lord, Lord, but you don't do what I say. That's a hard verse. Because do I always do what he says? I mean, it'd be kind of foolish to see anybody say yes to that, I think. Obedience. Verse five says, we are living stones. You also, I'm sorry, as living stones, are being built up in a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, yeah. We are living stones. So the temple once housed the Holy Spirit, right? God's Spirit. Now we do. So spiritual sacrifices, I got this. I'm gonna not read the whole thing. I'll just read part of it. If you don't know this, the Believer's Bible, this is really good. I use it a lot, along with, you know. Actually, you guys that are John Corson fans, he has a big, giant section on 1 Peter 2. There's a whole bunch of stuff in there. So if that's, I know some of you guys use it. Great commentary, he's Warren Wiersbe. J. Vernon McGee. So, in the New Dispensation, all believers are priests with instant access to the throne room of the universe, day and night. Their function is to offer up spiritual sacrifices, what we're doing here when we're worshiping. In contrast to animal, bird, and meal offerings of the Mosaic Law, the spiritual sacrifices of the New Testament priests are The presentation of the body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, this is an act of spiritual worship, Romans 12.1. The sacrifice of praise. That is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name, Hebrews 13, 15. The sacrifice of good works, do not forget to do. This sacrifice is pleasing to God, Hebrews 13, 16. The sacrifice of possessions or a pocketbook, do not forget to share. This is a sacrifice also pleasing to the Lord. It's the same scripture reference. In the sacrifice of service, Paul speaks of his ministry to the Gentiles as a priestly offering. That's Romans 15, 16. These sacrifices are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. It is only through Jesus Christ, our mediator, that we can approach God in the first place, and it is only He who can make our offering acceptable to God. All that we do are a worship and our service. that is imperfect and flawed by sin, but through it, no, I'm sorry, before it reaches the Father, it passes through the Lord Jesus. He removes all the sin, and when it reaches God the Father, it is perfectly acceptable. Praise God for that, that we have somebody that's purifying the impure things that we are doing, when our heart's not quite right, all those things. Our worship and service is flawed and sinful. but yet it goes from us to God through Jesus. He makes it right. Verse six says, therefore, it is also contained in the scripture, behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame. All we know We know what a quarterstone is. I used to be a contractor, and I built houses. I built some steel buildings. The last one I built was 80 by 200, which is bigger than the gym, actually. And we got to the end, and there was no corner post. Like, oh, well, this is really good. I mean, you're done. So then I finally get a hold of the guy and meet him halfway across the state of Maine with a big beam on my truck and one on his, and we swap them, and now I can finish it. They're really important. Jesus is a very important cornerstone of what we believe. Some of the commentators refer to it as a keystone in an arch. Well, either way, it's still a piece that you have to have. We are taken out of a quarry of sin and added to the building. Sometimes we need to have the rough edges taken off first so that we can be a permanent part. God doesn't see a pile of unfinished stone. He sees us complete through Jesus our Lord. Praise God for that. Jesus Christ is a cornerstone because He's a completing part of the kingdom. Without Him, we have no chance at all of pleasing our Father. It is like our worship. Without the Holy Spirit being present in our lives, we would not want to worship or even have the capacity to do that. Like back when I was a new believer, I didn't want to worship. I wouldn't even be able to. How do I offer something to God not knowing what He wanted? As I grew and learned and read the Word, right then, that's when I came to that place of like, wow, this worship's amazing. And you know, again, if you're not there, pray about it. No one's here to convict. I'm not for sure. I am not above anybody. But the more I listened to the Word, the more it changed me. And you guys, you know, If we've come out of something sinful, the more of the word that we get in us, the less that matters. When I drank for 25 years, that actually went easy. The other stuff was harder. The Lord just took that. That was such a blessing. So anyhow, it was kind of a funny story, because I didn't get my life through the Lord until I was 42, and my subcontractors, my electrician, my plumber, and my stonemason were all Christians. And I didn't know what that meant. And so I was working in my electrician's house and I got to saw how his kids interacted with him and all these things. And then I met my wife, Kim, and I gave my life to the Lord and he's like, dude, I've been talking to you for years about Jesus. And she comes along and like, oh, you gave your life to Jesus. I'm like, well, she's cuter than you are. I mean. we don't know where people are in that walk. So if you're struggling with some of these things, if you're struggling with, you know, wanting to worship. You have to want to change. If you don't want to change, then ask the Lord to help you to want to change. I know it's a weird thing to say that, but sometimes we get stuck in what we're doing, and we're like, well, no, I'm pretty comfortable here. Yeah, Jesus is good, and this thing over here is not that bad. Well, if it's not that bad, there's no good in that sentence. It's not that bad. Because we can compare ourselves to other people and look pretty good, no matter how bad you are. Well, I don't know about Charles Manson. I'm not sure if he could compare himself to anything. God removed things from my life or changed things that I didn't even know were wrong. Have you guys experienced that? Like, whoa, this thing, okay, I didn't even know that was a problem. Me, he's like, you're a problem. I'm like, well. In Ephesians 2, 20 to 22, it says, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself, being the cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows in a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." We are a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. If you don't think you've received the Holy Spirit, how do you get it? Him. You ask, Lord, fill me with your Spirit. There, you ask. I don't feel like I'm filled with the Spirit. Who cares? You are. It's not a feeling. It's you ask, you are. You want to be a part of Him. In the second half of 6, it says, I like this precious word that keeps coming up. Isaiah 28, 16 says, Therefore, Thus he says to the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion a stone for the foundation, a tried stone, a precious stone, a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not act hastily. We need to not get so excited about things going, and we do, not emotionally anxiety of what's going on. Look, things are falling apart. If you haven't noticed that, well, don't watch the news. But things are falling apart. And we have things going on right now in our culture that us older group never thought. Actually, not that much older. Probably you wouldn't even think, Adon, you wouldn't even think that we would be dealing with what we're dealing with now, right? And how old are you? Like, 27? Right? We have, like, all of a sudden, there's this new stuff. And it's like, man, I never thought. Like, when I was a kid, and someone said, you know, I feel like a girl. I'm like, stop it. What's wrong with you? Ah, just kidding. We have stuff to deal with. Those people are broken, though. We have to be careful, because those people need Jesus. They don't know what we know. As you guys tell that went to the Blues Festival, they don't know what we know. I really enjoyed that when we could bring a tent there and set up, we really had some great conversations with people. But here we go again, he's precious. So maybe you're on the fence, you know, we need to just, seeking Jesus, you know, be on our knees like, Lord, change me. The Believer's Bible, again, that's the one that I had there, says, when people come in contact with the Savior, they are shown for what they really are. In their attitude towards Him, they reveal themselves. To true believers, He is precious. Unbelievers reject Him. The believer can get some small indication of how precious He is by trying to imagine what life would be without Him. Is there anybody that can make their mind go there? Because mine won't. This is the only option I have after what he's delivered me from. To not have Jesus in my life, to fall back on, to go to constantly. I mean, he's our dad. Now, I didn't have a great dad. I mean, he wasn't abusive or anything. He just wasn't a believer. Anyhow, he's gone. I don't believe he's with the Lord. We have one that never will fail us, that we can go to him about anything. There's not an earthly pleasure worth comparing to a moment with a Christ-filled life. He is a chief among 10,000 and altogether lovely. So why do some people get mad when you share Christ? Why do some Christians get mad when you share some scripture with them? Because it reveals who we are, right? The unbeliever will be just in your face, loud. Hopefully us Christians aren't when our brother comes through. Look, nobody likes to be corrected. And I've always said that if someone's criticizing you, you need to actually look at that and see what portion of it's true, because probably some is, whether it's a little tiny bit or whether it's a big pile of it, right? But if I'm doing something I'm not supposed to, then I would be like, Dan should come up and say, hey, dude, what are you doing? That's not Christ-like. I shouldn't get mad at him. I should, you know, control it a little bit and go, yeah, well, no. Like, oh, okay, maybe I don't see that. I pray a lot I'm not self-deceived by thinking that I'm this perfect person, because I know I'm not. You know how you can tell if you're not perfect? You get married. And then you know they aren't, too. And God still works in that marriage and still works. We are so blessed. Is this a blessed room full of people? I mean, my goodness. Like, we could be living so horribly right now, but Jesus came into our lives. Therefore, to him who believe you is precious, but to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone and the stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble, being disobedient to the word to which they also were appointed. And the second part of that, as they were appointed. Are we talking about pre-destination? You were appointed. So, it means they made a decision and now destined to follow it. They are not following God's word, and they're going to reap what they sow. I'm going to get back to the predestined thing in just a second here. So in this book, and I'm going to read just a minute of it. Oh, gosh. That time must be going faster than it's supposed to. Kings were anointed to rule in the name of God and to stand in glorious majesty representing Jehovah the people. Likewise, we are all a royal priest, as it said here. Oh, I didn't read that yet. Nice. Let me read this. Nine. Speaking of goofballs. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. And then he says, a kingdom of priests to serve as God and Father and possessing the Holy Spirit Our shall be a regnant life, victorious over self and sin, triumph over temptations and difficulties, and glorious in the dignity of our high calling. For this threefold ministry, we are anointed with the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can fit us for so high a calling. And he is given to every follower of Jesus who is willing to receive and obey him. And it goes on. The high calling. We are a chosen generation. The new living, back in, you know, in this, Peter started this letter with this, in verse two it says the elect, according to foreknowledge. Okay, so back to the predestination thing. Let me just read this first in Romans 5 too. I shouldn't look at the clock, see now I'm all. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into the place of understanding, I'm, Christ has brought us into the place of undeserved privilege. I actually came across this when I was doing chapel a couple weeks ago with the kids. I'm not pointing at you, Rusty, I'm pointing at your daughter. Clay's too old to be a kid now. Undeserved privilege where we now stand. We have a privilege that's undeserved. And we were chosen. How do we know that we were chosen? Choose. And there, you're chosen. How do you know you're predestined? Follow Jesus, hey, I guess you were. That's a big subject that we get into sometimes as kids at school here. Look, God knows everything, beginning from the end. He knew you were gonna choose him or not, right? So it's hard. Do you wanna know if you're chosen? Choose him. That's all I got on that. It's kinda like the Holy Spirit thing. You wanna be filled with the Holy Spirit? Ask. The Word says if you ask, you'll receive. Why would he not give you the Holy Spirit, something so good? The royal priesthood, a holy nation. Peter gets this from Exodus 19, five through six. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my commandment, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all the people. For all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. We are, this is who we are, we are a kingdom of priests. The second half of 9 says that you may proclaim the praises of him who out of the darkness into his marvelous light. This is our responsibility to proclaim, to shout his praises, no matter what we're doing. I'll praise you anywhere. Give him praise, give him praise, right? We just sang that. Will we praise him anywhere? Will we speak out? Even when it's somebody that like, you know, I'm great at that prejudging. I'm like, they're not gonna listen. Yeah, that's probably what they said about Saul. Well, actually, the Lord directly put him where he needed to be, but he was changed. ESV says that you will proclaim his excellencies. He is excellent. We were in a dark place that was oppressive and hopeless, and now we walk in the light. We are now his people. It said in verse 10, it says, who were once not a people, but are now the people of God. who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. We have obtained mercy. We have mercy ahead of us. We don't have judgment, right? We want justice. Joe doesn't when he's stopped by the cops for speeding, but we want justice for other people. When did you ever do something wrong and go, give me justice, throw the book at me? No, we want mercy. We have to give mercy. Philippians 3, 20 to 21, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body, that it may be conformed to his glorious body, according to works by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself. Who's ready for the new body? I know I am. This one here is falling apart. You've been in construction, you know. Yep, or anything else, or just walking the planet. Do you guys realize that gravity increases as you get older? Get down on the floor and try to get back up. It does. It's a scientifically unproven fact. But we don't need proven facts anymore. So Peter closes out this portion referring to the book of Hosea and what he's saying here. Because if you don't know what Hosea is about, you should go read it, but really, he has to marry Gomer, which was a prostitute, and it's interesting. So anyhow, there's this portion here, chapter one, verse nine and 10. Then God said, call his name Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I will not be your God. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people. There it shall be said to them, you are the sons of the living God. And then a little later on, he didn't cast Israel aside because in Hosea 2.23 it says, then I will sow her for myself in the earth, and I will have mercy on her who would not obtain mercy. Then I will say to those who are not my people, you are my people, and they shall say, you are my God. And that's where we need to be. And let's just look at a couple more Yep, quickly. I'm not rushing through it. I'm gonna save the rest of it for later. Beloved, 11 and 12. Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, sustained from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. So here we are concerned about our character, and we read here to abstain from fleshly lusts. That's funny, at first service I could not say that. I said lustly flesh. I can't even say it wrong. We immediately think of fleshly lusts as sex. But it's much wider than that. So what is our list? What is the thing in our lives that we can be tempted with? Because we're all different. Men may be more similar, and then women may be more similar, because we're wired differently. That's why God made us that way for a reason. Is it sex, or is it money? I chased money, man. I could make money. How about power? How about laziness? How about greed? And that's not just money, but greed is wanting all kinds of things. That's terrible. Yeah, no rabbit trails. We all had something that can contempt us if we're not buried in God's word, if we're not being filled every day with that. So, I think I'm gonna pull the plug there, because I don't like to rush into the next subject that has to do with governing authorities and all that, and there's a lot to be said about that. And so, As we go out in our day, as we interact with people around us, we really can't be too quick to, well, we have tasted, what did we say here? Indeed, you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. We have to show that same graciousness to the people around us. Like I said before, there's people hurting in our community, in our families. You know, we have people in homosexuality in our family. We all have people that are drug addicts or alcohol. We're broken. We're a broken bunch of people. So how do we go out and share God's word with them? and have that, we need some kindness, right? There's a lot of anger and rage going on in our world right now. They're just like spoiled little kids that are just stomping their feet and screaming because things aren't how they feel they should be. How do we deal with that? A soft answer turns away wrath. I know that works. I've had time to use that. Law enforcement uses it. De-escalate. Go, hey, look, look like you're having a bad day, right? How do we reach those people? Lots of prayer. We need to be doing God's will, not our own, right? Because on our own, we can make all kinds of messes. But sometimes, maybe our friends here are having a bad day. And like, man, I don't know what's wrong with that dude, but, well, maybe he needs someone to talk to him, or she. Like, let's take some time and invest in the people around us. Invest in each other, correcting each other with love, right, so that it'll be accepted. Because, you know, you come at somebody like, you know, you're completely blowing it. I'm like, well, yeah, I know that, but you wanna point out something? All right, we want to grow. Iron sharpens iron. If you guys have ever sharpened anything, especially with a file, when you sharpen something, you're removing metal from the other one. When we sharpen people, we are removing the rough objects off of them. It can be painful. That's why we have to be praying and asking God to, man, help me with my brother, my sister. I want to talk to them, but I want them to receive it. We have to have kinder hearts than what we're seeing going on right now, because we're in a whole lot of trouble. So if you will pray with me. Father, I thank you, Lord. I thank you that you do change hearts, that you do sharpen us, that you do use us in each other's lives. Lord, as we go out through the week, us that have those family members that need to hear from you, Lord, God, I pray you give us the words to talk to them, our friends, our spouses. Lord, we don't want the enemy to get in our marriage. Lord, we just thank you for all these opportunities that we have that come across us. And help us not to miss any, Lord. There's people out there that need to hear from you. Lord, give us a voice to do that. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.