If you would, to 1 Peter chapter 2. It's been interesting for the past weeks with Brother Sean and Mason both giving us really flybys over whole books. And Doug was joking with me a few weeks ago that if I keep up this pace in the book of 1 Peter, In about the year 2050, we might actually get through this book. I'm a little bit, when I read 1 Peter, I'm a little bit, I guess, I feel like the Apostle Paul when he's arguing a point and really comes to the greatness of the benefits that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Often the Apostle will sort of fly off from his argument into praising the greatness of the glories of Christ and all of the benefits that we receive in him. And he goes on with layer after layer after layer, building out from that. And that's how I feel often as I read through this first epistle of Peter, because he spends so much time dealing with the wondrous nature of our salvation. and the glories of our Lord Jesus Christ. The last time that I was with you in this chapter, I read for you and commented on the fact that we are living stones being built up as a spiritual temple to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. And you recall in verse 7 and 8, he said, so the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And then the last part of verse 8, that terrible proclamation, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. And really, I believe that is a reference to the difficult doctrine of reprobation, that God has not only predestined some to eternal life, but others are destined by God's sovereign will beyond our understanding. And that's why the scripture really deals with it so little in detail. Some, because of their disobedience as the secondary cause, They are destined to go the way that they go. But notice in verse nine, this turning of events. Peter turns and says, but you, you on the other hand, you who believe you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. A people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And that's where I'm going to stop. And actually, I'm only going to comment this morning on the very first part of verse nine, because as I got through that and looked at it more carefully, I think there is so much going on here as Peter reflects upon what God is doing in making a new people. Now, let me just say briefly, we who are covenantal, we're not new covenant. We don't believe that everything in the New Testament is completely new. In other words, there is continuity between the people of God in the old covenant and the people of God in the new covenant. But that doesn't mean that we don't believe that there is Really something new that's taking place in the new covenant. And what we see here in these verses before us is something really radical, really amazing that's taking place. It's something new and it can only be accomplished by the redemption that comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. And we see that in this word, but in verse nine, but you. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood and a holy nation. And so notice first the contrast with which Peter begins this paragraph in contrast to those who are disobedient to the word and in Peter's own word are appointed to that very end. But Julie says you're not like them. Because you have been chosen by God according to the riches of his mercy, by the exercise of his particular unmerited favor through the kindness that he has shown to us in Christ Jesus. What we're going to see today is that God's plan of redemption, God's choosing of his people is never a choosing that results in inactivity and spiritual apathy. God always chooses his people out of one thing and into something entirely different, something completely separate and distinct and dissimilar to that from which they had come. It's interesting today as we think about the church movements in the United States, and I've spent quite a lot of time studying and thinking about what is often referred to as the emergent church. It's interesting the sentiment that often exists within that movement. I was counseling a man a number of years ago, about five or six years ago now, and he was a man in our church and had failed morally, and we were doing some counseling. And he said to me, why do we have to emphasize in Christianity what we are to do? Why can't we just emphasize as Christians what we are to be? I don't want to talk about what we're supposed to do. I only want to talk about what we're supposed to be. It's interesting that in the emergent church, you often see the themes. such as we're on a journey. In fact, many of the churches that you see that reflect this kind of idea are actually named names like that, the journey church. We're on a journey. We only want to talk about what we're supposed to be. We don't want to talk about what we're supposed to do. David Wells commented in one of his books that in contrast to the emergent church and this mentality, Pilgrim's Progress, the title of that book, and in this pre-emergent era, he said that Pilgrim's Progress is the Christian's progress from this life to the one which is to come. He thought about the destination. as well as the journey. We have obviously some runners in our church. Ian and Candice, I know, love to run. And I'm sure when they're running, they're not thinking about every little step that they're taking, but they're thinking also about the destination. I want to finish this race. And yet finishing the race also involves every little step that we take. It involves the journey as well as the destination. And we have to think about both. And Peter here is saying that God has called you from something. He's called you to something. But as you are becoming what God has called you to be in his presence, this is how you're supposed to act. This is how you are supposed to live. And these words that Peter gives us here describe how we are supposed to run, how we are supposed to live. our lives. He describes what kind of people we are, just as Sean mentioned a few minutes ago, and in contradistinction to that idea that the Muslims have that God is unknowable, that he cannot be defined, that we don't define holiness by God's nature, but rather just by what we do, by just obeying some arbitrary laws. And yet for the Christian We see that this description that Peter gives us here, a chosen race, a royal priesthood and a holy nation all describe what we are called to be because they describe the very image of God. They describe who he is. And so we see here in these verses what God calls us to become and what God calls us to be as we fulfill what God is accomplishing in his plan of redemption. So what we're going to see today is that Peter lists five characteristics to describe what we have become in Christ, have been renewed in our souls by the Spirit of Christ, who has caused us to be born again. These five characteristics that Peter mentions include a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a possession of God. And finally, all of this, Peter declares, results in our ultimate purpose, a people that proclaim the excellencies or praises of God. And we'll see that more in detail next week. Now, this week, as I was studying this passage, I decided to treat really only the first three of these, and then we'll look at the others in more detail next time. Now, you'll notice if you're looking at your Bibles, in most of your translations, that the descriptions that Peter uses here of these things are in all-caps letters. Notice there in verse nine, at least in the New American Standard, the ESV doesn't do it, but the New American Standard, I believe the King James and New King James also, it puts them in all caps. And what that simply means is that Peter is quoting these verses explicitly verbatim from the Old Testament. And in particular, he's quoting from the Greek version of the Old Testament, which is known as the Septuagint. Notice first, he says we are a chosen race. In his opening greeting in this letter in first Peter one one, you recall that Peter addressed his readers as the elect of God, and that's the same Greek word that Peter translates here as a chosen race or a chosen people. So you can just use the word elect. It's the elect. race and an elect people of God. There's no doubt that Peter would have been thinking here about several different passages in the Old Testament that use this phrase. There is one in particular that summarizes the salvation of God for his own glory and his praise. Look with me briefly, if you will, if you would, Deuteronomy chapter 7. Just keep your place there in 1 Peter and look back at Deuteronomy chapter 7 verses 7 and 8. I'm actually going to pick it up in verse six, read verses six through eight, Deuteronomy, chapter seven, for you are a people holy to the Lord, your God, the Lord, your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord has said his love on you and chose you for you were the fewest of all people. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath for the authority or fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. There's a distinct application of this, I believe, to the church under the old covenant. God chose a particular nation to be his people, to show forth his glory among the nations. And that people, of course, that nation was the nation of Israel, the children of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, to whom God made this promise. But in the new covenant, God has chosen a new nation. And we're going to see this explained in further detail more next week as we look at what we were and what we have become. But God has chosen this new nation, this new Israel. We're not the children of Abraham by blood. Most of us don't have Jewish heritage. We can't look back at our forefathers and find Jewish descent. We're not the children of Abraham by blood, but we are the children of Abraham by faith. And that is exactly, I think, what Peter means. The word that Peter uses here for race or generation is actually a distinct word that has to do with a race and blood relationship having to do with hereditary privilege, has to do with that which is inherited. Now, I believe this is a marvelous statement as it points us back to Christ. The relationship that we have in Christ is even stronger than the relationship we have through our physical flesh and blood connections. Paul sums this up in Galatians chapter three, verses 28 and 29. There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free man. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, you are Abraham's offspring, heirs. according to the promise. I believe that adoption, we talk about, as you can imagine, a lot in our household, and it's not something to be ashamed of. You know, it used to be years ago that when someone was adopted into a family, that that child might get to be to the age of 14 or 15, and then the parents would drop the hammer. They'd drop the ball and say, hey, by the way, you're adopted. And the kid would go, what you mean, I really wasn't born, you know, of you from your flesh and blood. And it was almost like something to be ashamed of. I tell you, it isn't anything to be ashamed of, something in which we can rejoice because all of us who are born again. Caused to be born again by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. All of us have been adopted by the Father through the lineage of the Son. It is something to glory in, to rejoice in. That previously we were on a course of death. That previously we belonged to the camp of the enemy. That before we were brought into God's family, we were God's hated enemies. But God showed his love toward us and adopted us into his family and has showered us with all of the riches. That are ours in Christ Jesus, even as we heard about from the book of Ephesians, and so we have this now, this new nation that is made up, not of physical blood. Remember the Lord Jesus Christ when they came to him and they said, Now, behold, your mother and your brothers are outside and they're looking for you. And the Lord Jesus looked at them and he said, my mother and my brothers are those who do the will of my father who are in heaven. Behold. And he looked at his disciples. He said, behold, my mother and my brothers. The family of God is a stronger family tie. than if we were born into a physical lineage. The Jews looked at their lineage and said, look, this is who we are. We're Jews. This is what makes us so wonderful that we've been given the promises and covenants of God. And that's true. And the Lord Jesus Christ said, yes, that is a special privilege that you have received. But now in the Lord Jesus Christ, Peter says he has declared you to be a nation, a new nation, A chosen nation, God said to the children of Israel, you didn't become a chosen nation because of anything you did, but because I set my love upon you. And the same thing is true of us. We're not a chosen nation because of anything we did, but because of the Lord's mercy to us. Nevertheless, he has brought us together and adopted us all into one family. And he has made us into one nation under God, truly. the only true nation under God. Secondly, Peter says in verse nine that we're not only a chosen race or a chosen people, but we're also a royal priesthood. In Exodus 19, six, God had said through Moses to the children of Israel, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel. Now, a royal priesthood is a group of priests that belong to the service of the king. That's what that means. It is a priesthood that is put into the service of the king. You remember when Moses went up against Pharaoh, Pharaoh brought in his priests, those magicians and the priests proclaimed The will of the Pharaoh against the will of God and tried to overthrow the power of God by their own magical powers. And that's what they were. They were a a priest, a royal priesthood, if you will, that served the king. And that was the idea in ancient times. As it relates to Yahweh. The idea of a priest in the Bible is one who serves God and has been given access to God. Because of his access to God, he was given the right and the responsibility of interceding before God, between men and God, with sacrifices and prayers on behalf of those who didn't have access. Not everyone in Israel were priests. And so priests were appointed, in fact, a special priesthood. You had to have come from a special lineage. You had to have been born into the tribe of Levi. You had to have come from a family within the family to be considered for the priesthood. Martin Luther was really responsible, more than anyone else in church history, for developing the doctrine in the New Testament, in particular, of the priesthood of all believers. Now, we all take this doctrine for granted today, but Luther recognized the power of this, especially in the spiritual battle in which he was engaged. You see, Luther maintained that each believer is his own priest. And with that one doctrine, more than anything else, Luther broke the power of the Roman Catholic Church. Because the Roman Catholic Church maintained that they were the only entity that had the right and power to give or receive the means of grace, namely the sacramental system, which they understood to come from papal authority. What Luther meant by this primarily was that the individual believer could obtain forgiveness for their sins directly through the Lord Jesus Christ, our high priest, through his propitiatory sacrifice. It was through Christ's sacrifice that made the atonement once and for all and satisfied the wrath of God against us. And so as we come to our Lord Jesus Christ, our high priest, we are all priests under his priesthood. In other words, we can all come to God and ask for the forgiveness of our sins. Oh, God, forgive me a sinner. I am a sinner before you. We don't come with our own blood. We don't come with the blood of a lamb that is slain on the altar, but we come to the lamb who was slain on the altar. The Lord Jesus Christ. And so this is why the author of Hebrews says once and for all, we have a sacrifice that satisfies for our sins, that satisfies before God. And and yet this is the idea of the priesthood. When we come to God, we're priests, not because of anything good in us, but because of what Christ has done. Nevertheless, we are given access. We're given access not only to come into the temple, But we are given access to come not only to the place of sacrifice, but to the very inner sanctuary into the holy of holies, where even in the priesthood of Israel, only the high priest was allowed to go. And then, as you know, only once per year. And yet, as believers, as a royal priesthood who live in the service of a king, we are given access perpetually What day is there during the week when you don't confess your sins? It shouldn't be any day or any hour when you don't confess your sins to God. How do you come to God? Well, you come through the Lord Jesus Christ alone, through his blood. And yet in even a special way on the Lord's Day, when we gather together, We are led by the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 8 calls him the liturgos, the worship leader. We are led by the Lord Jesus Christ into the very holy of holies. And no wonder the author of Hebrews says it's called the throne room of grace. By God's grace, through the Lord Jesus Christ, we are given access into the very holy place of God, the holy of holies, the mercy seat of God, where Christ's blood is perpetually sprinkled for us. So God's wrath is not directed to us, for it was already directed to his son when he was on the cross. And he bore all of his wrath and his hatred of sin and listen, all of the filth that we bring into the holy of holies, don't we? We bring our sins, we bring our lusts, we bring all of the garbage that is in our mind into the very holy of holies. And yet, because of Christ's blood, we are sprinkled and washed clean. There's no other way. To come. But that we are a royal priesthood, and yet with that designation, what great responsibility. Think of that high priest in Israel once a year. You know the legend, you know the story that when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies, he had to wear bells on his shoes. Because if they stopped hearing the bells ringing as he walked around there and prayed, they would have to go in and drag him out by his feet because he died in the very presence of God. You can imagine the fear, you can imagine the preparation in his mind as he prepared to go into that place of both life and death. That place where he can intercede for the people of God. And yet in a very moment, in a nanosecond, he could be struck down by God. Because God is a holy God, a consuming fire. And so how much more should we think about what this means to be a royal priesthood? We are called by God to serve God, to intercede for others, to intercede for ourselves. To live lives that are pleasing to God, to prepare ourselves to enter into his presence is an awesome, amazing, awesome thing that God has given to us. And so he says, you're a chosen race, you're a royal priesthood. And by the way, let me just say briefly, I believe what Luther did not mean by this idea is that every believer is their own little church. And that each Christian has access to God, independent of the church. Now, as I mentioned ago, we ought to confess our sins even during the week when we're not in church, of course. So we do have access to God. But our understanding of that cannot be separated and should not be separated from the fact that we are a chosen race. And as Peter explains it further, as we'll see here next, a holy nation. And so the priesthood of the individual believer needs to be understood within the context of the corporate activity. So when we come to God, we come on his terms, and that means that he has made available and we come as a family of priests through our high priest, Christ Jesus. through whom we have received and continue to receive the forgiveness of sins. And so we see in the very next case, Peter explains that idea of chosen race even further and takes it to this level of a nation. He says we're a holy nation. Holiness means that we're set apart to God for a particular use. It means that we belong to God in a way that other people do not. Now, I've probably used this illustration with you before, if I have, forgive me, but my wife has a very special set of china. Now, that china didn't just, you know, we didn't buy it at Macy's when we got married. She inherited it from her grandmother and it's a pre-war Japanese china. And that china is probably worth a lot of money. And so it's irreplaceable. I broke the gravy bowl a number of years ago and still haven't heard the end of it. She doesn't hold it against me. She has grace and mercy towards me. But that china is very hard to come by. You can't just go out and find another replacement plate for it. And so on very special occasions, Maybe the holidays, it seems like the last few years, only once every few years she'll take that china out and serve dinner. I really like when she takes it out because I don't have to do the dishes that day and she won't let me touch it. But that china is very special china. Now, it's not like the that what do you call it, melamec or whatever you have up in the cupboard that we get down every day. If one of them drops on the floor and breaks, it's not a big deal. You can go down to Target and buy another plate. You can just replace it. You go to the thrift store and there's another one on the shelf. It's not a big deal if something happens to it. But with that special china, it's a big deal. It's something that's special, it's something that's set apart for particular use. And that's the idea, at least one aspect of the idea of holiness as it relates to God setting apart his people unto holiness. We have been set apart for a particular purpose. We've been set apart to live lives that are a reflection of His own holiness. And so in the preceding verse, as we read earlier in Deuteronomy 7, God describes what kind of a people his people are to be. For you are a holy people to the Lord, your God, the Lord, your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession and out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. You see, Out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth, God says, I want you to be a people that are set apart, that are different, that are distinct. You look different than the rest of the world in the things that you love because you love Christ and you want to follow him and serve him because you love his blood. And because of that, you hate your sin. You love his kingdom, you love his people, you love the brethren, you love his church and you love the day of his coming. You're a different kind of people, different kinds of loves the world, especially when we were young and young people. the world all around you every day, bombarded, bombarded with messages. Love me, love this, love that. We are constantly being tempted with a love of money, which is a root of all sorts of evil, with a love of infidelity, with a love of materialism and hedonism. What makes me feel good? These are the kinds of things that Satan holds up as those things which will bring true satisfaction to your life and your soul. They won't. They will not. God says, I've chosen you to be distinct, to be different, to be holy, to live lives as holy lives, as a people, a nation that is distinct and different. So how are we different? I want to just talk briefly about three ways in which we're distinct from the world. Then I'll be done. We're distinct from the world in our activities. And all of our activities of life, including even our death, which is the final conflict that we will be a part of in this life. We're called upon by God to be a holy people, a distinct people that are set apart from the world and our morals and in that which we value as our holiness relates to the activities of our lives. Listen to these words of Spurgeon as he prayed these words in which he earnestly asks the father to keep us from sinning. We cry to thee that we may no more provoke thee. We beg thee rather to send the serpents among us than to let sin come among us. Oh, that we might have our eye always on the brazen serpent that heals the bites of evil. But may we not look sin or love it. Let the devices of Balaam and Balak prevail against us to lead thy people away from their purity. but not them prevail against us. Let us not be defiled with false doctrine or with unholy living. But may we walk as a separated people of God and keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Lord, may we not grieve your spirit. May we not vex thee so as to lead thee to thy wrath to say they shall not enter into my Bear with us still for his dear sake, whose blood is upon us. Bear with us still and send not the destroying angel as thou didst to Egypt. But again, fulfill that promise of thine. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. Even in our relation to death, we're going to be able, we pray, To say at the end of it all that we have fought the good fight, we have finished the course, we have kept the faith in the future. There is laid up for us the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will be awarded to us on that day because we have loved his appearing. How many of us have thought about this, that living a holy life is not only living a holy life in our activities, in what we do in this life, in our morals, in those things which we value, but to think of the whole of our lives as Christians, as a holy life, both now and to the very end. Not only should we live well, but we also ought to think about how can we die well? Listen, how many of you know that today, You're not going to leave this place and this be the end of your life. If you think that you think very short sightedly for only a few weeks ago in our very midst. Jonathan and Amy came this close to death. Death is at your doorstep. It awaits around the corner. And for us who are getting older, and some of you are even yet a little older, you know how close death is. If you've ever sat with someone as they've taken their last breath, you know the reality of death. And when God calls us to be a holy nation, I believe, This distinctiveness not only applies to our life, but also to our death. We have to think in our life. We have to think in our days. What shall it be like when I die? When I am on that bed and my heart begins to seize within my chest and my organs begin to shut down and my breath becomes short and I am on that doorstep of death. Will I be able to say in that day with the Apostle Paul, I have finished the course. I fought the good fight. We've kept the faith. In the future, I know there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness. Not because of my righteousness, but what Christ has done and what Christ has enabled me to do by making me his holy possession. We look at death through those eyes. And even in a sense, look forward to that day when we'll cross that river of glory with Christ and into Christ's open arms. It's a beautiful thing to think of our death. when we think of our death in these terms, that we have lived a life that is pleasing to God, that he set us aside under his holy purpose and we fulfilled it. Not in our own strength, of course. And yet that is what we are, that is what we've been made to be, we've been made to be a holy nation set apart for this purpose. In a sermon entitled Christ the Best, Richard Sibbes was thinking about what it means not only to live a holy life, but also to die well, because we've lived a life holy as unto the Lord. To die well, he says, is not a thing of that light moment, as some might imagine. It is no easy matter. But to die well is a matter of every day. Let us daily do some good that may help us at the time of our death. Every day, by repentance, pull out the sting of some sin so that when death comes, we may have nothing to do but die. To die well is the action of the whole life. He never dies well, for the most part, that dies not daily. As Paul saith of himself, I die daily. He labored to lose his heart from the world and worldly things. If we lose our hearts from the world and die daily, how easy it will be to die at last. He that thinks of the vanity of the world and of death and of being with Christ forever and is dying daily will be easy for him to end his days with that eternal comfort that is ours in Christ Jesus. Beyond the whole of our lives and all of our activities, the Bible declares that we are distinct from the world in our worship. Isaiah 52, 11, God said to the priests of Israel, they were in Babylon, they were held in captivity, still there in Babylon, longing to be back in Jerusalem. God says, I'm going to take you there in Isaiah 51. I'm going to accomplish this thing. Isaiah 52, he gives them this. Isaiah 52, verse 11, depart, depart, go out from there, touch nothing unclean. Go out of the midst of her and purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord. What is he talking about? Priests. You who carry the vessels of the Lord, those implements of worship. As you're getting ready to go back to Jerusalem and to build the temple anew and to enter back into the worship of God as God has instituted, don't touch anything unclean, especially you who carry the vessels of God. Be careful that you're not defiled by the world in your worship of God. That's what he's saying. So what does it mean to be a holy nation unto God? And as Peter has just Instructed us not only a holy nation, but all of you are priests. All of you are carrying holy vessels. Every one of you, when you come to the presence of God, when you come into the worship of God, you're priests. And so we are all under that very instruction. Be very careful how you depart from the world. Be very careful how you come to the very presence of God. Don't touch anything unclean. Don't be influenced by the world in the way that you worship me. Don't be carried away by the emergent church and all of these fancy words and all of these things and all of these people who say we have a better way to worship God. We don't need his word. We don't need his preaching. We don't need all this boring stuff. We have a better way to come to God. God says, be careful, don't touch anything unclean. Depart, go out from there, he says. You carry the vessels of the Lord. So we ought to think about our worship. As Paul did, 2 Corinthians 6, what agreement has the temple with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. Just as God said, I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean. Oh, you say that was the Old Testament. Paul says exactly the same thing. Don't touch what is unclean. Be very careful in the way that you approach me. And so we ought to be constantly thinking about our worship of God, constantly asking ourselves, do the themes of our worship, whether in the assembly or in our homes, does our worship focus our hearts upon the greatness of God, the holiness of God? Where is the emphasis upon the satisfaction of ourselves? And finally, one last thing, we're distinct from the world, not only in the way we live in our worship, but we're distinct from the world in our protection by God. Jeremiah two, three says that Israel was holy to the Lord, the first of his harvest, all who ate of it. persecuted them, became guilty, evil came upon them, declares the Lord. The Lord says, you touch my people, you touch what is special to me, what is holy to me, and I will have vengeance upon you. Now, what a blessing it is to know. That when God calls out of the world his people to be distinct from the world in our activities and in our worship, that God empowers us to do that. And not only does he empower us, but he protects us with a burning jealousy because we belong to him and no one else. God protects us because he loves us and is jealous of us. I want to I want to conclude this morning with this. beautiful hymn from Psalm 121. And in this hymn, the psalmist ponders about this idea concerning the protection by God of his people. The psalmist says, I'll lift up my eyes to the hills. And this is like one of those psalms of ascent in Jerusalem. You look up. to Jerusalem, you look up to the holy hill of God. And so he's thinking about the temple here. He's thinking about the worship of God. I lift up my eyes to the hills from whence does my help come? My help comes from Yahweh, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber, because behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out And you're coming in from this time. Until evermore, what a blessed thing this is. The Lord says, not only am I making you a holy people, not only am I Washing you, as Brother Mason brought out a few weeks ago in Ephesians 5, washing you with the water of the word and making you sanctified, making you holy. But the Lord gives us this promise. I'm going to keep you. I'm going to keep those who are mine that I've set aside. Listen, we live in an unholy nation. We live in an unholy day. We live in a time when the world is flying away from righteousness as fast as it can. It is being filled with corruption and hatred of God's holiness. Men today hate God, it seems, almost more than any time in history. As a world, as an entire world filled with violence and hatred of God. But don't be afraid to be a holy nation. Don't fear to be a nation that is set apart for the holiness of God, because God says, I'll keep you. The sun can't burn you up. Don't worry what men will do to you. Don't be afraid, the Lord says, I'm going to bring you to the conformity of the image of my very son, I'm going to make you like What God has set out to accomplish, he will accomplish. What great comfort we have in those words. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have indeed made us to be a chosen race and elect people of God, not by our own ability, not because of anything we did or good in us or anything that even our gifts or anything. In fact, we were the smallest, even as we'll see next week. Are we the Gentiles? We're nothing. We're the haters of God. And yet, God, you've chosen us to be an elect people. You set your love upon us and you've set us aside to be holy. And we pray, God, that you would give to us by your spirit the desire of our life, not for the things of this world, not for this life. But more than anything else, above all else, oh God, that we would be like you, that we would love your being and your holiness. We know, God, that your being is more than just being, but is doing what you do is right and perfect and wise and true and just in all of your ways. God, I pray that we would strive to live in such a way that we might be like you and we might be just like your son, who manifested your holiness before us all of his days and every word that he said. And all of his acts of obedience and his acts of submission to you and even the cross of God. When he became. Sin that we might become the righteousness of God. Father, I pray that we would not fear because we know that you protect and that you will bring your people to the end. And Lord, even if the world casts insults and persecution and hatred of us, if they call us all sorts of names, intolerant and hateful, and all that they are, O God, in their hearts, and all that we were apart from your grace, we pray, Lord, we will endure it well, looking forward even to the day of our death, knowing, God, You will bring your city on a hill that cannot be hidden. To glory. And that your people will dwell with you and reign with you as your royal priesthood forever and ever. We give thanks to you, God, that you're protecting us and preserving us for this very end. We thank you because of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.