Thank you, brother. If you haven't already done so, would you please turn your Bibles open to our passage this morning as we continue to study through the book of 1 Peter, and we're up to the second chapter. Having alluded to the church now being a living and organic temple whereby God resides, a temple that is not built with big hunks of rock cut out and fitted to one another, but instead God now resides in a temple made with living stones. Believers, you and I make up the temple of God. Believers corporately make up the new priesthood, whereby replacing the Old Testament priests for whom it was their responsibility to offer sacrifices. We now are the priesthood of all believers, not priesthood of the believer. And we're going to return to this notion later on in the sermon. Chief cornerstone is Christ and along with the apostles are the foundation stones who have provided the groundwork for all future generations of believers upon which we stand. Now alluding to the leadership of Israel in verse seven, we saw that they rejected the cornerstone Jesus himself as they took offense at him. As we enter into our text this morning, Let us remember whom Peter has just spoken of are those that do not live with the hope of Christ. And now, let us turn our attention to those people of which he has found a contrast to. And he begins by saying, but you, in contrast to the unbelievers. And then he begins to list out this wonderful blessing for those whom God has chosen. And before we take a look at each in turn, would you please rise and turn your Bibles, if you haven't already done so, to 1 Peter Chapter 2, where in which we will be focusing upon verses 9 and 10 this morning. But for refreshing our memories, I'm going to begin reading from verse number 4. This is the Word of God. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious. You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, for it stands in scripture. Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for those who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. And in verse nine, beginning for our passage this morning. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. This is the word of God. Amen. Please be seated and join me in prayer for the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, We beseech you to be with us now as we worship our great God by the study of your word. Help us to see ourselves as our heavenly father sees us. Help us to become more and more like him. Change us by hearing the truth and help us to conform to it. Make us more and more like our Savior, obedient, subject to, and delighting in God's word. Make us a delight to our heavenly Father, and help us to delight in our great Savior. And we ask this in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now, before we get deep into the text, let's back up to the first words that set up verses 9 and 10. It is that contrastive word, but. He's about to contrast those in verse 7. He's referencing to the leadership of the Old Testament people of God, and as a consequence, the holy nation that he had chosen. God's patience and mercy to his people is well documented, and so we don't need to go into that this morning. However, it is important to note that the established theocracy and the blessings associated with being the people of God had come to an end. And this was punctuated by a complex events, by a complex set of events that started with the rejection of Christ, by the shepherds of Israel, his death, his resurrection, Pentecost, and all this capstoned by the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and, of course, the physical temple that Herod had built in AD 70. Now the churches that he is writing to, speaking of Peter, were filled with both Jews and Gentiles, and the Jewish members would have known about their history of disobedience much better than their Gentile brethren. It would be fair for a new convert or the educated convert to ask if the holy nation of God that was chosen by him is rejected, then what now? What replaces them? Who replaces them would be a fair question to ask. Now, we already got a glimpse in verses four and five. However, if there was confusion or doubt, Peter's about to dispel all of it once and for all. Armed with this information, we can now return to Peter addressing the church after he says, but you, you plural. Let's begin with the word chosen. Not only does this word indicate that the people of God are individually chosen, as he's already made clear in the letter, but he is addressing the church community at large here. This type of language reminds us of how the Old Testament referred to Israel. his elect people as a chosen people or race. In fact, I think it's clear that Peter wants us to be reminded of this verbiage from the Old Testament. In fact, I'm going to be reading quite a bit of passages this morning to help you to understand where Peter's mind is and where he wants us to focus upon and what to make of that. We can see clearly in Isaiah chapter 43 and verse 20 where God refers to his people in the following manner. For I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people, Israel. But now here in our passage, Peter is using the same verbiage for his people in the Old Testament to now, God having chosen a new race, a new people, the Christian people. It is those that are in Christ, Christians who have become members in the new chosen people of God. Now, we should point out that Christians can look to Abraham as a spiritual father. But this new race is different than looking to Father Abraham as being our physical father. That is, you know, being descended from him physically. In fact, this new race of God comes to God not looking to Abraham, but looking to Christ. And this is done by believing in him. Secondly, Peter continues by saying that we are a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Again, these words echo back to the Old Testament where we can see what God intended for his people to be. We read the following in Exodus chapter 19 and verse 6. Listen to it and see if it's familiar to our passage this morning. and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This is God speaking to the Exodus generation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel, Moses has commanded. As it relates, to being a holy priesthood. In the ancient world, it was not uncommon for kings, monarchs, emperors to have assigned personal clergy that would be devoted to serving and ministering to him and to his family personally. As it relates to our context, being a royal priesthood, we are not talking about earthly Israel, but we're talking about being a royal priesthood within the kingdom of God, whose king is Christ himself. The priesthood and some of its duties have already been described for us in verse five, so there's no need for us to go into that again today. But one of the things that we have to be careful in understanding this teaching is that it is the priesthood of all believers. One of the challenges of understanding this correctly is a trap of thinking that it is the priesthood of the believer. Historically, this erroneous shift from the priesthood of all believers to the priesthood of the believer has led some to develop some unorthodox practices that is still with us today. Some have used this passage like this, to justify the forsaking and of the worship of God with the saints in the context of the church community. People who hold this view say the following. I can worship God from home. After all, I am a priest of God and can offer my sacrifices to God alone. Those believing this would point to statements made by even Jeremiah looking forward to the new covenant where he says, Jeremiah chapter 31, 33 to 35, I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And then this is what they point to. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying to know the Lord. for they all shall know me. From the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord." Did you guys catch that? Some would state, and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor. I don't need the church. I can be my own church is the clarion call of people who interpret or misinterpret, misunderstand this to be the priesthood of the believer. To this, biblical scholar Peter David states in his commentary on 1 Peter, we need to be careful because. the West tends to focus on individuals relating to God, while Peter was much more conscious of peoples becoming part of a new corporate entity that is chosen by and that relates to God. And if this was true, what they would say, Why would that is to say that we no longer need teaching or teachers anymore? Why would the Lord Jesus give the church gifts of pastoring and teaching? And why would James say if teaching was no longer a thing in the new covenant? He says in the following, verse chapter three and one, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers. The focus in this passage is a communal concept. not individual. For example, Peter says that you, plural, are a chosen people, not person, not a chosen person, a royal priesthood, not a royal priest. We in the West have a tendency to interpret the Holy Scriptures through the lens of our cultural mores, do we not? a rugged individualism that emphasizes independence, an emphasis on personal as opposed to oriental cultural standards that focus upon community identity and conformity to communal values. In the West, we would say, well, that's who I am. In the East, it would be, well, that's who we are, to give you an idea of the distinction. Now, that's not to say that we are nowhere able to find in the scripture personal responsibility, but here in 1 Peter, in this passage, we must recognize that he has a communal, national nature in mind. You see, he is helping us to see that we are a holy nation that has been birthed out of the rejection of Old Testament Israel by God. We are a holy nation and a new race of people that transcends national and ethnic borders. The church, the new Israel, would transcend national borders and be a global kingdom calling out people from every nation, tribe, and tongue. Furthermore, God has called us to be a holy nation. Peter has previously told us what God wants from us, to be holy. We are to pursue a life of personal piety, yes. Here, he says that we are to be a holy nation. As it relates to being a holy nation, he's not using the word holy to mean moral, upright nation. Holy is meant to be understood as a nation that has been called out and separated to God, for God. The items that were constructed in the temple were holy. The incense that was used was holy unto God. It doesn't mean that the incense was responsible for practicing upright behavior. It was consecrated. It was set apart for holy purposes unto God. So the nation which God has established through its king, Jesus, is a holy nation which is set apart for the purposes of serving, uplifting, glorifying, and following God's ways. God promised the special status of being a holy nation unto God. as long as they were to keep his word to Israel. This is found to us in Exodus 23-22, which states, but if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. The people of God were to be obedient to God's ways. And as long as they are not disobedient as a nation, God covenanted to protect theocratic Israel. They were his chosen and precious people. He would protect them from their enemies, keep them safe from their adversaries. As long as they were obedient, there would never be a need for God to look for another race or another people to bestow this great privilege and mercy. Now, if you were in this generation and God had promised to be your God and your people's protector, what would you be thinking? What would be going through your mind? What would be going through your heart? What would you be feeling? Delighted, happy, relieved, naturally willing to tell the world of the greatness of God. You would tell people how he saved your people from the bondage and the slavery of Pharaoh, would you not? With great delight. You would have been filled with so much joy. And if it started raining that day in that joy, what would you do? Well, of course, you would be singing in the rain, wouldn't you? Because nothing would take away your joy, because you were gods. Nothing, nothing would take away that joy, as long as you kept your eye on God. This is so important for the church. This teaching is so important for the church. Whether it's on the local level, if it's on the regional level, such as a presbytery, on the national level, on the global level, it's important for the church to always keep this on her mind. We exist because God called us into existence. And we exist in order to serve and enjoy God. We are here to follow his ways. The church is constantly being barraged by the world's ways, is it not? And being tempted to follow, compromise, and reflect the ways of the world. Sometimes not only tempted, but threatened if we don't conform. In our part of the world, it's done by sometimes being ostracized, sometimes it's legal action being taken, lawsuits to bleed churches financially dry, and sometimes, sadly, physical attacks. but we must remember that we are a holy nation. Holy, set apart to God. James told us that we must be resolute about our commitment to our heavenly father when he said in James 4.4, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Imagine that. God calls out people from their spiritual darkness, spiritual darkness of the world, a people of his very own. And instead of becoming like him, these privileged people follow the ways of the world which they were rescued from. Do you think God would stand for that? No. We must be careful to not allow the world's ways to influence how God has revealed in his word how his household should function. We need to winsomely say, not for us, the world wants us to participate in their ways and wants our worship to be like theirs, that we worship their gods. Why? Well, the next phrase helps us understand better. It states that the new race of people that he has created in Christ is a people for his own possession. We can see this language again in Exodus chapter 19, but this time in verse 5. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, And here it is, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples. Similarly, in Deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse 20, we read, but the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace out of Egypt to be a people of his own inheritance as you are this day. Deuteronomy 7.6, 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. Another place that we can look to is Isaiah chapter 43 and verse 21, which if you pay close attention, you will also see another statement related to our passage this morning. It states, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise. The Isaiah passage is referring to God redeeming his people from the Babylonian captivity here. To redeem his people and to forgive them their sins. The peril should be obvious to us. We Christians are similarly forgiven for our sins and removed from the realm of darkness and into the righteousness of God's presence, his light, so that we can proclaim the praises of God's deeds for us. In this case, it's not bringing us into physical Jerusalem or bringing us back into physical Jerusalem, but this time it's into his marvelous light and ultimately to the heavenly Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem that is yet to come. God has called us to proclaim the praises of his name. He has not saved us so that we may take comfort and enjoy ourselves and look to God to provide for every one of our needs and complain when he doesn't or he doesn't do so in the amounts that we want. Although we are to look to him and find satisfaction in him for life, he makes it clear that he will not share his glory with anyone. and that he expects us as members of his holy nation to be holy and to follow him. Isaiah chapter 48 and verse 9 says the following. For my name's sake, I defer my anger. For my sake, for the sake of my promise, I restrain it for you, his anger, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, God says. For my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. Whenever we engage in sinful activity and have no desire to cease and turn away from it, that profanes God's reputation, and he will not allow that to stand, Christian. More succinctly, what that means is as his children, we possess his family name, and he is jealous to maintain his reputation. So when we are engrossed in unrepentant sin, as this passage states, God will test us and remove the draws from our sinful desires. If you've been a Christian for any period of time, you will know what this means. It's not fun, but it's necessary. Why? Because as God says, for his own sake, He will not have his name profaned. You know, I remember when, honestly, I can't tell you if it was five years of age or six years of age. I know that goes back quite a while. I am told I was a highly active child, and on occasion I was mischievous, and at times disobedient. Whenever we visited my grandparents' house, I would be sent to play out in the garden while my mother visited with her in-laws. One thing that they grew was tomatoes. One of the consistently troubling things my grandparents experienced was that whenever I was around their tomatoes, they would never seem to grow very large, and in fact, they would disappear. Yes, I was told to help myself, I was told not to help myself, even now I want to say it that way, to the tomatoes. But as I said, I was told I was naughty. My mother had enough of it and she pulled me aside and told me that I was in the wrong. I was disobedient. And it was a public embarrassment to her and my father as my parents. I remember actually what I told her. It shouldn't bother you. It shouldn't harm your precious reputation. Tell them instead to come to me if they've got a problem with all this. It seems that the ripe old age of about six or seven, I had declared my emancipation from my parents. I was highly individualistic, as you can tell. Needless to say, I was properly and appropriately punished. I deserved it. And I understood later what it meant to be part of a family and part of a community. and how my being part of that family and that community affected not only my behavior, not affected only my behavior, my reputation, but also the reputation of all of them, and especially, in this case, my parents. With us now being excised out from the darkness and brought into this new chosen race of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ, we have a new father. And he calls us to be holy to reflect his reputation. And whether it's stealing tomatoes or something else, he will properly and appropriately discipline all of his elect in his own way, in his own timing. If there was any doubt where Peter was going with all of this Old Testament allusion to this new race, In verse 10, Peter speaks with the words and ideas borrowed from the book of Hosea. Let me read four passages to you and then apply it to verse 10. But try to see if you can remember what was in verse 10 itself. Hosea 1.6 reads, she conceived again and bore a daughter and the Lord said to him, Call her name no mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel to forgive them at all. Hosea 1.9. And the Lord said, call his name not my people, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. Hosea 2.1. Say to your brothers, you are my people, And to your sisters, you have received mercy. Hosea 2.23. And I will sow for her, for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on no mercy. And I will say to not my people, you are my people. And he shall say, you are my God. Wow, a lot of stuff there. These Gentile Christians never had gone through being unfaithful to the covenant, but they would have related to being outside of God's favor, that is akin to being rejected by God. Those in the new holy nation can say, once we were not a people, for the term was once reserved for Israel. But now these Christians, Know that they are elect. As Peter has pointed out this fact several times now, they are not just a people, they are the people of God. Before Israel was rejected by God, these Gentile Christians had been at one time no people and consequently did not have God's mercy. but now they have been invited into God's household to receive his mercy. They are now a people who are blessed because they have received God's grace and mercy. That's us. We were once not a people, but now we are a people. The reason why we are a people is because God gave us his mercy through his son, the Lord Jesus. If we receive this, his mercy and grace, certainly that's a starting point of many things that we, you and I, the church, can proclaim about our great God, can we not? In conclusion, we're to see that in verses 4 through 10 that God has bestowed the blessings once given to Israel in the Old Testament to a newly constituted Israel. The dwelling place is no longer the temple as Christians are the living stones that are being used to build up the temple and they are as a community, a royal priesthood who offer sacrifices to God, a chosen people who've been called out of darkness to become a new people who are to proclaim the praises of our great God's name and reflect their God. King. and Father in holiness. As Dr. Wayne Grudem has stated in his commentary, what would more be needed in order to say with assurance that the church has now become the true Israel of God? As we close today, we see in this passage as it is given to us from the beginning of chapter two, Peter is helping believers to understand in a broad metanarrative way that they are on a tectonic shift, if you will, in the plan of redemption. Who they are and what their function is. They, the Gentiles, along with the elect ethnic Jews, are, as Paul puts it, the Israel of God. They are the Israel that God intended from the time of the exodus, a holy people called to worship and praise God in this fallen world. We're not responsible for what this fallen world's response is to our praising our God. We're called to praise him. We're called to tell of how wonderful he is, how gracious he is. When we deserve such bad things, he sent his son to take that upon himself so that we can have life. However the world responds to that is how the world responds to that. But we can't help but tell the people, tell the world of how great our God is. We have received God's mercy, and he takes seriously his call for us to be holy, just as he himself is holy. We were once not the people of God, But now, along with peoples from all backgrounds and from all around the world, have been chosen to be part of this holy nation. Praise be to God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your brilliance. We thank you for your beauty. We thank you for your wisdom. We thank you for your righteousness and we thank you for making a way for us to be able to come into your presence, for calling us out from darkness and making us members of your people, your chosen race, your elect. We pray, Father, that we would take this seriously in our lives every day to reflect upon what we were and what you've done for us and how thankful we are for you, how thankful we are for what you have done for us, how thankful we are that you have done in us through your son, the Lord Jesus. May we proclaim it. with joy and with reckless abandon of how great you are. Let us not live in fear, we pray, Lord Jesus, for what people will say or think, but just proclaim the excellencies of your mercy and of your grace and of your compassion and of your passion for us. And may you be glorified. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I'd like to ask the elders who will be helping with the