Well, thank you for letting me share with you this morning. We've been talking about spiritual privileges and been looking at 2 Peter and 1 Peter 2, verses 4 to 10 have been our texts we've been looking at. There's different privileges the Lord's given to those who trust his son and been looking at them. calling them spiritual privileges. Those things that he got granted us by way of being his children, we have privilege because we're his children. There was a university student who had a really lofty view of his own intellect, and he said to a pastor on one occasion, he said, you know, I've decided that I do not believe in God. And, all right, pastor said, I replied, could you please describe me to God that you do not believe in. And the student proceeded to sketch a rather strange and a twisted caricature of an unfair, not a God of goodness. And he portrayed the God that he didn't believe in, and the pastor turned to him and said, well, we're in the same boat. I don't believe in that God either. And I just, who is the God that we believe in? And what's the character of the God that we believe in? You know, most people, Even believers in church have kind of a warped view of God, seeing him perhaps as less than God. Less than good, less than kind, less than benevolent. And looking at the general difficulty of life, the general circumstances of humanity and the conditions that plague our existence, really, in this world, and assuming that God is less than good, and kind and gracious and merciful. But because men look at the physical things and not the spiritual things, really, and anyone who sees with spiritual eyes can recognize that God's good, God's kind, He's gracious and merciful and benevolent. And that's the God whom we believe, not a caricature of some unkind, ungracious, unmerciful, overbearing deity, but the God whom we believe is the God of whom the psalmist said, the goodness of God endureth continually in Psalm 52, 1. The psalmist affirmed that in all of life there's an overpowering sense of the goodness of God. Yep, you could look in creation and you could see How fallen it is, you see corruption, and you see things that kill things, and spiders that bite, and thorns that make you bleed, but there is also kind of an afterglow after the fall. There's beauty and creation we can see. People who really experience the goodness of God are those who are his children. The others, in choosing to reject God, choose to reject his goodness, but those of us who by his grace have come to believe in God through Jesus Christ, understand that he's good. And God, in fact, in himself is an infinite and an inexhaustible treasure of all blessedness, enough to fill all things. And for example, the goodness of God, the benevolence of God, the kindness of God, and it really is seen in creation. I mean, if you look at the vastness of creation, you see it, you see the goodness of God and the beauty and the variety. and the intricate design of things, how beautiful the design is, and the created order that we have, the variety of natural pleasure. That shows how good God is. I mean, we realize that God could have created a brown world, totally brown, and could have created ugly people that all look the same, everyone ugly the same, and they could have all ate dirt. If God weren't there, that could have been how God created it. But God's good, and he's filled days and hours with wondrous beauty, and the goodness of God is also seen in the fact that when man transgressed God, when man sinned, and broke God's law initially, when man blighted God's creations, God's created pleasures, and he skewed them, God did not dispense unmixed wrath at once and wipe out the earth. He didn't erase Adam right then. God tempered his judgment even on the ungodly with mercy. In fact, he allows it to rain on the just and the unjust, it tells us. And we see here, I mean, where we live, that it rains on everybody down our block, on our hill, on the next hill when it rains. They go to church or not, bud, they get rain. But you know, in fact, if you saw the sunrise this morning or the sunset last night, how beautiful it is, more people saw it that are lost than are saved. And so mercy rejoices against judgment, tells us in James 2.13, and God gives happiness to man along with the sorrow that sin produces, but most of all, the goodness of God is seen in redemption, in the work of Christ on the cross of Calvary, and his resurrection from the dead. The goodness of God beyond creation, beyond benevolence, as well as on all mankind, the goodness of God is most clearly seen in redemption. And it's experienced by those who have received his gift of eternal life. We above all creation know the goodness of God, and we know how good God is, and particularly Peter wants us to focus here in chapter two of 1 Peter, verses four to 10 is our text. He wants us to kind of focus on the goodness of God as expressed in spiritual privileges. God's goodness comes to us in our text, verses four to 10. There's a series of great privileges that are granted to us. They're all of grace. We don't deserve them. We do not deserve them now as Christians anymore than we deserved them before we became Christians. And we could not earn them. We cannot earn them now. They are gifts of grace from a good God, who's the father of lights, who comes down, from whom comes every good and perfect gift, in whom there's no variables and neither shadow of turning, as James 1.17 says, and I misquoted, but I didn't mean to misquote it. And so, as you come into 1 Peter chapter two, we can rejoice in the goodness of our God, And we can focus on the immensity of his goodness as demonstrated in the spiritual privileges that he gives us in the text. And I just wanna share with you the first two privileges that we tried to share about. The number one privilege that we have is union with God. That's in verse four, it says, to whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. Ye also, as lively stones are built up, a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So first of all, coming to him, we come to a living stone. He's a living stone. He rose from the dead. But verse five says we also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house with him to be, it's a great privilege to be in union with the Lord. He's the cornerstone and we're built up a spiritual house with him. We have union with the living Christ, and it's a great truth. Secondly, we not only have union with the Lord, but we have access to the Lord because we're priests. In verse five, we're a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. Only the priests had access in the Old Testament. Only those of the tribe of Levi who were sons of Aaron had access. But we, as priests have access to God, God's given us access, he's given us an open door, God has carried us, has cried out for us to come unto his presence. He's opened the throne of grace to us, as the writer of Hebrews says, where we can come boldly before his throne. And so we accept, so three, that was two. Thirdly, so we have access as well as a union with the Lord, but there's a third one, we have security. security in our Lord. We have security in our Lord. Again, this is like twisting the kaleidoscope again just a little bit of spiritual privileges. You twist it just a little bit and all the rocks look different. Little beautiful colored spiritual blessings rearrange themselves, if you will, in a wonderful panorama of beauty. And the rearranged privileges this time take the shape of security a confident conviction, if you will, that we are secure in Jesus Christ for eternity, forever. And it's a great goodness, it's a privilege. So in verse six says, wherefore also it's contained in the scripture, behold, I lay in Zion, a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you, therefore, which believe he is precious unto them which be disobeyed, to stone which the builders disallow, the same is made the head of the corner. The key idea of not being disappointed, we're, I just lost my Greek context here. He that believeth in them shall not be confounded. The word is confound, confounded. I'm sorry? In a different place it's ashamed in Isaiah. But here in Peter, which he's drawn from that, that's why he says it's contained. He's not quoting the script, he's kind of paraphrasing it. He says in the context shall not be confounded. We're not short, and we're not gonna be confounded. We're gonna get at the end, not be disappointed. And so Peter's following this Old Testament privileges, and he introduces that phrase, it's contained in the scripture, and he has that phrase, it's written because it's not a direct quote, it's just shared, and he's not specifically quoting the scripture, he's merely referring to the truth. rather than saying, thus saith the Lord, it's written, he says, it's contained in the scripture. Scripture is the writing of God, and he's referring to the Old Testament passages. And this is the first one which he refers, behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and that's taken out of Isaiah 28, verse 16. And the stone he has in mind is Christ, and Christ is called, in verse four, a living stone, and here he's called a cornerstone. And so he has a living stone in the sense that he's the foundation of a spiritual house upon which were built his living stones. He's a living stone in the sense that he's risen from the dead stone, and thus he's alive. And now we find that he's not only the living stone, but he's also the cornerstone in this house, a very important truth. And in fact, in Isaiah 28, 16, again, Paul quotes this in Psalms 933, which again, I think 933 says it's short. Romans 933. But it's a very familiar, very important Old Testament text. It speaks of the Messiah. It speaks of the coming Christ. It's promised that when Christ came, he would be the cornerstone to fashion the new temple of God, the new house of God. And so the word behold, kind of, kind of, calls our attention, it's God calling us to attention. He says, I lay it in Zion. Behold, I lay it in Zion. And Isaiah, it refers to Jerusalem in Isaiah. It's the city of God, not Jerusalem. And Isaiah calls it Jerusalem. Here, as he said, Peter taking liberty to give the general thrust of the text, uses the word Zion. Both refer to the same place, since Jerusalem is a city that Mount Zion occupies. Figuratively, Zion is a realm of the new covenant of grace, where Sinai is the old covenant of law. And so I think that's why Peter chooses to refer to Zion. He's emphasizing a new covenant, the new covenant. So he says that the Christ, this stone that's laid in Zion is a choice stone, which means it's elect. It's been one chosen, elect stone, chosen by God. Christ is elect, the chosen one of God. And it would fit really much into the Jewish thinking, if you go back to 1 Kings chapter 6, where Solomon's building the temple, actually 5, 6, and 7. It took him 7 years to finish the temple and 30 years to finish his house. I thought that was amazing. But when they had built the temple, built the temple, this is a tremendous analogy, every stone had to be cut and fitted per plan prior to coming to the site. There was not to be any sound of those tools on the site. Everything was cut off site to a precise measurement and brought and set up. And there was to be little or no adjusting when it got there, didn't need any. There's no mortar, there's no chiseling, it just had to fit perfectly, which it did. And so this kind of fits into the Jewish thinking of what King Solomon did. It's a tremendous analogy. They were prepared to be brought to the site, and they were already shaped and cut to the careful diagram of the temple. And so it's like putting a puzzle together, the stones. But the fact that when the Lord set out to build the new temple of covenant people under the new covenant, When he set out to build up the spiritual house from cornerstone up, every one of those he's chosen, or elect, everyone's been chosen, all of them were previously prepared for that destiny, all of them were made to fit together in a perfect pattern by the Spirit of God, who would be the builder and organizing the stone according to their elect position. But more than that, he says, quoting Isaiah, that Christ was not only an elect stone, as well as a living stone, verse four, but he was a precious cornerstone, precious and interesting word. It's same word used in Luke chapter seven, verse two, to speak about when the centurion had the servant that was ill and he wanted the Lord to come to just say the word, he'd be healed. It means irreplaceable, valuable. It's an irreplaceable stone, so it's valuable. So Christ is not only a stone that elect, but he was a stone irreplaceable. And the most important stone in any building was the cornerstone. The cornerstone, that's why he was so irreplaceable. And the word can only mean, really, it can also mean costly. It basically means without equal. That's why we say a replacement is a good way to express it. The cornerstone is very, very important. The word in the Greek means at an extreme angle, or at the extreme angle. That's what it means, the extreme. The intent to say is that the cornerstone sets all the angles of the building. This one stone not only set elevation, not only set corner lines, and also set plumb lines. So you had control in this one stone for everything in a build. Tremendous thing that that one stone would be able to do. Today, we use a lot of different methods to get those same things, but we don't use just a cornerstone. We use a lot of different ways to make that point. The cornerstone was very important, and the buildings of ancient times were much more precise than the buildings today. Much more precise. How they did it, we don't know. We think that they used the stars. And we think they use plumb lines and strings and measurement, but we don't know. Today we use computers and satellites, but we can't get it as accurate as they could. So it's really interesting, but they started with the cornerstone and the right angle stone, every other stone being laid against it to determine whether it was straight or not. And the building of the house of God, the building of the temple that we know as the new covenant church, Again, the cornerstone had to be perfect, and the perfect, direct, prepared cornerstone, living stone, was none other than Jesus Christ, the stone that sets all the angles so that the church will be perfect as the household of God. It had to be perfect, that's why the builders had to examine it, and that he who believes on him, who trusts in the perfection of that cornerstone, should not be confounded, as we're talking about, or ashamed, or disappointed. One of our great privileges as Christians is that we will never be disappointed in Jesus Christ, never. John Mason Neal, he was a writer from the 19th century, 1800s, and he wrote a song, Christ has made the sure foundation, Christ the head and cornerstone, chosen of the Lord and precious, binding all the church in one. Holy Zion's hope forever and confidence alone. It's a poetic summary. I think we have it in our song, but it's a song. He is our confidence because he's the perfect cornerstone. He binds the church together in perfection and will never be ashamed. The word confounded or disappointed has the idea of being deceived. And some confidence, putting some hope in someone or having that hope disappointed will never be disappointed. We'll never be ashamed, for the Lord Jesus Christ will never let us down. He will never disappoint us. He'll never fail to come through or fail to provide, fail to fulfill all His good promises. In Isaiah chapter 50, verse 7, for the Lord helps me, says the prophet, therefore I'm not confounded. Therefore I will set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. That's the confidence of one who believes in God. And I was gonna read Isaiah 54, but I'm not now. If you wanna read that on your own, you can, but Isaiah 54. starts out, Sing, O barren, thou who have mourned no child. Break forth into joyful shouting, I cry, you who have not prevailed, for the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous than the sons of the married one. And it goes on down to talk about the Lord our Redeemer. My love and kindness will not be removed from you. Down in verse 10. We'll never be disappointed in the Lord, and Paul really gives us the same thought in the 8th chapter of Romans, Romans 8, 28. We know that God causes all things to work together for the good, that them who love the Lord, that them who are called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknow, he also predestinated to come conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren, and then whom he predestinated, and then he also called, and whom he called, and he also justified, and whom he justified, he'll also glorify. And you say, well, we're all going to be glorified. Yep. You won't be disappointed. Well, each one of us will be glorified. We will not be disappointed. And so to that, Paul replies, I mean, you say, you're not, you're sure you want this? He says, he says in first Thurman, if God before us, who could be against us? And in 35, who will separate us from the love of Christ? Not death, not life, not angels, not principalities, not things present, things to come, not powers, not height, nor depth, nor any other creature or created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Not anything that ever will never be ashamed ever. And in the text of Isaiah 28, 16, which Peter draws this Isaiah words it a little bit differently. It's basically the same idea. It's the place from which Peter draws his words. But Isaiah says it a bit different. He says, behold, I'm laying in Zion, a stone, a test of stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundations firmly placed. He who believes in it will not make haste. And literally another Hebrew word says will not be in a hurry. What do we mean? What he means is you'll not be in a hurry to run away for fear because God has failed you. That's the idea. We won't ever leave it. We'll never be confused. We'll never be ashamed. We'll never be disappointed. We'll never have to run in fear because our God has disappointed us. Someone said, well, often on the rock I tremble. I faint, weak of knee, but the mighty rock of ages never trembles under me. I love that little rhyme. That's the promise, never will we ever be disappointed. So what are our privileges in being a believer? One, union with Christ, we have access to Christ, we have security in Christ. We have union with him, we have access to him, and we have security in him. And then if you turn the kaleidoscope again, use that example again, another spiritual privilege, you can call it affection for our Lord, We have union with our Lord, we have access to our Lord, and we have security in our Lord, but now we have affection for our Lord. And in verse seven, unto you, therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at his word being disobedient, unto whereunto they are also appointed. Here we have Peter continue to quote the Old Testament passages, and he moves to make a contrast, again on the motif of the stone. He brings up the passage regarding the stone which the builders rejected, which became the cornerstone, the headstone, A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And he starts out by saying this precious value, this is the value of Christ is precious. Living, chosen, cornerstone belongs to those who believe. And do you therefore which believe he's precious? He's saying if you believe he's precious, if you believe he's precious. So we say that's the privilege of affection for Christ. One of the great privileges we have is the love of Christ's shed abroad in our hearts. That encompasses our love for him also, includes that. To you who believe, he's precious. That's really a great translation. To you who believe, he's precious. Not only precious cornerstone, but precious to us. Not just precious to God, but precious to us. And the preciousness is felt only by the believers. That's why he says this preciousness is for you who believe. And those who disbelieve, they don't see him as precious. They don't have any affection for Jesus. They reject Christ. They become angry. For them it's a stone of stumbling, it's a rock of offense. And there's nothing precious about Christ to the world. But to us, he's beloved, he is to be honored, he is to be esteemed. He's precious and priceless and prized above everything. And if you say there's anything in your life more precious than Jesus Christ, you can't be a Christian. You really can't be. He is the most precious. And right there at this point is the bottom line characteristic of true Christians. If you wanna find out if a person's a true Christian, it starts right there. If you believe Christ is precious, a true Christian will be marked by affection for Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Master. He loves Christ, and that's a privilege given to those who believe, to enjoy that love, to exhilarate in that love, to rejoice in that love, to abound in that love. Really, it's a privilege, and it's a characterization of every true Christian to have a great affection for Jesus Christ. He becomes precious after you're saved. Listen to what he said in John 8, 42, Jesus talking. He said, if God were your father, in other words, if you were truly a child of God, you'd love me. That's what he told him, you'd love me. That's the bottom line, and that's the way you identify Christians. Not only have they made a past decision, have they walked forward or signed a card or whatever, but that they have a love for Jesus Christ. If you were of my father, you wouldn't love me. It's basically John's Gospel, chapter 14, verse 15. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Then verse 21, he who has my commandments and keeps them, he says, is he who loves me, and he who loves me shall be loved of my father, and I'll love him. Being a Christian is all about loving God and loving Christ, and obeying him, and obeying him. Verse 23 says there in John, Now chapter 14, if anyone loves me, he'll keep my word. My father will love him and we'll come to him and we'll make our abode with him. Then verse 24, he who does not love me does not keep my words. And, and, and, and you can see there and salvation right there. So it is obedience and love at the same. Salvation, love and obedience, and you can see all that in that context in John. So you can speak of a person as a Christian because they believe in Christ. You can speak of a person as a Christian because the characteristic of their life is they love Christ. You can speak of a person as a Christian because they obey Christ. It's just a basic, that's basic in loving Christ. In the 16th chapter of John, John echoes this word, verse 27, he says, for the Father himself loves you because you love me and have believed. Believing in Christ and loving Christ go together. They're inseparable. So backing out of the Gospel of John, a familiar passage also in Matthew 10, In verse 37, Jesus said, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And again, we're reminded that it's basic to salvation to have a surpassing love for Jesus Christ, a surpassing love for Christ, a compelling love for Jesus Christ. Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter five, the love of Christ constrains me, it controls me. And well, how does that love show up? Well, it shows up in obedience, in obedience. Believing means loving, which means obeying. If we look back at our text here in verse seven, but for those who believe, those who don't believe don't count Christ precious. It's the opposite, it's not believing. For them, this is no precious stone. This is the stone which the builders rejected. The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. And here he pictures the world looking at the cornerstone saying, we don't believe this alignment is right. This doesn't line up right. This isn't the stone we wanted. We want to get rid of this stone, throwing it out in the trash pile. But here Peter quotes from Psalm 118 verse 22, it's an Old Testament text, he quotes, the word refused means disallowed or disallowed after close examination. They examined Christ. They looked at Christ, the Pharisees, the religious rulers, and they said, no, we don't want him. He's not the stone we want. And you know, when you think about the whole story, it's almost a story with a surprising ending, really, when you read the story. Here's the way it goes. The Jews, the religious Jews, set out to build the kingdom of God. Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priests, elders, scribes, and they're searching and searching and waiting for the cornerstone to show up, praying for the Messiah. Every Jewish mother hoping she'll bear the Messiah. And centuries go by as they wait, and following the closing of the Old Testament era, radio station God went off the air for 400 years. There was no prophet, and their hearts are longing for the Messiah, and they're longing to see who it is. Then John the Baptist comes along and says, the Messiah is near, the kingdom is near, get ready, the kingdom is near. And so they're in a mood to examine and see whether the cornerstone has come. And finally one comes, and his name is Jesus Christ. And he's offering himself as the cornerstone to which to build the temple of God, God's church. And so the religious leaders examine him. They scrutinize him, and they question him. The Sadducees question him. The Pharisees questioned him. The chief priests questioned him. The scribes questioned him. The elders questioned him, and they examined him, and they picked him up and turned him over and measured him. And when they were all done, they threw him out and said, this is not the stone we want. He's not the kind of Messiah that we want. We want a political, earthly, military benefactor. And they threw him away. And they're still doing it today. The Jews refused to accept their Messiah died. They won't accept it. They're still, not all Jews, but again, as the country. They're still saying that's not the rule that we want. So the people of Israel, to the leaders of Israel, Jesus was worthless. And you can't use a cornerstone that isn't straight. that isn't right, but they were wrong, and to God and to us, he's choice, he's precious, and we who believe in him will never be what? We'll never be confounded, we'll never be disappointed, but this preciousness is only for those who believe, and the rest who disbelieve, he's a stone, there's a bill that's rejected, and it was prophesied in Psalms 118, verse 22, that they would reject the Messiah, and they did, but it was the very stone that they rejected that became the cornerstone. And it didn't end there. If you hear in verse eight, it says he became a, not just a cornerstone. Peter changes again from a stone, a cornerstone, he changes the metaphors a little bit and to a rock and, and, and verse eight. And, and, uh, again, he's quoting out of Isaiah eight, verse 14 and 15, he's drawing, drawing a, It's not lost from Isaiah. It says, you have the Messiah presented as a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. What does that speak of? Well, it refers to judgment, men fall. Based on what, if they believe in Christ or not. They stumble, stone of stumbling. And it would be a stone that makes men fall. As they move into a road, a rock of offense would be like a cliff they fall into. literally men are crushed against. So you have men walking down the road as if they fall over a stumbling stone and they're crushed against the cliff. Linsky wrote, I love it. He wrote, it's a stone of stumbling and a rock that knocks their brains out. And so that stone, that stone, which was the cornerstone, and they threw it away, they wound up stumbling over it and being crushed by it. And Peter says, he went from lithos, a small stone, to petra, a massive, here, the word for a massive rock against which men who disbelieve are finally crushed. And Christ is that crushing stone. Jesus said in Luke 20 verse 18, whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken, but whomsoever it shall fall on, it will grind him to powder or dust. And why does that happen? It says they stumble because they were disobedient to the word. And what's the word? What's the gospel? They won't accept the gospel. They're disobedient to the gospel. Unbelief and disobedience reflect the same unsaved state. Faith and believing and obedience reflect the saved condition. One writer says Christ is the great unavoidable. Christ is the great unavoidable. You come to that rock, you either come to him as an elect precious cornerstone, or you come to him as a stumbling stone and a crushing rock of offense. He's either the cornerstone or the Petra Scandalon, the barrier rock of which men are crushed. I remember as a teenager, my father and another man went in partnership and they bought a yacht. And they took it out. I got to stand on it one time. But I didn't get to go on it. My father and Al, they wanted to go out and take it out themselves. And they took it out. And the ocean waves, it changed. It went from small craft warning to real quick. and they're out and they got caught in a storm, and back into, we have barrier stones that protect the shore, and the waves beat against the barrier stones, and you get your boat caught between the waves and the barrier stones, you get a problem, and it beat their yacht, all they saved out of it was the propeller. It beat it to pieces. I never got to go in it. I'm sorry, I just had to share that with the big rock. It's terrible what rocks can do to you. But because men reject the word, they don't obey the word, and it's the gospel message, and it's this doom they're also appointed. They got exactly what their choice demanded. Their disobedience is not destined, and the unbelief is not destined or appointed, but their doom is appointed because of their unbelief. The penalty for their sin is appointed because of unbelief. And the point was this. We have affection for Christ, and it's a privilege. We love him. And there's a world of people out there since the time when Christ first came that reject him. And for them, he's an unacceptable stone. He'll not be the cornerstone in a religious temple that they want to build, thrown aside, and they'll stumble over him, be crushed to powder by him in judgment. because they're disobedient to the gospel. Out of their disobedience comes their appointed destiny of doom. It's appointed to everybody who doesn't accept Christ, doom, eternal hell. But it's by God's goodness and His grace Christ is no stone of stumbling to us. He's no rock of offense to us. He's a precious, precious living cornerstone. And so we love Him. He's precious to those who believe. And what God do we believe in would be how I'd like to finish up. Do we believe in the good God, the God of the Bible? The God to his undeserving people offers privileges of union with Christ and access to Christ, security in Christ, and affection for Christ. That's the God we should believe in. Thanks for letting me share with you this morning.