Live from Buffalo Creek. If you would turn in your Bible this evening to 1 Peter Chapter 2. The last several weeks we've been looking at the names and titles of God's people throughout Scripture. And last week we looked at the fact that we're called disciples. Tonight we're going to read 1 Peter chapter 2 where we are called priests of God. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him which called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against your soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. We're going to focus mainly on the children of God being called a royal priesthood. I think it's interesting as you look at this passage, there are several things that set apart God's people from the world that lies in unbelief. In this passage, he declares that we're a chosen generation. We have been chosen by God. We're a royal priesthood. We've been set apart for service by the work of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are called a holy nation because we have the Holy Spirit in us. He is making us holy after the image of Christ. He calls us a peculiar people, not a weird people. That simply means that we are God's treasure, that we are purchased by the blood of the Lamb that sets us apart from all the world. And as a result of this fact that we've been called a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, We are to, and peculiar people, we are to show forth God's praises. We are to offer up sacrifices unto His name that glorify Him because He's brought us out of darkness He's brought us into His marvelous light, the light of His glory, power, the illumination of His Spirit, to know the truth of the Gospel and the other doctrines of the Word of God. We are blessed as priests of God. And He says, at one time we were not a people, but now we are the people of God. Because we've been saved. because he showed us mercy. And then he goes on and gives us another title, Strangers and Pilgrims. This world is not our home. We're just here for a little while. One day, we're gonna go be with our Lord. Now, it's kind of a rundown of this, and if you're a priest of God, then you not only should show forth His praises, but you ought to live a life that shows you've been sanctified. You've been set apart for holy use. You've been consecrated. Now, we're priests of God, not like the priests that are employed by the Roman church, the mother of harlots. We're not priests after that kind. We don't wear backward collars. We don't pray over beads. We don't have crucifixes. We don't bow down to idols. We don't worship Mary. So that's not the priest that he's talking about here. Those are all heathen customs. A lot of the things that Rome believes about their priests, they borrowed from Islam, Mohammedanism, Baal worship, pagan worship. We are no part of that whatsoever. We are completely set apart from Rome. Baptists, historically, are the only group of people who have never united or thrown in their lot with the old whore. We've been separated and we've been persecuted by her priests. Now, priests are set apart. They are consecrated by God to God to offer up acceptable sacrifice. And all of you realize this on every single one of these titles. and names that God has given us. He always takes us back to how He brought us into this relationship, how this name was given to us, how we were tagged, if you will, with these names. It's pretty remarkable because He always takes us back to one eternal source, His sovereign grace. If you're a priest of God, if you've been called out of darkness into His marvelous light to offer up spiritual sacrifices, pleasing unto God, you can date that determination all the way back before the foundation of the world. It's part of the spiritual blessings that God determined to shower upon you. What a miracle that God would determine to make people who are unholy, impure, ungodly, contrary to Him, without any love or service or sacrifice to Him, He determined to make us holy. And that's what priests are to be, a holy people, a holy nation. He's blessed us with all spiritual blessings. in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, to what end? That we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Now that's God's eternal purpose, to make us holy, to set us apart as His priests, to consecrate us unto a life of holiness. But something dramatic had to happen because we weren't fit. We were not prepared. We were not able to do any of that when we served ourselves in sin. But Jesus came from the glories of heaven and He, amazingly, is our great High Priest. The priests of the Old Testament, they, I'll tell you, they had to labor a lot. They had to be meat cutters. They had to prepare the sacrifices. They had to offer them, but in all, if you boil it all down, they offered dead animals. And all those, all that blood that was shed was to point to the ultimate Lamb of God. who would act as our prophet, priest, and king. Amazingly, our Lord, a body was prepared for Him. And do you know to what end, why that body was prepared? Turn over to Hebrews chapter 10. I love this passage. I know I've quoted it many, many times. But look what it says in Hebrews chapter 10. He's talking about the work of our great High Priest being much greater, His sacrifice much greater, far superior than the Old Testament sacrifices. It says in verse 4, For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. They didn't have the power to take away sins. They just covered it symbolically until the Lamb of God would come who took away the sin of the world. Verse 5, Wherefore, when he, Christ, cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written of me to do thy will, O God. I am not only going to offer the sacrifice. I am the sacrifice. And my sacrifice won't be blemished. It won't be tainted. I won't have to offer for any sin of my own when I go to the tree. on Calvary because I will be holy. I am holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. A body hast thou prepared me. That body was perfect. It was holy in every respect, untainted by sin. The only body that has ever been brought forth that has the ability to bear the sins of all the elect. on that tree. That's what this body was prepared for. He says in verse 9, And lo, I come to do thy will, O God, that will that had been determined in eternity. in the covenant of grace, He knew precisely that the will of the Father meant He would die a humiliating, ignominious, painful death, physically, spiritually. He was going to be a substitute, offer Himself as a sacrifice in the stead of His people. He knew that was the Father's will. Every step he took he knew that ultimately he was going to have the sins of all of his people laid upon him and he was going to be punished for them on the cross. He said, By the witch will, or I come to do thy will, O God, he taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the witch will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. The great high priest is setting apart his people and they are going to be priests. Verse 11, And every priest standeth daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. The Old Testament mantra was atonement. It was sin would be covered. The New Testament teaching is reconciliation, propitiation, and complete expiation, the taking away of sin, the purging of sin, the cleansing of sin by the work of Christ. The Old Testament sacrifices couldn't put sin away. Only the Lamb of God could, Jesus. But this man, in contrast, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, notice, they had to offer sacrifices over and over and over and over again. Now, granted, they all pointed to him, but they were insufficient to take away sin. And he says from henceforth, This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God because the work was finished. Our great high priest, when he said it is finished, when he died and was buried, when he rose again, when he ascended up on high, absolutely nothing else needed to be done for the salvation of his people. He redeemed us. from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool for by one offering, one offering. And that would, the Catholic Church would do well to read this because they believe every time they have that little Jesus cookie and they say the Latin magic words over it that there, that's a fresh offering of Christ. That's blasphemy. That's wickedness. Only one offering. One death. That's all had to be done. For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. So think about this as priests. We are set apart to be holy by the determinate decree, the eternal decree of God. We are set apart by the blood, not of bulls and goats, But we're set apart by the blood of the everlasting covenant that Jesus purchased us with. Since we're right here, let's read these other verses, okay? Look at Hebrews 9, 12. Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place. having obtained eternal redemption for us. Notice that. He obtained it. It's eternal redemption. Verse 14, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Verse 26, For then he must have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now, once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And do you know because of His blood we are kings and priests unto God? Read this, let's go over there. Revelation chapter 1. Notice how this is connected. Revelation 1.5, And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. The blood of Jesus Christ is what prepares us to be priests and kings unto God. His blood sanctifies, sets us apart. Now, but we were in such a condition, we had to be transformed. We weren't holy. He died for our sins on the cross. But that truth had to come home to us. It had to be brought to us. It had to be applied to us. And we are priests made holy by the power of the Holy Spirit who regenerates and sanctifies us for service. See, every aspect of the work of the Trinity This harmonious work is to fit us and enable us to be priests of God. We don't need the Roman Catholic Church. We don't have to go through a process. All we need is God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We are His workmanship. created in Christ Jesus, ordained to good works that we should walk in them. That is what priests of God are to do. They are to walk in good works. And in order for us to be able to go to God The Spirit of God had to create in us a new man, a new nature that corresponds with God's holy nature. He created in us a divine nature so that we could have fellowship with the Father. A new man created after God in righteousness and true holiness. So the Spirit of God set us apart to be priests. Old Testament priests were set apart for a special office and they wore special clothing, investments. But spiritually, as priests of God, our clothing is different. We have the imputed righteousness of Christ charged to our account. Isaiah said it this way about the garments of our priesthood are the garments of salvation. Isaiah 61 and verse 10, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me. Notice, this is the work of God. For He hath clothed. We don't clothe ourselves. You can take this principle all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It was God that slew the animals. It was God that clothed Adam and Eve in the garden. He's the one that imputes to us the righteousness of God in Christ. For He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. We've been made righteous and beautiful in the sight of God through this sacrificial work of our Lord. our great high priest. And you know what else we're to be clothed with? Look over at 1 Peter chapter 5. These are special garments to be worn by the priests of God. They're not black. We don't have a backwards collar. It says 1 Peter 5, 5. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder, yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be what? Clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Our clothing is not to be ornate, costly, it's to be humble. before the Lord. Now I'm not talking about physical clothing, although it can be applied. I'm talking about the way we carry ourselves as priests of God. We're to be clothed with humility, not with arrogance, not with pride. And then Old Testament priests were to offer dead animals in sacrifices, but we are to, we're called upon not to offer dead animals, dead animals, dead animals, what are we called upon to offer? Spiritual sacrifices. But included in that, what's the admonition in Romans 12? As priests of God, we're called upon, it says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present, what? Your bodies, a living sacrifice. We are to follow the example of our great high priest. He offered a living sacrifice for us. He offered himself when he went to the cross. Now he died, literally. And we're to offer our bodies a living sacrifice And part of that is taking up our cross daily and dying to our old nature. You got that? See how this, it's amazing how this all fits together. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. What is a priest to be carried, a characteristic of him? Holy. acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. We're to offer up spiritual sacrifices. Let me just read a couple of passages here. Ephesians chapter 5, in verse 19, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Go back to 1 Peter 2.5. Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." It's all through Him. We offer it through Him. Hebrews 13, 15. By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. You see, the sacrifices of praise, of thanksgiving, of joy, of service, of giving. The next verse says, but to do good and to communicate, forget not. He's talking about You're giving for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. And then we're just about done. The sacrificial work of the Old Testament and the sacrifices of those priests that they offered, ultimately what were they for? Well, they were obeying God. But they were pointing people to Christ in a symbolic way. Our lives as priests should be set apart to point people to Christ as the only way of salvation. Now, another point of interest, and we're going to close on this. In the Old Testament, those priests were limited to one tribe. The only tribe that were to carry out priestly functions were Levites. Well, every person who's bought by the blood of the Lamb is a priest of God and will reign with Him eternally. It's not confined to a nation. a bloodline, but there's going to be people saved. Look what it says. I've read, how many times have I quoted Revelation 5, 9, and 10? And they sung a new song saying thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof for thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood. Notice this, out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. And has made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth. These glorified, blood-bought saints are priests of God and they're looking forward in Revelation 5 to when they come back with Jesus to the earth. We'll be with them to reign. for a thousand years on this earth as priests of God. That's another name.