When something updates right in the middle of what you're doing, there's an update. Praise God. Trying to save the trees. Bible never updates. Though some think it should. 1 Peter chapter 2. I'm going to start reading. In verse 4, down through verse 10. Again. 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'm 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 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. They stumble because they disobeyed the word of God as they were destined to do. 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 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. I probably will be in this little section of text a few more weeks. Because there are things in here that I just don't want us to pass over. For example, I want to talk in the weeks to come about what it means to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. That that actually is about a life lived and a life lived well in the gospel by faith. I also want to talk about the reality that there are those who stumble because they disobey the Word of God. What does it mean? What is God's electing love that we've already understood from chapter one? How does it apply to this? I want to explain how He's telling these Jewish people that you were not a people, now you are a people. When they've been Jews their whole lives. And by definition, they felt as though they were the people of God. There's a lot of things, but the Lord willing, We'll come to it as we need. But today I want to focus on several specific things. Starting with the reality that we are, of course, living stones. But as Christ is rejected, we are accepted. I think that's where I left off last week. As these Jews were dispossessed from their lives, from their homes, from their communities, from their culture, They became a people to be possessed by God. Now when we think about possession, it's a little bit pejorative when it talks about people. If you think about it, it's not even that. It's almost negative. It's almost unethical. Well, we possess one another. That means that we own each other. In a spiritual sense, this is true. We've been bought by the blood of Christ, but that ownership is not lording over. That ownership is not something that requires us to fall and be subject to this rigidity, to despair, to cultural or worldly standards of righteousness. But yet it is possession, and that as Christ has died, we are His body, so we have died with Him. What does that mean? In order for us to be accepted, we must be rejected. And in order for us to be acceptable, then something acceptable must have been rejected. So for us to be found in Christ means that as Christ's death was effectual, if we are His body, we died with Him. If we are not His body, we did not die with Him. And what did Christ's death do? It satisfied justice. It satisfied righteousness. So then, as Christ rose from the dead, we also were raised to life. This is a promise. This is a power of God. This is the reality of who we are as His people. In the core of the gospel, the core of the good report, the core of the good news, this is the point. And that there's nothing that we are that puts us in that place effectively. There's nothing that we do that puts us in that place effectively. It's everything that Christ is and who he is and everything that he has accomplished that has put us there. He has put us there. That's why we see that. That we have been what? Brought into. Brought into. So the honor is for you who believe, see beloved, in verse seven, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and the stone of stumbling in the rock of defense. They've stumbled because they disobeyed the word that as they were destined to do, but you, but you, but you, verse nine, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. You weren't a people, but now you are a people. And beloved, we can apply this to our lives because it's not just here. We see Paul teaching that to the Church of Ephesus. We see Paul saying these exact same things to the Church of Colossae. We see it everywhere we go. We see Jesus going into Samaria, going to Sychar, going away from the Jewish centers to the people who were absolutely hated, who were really heretics, sinners of sinners when it came to worship, and embracing them because he chose them. He shared himself, he gave himself, he revealed himself. This is very important to grasp. And I know that I'm saying a lot about these things, but beloved, we've overlooked them culturally for a long time. We've overlooked the being of belovedness. and the being of marriage and the being of adoption. We've overlooked it to the point that we've lost who we are in Christ. And so we have to create an identity that finds itself in something that's attached to what the culture says Christ is. And you may not think that you have been affected by this, but we all have. We all have. We've all got some quirk to some degree of finding that we feel good about ourselves because we either do something because it's supposed to be what Christians do, or we don't do something because of what Christians aren't supposed to do. A couple of weeks ago, in a very long conversation I had on record with Pastor Brown, I said that some of the best Christians are unbelievers. or unchurched people. Just like I said several years ago that the cults do better at love than the church does. And I was rebuked and then I changed my mind that maybe they're right. Then I went back and thought about it. No, I'm right because that's how I see it. The perspective that I'm looking at is correct. Because the scripture will teach us that we're to put away malice, we're to put away deceit, we're to put away hypocrisy, we're to put away envy, we're to put away slander for our enemies, for the people who kill us, for our neighbors, for the lost people, for the cults, for the unbelievers, for the false believers, for the weirdos, and then all the other people. I just, you know, whoever. We're to have compassion. We're to have authentic love. Because when we don't give authentic love, when we're unable to express empathy for someone else, it's because we have put ourselves in the way of that. And what suffering does is it breaks us down to identify with Christ and His rejection and to establish in us a faith that cannot fail even when we decide to throw it away. I want you to think about that for a second. A lot of folks are like, you know, I just don't believe anymore. That's not true. They just refuse to admit it. You might have lost your hope. You might have lost this feeling. You might have lost this experience. You might have lost the desire to actually engage in any way that you used to engage. You might have lost your love for certain people who used to treat you a certain way and now you realize they were just using you. You may have lost the attitude that, you know what, Jesus isn't, Jesus is enough. I just don't know what that means anymore. But you haven't lost your faith. You still rest in your eternal hope in Christ alone. And I see it everywhere. I see influencers and thought leaders and people who are talkers. Do you know if you try to be an influencer, if you try to be a thought leader, if you try to be someone who actually has a voice, you never will be. That's not how it works. But if you just be authentically you, and you speak into the life of the people around you, you will influence the life. Who are you if you're an influencer? How many people do you have to influence to be an influencer? One. One. How many lives do you have to touch to make an impact? One. That's it. We need to embrace life as a precious gift because we are a precious people. And we've been loved eternally by God who gave his son to satisfy justice for us. He declared us righteous. He declared that we were not good in our sin, but he would declare us good and make us good. And it had to be legitimate. It had to be real. It had to be true. So he had to Call us out of darkness by opening the light of our eyes. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, right? For God who said let light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts the light of the knowledge of the glory of Jesus Christ. We see it. And we see it as children who have come to their parent, to their father, to their mother with arms open. Knowing the embrace is there. Knowing our pains. It doesn't matter. We don't have to explain or have to excuse. If we're hungry, we come to eat. If we're thirsty, we come to drink. If we're alone, we come for intimacy. This is what it means to be a child of God. And the harder life is, the more desperate we become. But desperate people are dangerous. First to themselves and then to the people around them. Because desperation fuels destruction, not delight. We step over the promises into the puddles of despair, and the next thing we know, we are drowning in something that shouldn't have enough water to kill us. Flailing around, screaming for help. Have y'all seen these videos, these kids, little sections of water, and they're screaming, and they're about to pass out, and the parent just walks over there and stands them up, and the water's knee-high? Stand up. Stand upon the rock. Stand upon the cornerstone. This imagery is here for us not to forget. It's for us to embed inside of our conscience, embed inside of our heart and our soul so that we will see this picture forever because it's not always possible to parse out language and to dive into theological debate and to understand the nuanced theology behind all this. But it's real easy for me to picture myself standing on a rock that can't be moved. It's really easy for me to think, I don't know where I'm going, I don't know why, I don't know how, but I know that Christ has set the way, so I'm just gonna look there. But we've turned this life of Christianity into platitudes and into cliches, and into cliches. And they don't work. Even when they're true, they don't work. Because life is a second-by-second, breath-by-breath, minute-by-minute, day-by-day, week-by-week, and so on and so forth experience. And we who are in Christ, we experience life every breath. And some of us have good control over our minds, and some of us don't. Some of us have good health in our bodies, and some of us don't. Some of us have incredible relationships with other people, and some of us, we just can't seem to find friends. But if we're in Christ, we're one body. We're one people. And we are going to experience rejection because Christ experienced rejection. And just as we are found in his suffering and his death and his resurrection and life, we will also experience his rejection and his subsequent honor. Because if we were honest, and sometimes we can't be honest because we just don't know, right? If we were honest, we could say to ourselves, what is it that's ultimately at the root of everything that I've ever wanted to be? Now, how long would it take you to answer that question? For me, it took a few years. Because the quick answer is typically wrong. What is it that I want from life? Well, man, I wish I had done this because I'd have made a bigger difference in life. I wish I could have done that or followed that pursuit because I would have been somebody. You ever thought that? I just don't want to be a... I just don't want to be a... I just don't want to live. And no matter where we go in the answer to those questions, we're always going to be left wanting. We're always going to be left without an identity that stands. No matter what we change about ourselves, our lifestyles, our habits, our disciplines, our bodies, our minds, our language, our learning, we're never going to find fulfillment if we're not in Christ. And the best, this is gonna sound so weird, it's not new, it's just a reminder, the best thing that could ever happen to us is that we bleed. Is that we get broken. Is that we get bruised. That we get burned. What are the B's you come up with? We get berated. Because in that, we are humbled. And in that place, We become desperate for hope. And then we become desperate for Christ, who is hope. That is why these people were suffering the way they were, so that the resulting faith, which could not perish, would result in praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Why? Because that which we long for most deeply will satisfy us most fully when we get it. I'm gonna say that again, that for which we long for most deeply will satisfy us most fully when we get it. New car smell doesn't last long enough. New shoes don't stay clean long enough. Nothing stays. Peter's already reminded us of that, right? All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever, and this word is the good news that was preached to you. So you have been clothed with a righteousness that's not yours. Keep it clean. Don't cover it up. Did y'all sing a little VBS when you were kids? This little light of mine? I'm gonna let it shine, you know? Hide it under a bushel. And what do you do when you sing that line? You scream the word, no! I'm gonna let it shine. We really understood that. You put a bushel basket over a candle, it's gonna catch a bushel basket on fire. I mean, come on, guys. Bunch of pyromaniacs here. No, don't burn this up. Letting the righteousness of Christ shine in us. That's what life's all about. Verse 11, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. But the problem comes when we don't understand what righteousness really looks like. And we forget that we are clothed with the perfection of Christ. So even when we try to put on our good works, we got this incredible prayer life, we got this devotional studies, start putting them on. Well, we don't say those words anymore. We don't watch those shows anymore. We don't read those books anymore. We don't shop at that place. We got our iPhone and our Android, though. We have standards, folks. But not if they cost us everything. We've got a lever to pull on November. We've got a lever to pull in March. We've got these things to worry about. The whole world's upside down. Oh, my goodness. Look at me. I'm doing the right thing. And we just look like fools. Because our righteousness that we put on over the righteousness of Christ is like filthy rags and there's no reason to wear it. Why do we get dressed up and then put on the yard clothes on top of it? You can work in your yard in a tuxedo, man, but it won't be fit for the ball. So we take all that stuff off, the good and the bad. What we think is good, it's actually bad. And we rest truthfully in the reality that we're going to be rejected. Now, why am I saying all this? Because you will be rejected when you live that way for Christ. I mean, you can jump into a little echo chamber, you can step sideways into a little Christian circle, and you can agree with the sentiment, you can agree with the focus, you can agree with all these things. Oh my, you're not gonna be alone. You're not gonna be rejected. You'll have a little group over here that's, you know, about this far to the left, and they'll be like, oh, I just can't see you anymore as a brother, or as a sister. I can't see you as a person with sins. You would dare buy anything from Nestle. or Procter and Gamble with the devil's tool picture on the back of their toothpaste. Who cares? But you'll be accepted somewhere. But when we, as the people of faith, aren't looking to be validated by other people, but we know and rest that we are absolutely validated by the righteousness of Christ, that our Father is not angry with us, that our sin has been put away and put on Christ, so therefore there's no condemnation. Well, God might discipline. Why does He do that? Because He's furious? No, because He loves us. Discipline is not punitive. It's not punishment. It's growth. It's love. But when we begin to think this way, when we begin to think, you know what? I'm a chosen race. It can go sideways too, right? People are gonna reject us. And in the Old Testament, I talked about Psalm 118 last week. Verse 22, the stone the builders rejected. The Messiah's rejection. He had to die and be rejected in order for him to be resurrected. Moses and Isaiah both were the same way. I mean, Moses, what was Moses? Moses was saved from birth because, what was the edict? That there will be a Hebrew child born into Egypt who will liberate the slaves. So what does the Pharaoh do? I'll fix that. When was this supposed to happen? All right, all the boys born in that era, in that time frame, just throw them to the crocodiles. So what does Moses' mother do? She puts him in a basket, floats him up the little river that gives water to the palace, and then gets to raise her child by proxy, who grows up as a prince. Why? Here's this prince, this Hebrew child growing up in the castle or whatever they live in in Egypt at the time, the kingdom. And his people hated him. Then he kills someone and has to flee for his life. And then his original people don't want to receive him. And then God calls him out of all that. He's like, you know what? I have a pretty good life. I'm doing a little sheep herding. I'm out here for some reason wearing all this garb in the desert. You ever notice how they're all like dressed in like nine layers on the television shows? But they're in the desert. Okay. I mean, you know, they don't wear that thick of material out there. They do wear long stuff, but not that thick of material. So anyway, back to the point. Moses is rejected by his people. And God calls him to go back to Egypt and tell the king to let the Hebrews go. And who is Moses? And then Moses goes back to them in Exodus 1. And he says, hey guys, I know I've just lived this posh life. And I know I've gotten out of that, but I'm one of y'all now. And I want y'all to know that God spoke to me. He burned a bush, and the bush told me that I'm to be the leader and get y'all out of slavery. And what do they do? They laugh him in his face. They reject him and they even ask, who made you the prince and judge over us? You'd probably kill us like you did that Egyptian. Oh, somebody needs to take a Gottman lesson on conversation, communication. It's definitely the wrong way to respond. Now as a savior, as the one ordained by God, he could have easily said, you know what? God gave me this stick and I don't know what it's going to be for. But right now, I'm about to beat y'all with it. I mean, but that's not what he did. He was rejected as a precursor to Christ, who came to his own and his own did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, that is believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, not because of the way they were born, nor the decision that they made, nor the blood in their veins, but by the will of God. The light has come into the world. Isaiah, same thing. Isaiah. I mean, if you haven't read Isaiah in a while, just get in there and read it. Isaiah's like, wow. Nobody's going. Just send me, God. Send me into this dark world of idolatry. God speaking about Judah and all the other nations And he says, send me. Now imagine volunteering for an amazing thing. He didn't really volunteer, but he was willing. And then being told, yeah, we don't want to listen to you. We don't care what you have to say. Who died and made you the ruler of all this? Who do you think you are telling us what the Lord is supposed to be telling us? Why are you telling us how to live our lives? Who am I going to send, God says. Isaiah says, yes, send me. And then what does God tell Isaiah? You go and you tell them what I said, but I'm not going to let them hear you. And I'm not going to allow them to follow you. Now see, then I'll be looking at the job description. You asked me to come do this, but you're telling me I'm going to fail at it. You told me to go sell water to a thirsty bunch of folks for free and they're not even gonna accept it for free. I'm gonna have to pay them to take it so they can pour it out in spite in front of me. That's literally the picture of what I think about when I think about Isaiah's ministry. But Jesus, Isaiah prophesied of Jesus. What was the whole point? He's gonna be hated. He's going to be despised. He's going to be brutally murdered. And his wounds, we will be healed. And by his stripes, we will be healed. He's going to be turned into hamburger meat. That's the sentiment. That he'd be beaten so badly he wouldn't look human. And that strikes a nerve with us. That builds some emotion, right? This is the God of the cosmos, the creator of every breath. that ever breathed, being subject to the very ones who hated Him, so that He could liberate them, which is us. So what do we do there? We've got to understand rejection as believers. That it aligns with our experience as believers. And we've got to remain faithful. We've got to understand as a church that Christ is a stumbling block. I hear it all the time. Yeah, you preach the true gospel, nobody's going to want to hear it. That's not true. There's hundreds of thousands of people flocking to these kind of echo chambers on all this deep thing, these deep theologies. That's all they talk about. These Greek experts that say the word run means run. Word lip means behold, look. That doesn't help anybody. These talking heads that are influent, third, you know what? Anybody can sit around in the toilet and talk poop and be in the right context. The question is, can we, in a way of service, mindset, attitude, and purpose, live that other people will follow us to where we're going? We are living stones. And we need to live in the honor of being built into such things, despite our rejection, especially from who? The religious people of the day. I remember in 2004 when I first got my good first dose of the free will versus sovereign grace debate in the academic sphere. I'm like, oh, what in the name of Crispy Chick is this? This doesn't make any sense. And I know my first mindset after that big diatribe was all the while I've spent the last three days listening to these two guys fight on a stage about nothing, my neighborhood is going to hell. And so I wrote an article about it. And then later in my life I realized, you know what, this is a big deal. It's a big deal to get this theology right because it's being debated. It's something that's been fussed about for a long, long time. It was fussed about in Paul's day, but you know what I've learned then subsequently is that it doesn't matter to the degree in which we respond to it. It just needs to be through positive doctrine reinforcement, and more importantly, through a life well lived in righteousness by faith. To be able to say to somebody who is on fire, upset about something that's actually not burning, and say, you're not even burning, it's okay. Let me give you a glass of water. And when they hate you, what does the Bible say about that? That you're pouring hot coals on their head. So that little bit of fleshliness that gets sort of like, we're gonna love them because we love them, but I'm burning your hair off. Sucker. You don't even know you're burning your own hair. But I'll help get you a wig when you come to your senses. We're chosen people. We're a royal priesthood. Out of nothing, out of no one, out of nowhere, God calls his people. Out of all nations and all tribes. Jesus Christ saved the world. There is no one not represented in the elect. There's no unmet people group, there's no unmet bloodline, there's no... And it's not like God has all the genealogies of the world up there in an appendix to the book of life, in an addendum. Oh no! We forgot the, um, Walmartians. Better go send a missionary over there, Walmartians. You know, with a little smile. That's how you know who they are, or they don't wear clothes when they're shopping. Either one. The people of Walmart, you haven't seen those memes yet. OK. But out of these people, God has chosen a people. I'll take some out of here and I'll take some out of here, and it's not arbitrary. It's his wise counsel. These are the people I'm giving to my son from the foundation of the world. I love them and I will save them through the death of Christ. It is finished. God, through Isaiah, even says that the wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise. It really is, life really is, I don't like this, I'm a high-producing person. Even if it's busyness down the wrong side of the road, going nowhere, costing me everything, I just want to do something. I want to produce. I like to build and create and think and talk about it. I love to talk about it. But what we're really supposed to be doing is living together and resting and rejoicing and repeating. The call of Abraham was someone that, I mentioned this last week, but here's Abraham. I have friends of mine who sent me pictures when they were over in the Middle East and sent me pictures of ziggurats. They were in Ur. Check this out. Never knew they were so big. I mean, most of us won't get in the car and come to church unless let's climb this pyramid. go up there and look at the moonbeams and wonder why the moonbeams aren't staying around when the sun comes up. We made our God angry. Now the hot God's out. I mean, that's who God chose, the fateful Chaldean. And how did he speak to him? I mean, if I were God, I'd have spoken to Abraham like this. As he's looking at the moon, The man of the moon. Hey, would you look at that? But that would have been, that would have been bad because then he said, you know, the God of the moon, the one we've been worshiping, he spoke to me. No, we don't know. It could have been the Holy Spirit of God put it in his heart and he couldn't stop it. Could have been an unknown prophet moving through town. We don't know. But Abraham said, yeah, God said, Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I'll make a great nation of you and I'll bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I'm not going to lie, the man in charge comes and says, hey, I'm about to give you a golden ring. If you follow it, you'll have everything you want. You'll be the most amazing name in the world. You'll be a household brand. You will be an influencer. I mean, I have to sleep on that, you know? I'm like, hmm, this sounds too good to be true. It might be true. I'm willing to take a trip. It's the same trip these people in the dispersion are taking. That's how God pulls us out. He takes us out of our grand schemes and our grand plans and our grand things. It doesn't mean we don't have them, but God's going to put a stop to them. If everything I'd ever purposed to do and be came to fruition to the fullest of my vision for it, I'd have a hundred companies. I'd be paying the bills for a million people and our church would probably have 600 locations packed. Thank God it's not like that. Because you know what I don't want to do? Maintain all that. Imagine All the plans we've laid and God has said, nope. I'm gonna run a 5K next week. You break your leg. Nope. I'm gonna learn how to fly airplane. Nope. You got some eye problems now. I'll never make anything. You are everything already. I mean, even in the church, right? We've got a standard. Of course, our standard is very relaxed now, thank God. You don't have to come in here all dressed up and things. Heaven help. But we still have some standards. There are certain types of people, the way they look or the way they speak or the way they act or the way they smell. We might think, you know, you need to start thinking about some stuff before you come to worship with us. Why? We shouldn't. Yeah, there's a standard of behavior just because we live in a society, but it doesn't mean that it's the behavior that we have to have because we're in a place of worship or a dress code. You know what I say? Dress to the temperature. When it's cold, I might put on a suit next year. I don't know. I like suits. I'm just glad I don't have to wear them anymore. And nothing thrills me more to go to Brooks Brothers and try on new jackets that I don't buy. Yeah, that looks nice. Take a picture. Put it on social media and go on about my day. It's good stuff. We're a royal priesthood. We don't have to put on the regalia to pretend. We are. We don't have to wear the headdresses and the phylacteries. We don't have to put on all the stuff. We don't have to burn the incense. And listen, I'm not poking fun at our Orthodox friends. It's okay if you want to do that kind of stuff, but it's not more spiritual. It's not more righteous. It's not the point. How about Levi and all of his descendants? Well, they came from Aaron, right? grasp the fact that we're a royal priesthood, we're a chosen nation. Aaron and his sons are set apart as priests to serve the community of faith. Leviticus 8, and Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water and he put the coat on them and tied the sash around his waist and clothed them with the robe and put the ephod on him and tied him skilfully woven band and the ephod around him, binding it to him with the band. I always say ahead of where I'm going in the scripture, remember. We don't have to look a part. We are the part. So let's live the part. I'd much rather live the part than look the part. People are astonished that I'm a pastor when they meet me for the first time. And then they apologize for every profane word they've ever said. I'm so sorry. Why? What did you do wrong? Well, I used that ugly language in front of you. I said, well, what makes language? I get in these extremely stressful, psychological conversations with them because I want to push these buttons so they can get the point that being a Christian is not about saying the right words and wearing the right clothes and being in the right place. Anybody can act like a Christian. Anybody can posture spirituality. Anybody can pretend to be a priest or a chosen. But only the authentic article can be genuine in every circumstance. Church, we must be a people who are genuine in every circumstance, no matter what. We have a collective calling as a church. We are called, what I just said, is to embody and proclaim God's kingdom. What does that look like? We need to worship. What is a priestly role? We need to worship. We need to be on mission. We need to do service for each other. Don't think that the pastors are the priests. We are the priests, we each have our role. Because we are God's special possession. Now think about that for a second. I love Hosea. It really paints the picture of what Paul and Peter talks about in the context of how marriage relationship is supposed to look as a picture of the gospel, not necessarily function as, I'm God, you're not, do what I say. That's not biblical. And we'll get to that when we get over to chapter 3. Christ isn't in charge of his church, he's the head of his church. There's a huge difference. And he led his church by dying for them so that in his death he justified them and presented them blameless and holy without spot or blemish. This is the truth. So Hosea's life and marriage symbolizes God's love and redemption for his unfaithful people. I will have mercy." What did he call him? Oh, no mercy. And I will say to not my people, you are my people. And he shall say, you are my God. Think about it for a second. I started last week's sermon with this question. How do you view yourself in the context of the gospel? How do you identify yourself? How do you talk about yourself? How do you name yourself? What adjectives do you use? And the first thing that should come to your mind is not sin or saved by grace. Undeserving rich. Worm. I am beloved, precious, redeemed, adopted. I am a child of the Most High. My daddy is a really important thing. Think about that for a second. Oh, look at all you all out there in the wilderness walking around. See, if you just stuck with the truth, if you just stuck with the program, you got to go out there and follow some weirdo. I mean, you knew he was a weirdo. Look at who came before him. Locust in his mouth, wearing stuff he shouldn't be wearing. I mean, no priest wears that. John the Baptist. Looking like a crazy guy. And you know, he's the one who said, look, behold, the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world. Then Jesus hanging out with prostitutes and thieves and tax collectors and and everybody else and every bad thing under the sun. But these weren't the bad people. These were not the bad people. It was the self-righteous who were the bad people. They were the real sinners. Because these people were the beloved of God. And the same thing happening here with Peter's audience. They had to leave everything and everybody, oh, you know, oh, hey, shh, shh, hey, Johnny, hey, little Johnny, don't talk to them. Well, we want to play, whatever. No, I'm sorry, you can't play with them. Why? Because they're not good people. You see how they dress? They don't even bathe. They don't even have a place to bathe. Don't hang out with those people. What is it one of my grandmothers or grandmother Tibbetts used to say? Didn't have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of. I don't understand that. Why would you throw your urine out the window? But either way, weird old Southern colloquialisms. You are a royal priesthood. You are someone who God has purchased. That's who we are. We have a holy identity. The prophetic symbolism of Hosea is the beautiful picture that we who were not, we didn't fit in, but now we do. We don't fit the mold, but now we are perfect. We're loose and bruised around. You know, there are missionaries, their whole purpose is to clothe primitive natives so they can be more Christ-like. There are whole groups of missionary arms that try to get the King James, not the original, not the first 300 versions, but, you know, one of the closest, so that these people could have the actual Word of God on their hands and they don't even speak English. there are mission fields right now in the United States in our communities that work so hard every single day teaching children in Sunday school and schools and other places and home and making us feel very guilty because we dare feed our children and Oreo we let them watch a Disney movie And I'm not mocking people's conscience. I'm rebuking their fear. There's a difference. Because that fear leads to bondage. Then we lose sight of who we are. We have a holy identity. We are God's possession. Live in that security, beloved. I mentioned it last week and the week before, nothing can separate us from the love of God. That is security. Why? Because we are holy people. So therefore, as a holy nation, we are to pursue holiness. We are to strive to live a life that is set apart for the name that we have been called because we are those people. See how much love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God? And so we are the children of God. Why? Because He called us the children of God. Then we rest. We find our identity and our value and our worth and our being and our movement and our coming and our going in the thought that we are a treasured people. We are secure in His love. Because we are that way individually, we should be that way as a people. And it is okay to say, eh, I don't know, I don't like, I don't understand. We want to be a safe people with a unified purpose. and that means beloved as long as we exist as a spiritual family that we call grace through church were, have a whole large diverse group of people And we're not our goal is not to get everybody looking exactly the same or getting to the same level of maturity. It's going to go up and down. Our goal is to live compassionately with each other as children. In the household of God. Because of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ that purchased us. We are not just God's people. We are also becoming God's people. So let's walk in a manner like that. Let's walk in that journey. And let's do it together. I hope you're blessed by who you know you are and by whose you are. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for loving us, Lord, for purchasing us in the person of Christ, your beloved son, whom you set forth to be a propitiation, to satisfy righteousness, to satisfy judgment, to satisfy wrath. Father, as we continue to move through this letter, let it be because we're reading it together and that we're thinking about it together, that we're living it out together, that we may begin to embrace some of the practical things that we're going to hear, Lord, from a place of absolute joy and great expectation rather than fearful obligation. Help us to be OK with being real and honest. And Lord, help us to see that our strength comes from you by the spirit as we engage each other. Not because we're fearful of one another. Because we're faithful to one another. Help us to be faithful to one another. The way that Christ has been faithful to us. And the way that Christ has been faithful to you. And it's in His name we pray. Amen.