Well, a bit of review from last week. Last week, we determined that the true church has been identified by Christ. The true church has been identified by Christ. Last week, as we looked at Matthew 16, we saw that Jesus Christ is the founder of the church. He says, I will build my church. And since He has and is building His church, and the church is to be composed of those who are in union with his resurrected person, then the church is to be stamped with the identity of its maker. Not only Does He alone have the exclusive qualifications to tell us how the church is to be recognized and its false forms distinguished? He has actually created the church in His image. It's to reflect Him in His glory. Reflect Jesus Christ in its essence. Now, those of us around here know when we have bitten into a dessert made by Sharon McKissick. The blend of ingredients, the superb taste identifies that dessert as one of her creations. And so it's to be with the church. You're to come and taste of it. And as you taste of it, you should taste of its maker, of the Lord Jesus Christ. For it does not have the right to be called the household of God. And so we looked at this last week. We saw that historically the church has talked about what are called the notae ecclesiae in the Latin, or the marks of the church. And I told you that I'm giving you those Latin words not to impress you, because I had to look up how to say them, but I'm giving them to you so that you will realize that the church did not begin last week, or in America, But the church of Jesus Christ has existed since the founder created it through the generations and the centuries. And there's been a whole host of godly witnesses that have studied the scriptures and have helped us to understand what these marks of the church should be. Historically, those who have studied the word of God vigorously and earnestly have stated that you should look for three marks if you want to know if you're in the presence of a true household of God. And those marks, those identifications of the church is that one, the faithful preaching of the word of God. Secondly, the lawful administration of the sacraments. And thirdly, the right practice of discipline. And when you hear those marks, a lot of people, when they hear them, they can understand the preaching of the word. We're going to talk more about that, though, in the coming weeks. But these other marks seem to be somewhat, you know, how come those marks are chosen over other things? Well, we're going to continue to discuss and study this with one another. But these marks are essential. There was a Swiss theologian named Francis Turretin. He followed about a century later in Geneva after John Calvin. And he has a classic theology book of three volumes. And he has a section in his theology book on the marks of the church. And he states what I believe the Scriptures do teach, what the Reformed Churches upheld, what our own standards teach us as we look at them. But what is lost on many in our day and age when he says these words? Salvation cannot be obtained except in communion with the true Church. Salvation cannot be obtained except in communion with the true church. Now, those are strong words are a little bit stronger than our own confession of faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith says it when it says outside the church, there is no ordinary means of salvation. Turton goes on to say these things. Many glory in the sacred name of the church. who are destitute of its truth. It is of great value, then, to know its true marks so that we can distinguish the true fold of Christ from the dens of wolves and the genuine society of pious Christians from the conventicles of heretics, which must be shunned by us. That we must know what that assembly is to which it is necessary we join ourselves. And he says it again, that we might obtain salvation. And this is where it is lost on the Martin Church. The proclamation of the gospel. And associate and association with the church are to be so interwoven that you really can't have one response to one without the other. even though we're often told the contrary in our modern society. And so to understand these marks is vital because salvation is at stake. And the more that I interact with people outside our congregation, the more I share with people who call themselves Christians, The more alarmed I grow over their lack of knowledge, even of the gospel. Now, I said it last week and I'll keep saying it so that you'll understand our visitors understand and speaking and preaching this way. There's no way in sense that I mean that this church, this congregation is the true church. Got a long way to go. And we recognize in our community many faithful bodies of Christ. And we thank God for the fellowship that we have with them. But we are seeing an explosion of false teachings. and splinter groups and even mega movements that are misleading many of those who proclaim to follow Jesus Christ. And so we are trying to equip ourselves to understand how the true church can be identified. And it can be identified by bearing the marks. And this is what I want you to get, particularly today, by bearing the marks of Christ's offices. We're going to talk about the offices that Christ possesses. And because He possesses these offices, these form the marks for us. We'll see the link I trust this morning as we study this passage. But let's look now at this passage and first consider the unique foundation for the church that God has given us. The unique foundation for the church. As I said earlier, Peter here employs Old Testament imagery to describe the church. And he's telling us here that that Old Testament imagery is that of a temple here, as he calls it in verse five, a spiritual house. And the picture here is that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of the spiritual house. And then if you employ the rest of scriptures into this imagery, we find that the apostles and prophets laid the rest of the foundation of the spiritual house. And then the church through the ages are the blocks that are being added to this great temple of the Lord that he's constructing, not made with human hands. Not made with physical rocks, but made, as he calls it here, with living stones. Jesus, the chief living stone. And each one who believes in his name, the addition to this glorious temple that God is creating throughout the ages. And here, as he's describing this temple, he tells us that Jesus is a rock. That he's a stone. And so important, To Peter is this reference that he uses it seven times where he calls Jesus a rock or a stone in this small passage of Scripture. The reason is that he's conveying that the church is the spiritual house. But there's something else about it. Jesus Christ is a stone like no other. Upon which the church draws its whole life and meaning and purpose. How unique is Jesus here as Peter describes Him for us? Well, he tells us something about the stone. Two things I really want to point your minds and attentions to. He tells us that this is a stone that died, yet lives. The stone that died yet lives. Now, when it comes to rocks, that's not the first thing that comes to mind when we say life. We don't say life, rocks. Because we think of rocks as unliving organisms. Indeed, if we want to talk about somebody or something that's dead, sometimes we say is dead as a rock. No life in it. There's one aspect of this, quoting from this prophecy of Psalm 118 that we see below in verse 7, that describes Christ as the stone, that before we can think of Him as the living stone, that we have to realize that He was the dead stone. The stone, as it says here, which the builders rejected. Those that thought, during the days of Jesus Christ, that they were the ones building a temple and upholding the temple. And they would gladly point you to that temple located in Jerusalem. But you'll remember what Jesus said about that temple. Or at least what He said when He was in that temple. He said, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. And they're saying, wait a minute, it took us, our fathers, 46 years to build this temple. How can you say that in three days you can raise it up? And John tells us the answer to that riddle. That wasn't the temple God was really concerned about. The builders were building and focusing on the wrong structure. Jesus was referring to His death. And as a rock, there's never been anyone more dead than Jesus was at Calvary. He went there and suffered humiliation and the rejection by his own people that he was who he claimed to be and the prophets had promised that he was. Instead of being treated as the king that he was, rather he was mocked. The purple robe surely around his shoulders, but also with a crown of thorns on his head. And yeah, they bowed, but they spat on him as they did so. And he wasn't seated upon any throne on that occasion. But he was taken up to Calvary. And he was nailed to a wooden cross where he hung suffering that miserable day. You know, we can tell that story. And we can focus on the physical sufferings of Jesus, like the movie The Passion of Christ did, but we still can miss the whole picture. Because what made those sufferings unbearable, and why I say that He was deader than any man has ever been dead, is that though He was innocent, unguilty of any sin, The sin of all that would believe upon Him were placed upon Him that day. And hell's fury was unleashed. Jesus Himself felt forsaken by His Father. And He breathed His last and was put into a tomb. You and I will die because we have sinned. If you remain in your sins this day, you will suffer. But you will only suffer for what you deserve. And you will only suffer as a human. Christ suffered as a man, yes, but with a complete and full awareness of what sin means, which we can never fully grasp and understand. But He is a living stuff. And the Scriptures tell us that the grave could not hold Him And if he was better than anyone has ever been before, he certainly is more alive than anyone has ever experienced. The impossible has become the reality. The Rock lives, as we do see in Psalm 18. The Lord lives. And blessed be my rock. And may the God of my salvation be exalted. He has been exalted by the Father. He has been raised bodily from that tomb. He has been granted a right-handed seat beside the Father. He reigns now as King of Glory over the nations. He's the great priest of His people. Even this moment, Jesus Christ is in heaven praying on our behalf, interceding to the Father for us. And He is the Prophet. He came and He spoke the Holy Word of God to us. He fulfilled all that the ancient prophets had spoken of. And He has given His prophetic Spirit to the church so that she can go out and preach His Gospel. But I'm getting ahead of myself in even saying that. I want your minds and your hearts on Christ Jesus this morning. A stone that died, yet lives. and a stone that was rejected, yet choice and precious to God and those who have come to love Him. Look at verse 4 again. He has been rejected by men, but He is choice and precious in the sight of God. And down in verse 6, it says that if you believe in Him, and it quotes from Isaiah, the prophet, you will not be disappointed. But then it goes on to say in verse 7 that those who do disbelieve, he's become a stone, a stumbling, and a rock of offense. You know that word stumbling block in the original is the word that we get scandal from in our own language. It's a scandal if you do not believe in Christ. We've all looked at these politicians this past week even. One who even professes faith. And we've seen the scandal of his lifestyle and his adulterous ways. And how easy it is to shake our head and berate someone like that who has been unfaithful to his wife. But what about someone who is unfaithful to the Lord? Someone who has heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who has been told of their need for forgiveness of sins, not by a human voice, but by the very Word of God. And yet, he refuses to admit it. and rejects the very One that God Himself sent into this world. You see, this stone, it says, is choice and precious. Verse 4, in the sight of God. This is God's choice. This is the one that God said is precious. This is the one that God opened up heaven and said, this is My beloved Son. Listen to Him. Believe in Him. Receive Him. And if you walk away from that, that's scandalous. That's wrong. One of the actions Another action that our Synod took this week, and we did so very soberly, is that we had to withdraw our membership from the National Association of Evangelicals, an organization committed to bringing various branches of the Church together so that we can do works in the name of Christ throughout the world. We've been involved in that organization for decades. Why did we draw out of it? We believe we were forced to do so because the leaders of that organization signed onto a letter in response to Muslim overtures. And in part, what that letter said is this. We ask forgiveness of the all merciful one and of the Muslim community around the world. Christian leaders signed a letter in which they said we ask forgiveness of the all-merciful. And that's Allah. Allah cannot forgive your sin, because Allah does not exist. But the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit do. And that Father from Heaven sent His Son so that you might receive forgiveness of sins. That letter went on to say these words. It says, This is grandiose. The future of the world depends on our ability as Christians and Muslims to live together in peace. That's not what the future of the world depends on. The future of the world depends upon Jesus Christ. And if you don't believe that, You don't believe in the Prince of Peace. You have rejected the chief cornerstone that God Himself sent into this world. And that's a scandal. What the NAE did was a scandal. We cannot have fellowship. But those who are acting scandalous are putting stumbling blocks before us. It's clear. It's crystal clear. Christ is the way. He's the truth. He's the access to the Father by which you come and receive forgiveness and life and fellowship with the Father. For you don't have life. And the importance of this passage for the people of God is in so many words it's saying to you, don't stumble over Christ. Don't let this One who was created by God Himself to be the foundation of your life, to be the foundation of the church upon which you can build and entrust your whole being, your eternality upon, the soul that God has given you, Don't reject that one. Don't stumble over him and get smashed as you do so. And because this living stone is vitally, organically connected to His people who believe in Him by the power of the Spirit, then as you believe upon Him, you must come into the faithful church wherever it's found around the world. That leads us to the next uniqueness of this passage and what it's teaching us. It tells us here about the unique calling of the church. The unique calling of the church. I want you to look at the end of verse 8 and the beginning of verse 9. It's both terrifying and glorifying. The statements that are made there. Those who reject Christ, the end of verse 8, It says to this doom, they were also appointed. Hearing that. Hearing that. Should make us tremble more than they did at Mount Sinai. These are not trite things of which we speak this morning. They are of life and death. Eternal life or eternal destruction. You reject Him. You are appointed to this doom. If you believe in Him, verse 9, And he were to be considered of the chosen race. The chosen race. Chosen by God, just as Israel was, to receive the benefits of the salvation of Jesus Christ. And those who are chosen, then, are in such union with Jesus Christ that they become Christ-like. As Paul wrote over in 2 Corinthians 3, we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, justice from the Lord, the Spirit. You see, we become so identified with the One in whom we believe and the One in whom we are united with that we begin, as His people, to reflect His glory. And this is pointed out in verse 9 and 10. Jesus is a King. He came as the King of Heaven to establish His Kingdom here in this world. The Bible teaches us that over and over again. That's why we call Him the Lord. The Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. But look what it says here about the church in verse 9. As Peter's writing to the church, he says, you're a chosen race. You are royal. A royal priesthood. You are kingly people. Because the church is to be those who live in the Kingdom. The Kingdom is where people rule. How do we as God's people rule? We start with our own lives, which were at one time out of control. They were governed by our own lusts and desires. We did as we wanted. But in Christ, We become subdued and we realize that our lives are to be accountable to this King of Kings. And we begin to control our lives, our decisions for Christ. We subject ourselves willingly and gladly to him. Out of love, we live holy lives. We glorify and we love God by obeying the commands that he has given to us. We don't permit sin to dwell in our midst. That's what it would mean to be a kingdom. Is that we punish wrongdoing, so to speak, because a holy king deserves A holy kingdom. We'll talk about that in just a minute. But keep that tucked away. We're a kingdom because Jesus is a King. And we're also priests because Jesus is a priest who was offered as a sacrifice for us. And so we're to be this kingdom of priests. And if you go back to verse 5, it says in verse 5, using this same imagery, we are to be built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to do what? to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, they brought animal sacrifices into the temple. What are we to bring into this holy temple of God as we're here this morning? All different types of sacrifices, but not of the animal variety. But it comes, first of all, in one sense like that animal, broken. Cut to the quick. Contrite. Because we know our God says a broken and contrite spirit I will not despise. We are humble. Because we do realize we haven't lived the way that God has deemed in His Word. And we acknowledge our sins in His presence. We come offering our lives in service to Him. As it says in Romans 12, living in holy sacrifice is well-pleasing to God. We're told in Hebrews 13 that we're to offer the praise of our lips, the fruit of our lips as a sacrifice to God. And so we're here this morning, not like the world, boasting in our own accomplishments, boasting in our own works, but we come this morning boasting And one and one only, the Lord. And if there's anything in your life or my life worthy of praise, we gladly acknowledge the true source of that worthiness is Christ. It's Christ. And we come offering all things in our possessions to Him. Our possessions are his possessions. And we use these as the Scripture say, not neglecting doing good and sharing. We know that with such sacrifices, God is well pleased when we give our gifts to others. And these can take all kinds of forms. I found a strange type of gift on my desk as I walked in this morning. Someone had some leftover crickets from fishing, I suppose. And I know that we have lizards, so I've got some lizard food. All kinds of ways in which we serve one another around here this morning. From the small to the great. We offer our witness. The Apostle Paul said, I am a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest, the Gospel of God, that my offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, sanctified by the Spirit. Have you ever thought about that? That you are a priest You are a representative of Jesus to this world. And that as you minister the Gospel, and as God works upon someone else's heart to bring them into the Kingdom, it is as if you were offering them as an offering to the Lord. Lord, look what You've done. Look what You've done, O God. Sometimes this priesthood can be quite demanding. For the Apostle Paul, as he came to the end of his life, he says, I'm being poured out as a drink offering to God. That our own lives can be required of us in order to be priests to the Lord. Not going out seeking martyrdom like those in Islam. but serving and if called upon to give up our lives rather than deny Jesus Christ a willingness to go there. Jesus is a prophet who declared the gospel to this world. And so we are to be prophets. And you'll notice how that's brought out in verse 9. We are His possession so that we can do what? That you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. We are to go as God's representatives, as His prophets, and proclaim not new words, but these words. The excellencies of Jesus Christ. And it's interesting here. We're to tell people what He's done for us. How He's called us out of darkness. As a matter of fact, that word called out Ecclesia, Ecclesiastic, the church. That's the church's job. It's its function. It's to market as its people, as those who proclaim the truth of the gospel to other people. We talk about these marks. They are seated here and the whole idea of these offices. These are offices that Christ has as prophet, priest, and king. And in union with Him, they are conveyed to us. We are to be prophets. We are to be priests. We are to be kings. And so there should be then an association. If those are our offices as His people, then we should see those in association with the marks, do we? Well, let's think about this now under the unique implications to the church. What's the implications of all this? Well, if the church is to be prophetic, it must faithfully preach the Word of God that falls out from all of this. Acclaim a church as being faithful to the Word of God does not mean that they are necessarily doing so. We have a responsibility, as we hear the teachings and preachings of others, to make sure of its trustworthiness. To make sure it's coming from the very Word of God. Look at the first and foremost mark of the church, which is this one, preaching of the Word of God in these next weeks. And we're going to see how careful we must be who we listen to. I was talking with a friend this week who was trying to minister to a relative who has begun to go to church. And he wasn't sure that the church that this relative was going to was one in which he would really hear the Gospel. And he wasn't quite sure. He wanted to encourage him to go to church. But he wasn't sure whether this was the church this person should be going to. And he says, what do you say to him? What do you ask? Well, how about a few questions? Is this church reading the Bible in its services? Is this church then clearly explaining to the people what the passage means? Is this church promoting traditions? Or is it promoting the text of God's Word into the lives of his people? Are the people living in accordance to what the Word of God says? Or is it pretty easy as you get around the people? You see, there's just a bunch of hypocrites here. Nobody's really listening or following someone who says they would be a follower of Christ, how they should be living. We can tell whether a church is faithfully preaching the word of God or not just by looking at it and examining it a bit. And we'll, again, give more ways in which we can go about that. Another implication. If the church is to be priestly, it must rightly administer the sacraments. One of the visible means that God has given the church to show its priestly function is to take the signs and seals of the Gospel and apply them rightly into the lives of the people. And baptism and the Lord's Supper are those signs that God has given. Baptism marking the entrance into the Kingdom of God, entrance into the church, and then the Lord's Supper and its celebration, the continuation of that life, with Christ. We know of so-called houses of God that do not even practice the sacraments of the Lord. Others allow anyone, regardless of whether they truly believe in Christ, to come and partake of these things that are reserved for God's people. Now, a church may not be completely false just because it's not completely consistent with these signs, but we need to examine them and look at these signs because these are the ones that Jesus gave. He commanded us to baptize. He commanded us to remember the Lord's Supper. And He did so. He did so as our priest who took on all the bloody rites of the Old Testament and fulfilled them with His own blood. And then uses the waters of baptism and the cup and the bread of the Lord's Supper to remind us of what He has done as our priest. The final implication then is that if the church is to be kingly, it must rightly exercise church discipline. One of the foremost powers of a king is to execute his laws. Another way of thinking about it is if you see a general, you expect him to have a uniform on and be able to command some tanks to do his bidding if he so desires. With the office comes the right of performance to that office. In a king's kingdom, there are laws that involve reward for obedience and punishment for disobedience. How does that get enacted in the church? We talk about the church being a kingdom. We know and we teach that the church has no civil rights in terms of enacting any type of civil penalty for people committing gross violations of sin. What do we do? We had some conversations this past week with some Because there's a lot of shootings in churches that have taken place lately. Some are asking whether pastors should pack a pistol or not. You worried that I have one on? Get your attention here for a minute. There is a church I just read about this week down in Kentucky that encouraged their people to bring their heat to the church building for a gun show. I guess we've done a little bit of that. So, you know, I don't have a pistol on me, nor do I ever intend to have one on when I'm preaching the gospel. Because that's not my defense. And I would never want a pistol lying on the pulpit or around my waist. to distract for a moment someone from hearing the true Word of God. The power that the Church is to trust in, the only strength we have is spiritual power. The spiritual power to declare the gospel To examine lives of those who say they're following Jesus Christ. And to guide them as shepherds. And whether that profession is worthy, their life is worthy of that profession, I should say. Or if they need to think about some other issues. True believers and true believers alone are to come around this table. Christ gave this table to His disciples. If someone remains in sin, we are to declare it. And if they will not respond, we withdraw privileges of communion. And that's how we exercise our kingly function, at least one way, with respect to these marks of the church, that we will talk about more and how we exhibit the right as kings over that mark. What I want to finish with this morning is this final reminder. The only matter of concern for the church, which should focus its thoughts, its heart, its plan, its practices, is this gospel of Jesus Christ and whether the people who are in its ministry are having their lives built on that gospel of Christ. He is the unique foundation of the church. He has given the church an exclusive calling. The church is to operate with a single minded purpose. Do you believe in Christ? Are you faithful to follow Jesus Christ? That and that alone is to Marcus. It's not whether we have an outstanding youth group. It's not whether we can offer the community high powered music. It's not whether we have an outstanding Starbucks cafe downstairs. That doesn't mark the church. A lot of times those things are showing the church's unfaithfulness to Christ. What is to mark us is passion for the gospel. And for all of us here, that then becomes the issue. Do we have these marks, these offices in our own life? Am I living like the king that I'm called to be? Do I minister as a priest? Do I walk and talk as a prophet? Because if not, the church without its marks is like a temple without God's glory. And you'll remember, on too many occasions in the Old Testament, the glory departed. Ichabod. No glory for Israel. And we are not exhibiting and living out these offices and their marks. That's what we're saying about ourselves if we're not present. May God help us to live as His people. Let's pray.