Fellowship in the Word

Jason Gebhardt: Today, on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bil Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Bil Gebhardt: Peter wrote that there may be times when you have to give an account for the hope that is in you. I want to give testimony, and notice he gives us some context to the testimony so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. I know where I came from. For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Why am I a Christian? God's mercy. That is all. I was in the darkness and I received the mercy of God.

Never forget these spiritual resources that you possess: your union with Christ, your complete access to him, and the bedrock security that you have in Christ. It is amazing. It is found right there in verse six. He said for this is contained in scripture: "Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in him will not be disappointed." Wow. You will not be disappointed.

Isn't that amazing? Every believer in Jesus Christ will spend all eternity never disappointed. Never. You will not be disappointed. There is never a moment where you will be disappointed because of Jesus Christ. What an amazing statement for them to make in that thought. Again, one writes this: "Jesus Christ is the perfect, exact, precise one on whom God builds his church. All the lines are coming from him who is the perfect cornerstone."

"They make up the perfect temple of God, and in that temple, no one is lost, no one falls out, no stones get loose, no one's out of place, no one's removed, no one will ever be disappointed. He will bring all his sons to glory." That is a picture of our security. It is an amazing thing when you think about it from that point of view of just what God has given us.

The other thing I find fascinating is that there will be other people who will all be disappointed. Do you realize everybody who does not have their faith in Jesus Christ is going to end up forever disappointed? Everyone is going to stand before God. No exceptions. Everyone is going to stand there. Take a Muslim terrorist. He is going to strap a bomb to him, blow himself up, and kill 50 people. He thinks he will be surrounded by green pillars and 72 virgins instantly.

He is going to be disappointed. What is going to be surrounding him? The weeping and gnashing of teeth, Jesus said. What a disappointment. He said you will never be disappointed. No matter what happens in the world out there, you will never be ultimately disappointed. That is how secure you and I are in Christ.

I love when Peter says that; he calls him again in verse six the precious cornerstone. Do you think of the Lord that way? Precious. You should. Remember when Jesus used the pearl of great price? What happened when the man found it? He sold everything because it was so precious. What about the treasure? Same thing. He sold everything to buy the field. When you find Christ, you find the most precious thing that exists.

That is why Peter wrote earlier in chapter one: "Though you've not seen him, you love him." Why do I love him? Because he is precious. That is my motive. Remember when Jesus approached Peter after Peter denied him three times? Jesus asked Peter three times, "Do you love me? Do you see me as precious?"

If you are a believer, that is how we should see him. We should see him as precious. If he is precious, that means I want to know him, be close to him, and follow him. That is the whole idea. Without Jesus Christ, verse eight says he is the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense. That is what the world thinks. He said they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom they are appointed.

You have union with Christ, complete access to God, and bedrock security in Christ. Peter just wants to tell you some more things about who you are. Here he throws them all together: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession." Wow. Don't skip over that. You are a chosen race. This is God's part. I know what my part was when I put my faith in Christ. God's part says, "My part was the choosing; your part is the believing."

When were you chosen? Scripture is clear. Before the foundation of the world. That is God's part. It makes sense because God knows everything, so when does not have much to do with it, but you are a chosen people. Not only have I chosen to put my faith in Christ, but Christ has chosen me. What an important thing.

We are a royal priesthood. Don't skip that word. How many royal priests are there in the Bible? Two. Was Aaron a royal priest? No. The Levites? No. None of them were royal. Was the high priest? No. There was just one in the Old Testament, Melchizedek, the king-priest of Salem. There is just one in the New Testament, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is a royal priest and you are a royal priest. That means I am not only a priest, but I am king. Me. Remember Paul said we are joint heirs with Christ. What does he inherit? Everything. You are a joint heir. Isn't that something? I hope by now you are feeling better about yourself, just a bit better. This is who I really am.

He said you are a holy nation, a holy people. You are a set apart holy people. That means my ethnicity is heavenly. Yours is heavenly. I do not care what continent you came from. You and I are citizens of heaven. My ethnicity is heavenly and so is yours. What a wonderful thought that is.

Then something very personal: a people for God's own possession. Every time God thinks about Bil, he says, "He's mine." He thinks about you and says, "You're mine." It is hard to imagine almighty God looks at me and says, "You're mine," but that is what he says.

Never forget all these spiritual resources that you have: union with Christ, complete access to God, bedrock security. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people for God's own possession. Why has Peter told us all that? Because he wants to make us feel good? Partially. But there is something more to it. Notice the next two words in that verse: "So that."

God didn't give you all this and tell you all of these spiritual blessings just so that you would feel great. He said there is a reason I've given you all that. Two reasons, in fact. Here is the first one: "So that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light." That is why.

He has told you everything about how wonderful you are not just so you feel well, but so that you will proclaim it. In Acts chapter one, verse six, Jesus said you're going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the outermost parts of the world. What does a witness do? They testify to what they've experienced. That is what a witness is.

You're going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. A witness testifies to what they have seen and what they've experienced. Jesus said that's what he wants you to do. You're going to be his witnesses. Peter wrote there may be times when you have to give an account for the hope that is in you.

I want to give testimony, and notice he gives us some context to the testimony: so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who's called you out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. I know where I came from. You once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Why am I a Christian? God's mercy. That is all. I was in the darkness and I received the mercy of God. It is amazing. Sometimes I hear Christians say things that bother me. They'll say, "I'm not very good at witnessing." Oh, have you tried? "No, I don't know enough apologetics. They get me all messed up with dinosaurs. I don't know if they were on the ark or not. I don't know what to say to people."

How about saying nothing? How about just giving a testimony for what Christ did in your life? That is all he's asking you. This is where I was and this is where I am. This is what Christ did. That's it. He is not asking for more. He is asking you to simply give witness. Someone like Saint Francis of Assisi said a long time ago that all evangelism is, is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

He said that's what he wants you to do. To all those people out there. Wow. That's amazing. He goes on to say, "I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles." There it is again: "So that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation."

It is how we live. He said he wants you to be able to proclaim and witness what Christ has done for you and he wants you to live on the basis of all the excellencies he has given you. Your life should be distinctly different. Everything I've read about everybody who's been writing about this—all the pollsters and all that—shows the big problem here in America is that the unsaved American cannot see any difference in your life and theirs.

Their whole view is Christianity is hypocritical and that Christians live just like everybody else. That is sad. Peter said don't do that. Your life has to be distinct in the way in which you live. If I proclaim it and I live in a certain way, will they all like me? No.

Understand how the Romans felt about them. These are just some of the things the Romans felt about Christians at this time. One is that they are rebels. They preach rebellion. How? "There is no king but Caesar." A Christian says, "No, there is a king I follow: Jesus." That considered them to be a rebel.

They were often accused of being atheists. You might say, "Wait a minute, they are Christians. How could they be called atheists?" From a Roman point of view, if you don't have an idol, then you don't believe in God. The only God you can believe in is one you can see. Whatever idol you worship means you believe in a God. You ask a Christian, "What's your God look like? Where's the image of your God?" "He's invisible." Well, that's not believing in God. God's a creation of ours, our idols.

Another thing they said, Seneca wrote on this, he said that when the Christians have what they call the Lord's table, he thinks they are cannibals because they eat the body and drink the blood. That was revolting to a Roman, even so symbolic.

The one that bothered the Romans most was that they are very much socially damaging to the Roman Empire. Why? Because these people actually believe that a slave and a master are on equal ground. Did you know that? The churches were made up of slaves and masters. The Romans said that can't be right. Everyone knows there is a hierarchy.

In some of those churches, the leaders of the churches were not masters; they were slaves. They were more spiritually developed than the masters. So the Romans didn't like them at all. Even with the fact that they didn't like them, he says some of them will still be changed. He said they may, because of your good deeds as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

I don't know how far along we are in the history of man, but I know we are closer to the end than ever. There is a day of visitation for everybody. He said on that day because we lived out the excellencies that Christ has put in our life, they may glorify God.

That is when Jesus said you're the light of the world and the salt of the earth. On the basis of how you live, people may come into saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Sometimes they reject our words, but they see our works and it leads them to Christ. These are the two things that should be able to work and illustrate for us.

What should we be about? First of all, we need to know who we are, and that should give us phenomenal confidence no matter what is going on out there. On that basis, we need to proclaim and witness Jesus Christ and we need to live our lives in a very different way.

The question we sometimes have is: can that really work? Emphatically, yes. It worked in the Roman Empire. But I'm going to close with going a lot closer to the lives that you and I live. During World War II, of which about 80 to 100 million people died, there were over 5 million people put in POW camps all over Europe and the Pacific.

The most notorious POW camps were by the Japanese, even more so for American soldiers than the Germans. One camp in particular was led by a Japanese officer and his name was Konishi. Konishi lived by one mantra: he hated every American who was alive. He just had hatred for them all. He found out all kinds of intriguing ways to kill the prisoners. He loved killing prisoners. He enjoyed killing prisoners.

His favorite one that he eventually landed on was starving them for weeks and then allowing them to have rice in the shell. There was no tool to take it out; it had to be taken out of the shell. The shells are razor sharp. Someone who is starving to death would eat the rice, then the razor-sharp shells would cut all their innards, and then they would bleed out and die. He loved that. He thought that was the best way because they think they're getting something to eat and they're not. I'm just executing them.

When he found out that the war in February of 1945 was about to end, he said what he needed to do was kill them all now. He thought that might be his one last shot at getting them. On February 24th, 1945, US troops under Douglas MacArthur came in and liberated the camp the very day he wanted to execute them.

Konishi escaped. They hunted him for years. Many years later they found him. He was a gardener at a golf course in Manila in the Philippines. They tried him, found him guilty, and sentenced him to be hung. After that process was over, they asked if there was anything he would like to say.

He said, "Yes. I believe in and I love the Lord Jesus Christ." They asked how he would ever come to know Christ. He said it was the testimony and the lives of the Christian prisoners that he executed in the camp. Does it work in a hostile world? I think Konishi would say yes.

It can work. You and I can be effective no matter what happens in our culture for the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to realize who we are: the union with Christ, the accessibility to God, the security we have. You're children of the King no matter what goes on out there. That should motivate us to proclaim the Lord and to live our lives in a distinct way. God will use it all for his glory. Let's pray.

Father, I think what happens in a hostile culture is that the more we see the changes, the worse the sin seems to become, and the further away from anything right or righteous it gets. It causes us to be complainers. We're so unhappy that sinful people are sinning, but what else could we expect? Even though this culture will be challenging for us, every culture has been challenging for your church.

Every culture has been either for Christ to a degree or against him in a large degree. I pray that we understand what our role is: the same as always. Realize who we are. Tell other people where we were and how we came to Christ. Live our lives in a distinct way and leave the rest up to you and your Spirit. We pray this Father for our good, for the good of the culture we live in, and for your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Jason Gebhardt: You've been listening to Pastor Bil Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well.

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Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 70006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original form, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bil delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website fbcno.org. That's fbcno.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bil's sermons.

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