Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Many of us go to gyms to whip our bodies into shape. But where do people go to get their souls in shape? That's coming up next right here on Hope from the Word with Bill Loub Komen.

Guest (Male): Ordinary things can be special because of what someone else did to them, right? You can go to a place and it says George Washington slept here and you say wow. There's nothing special about the place, but because George Washington slept here, you think wow, this is a special place. If you go to a museum, they have things in the museum that belong to some famous person. Here's a famous actor, here's the hat they wore in some movie or whatever. There's nothing special about the hat. It's any old piece of junk hat, but because some famous person wore it in a movie, it's special.

We belong to God and he's made us special. Many of us know what we need to do to be physically healthy, eat right and exercise in short. Sadly, not many people truly know what to do to be spiritually healthy. Today on Hope from the Word, we'll look at 1 Peter 2 and see how to go about being a spiritually healthy believer. Pastor Bill Loub coming up Calvary Chapel of Marlton is our teacher and here he is now to get us started.

Bill Luebkemann: We're living stones. In other words, we we're taking from his life and from his name and somehow we're plugged into him and somehow we're connected to him and you can think about the vine and the branches and that we're drawing his sustenance from him as well and this whole temple here is a living breathing thing if you will and we're being built up and set apart to God and holy. You also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You know, Christians are kind of unique because you are the temple.

The Holy Spirit lives in you, but you're also the priest, your own priest. See, they had the Jews had a temple and they had to have a priest and the priest had to go in there and make his own offering, but you are your own priest. You're not someone else's priest, but you're your own priest because you can enter the presence of God yourself. By the way, there were two Greek words for temple, hieron, and the Greek meant the sacred place. It referred to the whole building. That was the temple. But there was another Greek word, naos, and it meant the dwelling, namely of God.

It was the inner place. It was the place where the chief priest only could go and he could only go once a year. It was the place where the very presence of God was. The dwelling place, the inner place, naos, and that's the Greek word that's used now when it refers to God dwelling in a believer. Isn't that interesting? It doesn't use the word referring to the temple as the building. See, if we read our English Bible here, we see temple, temple, temple and it just looks like the same word. But when you look at the Greek behind it, you find out wow, there really is some shades of meaning there that you could miss.

Christians are now the dwelling of God and referred to with the word naos, the dwelling place, the inner place because the curtain was ripped and we can now approach God and what we have to offer to God is we ourselves. As I said, Christian places, churches, they called churches because temples were where sacrifices were made. And our sacrifice is ourselves besides the sacrifice of prayer and praise if you will and service to the Lord. For in scripture it says see, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.

Now, to you who believe, this stone is precious, but to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone and a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they disobey the message which is also what they were destined for. For scripture says back in verse 6 see, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. That's from Isaiah 28:16, one of an early prophecy about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and he was that stone that was referred to there in Isaiah and God when when God said I lay a stone in Zion, he was referring to the coming of the Lord and the setting up of his church.

And he when he says a chosen and precious cornerstone, well, Jesus was the one. He was precious and he was chosen and he's the one that if we trust in him will never be put to shame. And by the way, it doesn't say there's any other one that you can trust in. There is no other one. It doesn't say I'm also putting a cornerstone in three other places and you could take your pick of which one you want to believe in. Sorry. It doesn't say that. It says a chosen and precious cornerstone. A is singular just in case you failed English in fourth grade.

A singular a chosen and precious cornerstone. And the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Now, to you who believe, this stone is precious, but to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. So, it can cut both ways. If you believe, the stone is precious just like he said it is. But to those who do not believe, this stone here that the builders rejected has become the capstone and a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. Punishment for denying the Messiah.

Jesus spoke about this himself over in Matthew 21. Don't have to read his words here. Well, Jesus quoting in verse 42 the same scripture, have you never read in the scriptures the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. Punishment for denying the Messiah.

You can put your faith and trust in the Lord. And when it says he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, the Lord will be there for you. You may be broken in the good sense, in a good sense that you realize your sin, that you repent of your sin, that you change your ways. Okay? Um that's the good thing. That's the good part of it. Don't don't read that as being bad. But he on whom it falls will be crushed. That's the bad part. And Jesus quoting that there, that's what happened to those who do not accept the Messiah.

You can look at it two ways. This stone here, this cornerstone, this precious cornerstone of which there is only one of that was rejected by men, by so many men, has become this cornerstone. And it's a stone that causes men to stumble. And we can still see that in the world today. You can mention the name of Jesus and what a divisive name that is. You can mention the name of any other God and it doesn't cause any problem at all. In so many places want to pray at some government meeting, you can say any prayer you want, any way you want as long as you don't mention the name of Jesus, you're fine.

Somehow they really key into that name. Doesn't that mean they really know who God really is? Isn't it wired into them somehow? They stumble because they disobey the message which is also what they were destined for. But you, on the other hand here, you, the one who we're writing to, who? God's elect. That includes all of you if you've accepted Christ as your Savior. But you, God's elect we'll borrow that from verse 1. But you are a chosen people, verse 1 of chapter 1. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful desires which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. But you are a chosen people, it says here. Israel had previously been the only chosen people and they still are God's chosen people by the way, but now we are also in a way God's chosen people, not in exactly the same way, in a different way, but we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood.

You know, this is very interesting. You could do another whole message on this as well, but in the Old Testament, royalty and priesthood were always separate. You know, the kings were descended. One king descended from the next from the next. The kings were not the priests and the priests were not the kings. And if the king tried to go in the temple and make an offering, he got in trouble because the priest was allowed to make the offering in the temple, not the king. Royalty and priesthood were two separate things. But it says here that we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood.

We're both because of what he did for us. That's pretty amazing. We're a special people, a holy nation, a people belonging to God chosen and elect of God, a holy nation different from the way Israel was, a people belonging to God peculiarly peculiarly his. Say that three times real fast. Some some Bible verses say a peculiar people. Well, that's true. Peculiarly his. In other words, you know, that doesn't mean you have to be weird. It means uniquely his, purchased, acquired, special in the sense that we belong to him. You know, we're special not because of anything of us, but because of something he did, you know.

Guest (Male): Ordinary things can be special because of what someone else did to them, right? Well, you can go to a place and it says George Washington slept here and you say wow. There's nothing special about the place, but because George Washington slept here, you think wow, this is a special place if in fact he really did sleep there. But I mean, if you go to a museum, they have things in the museum that belong to some famous person. You can go to a museum and here's some famous actor's wristwatch or their their clothes or their hat.

Here's a famous person, a famous actor. Here's the hat they wore in some movie or whatever. There's nothing special about the hat. It 's any old piece of junk hat, but because some famous person wore it in a movie, it's special. Not because of anything about itself, but because the famous person made it special. You get what I 'm saying at? And he's made us special and that's kind of the idea here that comes across in these verses here. We belong to God. We're his and these same titles belong to Israel as well. I'm not going to go there.

I don't have time, but if you look at Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, you can see the Jews were defined as a chosen people and you can see the terms holy nation, belonging to God, priesthood. You can see these same terms, either exact terms or very similar terms throughout the Old Testament. And yet you now see them being applied to the church and the that we belong to the Lord as much as Israel does, although certainly in a different way today. And why why all this stuff? Why are we a chosen people? Why are we a royal priesthood, a holy nation and all this stuff that we made that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light, not your praises, but his praises, that you may declare his praises, that you may show forth his praises, that you may publish abroad?

In other words, you know, send it out on the radio. What an idea. You know, it says here publish abroad not your praises, but his praises. So, we should be declaring forth his praises, his virtues, the good things about him, his excellencies. That we would declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness, out of the world in other words, out of the flesh, out of the devil, out of sin and misery and ignorance, that we would declare forth, show out, put forth the praises of him who called us out of the worst system of the world and brought us into his light, his wonderful life.

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. You used to be a nobody in other words is what he was saying here. Now you're a somebody. You know, Israel had been a people, had been a nation. Most of us here in this room if wasn't for what Christ did, we wouldn't be here together today. We weren't part of Israel. We weren't be chosen by God if it wasn't for what Christ did. We just be all going about our lives in different directions, doing different things, probably never would have even met each other.

And yet he brought us together and now we are the people of God. He's done something to us uniquely, individually and brought us together as a group. At one point in our lives, we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy, his mercy. And he's given it to us. Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful desires which war against our or your soul. The world is not our home. So, this should be even easier. See, we are aliens and strangers in the world. We are sojourners.

We are travelers. Um you know, we have no rights of citizenship. We don't belong to this place. We're just passing through temporarily. So, he says I urge you think about this. You're just aliens here. You're just strangers in this place. You're just here temporarily. Don't get too well connected. Don't get plugged in. Don't make yourself at home too much. While you're here, abstain from sinful desires. What are sinful desires? They're they're things related to the world. This should be even easier for us because we're not of the world. So, if we're not of the world and we're looking forward to that better place when we're going to be with him and we're not going to get too well connected to the world, then even less so should we even want to get connected to sinful desires.

What do they do? They war against your soul. They hold you back. They cause trouble in your life. They're not what the Lord wants you to be doing. Instead, here's what you should be doing, the opposite. There's a lot of times in the Bible where there's a negative and a positive. Don't do this. Do this instead. Abstain from sinful desires. Well, that's going to give you a lot of free time. So, here's what you can do with it. Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

You can do this in your conversation, in your behavior, in your conduct. Good works makes the heathen to praise God. Here's here's what Tertullian wrote, one of the early church fathers. He compared the early Christians to the heathen. Now, he wrote this, you know, 1,800 years ago or something. He lived in the second or third century or something. Um he was comparing the early Christians to the heathen. Um referring to the heathen, he said these delighted in the bloody gladiatorial spectacles of the amphitheater, whereas a Christian was excommunicated if he went to it at all.

No Christian was found in prison for a crime, but only for the faith. The heathen excluded slaves from some of their religious services, whereas Christians had some of their leaders of the class of slaves. Slavery silently and gradually disappeared by the power of the Christian law of love. Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. When the pagans deserted their nearest relatives in a plague, Christians ministered to the sick and dying. When the Gentiles left their dead unburied after a battle and cast their wounded into the streets, the disciples hastened to relieve the suffering.

It was the Christians who cleaned up the mess. It was the Christians who went in during the plague and said we'll minister to the sick and dying. We'll bury the ones that need to be buried. And if we have to go to jail, we'll go to jail for our faith, not for any crime. And here he says we're going to stop with this verse, but here he says live your life this way. Live such a good life among the pagans, among the unbelievers. You're living your life in a world that you don't belong in that you're just passing through and the people around you, many of them are not believers.

And um they're going to accuse you of doing wrong. You only have to turn your TV set on to see Christians being accused of all kinds of crazy things. Well, that's that hasn't changed. But live such a good life that even though they accuse you for doing wrong, that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. They may not glorify God now, but they'll glorify God then. And if you look around the world at what Christian groups are doing, I'm thinking of you know, Prison Fellowship, Chuck Colson's group who goes into prisons and works with the prisoners.

And when prisoners go through their program, when they get out of jail, their recidivism rate is really low. It's like a quarter or a fifth or something of what their regular recidivism rate is. And yet the pagans want to stop that program. They say it doesn't belong in a public jail, you know. It's you know, it's it's a separation of church and state, a concept which by the way is not in our Constitution. It's privately run, privately funded, voluntary. No prisoner has to go to it. It's strictly optional and what have you and they still want to stop a program that works and prevents people from going back to jail.

And the Christians don't make anybody go to this program and we don't stop anybody else from running any other program and giving the prisoners some other choice. Hey, you can come to our program that works or you can go to their program which doesn't work. Which would you like to do? The the other folks don't even have a program because they don't even have any idea of how to do it, but they want to stop what works and you you can see this verse being applied out in the world today almost any night on the 6:00 news.

And this is what Peter says. Wrap it all up in this. Live such a good life that they can accuse you for doing wrong, but in the end when it all comes down to it, the wire they're going to wind up seeing your good deeds and glorifying God on the day he visits us because we're part of a living temple. We're living stones knit together with the living stone who is who is the chosen and precious cornerstone, the one who was rejected by men, but put there by God. And I would rather stake myself to him and draw my sustenance from him and stand on him and his word which I know will not move or be shaken than on anything else.

And I would rather be a chosen people with his chosen people even though there may be a lesser number of them than being with a crowd that's 1,000 times bigger and has all the things that this world has to offer. Because in the end all that stuff just goes away like the grass in the field. I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world abstain from sinful desires which war against your soul. Abstain. You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in Pastor Bill Loub Komen's Through the Bible series. If you'd like to hear this message again, you have several options.

Visit our website at ccmarlton.org and download the Hope FM app to your smartphone or tablet or look for us wherever you find your podcasts. You can also request a CD copy by calling 856 983 1662. Again, that's 856 983 1662. If you've been thinking about visiting Calvary Chapel of Marlton where Bill serves as pastor, we'd love to have you. Our service times are on Sunday mornings at 10. We also meet midweek on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. You can also live stream from home when you visit our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. For more information, go to ccmarlton.org.

We hope to see you soon. Before the day is done, we'd like to connect with you, share a praise report, prayer request or what you're learning from this series. You can easily email us from our website, ccmarlton.org or just call us at 856 983 1662. There's more to come from Bills Through the Bible series and we'll have that for you next time on Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Loub Komen. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.