A Holy People - 1 Peter 2:1-10

Hey, if you have your Bibles open, we are continuing our series called Exiles, and it is named because the beginning of the book of 1 Peter was written by the Apostle Peter to the elect exiles of the dispersion, and then he begins to list all these different places.

So if you were to look at chapter 1, verse 1 and 2, you'll notice that he wrote it to his audience.

He calls elect exiles.

We spent a long time explaining what that meant our first week in this series.

Election or the elect are those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you see who those people are because they have trusted Christ.

We believe there's a sovereign work that happens behind the scenes to open blind eyes and cause deaf ears to hear.

But the word elect, just like the word chosen or like the word adopted or like the word redeemed, refers to God's people.

These are his people.

We know who his people are because they have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and their lives prove that.

So Peter is writing to believers elect and he calls them elect exiles.

Well, an exile brings to our attention some things in the Old Testament, namely the Assyrian and Babylonian exile, where Assyria and Babylon later took God's people out of their homeland into a different place and there were strangers and foreigners in that land.

They had to represent God in that unique place where they weren't really home.

They longed for Jerusalem.

Right, david prayed all of his life in Babylon with windows open to Jerusalem, thinking in his mind, I would assume, jeremiah 29, 11, which was a promise to Israel to be returned back to Jerusalem.

They would have the homeland in front of them.

So he prayed that after 70 years, god will return his people.

That's what Jeremiah said the prophet.

That's what Jeremiah said the prophet.

Well, peter wants to put in our mind, as God's people, that we are not home yet, but we are still hopeful.

He wants us, I would argue, using the same language inspired by the Holy Spirit, to think of ourselves like Daniel.

We are God's people, but we are still awaiting a promise of God's place called the new Jerusalem.

So we are strangers and sojourners living in a foreign land, awaiting our future home, to be with Jesus when Jerusalem descends out of heaven and Christ comes for his bride.

Does that make sense?

So we are God's people because of his first coming, but we are exiles because we still await his second coming.

We have been fully forgiven from the punishment of our sin because of Christ's first coming.

But we await the day we'll be finally free from the presence of our sin at his second coming.

The book of 1 Peter is all about that.

But what's its message?

Well, the beginning of the book and the end of the book is very similar.

The beginning of the book tells us that we have a living hope in Christ as his people, because he resurrected from his grave.

God raised him on the third day.

So just as he is alive, so also our hope is alive, because all the promises that he made to come were validated.

He made the payment on Friday by giving his own life.

The check cleared on Sunday.

He is who he says he is.

He will do what he said he will do.

The end of the book of 1 Peter is about hope again.

But when the book ends and it talks about hope, it is looking forward to our future hope when Christ returns, where he will establish all the promises he's made, where he will consummate all the promises that he has made.

So the book is bookended with hope, but in the middle it helps us understand how we live as elect exiles awaiting a target.

The middle calls us as believers to live holy, humble lives in the midst of even a hostile world.

A lot of the books about suffering, how you handle that.

You can suffer for righteousness' sake.

You can give witness to Christ as you suffer.

The way you interact with your boss, the way that you interact with your family, the way you interact with your unbelieving spouse gives testimony to who your Lord is, who Jesus is, so bookended with hope.

The middle is all about how to be holy as he is holy.

But in our text this morning we are told who the people of God are very clearly and it brings in a lot of Old Testament text.

And now I just want to be clear here.

There are certainly some questions that could come out of our passage this morning that I want you to ask, but I'm not going to answer all of them this morning.

This morning I want us to ask one question, and if you walk away this morning with that question answered, hopefully as a believer, with a smile on your face, we will have accomplished all that I think the text would have us accomplish this morning.

There's much more to deal with the rest of the book this morning.

If you can answer that question who are the people of God will have succeed.

Who are God's people?

Let me ask this question Does God have a nation and if so, who is it?

Maybe a word in a different way who are Abraham's offspring, the promised people he will bless, and the people will be blessed if they bless them and the people will be cursed if they curse them.

Who are God's people?

And the answer to this question may seem obvious and the question may seem unnecessary, but I don't think so.

A recent political debate and let me just say I hope we're wise enough to understand that things people say is not necessarily someone attacking their, their, their, all the great things they've done.

But I don't want to look at a recent political discussion A recent political debate sparked controversy when Tucker Carlson, a well-known political commentator, questioned Senator Ted Cruz from Texas on his biblical warrant for supporting Israel as a Christian mandate.

Christians are mandated to do so, and his answer, though he could not think of where it was from, and that's quite all right.

We all space out from time to time on where house scissors are from his answer was from Genesis, chapter 12, god's promise to bless those who bless Abraham's children and curse those who curse Abraham's children.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Now, during our time and for our purposes.

This morning I will not venture into the political turmoil between the state of Israel, the Palestinian people, the happenings in Gaza, islam, the Quran or evil Hamas.

And while I think we should be engaged at every level, having our eyes open, our ears listening, our mind thinking, and while I think we should be active politically in this situation and many others, I am not trying to wade into that water this morning.

It's not where our text goes.

But Senator Cruz based his answer on a particular theological understanding of a promise made to Abraham, a particular theological understanding that I think warrants scrutiny, with eyes on our Bible open and ears open to the saints who've come before us.

Let me also be clear I am not, nor ever want to be a reactionary preacher.

Let me also be clear I am not, nor ever want to be a reactionary preacher.

I'm thankful for many people, including those two, doing many things that I don't totally understand.

I don't know how that works.

I want to preach the whole counsel of God's Word, beginning to end, line by line, giving my mic time to the Bible and not my own opinions.

Yet our text this morning and that conversation both pertain to our original question who are the people of God?

Who are God's people?

And we might begin to answer that question by looking at the response that was given.

Who are Abraham's children?

Because, as the senator said, quoting Genesis 12, we will be cursed if we curse them and blessed if we bless them.

I mean, you might think that's culturally relevant, but surely that's culturally relevant.

If there's a way you might be cursed as a Christian.

What do you want to know?

And if there's a way you might be blessed as a Christian, what do you want to know?

So how are we to understand that promised blessing in Genesis 12?

How did the apostles understand it, inspired by the Holy Spirit, writing the New Testament under and in the new covenant?

Well, that's what I want us to understand today.

Today, we're going to look at God's people Jews, Gentile, israel and the church.

But before we begin, let's make sure we start on the same page.

If we can agree on a premise, we can move forward together.

Right, you know how debates work.

You have to agree on some sort of premise, or you're just going to be talking back and forth to each other, right, you have to start somewhere and agree somewhere.

So let's begin with this premise you'll see on the screen.

To rightly understand the Old Testament, we must first look through the lenses of the New Testament.

Now you say, well, the New Testament came after the Old Testament, sure.

But we believe theologically that God has progressively revealed all that he has revealed to his creatures.

For example, there were prophecies in the Old Testament, and they are fulfilled when Jesus came Right in the Old Testament.

And they are fulfilled when Jesus came right.

And so Jesus said to two disciples of his, after his resurrection, they're walking to Emmaus.

This is in Luke 24.

They were confused about the things that happened.

In fact, they were sad about some things that happened.

They had heard that Jesus, the one that they had followed, had resurrected.

But they were confused and concerned.

And Jesus walks alongside of them.

Now, in some miraculous way, jesus's face was hidden from them, so they weren't talking to a headless person, but they just couldn't understand or see who he was.

And he says to those two disciples of his you foolish ones, slow to understand all that.

The prophets and Moses have spoken.

And then he spent time with them, walking them through Moses and the prophets, showing them that his death and resurrection must have taken place and that it was the fulfillment of the Old Testament.

In fact it was what the Old Testament was about.

And they knew the Old Testament.

Jesus said the first five books of the Bible were about him.

So if you read the Old Testament and you miss Jesus, you miss the point of the Old Testament, you miss the promises that were made and the person they were made about.

So we want to look through how Jesus has taught us to understand the Old Testament through the lenses of his Holy Spirit that would sit upon men to write the New Testament, so that we interpret the Old Testament properly.

To rightly understand the Old Testament as Jesus would have us understand it, we must look at the Old Testament, its people, prophecies and promises through the lens of the New Testament.

So put the lens of the New Testament in front of your eyes as you look at the Old Testament, its people, prophecies and promises through the lens of the New Testament, so put the lens of the New Testament in front of your eyes as you look at the Old Testament.

In other words, to interpret a passage in the Old Testament, we must ask is there a promise that has been fulfilled?

Is there a prophecy that has come to light?

Is there a person this was pointing to what I want us to see this morning who the people of God are, who receives the blessing of Abraham, and does God have a nation, and if so, who is it?

Well, to that end, let's stand and read our scripture from 1 Peter and, just in honor of God's word, let's stand and let's read 1 Peter 2, verses 4 through 10.

1 Peter 2:4–10

If you would follow along to the best of your ability, it won't be on the screen, but you can follow along if you have a Bible, as you come to him.

Now I should just remind you something.

I'm sorry, I don't want to interrupt the Word of God, but just as a reminder, we studied for a decent amount of time that Peter is writing primarily to a Gentile audience.

We know that Scholars rarely debate that Peter is writing primarily to a Gentile audience.

So you have people who are not Jews primarily receiving this message.

But it's Jews and Gentiles.

The church is receiving this message, church spread abroad 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 and it quotes from Isaiah multiple times here Behold, I am 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 Peter's words.

They stumbled because they had disobeyed the word, as they were destined to do.

But you, you're 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.

God, would you bless the teaching of your word.

I'm infallible, your infallible help and I pray Amen, amen.

Thank you, steve.

Peter is writing to the church made up of Jews and Gentiles who have received Jesus and not rejected him, and in this part of the letter, peter this is on the screen intentionally identifies the church as the continuation of God's work in and through a people set apart as a witness of the work of God to the world.

There's your theological summary of this whole passage.

Peter intentionally identifies the church he is writing to Gentiles, jews and Gentiles, sorry Jews and Gentiles, who perceive Christ as the continuation of God's work.

Not as a new work, but as God's work continued right, His, prophesied in the Old Testament.

Now it's come to fulfillment in the New, in and through a people set apart, that is, a people for his own possession, people who were not once the people but now are God's people.

As a witness of the work of God who proclaimed the excellencies of him, we've called us out of darkness into his light, to the world of darkness and to his light to the world.

So Peter begins this passage talking about how many in Israel, ethnic Israel.

They're the builders in this passage, the builders from verse 7, that's actually from the book of Isaiah and how they, many of them, all of them, many of them, rejected the message of the Messiah, that is, jesus, the promised one to come, the anointed one, when he came with good news.

Now, many of them rejected him during his ministry.

Many of them were cut to the heart and saved in Jerusalem, 3,000 and 4,000, 5,000, before the gospel went out to Samaria and the rest of Judea, and to parts of the ends of the earth like Cappadocia and Bithynia, and Asia.

Like Peter's writing to he says these Israelites, these Jewish people, some of them stumbled over the cornerstone because they refused to obey or listen to the word of the one who was the stone, the living stone, living because he resurrected.

A stone because he's the beginning of this new house, this new building that God is creating, a building made up of people instead of like a tabernacle in the wilderness or a temple in Jerusalem.

Look with me again at verse 4, and I'll make a few comments here and there.

Verse 4, as you come to him, a living stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves are like living stone.

So who's the living stone rejected by men?

Well, the living stone rejected by men, well, the living stone rejected by men is the Sunday school answer is Jesus.

He's the one who resurrected.

He's God's chosen stone.

He's the one prophesied about in Daniel, chapter two, the stone that will come and crush the image that Nebuchadnezzar set up.

So who is the chosen and precious one to God that men and women have rejected?

That's Jesus.

The one despised.

That's Jesus.

In fact, he was written about very specifically in the same language in the book of Isaiah, chapter 53.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

It's a very well-known passage that has brought up multiple times in the book of Acts to show that Jesus was the fulfillment of the suffering servant.

I'll read a portion of Isaiah 53.

It's written somewhere around 600 years before Jesus was born.

He was despised and rejected by men.

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.

Even the prophet.

Isaiah said that some of God's people will not receive him.

He will be rejected.

Well, how do these Jews and Gentiles?

Peter is writing to come to Jesus as you come to him, verse 4.

Well, there's only one way to come to the Lord, to God the Father it's through Jesus.

And how do you come to Jesus?

Well, you hear the message of the gospel, the good news that Jesus, the Christ, the one promised about, died a sinner's death after living a perfect life, so that we who trust in him and what he has accomplished on the cross do not bear the punishment of our sin.

Because Jesus bore the wrath of God in our place and, with the righteousness he lived.

He covers us.

We receive his righteousness called an alien righteousness, not of our own.

When God the Father looks at us, he sees Jesus' perfection and not our imperfection.

Jesus paid the fine, the sin we owed.

For the sin we committed.

He lived a life we could never live, died the death we deserve to die to give us life we could never live, died the death we deserve to die to give us life we could never earn, so that we might never die.

The Bible tells us, upon conviction brought by the Holy Spirit, we respond to God's call in repentance and faith.

We have come to Jesus.

He's welcomed us, yes, even us, and as those who come to him in faith, they come to him made into living stones.

You see that Living stones, just as he was the chosen and precious stone rejected by men, you yourselves verse 5, are like living stones being built up as a spiritual house.

So House, verse 5, are like living stones being built up as a spiritual house.

So Jesus is the chosen stone, the foundation of this temple.

Well, I should just say that the word house is the same word used in the Greek substitution, which is the Greek Old Testament, that Peter would have used from.

When he says house, he means temple.

He means the Old Testament temple, right, or he means a temple like the Old Testament.

So when he says God's house, they have in their mind God's temple to him.

So he says God's house, they have in their mind God's temple.

So Jesus is the cornerstone of the temple.

It's the corner that holds everything else together.

Every stone is aligned by it.

So you start with a big cornerstone and you build from it, making your structure.

So in God's house, according to Peter, you don't have Jesus, you're not a part of the house.

If, according to Peter, you don't have Jesus, you're not part of the house.

If you come to Jesus, you're a stone of that house.

God's house, jesus is the foundation or the cornerstone of the temple.

God's temple, the cornerstone upon which it stands.

God's temple, the cornerstone upon which it stands, and those in him, the elect of God 1 Peter, chapter 1,.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

The chosen of God 1 Peter, chapter 2, as those in faith, with faith in Christ, are stones of that very temple which is being built up.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

Through faith in Christ, more people believe the temple grows and because of our union with Christ, we ought to see ourselves in that temple offering sacrifices.

So in the Old Testament, you had sacrifices offered at the altar, sometimes you had different altars outside of the Holy of Holies and the Gentile court or the court of Israel, and you bring sacrifices to atone for your sin, though it didn't last forever.

And then one day a year, on the Day of Atonement, the great high priest would enter into the Holy of Holies and make a sacrifice for himself, recover for himself and cover the people.

Jesus is the fulfillment of that sacrifice and all who come to him get to be a part of his temple now and offer pleasing sacrifices.

Well, what is the sacrifice that we offer?

I am not about to bring a goat from the back room right, that's dumb.

Jesus is the lamb.

He was already sacrificed, so continuing sacrifices is blasphemy.

It's saying that Jesus' sacrifice was enough.

So to reconstitute a temple and make new sacrifices is blasphemy.

So what sacrifices do we offer?

Romans, chapter 12, verse 1 and 2.

Romans 12:1

In view of the mercy of God, present yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, for this is your spiritual worship, living stones of the temple.

We make them up.

We are a part of God's temple, where he dwells by his spirit, and we offer our lives.

We are the testimony of God, like a tabernacle that moves across the face of the earth.

Churches, everywhere they are, are giving a witness to who God is, not just in one place, but in every place where there are believers brought by God's Spirit.

God wants to be known across nations.

He wants his nation to be seen everywhere.

The Old Testament temple was often referred to as a house.

So what is happening here?

Well, we are in the new covenant, a new era in salvation history, where God's house is made up of people who've come to his son.

The temple is no longer operable.

Sacrifices have been completed and are no longer accepted.

Christ was the fulfillment of both.

Through Christ is building the fulfillment of the former temple where he will dwell by his Spirit now and in his fullness forever, when he returns to dwell with his people.

Just like his people in the Old Testament, they awaited for the promise.

In Jerusalem, they prayed that God's Spirit would fall upon the temple.

Well, god's Spirit has fallen at Pentecost in his people, who are the temple.

But we do await where God returns and descends to be with us in the new heavens and the new earth.

So you see how all of this is being fulfilled through Christ forever.

The new covenant is, yes, great and even greater than the old.

So God dwells within his people, and his people are those who have come to Christ by belief and are subsequently joined with him.

Let's continue the passage.

So the honor is for you who believe.

It's verse 7.

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone to build the spiritual building God is building, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

They should, sorry, they stumbled because they disobeyed the word, as they were destined to be.

Now Peter says that those who rejected the Christ, the promised one offended by him, were destined to Now.

I don't begin to understand all of this, but God knew not only that Adam and Eve would sin against him and be separated from him, but knew that his people, israel, that he intended to use as a mouthpiece of his word in the old covenant, that many of them would reject him.

He knew it.

Here's again the mysterious sovereignty of God.

Israel's rejection was not surprising.

In fact, it was something God knew they would do.

He knew many of them would not be a part of that new temple or that fulfillment of the old temple, the spiritual temple.

So Peter, a Jew himself, cites from the Old Testament, psalm 118.22, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Now hear me, that is really important.

Psalm 118.22, the stone that the builders rejected.

You were the builders, israel.

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, the start of the spiritual temple, god's house, where we come to him through faith in Christ, jews and Gentiles, to be a part of his house.

And if you don't, if you reject Jesus, you reject being a part of the house.

You stumble, hold on, stumble.

The passage he quotes is really significant because in Psalm 118, 22, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

It's not what you would think it is.

If you were to go back to Psalm 18, verse 22, you would recognize that in that context the stone was Israel's king at the time, whose rule the foreign nations rejected Think Medo-Persia, babylon, assyria, foreign nations, egypt.

Psalms 18:22

So those dishonored by God who stumbled were those who rejected God's people by rejecting God's king, king of Israel.

But Peter now is applying this passage not to foreigners, like you might understand it in Psalm 19, verse 22, but to many in Israel who believe themselves to be building God's building on earth in Jerusalem.

Yet they rejected the cornerstone for God's building in the new covenant.

He's saying you're foreigners, just like they were.

They rejected Israel's king.

This is the true king of Israel.

You've rejected him.

You're foreigners.

Oh, would you come?

And so they, having rejected the cornerstone, have become the fulfillment of the original Psalm 118 passage.

Those, yes, those, even in Israel, are foreigners if they reject God and are dishonored by God, stumbling, rejecting God's people by rejecting God's King, king Jesus.

But wait, there is more, because there's another passage in the New Testament where this passage Psalm 19, verse 22, is used.

Where and how does the New Testament instruct us to interpret it?

It's in the parable of the tenants in Matthew, chapter 21.

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

The other time, psalm 19, verse 22, is used, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Can I read that parable to you?

If you say no, I'm still going to read it Matthew 21, starting in verse 33.

Jesus says hear another parable.

There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country.

A master has land, he builds a vineyard, or Baptist, but it's okay, right, vineyard, and wine's going to come from that vineyard.

Right when the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.

So he's got land, he has tenants.

He says you guys are going to wash over my land to produce much fruit out of my land.

And so he sent specific servants to that land to say, hey, I want to yield, I want to bring some fruit out, it's my fruit, I want to see what you've done.

When the season for fruit journeyer, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.

The tenants took his servants, beat one, killed another and stoned another.

So God sent messengers to gather the fruit for the Lord and he intended them to cultivate they kill him.

And again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them.

Finally, the master sent his son to them, the tenants, saying surely they will respect my son.

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves this is the heir, come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.

And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

When, therefore, jesus says the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

And they respond he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits and their seasons.

Jesus said to them have you never read in the scriptures?

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits, and the one who falls on this stone will be broken into pieces.

And when the parable is not too hard to understand, the land, of course, that the master owned is the earth.

The tenants of the land are Israel.

The servants sent to draw fruit out of the people, of what they've cultivated, are the prophets, which were killed.

Then the master sent his son, which they rejected, kicked out and killed.

That's Jesus, and he says the kingdom will be taken away from the builders or the tenants who've rejected Christ and given to believers, jew and Gentile, who've received Christ.

Now, who are the people he gives the kingdom of God to?

It says those who believe and produce fruit.

Those are the honored ones from our passage in 1 Peter, chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

The living stones who've received and not rejected the stone that crushed those who rejected him.

The church, made up of Jews and Gentiles who have received Christ, are the living stones who make up God's house.

You see that all across the New Testament, ephesians, chapter 2, one new man in place of the two.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

God is dwelling with his people, jew and Gentile, who have access to God by Christ through his spirit.

He's killed the hostility, he's broken down the dividing wall of commandments expressed in ordinances.

He has one new man in place of the two, where God will dwell forever in their midst.

So, hear me, the church is being built up as a spiritual house.

If you're a believer in the Lord, jesus Christ, no matter your ethnicity, you are God's new temple or God's the fulfillment of God's past temple.

Maybe I said better.

There you are what the temple was to point toward God's forever dwelling, where he dwells not just in one locale, in one group of people, but in every place, at all times, represented by those people.

We are being built into a proper dwelling place for God forever.

And let me just say this the temple God is building in His church or by His church, is greater than the former physical temple, both in quantity and quality.

Quantity because it's living and growing, being made up of all who come to God through Christ.

Quality because it's built on the eternal work of Christ and cannot be destroyed, unlike a physical temple made with human hands that had been destroyed three times.

And not only that, it's greater because of the presence of God.

The presence of God in the temple no longer resides with his people in a physical part of the temple.

He's set apart, and that temple, the church, is making sacrifices, making it the church and is called a holy priesthood Because God no longer has priests, as he formerly did.

What does it mean to be a holy priesthood?

Because that's what you are as well, according to the passage Believer.

Well, priests in the Old Testament helped offer sacrifices that represent God to his people.

They were ambassadors for the Lord.

They had access to God.

They had it one time a year.

You have it on the drive home today.

They were instructed to bring sacrifices.

We are to bring our lives.

What does God call his people?

Verse 9, those who come to him.

You do not project the stone.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

And it's important you know that he's also quoting once again that Old Testament passage here.

Where have you heard that phrasing before?

Have you heard chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, people for his own possession before?

Well, if you've read Exodus 19, you have Exodus 19,.

God was making a covenant with Israel at the base of Mount Sinai and he says, through Moses thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.

Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Peter uses that language.

With some exceptions, israel was this people, this kingdom of priests, holy nation, treasured possession.

Yet many of them in the new covenant reject the Messiah.

And Matthew says that those who reject the son and his message reject the father.

And John says, agreeing with him 1 John, 2, 23,.

In the New Covenant, no one who denies the Son has the Father.

Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

So how do we think a peer using this same covenant agreement, maybe Israel now gives it in some way to the church made up of Jews and Gentiles who've come to the living stone, because the church is God's covenant people.

They've not rejected the stone, they've received it.

Now there's one more thing.

What's the difference between Exodus 19 and 1 Peter 2?

Exodus 19, where he pulls that passage from.

Here's the difference.

And please, I know a lot of this is theological, but please, what's the difference between Exodus 19 and 1 Peter 2?

If maybe you didn't hear that, if conditions, you will be my people, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, if you will be my people, you must obey my voice and keep my covenant.

If you will be my people, you must obey my voice and keep my covenant.

Peter says have you received Christ, who perfectly obeyed, as we will read, the covenant of God, the commands of God and the place of those who never did?

If you come to him, the one rejected by many, there's no.

If Jesus removes the conditions of the elect, the church is not chosen based upon any work of its own doing or moral maintenance.

Thereafter, the church made of Jews and Gentiles, recognized all by their reception of Jesus and their repentance of sin, is saved and sanctified, held and made holy by God and for God.

The new covenant is better than the old because the new covenant is not merely based on men who fail, but a man who is faithful.

The fulfillment of the covenant made to Israel was fulfilled in Jesus, the perfect one of Israel, and all who come to him receive the blessings of that covenant.

A new covenant without any perfection necessary, the perfection of Jesus.

All who believe in Jesus are made the people of God and are the true covenant.

People of God.

Ephesians, chapter 2,.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Now, in Christ Jesus, you who are once far off have been brought in the year by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, so making peace, creating in himself one new man in place of the two.

There is but one way to God, and it is through his Son.

There is but one way to God, and it's through his son.

There is but one people of God, and it is known by belief in the son.

While many in Israel had been chosen by God in the old Testament to proclaim his majesty, some have rejected the Messiah and should not consider themselves, therefore, to be the people of God.

Those, and only those, who have and will trust Christ are God's covenant people.

Christ is the person of God and Christians believing in him are the people of God.

This is important because I think some people kind of view as if there are three peoples of God, and I want to make some things clear here before we move on.

There is those unbelievers who do not know the Lord, who have not received the Messiah, who have not trusted in Christ Jew and Gentile, and there are those who have received Christ, israel's Messiah, jew and Gentile.

We recognize them, called the church elect of God, adopted, redeemed believers in Christ, not in Adam.

There's two groups.

There's one way to go.

It's not through sacrifices anymore.

It's not through sacrifices anymore.

It's not through construction anymore.

It is through Christ and Christ alone.

There are two groups of people.

Now it is important to say this because some of you are like well, what about the future?

So let me talk about that for a minute.

Yes, there is a prophecy in Romans, chapter 11, 11, of revival in israel in the last days.

Romans 11 · chapter mention

Yes, absolutely, or they will hear the gospel prayerfully through people who had been faithful to share the gospel and they will join in the people of god grafted back into the vine.

Then, and only then, in joining the church of God, the elect of God, the people of God being graciously grafted back in the vine, it's not through the reconstruction of a temple, not in the reconstitution of sacrifices.

It must be by repentance for rejecting the Messiah, receiving the gospel from the church in faith.

I say this because I know this sermon is getting long.

I know that Because in the last 200 years there is this novel doctrine that arose that is referred to classic dispensationalism.

That I have believing friends who are faithful godly believers.

They just, I think, misunderstand this and I think Peter clarifies it, so it's worth bringing it.

That wall, now dying as a theological trend in the early 90s, still pervades the church in America.

A doctrine that, if you've even never heard the title, classic dispensationalism America.

A doctrine that, if you've even never heard the title classic dispensationalism, you recognize its views and maybe hold them.

That teaches the church is a mere parenthesis in God's plan with Israel.

But not only is that view foreign to 1800 years of church history before it you can't find it but it's foreign to the New Testament.

Paul said the mystery of God hidden, now revealed is that Gentiles are fellow heirs.

Paul said that the church is the blood-bought one new people of God.

John said that those who have received Jesus are the children of God.

Paul said circumcision counts for nothing.

John said the blood of Abraham counts for nothing.

Paul said the church is the Israel of God.

Galatians, chapter 6.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

Peter said the church is the elect of God.

1 Peter, chapter 1.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

And in our text this morning, the nation, priesthood and chosen people of God.

This is not replacement theology, if you've ever heard that phrase, a theological scare word created to sell books holding a theological viewpoint contrary to church history.

This is fulfillment theology.

This is New Testament theology.

Jesus is gathering his church, a nation of nations, not a comma in God's story.

A beautiful climax.

It's a beautiful climax because, by redeeming us, god is building a temple he will dwell in forever.

Who are the people of God?

A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation?

A people for God's special possession, called to proclaim his excellencies, a people who've received his mercy?

The answer to that question may seem obvious, and may have seemed obvious, maybe even unnecessary, but I don't think so.

John, chapter 1, he came to his own and his own people did not receive him, but to all who did, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

John 1 · chapter mention

He were born not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

Galatians, chapter 3.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

There is neither Jew nor Greek slave, nor free male nor female.

You are all one in Christ Jesus.

And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring.

Abraham Heirs according to the promise, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Did you hear that?

Who are Abraham's offspring?

Those who've received and not rejected Jesus.

They're not dependent on the blood of their father, on the blood of jesus.

Who are the people of god?

The answer to this question may have seemed obvious and a question unnecessary, but I don't think so.

Who are the people of abraham?

Who are those that are blessed and will be blessed, and who are those who will be cursed for cursing Abraham's offspring?

Those who curse the church, jew and Gentile, those who receive Christ?

It's you.

You're the fulfillment of that Genesis 12 promise.

It's always been you, for known, predestined and one day glorified.

You are Abraham's offspring, you are God's nation.

You are God's priest who made the right sacrifice.

You are the people of blessing.

If people curse you, you are blessed.

Jesus said that If people curse you, they are cursed.

You are God's people.

All of grace, all his forever.

If people curse you, they are cursed.

You are God's people.

All of grace, all His Forever.

Let's pray.