What Christian’s Are (Part C)

There's supposed to be something about us that is not just human, not just interested in our carnal appetites. We are supposed to have greater expectations because we know the deal.

We know where things are going. We start this life as humans, but we go on to a new birth. Now, if you are a human being without Christ, it is up to you to find out what kind of human being you're supposed to be. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Peter.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Here's Pastor Rick in 1 Peter chapter 2 as he continues his study called, What Christians Are. Now, he's not talking about, he's not introducing Calvin's doctrine of election.

He's talking as I mentioned, cause and effect, reaping what you sow. He points out the inevitable consequence of rejecting the Messiah is judgment. So a brief review of the history of the Jew.

And it is a sad thing, and it should, it's not gleeful at all, but it is fact. The two thousand years since the crucifixion of Christ, we have watched the nation of Israel, even though they've been without a land for most of those two thousand years, we have watched them suffer as a people who once had light and no longer do. They've wandered throughout the world. They have been strangers in Gentile lands, exiled, forced out of their own homeland. Their country dissolved into a state that has been trampled underfoot by the Gentiles and their powers as Jesus referenced at the time of the Gentiles.

They have been misunderstood. They have been hated and persecuted simply for being Jewish, not for attacking anyone. Simply for being Jewish. They have faced anti-Semitism in every country under the sun. And then there was that horrific Holocaust. No other people have been subject for so long a time to what the Jewish people have been subjected to. That is fact. That is history. And coupled with that is their rejection of their own God.

A judgment. But there's more, there's hope. But before that hope comes to fruition, there's going to be a lot more suffering for them as a people. And their own prophets have written about it long ago. It's there to be considered and to be shared from the scriptures. Now verse nine, but you are a chosen generation.

Let me pause there. If the Bible is right about all this with the Jewish people, then you who doubt the word because of your struggles, maybe it's some addiction in your life, something you just cannot get rid of, maybe it's an illness you can't shake, whatever it is, you have that more sure word of prophecy. You have God saying, listen to me.

My word is accurate. I've left enough proofs for you to see the fact that there are these other things in your life that you don't understand does not justify your rejection of the things you do understand. Hold to those things that you know to be true. The day will come, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow or for a long time, but the moment will come where all that is evil and weak about you will pass away.

And the only thing that will matter is your friendship with me. And this is what the Bible says to man, and God has hated for this by many. Verse nine, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. What Christians are.

That is what we are considering because Peter tells us. He's resuming his identification of Christians. He's giving us some identity. You're more than just human. The philosophers of the world, the best they can do is talk about humanity.

That's as far as they go. It takes an apostle, it takes a prophet to go beyond that and say there's more to you than your humanity. There's more to you than being human. Look at verse five of first Peter chapter two.

You also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. There's more to you than just pleasures and convenience and career and everything else. Peter tells us what we are even in the midst of difficult times, even in the midst of depression. You know, you just don't feel like life. You don't feel the joy. Anytime I get like that, because of one of you, kidding, but anytime I get him you don't need a reason.

That's the thing when you're depressed. You don't have to have all this is why. You don't have to. It's just there. It's always the same word from the Holy Spirit.

One foot in front of another, keep moving, keep moving. Don't lie down and wait for mercy from depression or anything else that is looking to harm you. Mercy is not something in Satan's vocabulary. It is not something that belongs to your sinful nature when it comes to confrontation with that between right and wrong. Peter tells us and remember he's writing to persecuted Christians. He's telling them what they are.

He's saying you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people. But I'm so unhappy. So what? You still have work to do. Clean up your room. You've still got to get it done.

You parents, you know when your child's room needs to be cleaned up, unless your room's worse than theirs, they got to get it done. And he's applying Exodus 19 to the church because it has been forfeited by the people and their rejection of Messiah. And so having already said the first thing about us and that we are born, or maybe I'll say it this way, begotten again. That's how he says it in chapter one. We are begotten again. And then he goes on to say we are born again, a different Greek word.

Same meaning. He takes for granted our humanity. He understands where people subject to all sorts of stuff. But again, he begins with a philosopher's drop off.

He applied all the terms that were for Old Testament Israel to the New Testament church now. It's now our job to be a light of the world. Moody mentioned about the lighthouse is that it radiates, it shines. It has no horn to blow. It just shines its light. That's what a witness is. America sees that lighthouse. He knows there are rocks over that way.

Stay away from there. We are to be this lighthouse. We are to radiate light and not blow our horns. And so he is raising Christianity up to a higher level than Judaism. Again, he said we are a chosen generation. God chooses to save all who choose to respond to God's terms and submit to them. That's who God chooses. We are a royal priesthood.

I'll open that up in a minute. We have time. We are a holy nation, his own special people. Chosen generation, we take that one first.

A new selected breed. That's what the Christian is supposed to be. We're not, again, not just human. There's supposed to be something about us that is not just human, not just interested in our carnal appetites. We are supposed to have greater expectations because we know the deal.

We know where things are going. We start this life as humans, but we go on to a new birth. Now if you are a human being without Christ, it is up to you to find out what kind of human being you're supposed to be. If you are born again, then it is up to you to find out what kind of born again you're supposed to be.

What is that going to look like? Well, Peter tells us some of the things that go into being. Born a second time. We are not to be as it was before we came to Christ.

If nothing else, how determination to adore him, to love him, to love those, again, who are not lovable. We belong to another world. When we first come to Christ, you kind of boast of that, don't you? I am not of this world. But as the days roll by, you find out this world is saying, yeah, well, let's see about that. We're going to find out how much of this world is in you or not.

And nonetheless, it is true. And so now we must figure it out, how to be the kind of believer we ought to be, remembering who we are. Because if we don't know who you are, you don't know who you should be.

Get a new job, not knowing much about the new job you have. You kind of stand around so someone can begin to direct you, tell you what to do. The same with coming to Christ. Yes, we have the scripture, but he himself has given us some to be, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor, teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ. And all of those positions of a authority are so often rejected by those who say, but I love Jesus. Well, why don't you act like it sometimes?

In those areas where you can pull it off, do you pull it off? A royal priesthood. Israel had a priesthood, but it was not a royal priesthood. It was an Aaronic priesthood, a Levitical priesthood. It was a priesthood of ritual. It was a valuable ritual at the time, but it was not royal. And those priests offered sacrifices, they made prayers, and they stood between God and the people. That's what a priest does. Now, the Holy Spirit says you belong to a priesthood, not just the men, the women too.

The Old Testament entrance into the Jewish priesthood was controlled by Mosaic law. You had to be a man. You had to be born into the family of Aaron.

No exceptions. It was restricted. Joshua could not be a priest. David could not be a priest. Daniel could not be a priest in Israel. King Uzziah tried to infiltrate the priesthood.

He was struck with leprosy on the spot. The kings could be prophets, but they could not be priests. The two lines never crossed in the Old Testament. Even Jesus Christ in the flesh could not be a priest according to the Old Testament law because he was from the line of Judah.

That is how it was, but that is not how it is. And of course, in 70 AD, their temple was destroyed. In 135 AD, the Jews were completely tossed out of their own land. And so everything that supported their Levitical ministry was lost. God had no use for it.

He had another priesthood now, according to the line of Melchizedek. Because every Christian is a royal priest before God, we do not need priests. As priests, we don't need a priest to confess our sins to or to go to God on our behalf. We don't need saints.

We don't need a figure named Mary to go to. We go directly to God. But what we do as priests is we pray for unbelievers to be saved. We pray for believers to be strong and safe and to mature in Christ. We have much work to occupy ourselves with as priests. Remember in the Old Testament, when God gave the Levites and the priests their uniforms, they were to wear hats because they would work out in the sun.

And they needed to be shielded somewhat from their elements. And it is very distinct. When you saw a priest or a Levite, there was no doubt who this person was, just by the garb they wore. Clearly, the lines were defined. And it should be that way with us.

People should come in touch with us and say, clearly, you're not like everybody else. Now I mentioned that the Old Testament priest stood between man and God. The New Testament priest, the church, we do too, but not for salvation. For salvation, we go direct to God through Him.

He is the one mediator. First Timothy 2.5, for there is one God, one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. That does not relieve us from intercessory prayer. He says, we are a holy nation.

What are you saying we are, Peter? Well, you're a priest according to the New Testament. You're also a member of a holy nation, which the world does not recognize, but God does. The word nation here in the Greek means Hebrew. Incidentally, before Pentecost, if you wanted to know something about God, you had to go through a Jew.

If you wanted to read something about God until the Septuagint, you had to read it in Hebrew. The New Testament church has changed all of that. Now the Jews come through the Gentiles as a rule. Now the New Testament is written in Gentile language. In fact, Luke was a Gentile and gives us the gospel according to Luke.

Things have changed. We're now a holy nation. We've gone beyond the borders of the promised land because of Christ and Pentecost when He said, be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the outer parts of the world. He says a holy nation.

Now holy has to do with being ceremonially separated, lined up right with God, but morally pure as well. And that is what, you say, I try, I try to be morally pure and I blow it. We know that.

That's not a surprise. What is disappointing is if you let that be all there is about you. There's more to you than your stumbling and your failings. There is this thing about you that Christ will not leave you because of those things. And so get up.

Fine, okay, if I'm struggling over here, I will make up for it on this side. I will punish my own flesh by making up for it according to righteousness. So the callings of Israel temporarily transferred to the church. That's what Peter is saying. They cannot go forward as light bearers of the world without the Messiah in a state of rejection. And so the church now has it temporarily. This does not do away with the Jewish people. God loves them still. Israel will be restored. Paul tells us in Romans that all Israel will be saved. That will be after the blood baths of Antichrist, though.

God's work has gone forward without those who do not want to go with his Son and the church is evidence of that. You have dual citizenship, you and I. Incidentally, we can be patriotic. We're not rebels in the societies that we're in, but we do have limits. If I were in the military as a Christian man and I was ordered to attack Israel, I wouldn't do it.

Couldn't do it. You see, there are boundaries there that set us apart. And I belong to a holy nation with a dual citizenship, but one has priority. This has caused persecution of the saints throughout history.

We're almost done. A special people. Yeah, I've met some of them special people, Lord. Your old King James Bibles might say a peculiar people. Well, when the old King James was penned, the word peculiar was used in a different way. Now it means weirdo. You say, what a peculiar person. We are not that. There was nothing weird about Christ or Paul or Peter. There's no honor to Christ acting like the oddball in areas of life where we should not be an oddball. And we got our quirks.

All of us have something. You who are married, you find them out after you've vowed to endure them. And, you know, you tell the young couple, listen, once you say I do, it's final.

There really are only two reasons why this is not going to be final. And almost all the time, it's like, oh, yeah, we're ready. Wait till you see what's coming. That's why they're given the vows. You put two sinners together, you're going to have problems. But that's not the whole story. There's also victories. There's also much to be had spoken like a true believer.

Amen. The Satan, he is the one that takes us to the side and gets us to focus on something that causes us to crash and not to fly. Years ago, there was an Eastern flight when I lived in New York, actually. All right, all that part's not important. The important part is the flight, this Eastern Airlines flight, they had a problem with one of the gauges. It was a relatively minor thing. But everyone in the cockpit got focused on this gauge, not reading. And as a result, they forgot they were flying the plane and it crashed and killed everybody. That's what Satan tries to get us to do.

Focus on one little gauge at the cost of the flight. We are a special people. We're not to be screwballs or loony tunes. But what makes us special? Two things. The blood of Jesus Christ and His truth. No one else has got that but the Christian. This chosen nation, this special people, royal priesthood, we have it. He says that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Peter, do you know we're being persecuted here? We want you to tell us when it's going to stop when we're going to no longer be persecuted. Tell us, Apostle Peter, when, ask Jesus, when is this going to stop? That's not the case, is it? He plows forward.

You are to proclaim His praises in the midst of taking hits. Yeah, I think as you get older in life, you reach a point where you realize that here it's really messed up down here. I mean, it's not going to really get better.

It's plateaued. This is what I have to work with. This is what I'm going to be judged by.

Okay, now I can get to business. Where before you get to that realization, you know, you just hope, you have these great hopes, these great ambitions. And then when you find out they're not so easily attained, you're either going to begin to crumble or you're going to take steps to make this serve the King.

And that's what He is telling them here. He is telling them, you are to proclaim His praises. I don't feel like telling Jesus how wonderful He is with this problem in my life. That's when you're supposed to do it.

That's when it counts the most. That's when hell is told, you can't sin. You can't shut me up from praising Christ because I've got misery in my life. Pentecost is supposed to have changed all of this in the lives of believers, and each believer is supposed to have a personal Pentecost. In verse 10, who once were not a people but are now the people of God who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. Now he's referring to another prophet, Hosea. See, he was a man of the word at this point in his life. And everything he is saying is based on what God has said.

And God is giving him more. Hosea. God disowned the northern kingdom at this time because of their idolatry and their unfaithfulness. But Hosea in his own personal life was going through a parallel problem. His wife was being unfaithful.

Gomer was not being true to her husband. And God was using that as an object lesson for the nation. God was saying, I will disown you. And yet, God made a provision to bring them back.

Well, all of us, we were sinners, lost in our sin, and God has made a provision to bring us back. And Paul writes to the Corinthians, he's talking about the immorality, the sins that people engage in. He says, and such were some of you, and such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. He's saying, who were once not a people of God, but now are because of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, I'll not leave you orphans.

I'll send the Comforter. The people of God, we close with this last phrase. The church is no longer Jew nor Gentile. It is just Christian.

That's it. Yeah, your ethnicity is your ethnicity, but it really doesn't count with God. What counts with God is your standing with Jesus Christ.

It counts with people. People want to know, some for good reason, some for not. But we are subject now to engage the enemy's interest, his deceptions, his lies. We have been brought into this nation, a royal priesthood, a battling priesthood, and remember the Levitical priests, they were warrior priests too. We are to engage the deceptions of Satan and the lives of others by telling the truth.

So Jews and Gentiles who believe are the people of God. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of 1st Peter on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and we're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the scriptures right here on Cross Reference Radio.