We Are Living Stones, Royal Priests, A Holy Nation - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. That's a very important promise to us. You believe in Christ, you'll not be disappointed.

You see, that's a very important thing for us to understand. Ultimately, at the end of it all, none of us will be disappointed who believe in Christ. Some of us in these days, even in our circumstances, will not be disappointed if we choose not to be.

We can still be disappointed here if we decide we want to be disappointed, but he said you shouldn't be. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. In World War Two, five million people were taken prisoner, found themselves as POWs in prison camps in Europe, Russia, Asia, the Pacific. The most notorious of the prisoner of war camps were run by the Japanese. They were probably the cruelest of all the camps. There was a commander in one of the Japanese camps who was extremely cruel. His name was Konishi, and Konishi was ruthless. He was brutal in his torture of his prisoners. One of the favorite things he enjoyed doing is he would starve the men for days or weeks, and then he would feed them rice in the shell and give them no tools to be able to take the rice out of the shell.

And it's just like razor sharp. The men would devour the rice and then the rice would carve up their stomach and their intestines. Whenever Konishi found out that the war had ended February 24th, 1945, he decided on that day that he would kill all the remaining prisoners in the camp. He didn't expect that the American troops would arrive to the camp that exact same day. And they liberated the camp from Konishi. He escaped and disappeared. And so they searched for him actually for years, and they found him in the Philippines as a gardener at a golf course. And so they arrested him. They tried him and they hung him. Before the execution, they asked him if he had a statement, and he said, I do.

I believe in and I love the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, how did you come to know Christ? He said that he had been so deeply affected by the testimony of the Christians that he persecuted and tortured. He said that those Christians maintained their faith under the direst, most horrific possible circumstances that a person could ever face. He said, for me, this hanging is simply a doorway into heaven. Konishi's hatred overpowered by the love of Christ. And the testimony of Christians. How can this happen?

How does something like that happen? On the one hand, you could say, yes, it's because of who he is. I mean, I understand that. But on the other hand, I think it's also because of who we are.

Who those prisoners were. I'm in the middle of a series entitled I Am Who You Say I Am. And I really believe that this series is so important because I think it's one of those elements of our faith that we overlook all the time. We read these words in scripture and we just assume the words and say, OK. Yeah, OK. What's that mean? But it's interesting that when you look at the word of God, it's not like God just simply says, look, there are people who believe in me and believe in Christ and there are people who don't.

They're unbelievers. So we're a believer and we are a believer. But God says, no, no, you're so much more than that. You have to understand this. The first week I said that God says, look, you're children of God. That's an amazing thing.

It's an expression we use lightly. But when you think about it, you're children of God. Jesus told Nicodemus, you must be born again into the family of God.

He said, that's what you must do. And then we're born into the family of God. The scripture then says, God says, I adopt you as sons and daughters by which we cry out.

Paul said, Abba, Papa, Daddy or Father. He said, yeah, and not only are you adopted children of mine, but you are joint heirs for everything. You're going to inherit everything that exists because you're my child.

I mean, that's an amazing thing. And then last week I said, the scripture says that we are new creations in Christ. He said all the old things have passed away. New things have come.

I'm not sure we ever grabbed that. I think what we end up thinking is, you know, I've just brought me into the Christian faith with all my baggage. And, you know, I can't do this and I can't do that. And Paul says, no, no, you're a new creation. You should look at everything different. He said, you should look at suffering and death differently now than you ever did before.

You should look at life and service differently than you ever did before. You should look at yourselves differently. You should look at Jesus Christ differently.

You should look at the cross differently. He said, in those cases, that's what I want you to know. He said that's that identity you have is extremely important to him. He's saying, look, if you're a child of God in Acts chapter one, he says, you're going to be my witness now. You're going to testify to people what I did to you for you. And then he said, if you are a new creation, he said, you're my ambassador. I appoint you my ambassador to the people around you. Now, today, I want to look at a third, fourth and fifth thing that God says about us. And I want you to open your Bibles to first Peter, chapter one, first Peter, chapter one. You need to understand the context of this.

It's very important. The people that are receiving this this letter from Peter, they're spread all over what we call modern Turkey. They're spread over Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia and what they called Asia. They're spread all over.

And let me be as clear about this as I can. Their life stinks. Their life is as bad as their life can be. They're hated. They're persecuted.

They're struggling. And so Peter says, I got to write a letter to encourage you. And so one of the first things he said, we looked at this before. Look at verse three. He said, Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable. It's undefiled.

It'll not fade away. It's reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last day. He said, Look, I just want to let you know how it turns out. I say this all the time. I read the end of the book. We win. That's important for you to understand. When you come to the end of your life.

You win. You need to believe that you see. That's what Peter's trying to tell them.

Look, it's all reserved now. Their life right now is not good. Notice what Peter then says in verse six. He said, In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials. Your life stinks. These people have been brutalized, businesses taken, some of them incarcerated, put into prisons.

This is a terrible time for them. Peter says, Don't worry about that. You're a child of God. So he talks about being a child of God. And then over in Chapter two. I want to pick it up in verse four.

He said, I want to say three more things about you. He says in verse four and coming to him as a living stone. Which has been rejected by men, but his choice in the precious sight of God, you also as living stones are being built up into a spiritual house.

We are living stones in the same building. That's what he's telling us now. First, what's that mean? I mean, very seldom would you ever say to someone you want to encourage or, you know, how often would you say to your spouse, you know, I want to want to flatter you, honey, you know, you're a living stone, you know, but this is amazing. Notice he starts out by saying as coming to him. That's a present participle, present tense participle. It doesn't mean when I became a Christian, it means I keep coming back to the Lord, back to the Lord, back to the Lord.

And he says, look, when you keep coming back to the Lord, I want to remind you of a couple of things here. In here, Jesus has called her a living stone. That's an oxymoron. A living stone. How do we use the word stone? Stone dead, right? He's stone dead because stones are dead.

He said, not this one. This is a living stone. He said you come to him as a living stone. He said, notice, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in God's sight.

Wow. He said, whatever God, God calls him precious, what men say they reject. There's another thing here. He said you as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house. That's the church. We're all living stones.

It's an interesting way of viewing it. In Matthew, chapter 16, Peter said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And he turned to disciples and he said to them, you're right.

And upon this rock, I will build my church. He never met a building. He never met a denomination.

He never met an organization. He meant people. I will build my church. We are all living stones. In fact, that's what he goes on and says. Notice you also as living stones are being built up into a spiritual house. And then he does something interesting. He quotes Isaiah and Psalm 118. He said this has always been the case. He says in verse six, behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone.

Let me just stop there for a moment. Jesus has called this all the time, the cornerstone. Now, still in architecture, once in a while with certain type of buildings, we'll still have a cornerstone, but it's basically ceremonial.

You might put the date on it. In 1963, that's when this was built. It's just the cornerstone. But in construction in those days, if you were going to build a building of any size or substance, the most important thing about the building is the cornerstone. The cornerstone has to be perfect. If the cornerstone is perfect, the walls are perfect, you see. And if it's not perfect, then the whole building is not perfect. That's why Jesus is called the cornerstone.

He's that one. And he says, behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, precious cornerstone. And he who believes in him will not be disappointed.

What a great way to look at it. That's a very important promise to us. You believe in Christ, you will not be disappointed.

You see, that's a very important thing for us to understand. Ultimately, at the end of it all, none of us will be disappointed who believe in Christ. Some of us in these days, even in our circumstances, will not be disappointed if we choose not to be. We can still be disappointed here if we decide we want to be disappointed. But he said you shouldn't be.

And then he goes on and he says this. This is precious value. Then it is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve the stone, which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. For they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom.

They're also appointed. What Peter is talking about in a general sense here is religion. He said that the cornerstone Jesus Christ is always a stumbling block to religious people. Always it was to the Jews. It is the religious people today.

Even people that call themselves Christian or religious. It's a stumbling block. It's a stumbling block to the great religions of the world. It's a stumbling block to Islam.

It's a stumbling block. No, no, that can't be right. It can't be all about Jesus. It can't be about Jesus Christ dying as a substitute. It can't be that it's all grace and that all I have to do is believe. It can't be that I stumble over that. That's too easy.

I need to be doing something. He said, if you do that without Christ, he said, it's because you're disobedient to the word and to this doom. They'll be appointed. He said, it can't work that way.

You can't do that. No matter how sincere or zealous you are. I mean, think of a think of a Muslim terrorist. He puts a whole bunch of bombs on himself in a vest, and then he walks into a crowded area and blows himself up. Serving Allah, and he blows himself up and all the people. And one of the reasons, not the only, but one of the reasons he blows himself up is the moment he blows himself up and goes into eternity. He'll be in the presence of 72 virgins.

72 virgins. But he won't. He'll be in the presence where is the weeping and wailing and the gnashing of teeth.

He's going to be extremely disappointed. You see, no matter what the religion is, if you stumble over Jesus Christ, you've stumbled. He said, that's the way this works. The scripture says in the Book of Acts, there's no other name given among men by which we must be saved. It's just Jesus. Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life, and no one will come to the Father unless they come through me.

And that makes a lot of people stumble. I pray that's not one that you're not one of those people. That somehow I'm going to do something religiously and impress God because you're going to end up extremely disappointed. We are living stones in the same building. He says something else here, though, in verse five, he says, you also as living stones are building up to a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Down in verse nine, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood. Wow. So he starts out there in verse five. You also is you plural, you all from the south, you all. He said, all of you, he said, all of you, he said, are part of a holy priesthood.

Wow. Those are the words, by the way, that had a lot to do with the starting of the Reformation. When Catholic priests understood that this is what the word of God said, men like Martin Luther said, don't ever call my call me a priest unless you call yourself a priest because we're all priests.

Universal priesthood of believers is a fundamental fact of the New Testament. He said, we're all priests. Some of you come from backgrounds and you think, no, the priest is especially designated group of people.

They're not your especially designated group of people. And you're not just any priest. In fact, first of all, he says you have a holy priesthood set apart by God. That's pretty good. But then he says that in verse nine, that it's a royal priesthood.

That's really cool. You know how many royal priests there are in the Bible? One Melchizedek. The king priest of Salem, just one. No Levite, not Aaron, not any of the Levites are ever priests. Melchizedek's a priest. He goes, yeah, that's the kind of priesthood you have, because Melchizedek is a theophany of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is a king priest. And you and I are king priests. All of you, you see, you know, what's ironic about this, though, if you think about it from another point of view, who wrote this? Peter. Isn't that interesting? The first pope. Wrote that. We're all priests.

How did that get so messed up? You said we're all priests. Now, the point of it is, what's so big about being a priest? Notice offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You and I make offerings. You know how often?

All the time. Your life and my life. Let me show you this.

Go with me. We'll come back to Romans Chapter 12. Romans Chapter 12. In verse one. The apostle Paul writes this. He said, Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God.

He can't you can't plead more than that. I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God. This is so important to present your bodies, a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. So as a priest, what can I offer God? Me. And that's what you should offer God.

You. I offer me a living sacrifice. J. Vernon McGee was the first guy I ever heard say it, but he he said one time the problem with living sacrifices is they keep getting off of the altar.

You know, you can't keep them up where they belong. And there's a lot of truth to that. But I am to offer up to God a living sacrifice. It's me. I'm a priest. That's what I'm offering you, God.

What's that mean? I'll do anything. Anywhere, anytime, at any cost. You just tell me you have me. You see, that's what Paul said. That's what you need to do.

You need to offer your whole life. But there's more parts to it. Go with me now to Hebrews chapter 13, the book of Hebrews chapter 13. In verse 15. Here, the writer of Hebrews says this through him, through Christ. Through him, he said, then as continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of the lips that give thanks to his name. God says, there's another thing I want you to offer me.

I want you to offer me the praise of your lips. Notice the word there is continually. It doesn't say for an hour on Sunday morning. It doesn't say that.

It says continually. I want you to continually praise me. He said, that's what I want from you.

Next verse. And do not neglect doing good and sharing. For with such sacrifices, God is pleased. God says, you see, when you do good with other people and you share with other people, God says that's a sacrifice to me.

Thank you. You see, you're offering me sacrifice. You offer me your life. You offer me your praise.

You offer me your thanksgiving. You offer me doing good in Ephesians Chapter five. Paul says, when we love God, when we have love for God and others, we're offering up spiritual sacrifices. The motivation of the Christian life is not a religious motivation. I don't live a certain way because of fear or because of guilt. I live that way because of love and gratitude.

That's what he is saying. That's what you do. You offer it up to God. It's interesting that in the Book of Revelation, the writer keeps saying that the prayers of the saints are offerings to God.

He sees them as a sweet aroma. Every time we pray, we make an offering to God because we're priests. That's our role as priests. In the Old Testament, you had priests that were chosen by God. You and I are chosen by God. You had priests in the Old Testament that could only be cleansed by the blood of the sacrifice. And you and I are cleansed by what?

The blood of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. You see, but we're so different than they were. Remember Mount Sinai? If you saw it in the movie, you know, it was pretty cool. It was kind of wild looking up there and all the people are down on the bottom.

They're terrified. How many people could go up to Mount Sinai and be sort of in the presence of God? One.

Right? Just Moses. You know, that's it. So, and then you think of the Holy of Holies. How many people could go in to where the mercy seat is, the Ark of the Covenant, the holiness of God and say, I'm here? Just one. The high priest. How often?

Once a year. That's it. And he had bells on his garments. The reason he had bells on his garments was that if you don't hear the bells, that means he's dead. All right.

And the traditional rumor is that they used to tie a rope around his ankle so that if he did fall down, they could drag him out because if he went in to get him, you would die. That's how holy God is. Now, what about you and I? The writer of Hebrews says, come boldly. You and I go boldly to the throne of grace. You and I go boldly.

Not once a year. Any moment we want to. And not only can we go boldly, but because you and I are children of God and adopted, I can actually go boldly into the presence of God, climb up on his lap and call him Papa or Daddy. And I can talk to him. And it says at that throne of grace, I will receive mercy and grace from God. You've been listening to Pastor Bill 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. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.