We're going to this evening be
looking in the second chapter of 1 Peter again. We're going
to continue our consideration of the nature of the church,
the true nature, and this evening we'll look at its foundation.
We'll also, of course, in the same context look at the membership,
the privilege of being members of that true church and the blessings
of it. These are wonderful truths. Let
me draw your attention to 1 Peter chapter 2. I'll read verses 4
to nine to whom coming as unto a living stone disallowed indeed
of men but chosen of God and precious he also as lively stones
are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ wherefore
also it is contained in the scripture behold I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone elect precious and he that believeth on him shall
not be confounded unto you therefore which believe he is precious
but unto them which be disobedient the stone which the builders
disallowed the same is made the head of the corner and a stone
of stumbling and a rock of offence even to them which stumble at
the word being disobedient were unto also they were appointed
that ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him
who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. We see something here of Christ,
as it were, laid in Zion, a chief cornerstone. We think here the
picture of an edifice, of a temple, and the Jews would have been
very familiar with that. And again we have to remind ourselves
that to many that Peter wrote, remember he's writing to these
first Jews in Asia Minor, If you said to them, Temple or Zion,
they would have very, very fixed, rigid ideas, and you would have
to be careful to explain to them exactly what you're talking about. Now, of course, in this context
here, we're thinking of our hope, and we read in the first chapter,
chapter 3, that we've been begotten again to a lively hope. We were
discussing this over lunch. We know it means living hope,
but I actually quite like the word lively. Sometimes we think
the authorised version uses some rather antiquated expressions,
but I think it's rather good, don't you? Lively, I like that. And sometimes these words, they
catch your attention, don't they? The men who translated, they
knew what they were doing. They wanted us to get the sense,
not just being alive, but to be lively. And I think that's
a wonderful truth. And of course, it's all in the
power of God. Verse 5 of chapter 1. Kept by the power of God. We don't keep ourselves in the
faith. What a foolish thing to think
you do. God keeps you. It's a whole wonderful doctrine. It's one of those five points,
isn't it? The perseverance of the saints. We are kept by God. We have duties and responsibilities,
but God will keep us. He saves us. He will keep us
through faith unto salvation. ready to be revealed in the last
time. We have such a great God. Of course, as we were thinking
this morning also, we've been called to holy living. Verse 15 of 1st chapter, as He
has called you is holy, so be ye holy. In all manner of conversation,
the way you live, you walk, how we are, got to be holy. We have
to be different. I said this morning, when you
are out with your neighbours, when you are at your work, you
make a Christian profession, they mark it. And sometimes they'll
talk to you about it, and that's good if they do, and you can
then say something. Because it is written, be ye
holy, for I am holy. We live in a day where many of
the professing churches have no concept of this. You know
they talk, they want to bring filthy and vile things into the
church and say it's alright. But God says, be holy. And it's
all through Christ. Every time we must come, like
in verse 19 here, back to the precious blood of Christ as of
a lamb without blemish and without spots. All in Him. It's all to
do with His work, His righteousness that holds all things together. But we're thinking of the church
as some kind of temple. This afternoon I was thinking,
and I hadn't actually included it, but there's this lovely verse
in 1 Corinthians 3, I think it's verse 16. Know ye not that you
are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in
you. And I think that's a great thought
to underpin consideration of The idea of the church being
a temple. The thing about this is that
it says that you are the temple as it were. You are a body, almost
like a building. And the spirit of God dwelleth
in you. Jesus said to the disciples,
didn't he? Before he departed in John, he
said that the spirit is with you and shall be in you. Take
all the things of God and reveal them to us. If you're a Christian,
you have the Spirit of God within you. That's what makes you alive,
that's what makes you aware of your conscience, aware of sin. And also, I think it's the same
equivalent in chapter 6, verse 19, I think we have something
as well of the same. Yes, chapter 6, verse 19 of 1
Corinthians. Know ye not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? which you have
of God and you're not your own. I think it's chapter 2 Corinthians
6. No, I've got the wrong reference,
never mind. But you see that sense of it, that it's a glorious
thing that we have. If we'd be believers, God is
saying you are as the temple of God. I will indwell you. And
that's an important thing for us to consider as we live the
Christian life. We were thinking this morning
of that holy priesthood. We're thinking of living as kings.
These are wonderful truths to do with the Christian life. They're
wonderful truths to do with the doctrine and nature of the church. And I like the way Peter puts
this together. You know, in verses 4 and 5 of
1 Peter 2, he says, you're coming to Christ as a living stone,
disallowed of men, but chosen of God and precious. I was thinking
in the prophecies of Daniel how there's going to be that immense
stone that was going to come and crush all the kingdoms of
this world. Then Peter says that you also,
he's talking to Christ, but he says you also as lively stones
are built up a spiritual house. Notice that the spiritual house
is built up together. Some people think you do as an
individual, I'm sure you've all heard of people say, oh I believe
in God but I don't think I need to go to church and my answer
to that is always, well why don't you? Why don't you want to go?
Why don't you want to go and hear the gospel? Why don't you
want to go and meet believers? What have you got? And people
say, oh no, you can be a Christian without going to church. What
they mean is, we don't really want to do these things. We don't
really want to worship God. But you see, it's a spiritual
house. It's a holy priesthood. We offer
together spiritual sacrifices. And it's the unity of the church.
It's a wonderful and precious thing. I think often we find
with relatives and neighbours, they can't understand a church
like Salem. They don't understand the fellowship
we have. And you all know that, in a sense,
the Church of Christ is our true family. We have a relationship
in the Church. We don't really have, do we,
with unbelieving family members. And at times they find that most
peculiar. Well, we are a peculiar people,
aren't we? And that is how it is in the Church of God. It's
that holy priesthood. And it's all believers. It's
not two-tier. It's not the clergy and the laity. It's that priesthood of all believers. There is that oneness of Christ.
We know there is a difference between us. We are male and female.
We are bond and free. We know we have different gifts
and so on. We are masters and servants.
The gospel doesn't obliterate these things. Some people think
it does, but they don't. But we are one in Christ, and
that makes a big difference. Your attitude to slaves and servants. Think of the Philemon on Onesimus,
the teaching of Paul. There's a master and a servant,
but the attitude you should have together in Christ, and that
this man had proved himself very helpful to Paul, that's what
his name means, I think, and how he was sent back and how
he was to be received. You know, there's a oneness in
the Gospel, even between Master and Servant, as we were looking
this morning, to offer together those spiritual sacrifices, that
spiritual worship we read of in Romans 12. It's a wonderful
truth, but we see the foundation of all this in Zion. If you say
to a Jew, Zion, he knows what you mean. He thinks of the holy
city, Mount Zion. He thinks of the holy place.
He might think indirectly also we are speaking spiritually.
He knows from the prophets that we are speaking of the people
of God also. Therefore we would have very
fixed views. Peter here is speaking spiritually.
There is a foundation stone. It's not a foundation stone laid
by Solomon. It's not a stone laid by Herod
later. Or it's not a foundation stone
of the second temple under Nehemiah. No, this is something different. There's a chief cornerstone,
elect, precious, and the whole foundation of the church and
faith is Christ, a true foundation. And we love that, that wonderful
truth. We see that also in Isaiah 28
and verse 16. These things were prophesied. They've come to a fruition that
many of the Jews were not looking for and were not anticipating
how God was going to work out His great plans and purposes.
Isaiah 28 and verse 16. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried
stone. Now, if you didn't know the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, how could you understand what that means? And so the blindness we know
is upon the Jews and others today. They don't see that, you see.
Ah, but we see prophetically, Isaiah knew what this was. This
is a precious stone, a cornerstone, a sure foundation. And he that
believeth shall not make haste. It's all there, isn't it? In
the word of God. A true foundation. I should have
said in that same chapter, of course, that we see there the
opposition, of course, to this great truth. And if we go to
verse 15 there. Because ye have said, we have
made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.
when the overflowing scourge shall pass through it shall not
come upon us or unto us for we have made lies our refuge and
have forsook, we have hid ourselves in the midst of all that reflecting
by the people that Isaiah is bringing out God says I'm laying
a foundation you are in unbelief but I'm going to lay a sure foundation
and in verse 18 your covenant with death shall be disannulled
what you are following will be disannulled your agreement with
hell shall not stand When the overflowing scourge will pass
through, ye shall be trodden down by it. You need to be rooted
in that firm foundation which is Jesus Christ. Now we think
of Zion and Jerusalem. And again, if you speak to Jewish
people, they have fixed ideas. And again, when we speak to people
about some of our Christian beliefs, even people in churches, they
have very fixed and rigid preconceptions. And sometimes that's not necessarily
based upon a clear understanding of the gospel, which is what
we need. The true temple was not that
building. I'm not saying by any means those buildings were not
without purpose. Of course they're not. We know
that God had a great purpose in these things. It's all part
of the revelation of Christ and of the church. But they are not
the fulfillment. They are not the thing that God
was building to, leading to. That is the age of Christ. It's
the age of the last days we're in. The age of the church. That
kingdom, the millennium kingdom, if you want, where we live and
reign with Christ. We are in such a day that all
the prophets look towards. and they had the tabernacle in
the wilderness and at home we're reading at the moment through
Exodus and we're going to come to all those details I mentioned
last week all those details were important and I've said to you
they are important that God has made known as it were a precision
if we're going to worship him we have to be precise we do those
things that God wants not that we invent people are very good
aren't they at inventing religion. We have so many inventive religions. Think of all the nonsense that's
come out of the United States in the last 150 years. All the
quasi-Christian cults and Scientology and the rest of it. People invent
these things and lots of people follow it. Jehovah's Witnesses,
Christadelphians, you know the Mormons. They have their religion. They have their reward. But we
want the truth as it is in Jesus. Now the tabernacle was a wonderful
thing. God presenced himself there. You remember? There was
a pillar of fire by night. What a sight that would have
been. And a pillar of cloud by day that led the people. And
then that cloud would come and fill the tabernacle. And when
Moses came down from the mount, his face glowed. He didn't know
it. The Old Covenant was a wonderful thing because it was all part
of God's revelation. We don't dismiss the Old Testament.
Some people, you can meet Christians and say, we don't read the Old
Testament. It's old, it's done away. Hebrews says it's finished.
We only read the New Testament. Nonsense. I'm sure coming here
you know we cannot understand the New Testament unless we understand
the Old Testament because it's a fulfilment. And you need to
know, that's why we need to know some of the things that are here.
That tabernacle was not permanent. That was to do with the wilderness.
They were all wandering people. But the promise was that there
would be an inheritance. There was an inheritance for
God's people Israel and there was to be a land. And all these
things speak ultimately of the Kingdom of Christ. They speak
ultimately of the Heavenly Kingdom. but they are important and we
need to understand what God was saying in those things about
holiness, about worship, about precision, being separated, being
cleansed, all these things terribly important and of course Peter
and Paul have to try and address these things and to teach people
who have preconceptions in a way that we don't about these things
what was happening and we know that when they came to the land
they still had a tabernacle, we know it was at Shiloh for
many years but there came a time when David in the spirit of God
said we must build God a house God said well I've not dwelt
in a house before, a permanent house and the prophet Nathan
said yeah go, go build, didn't he? but then the word of God
came to Nathan And he said, no, you go and talk to David. He
said, no, because of your sins, you're not building this house,
but your son, Solomon, he will build me a house now. And we
were talking last week something about this house. Wasn't it glorious? We won't go into the details,
but the gold, the things that were in that house, they were
to, not to get people to worship them, but they were to speak.
of the glory of the Gospels, the glory of being people of
God. They were to the glory of God. But they were also, the
other thing that the temple was saying was there is a permanence
now. The Gospel is a permanent thing.
It's come to dwell amongst us. Amongst the people of God there
is the presence of God. It's not like the tabernacle
in the wilderness. There's something different and it's gospel in
that it looks to Christ. We have, as we've just read,
that indwelling of the Spirit. Jesus said, I go to the Father,
but I do not leave you comfortless. His physical presence was going
to depart, but the presence of the eternal God in three persons
was going to come and dwell with us in the Spirit. As we know
in Hebrews, we have one whoever lives to intercede for us in
heaven, even Christ who has gone before us as a man. But we also
know, don't we, from Romans, chapter 8, that we have one who
intercedes for us, one who's with us, who prays with those
sighs that we cannot comprehend, even the spirit of truth. So
there is, as it were, a picturing, a permanence, a glory to us. But God dwells in eternity. We
need to know our doctrine of God. People do not know who God
is. They have these crazy ideas of
God today. I'm sure you find that talking
to people. God is a spirit. He has no need. No need at all. He dwells in
eternity and we cannot grasp that. He is almost beyond us.
He is eternal state. He has infinite wisdom. He has
infinite power. How can we explain creation?
We are those who don't believe anything happens by chance, by
accident. Does order come from disorder?
No. We believe in God. But he did
not dwell in houses made by men. We see that in Acts 7 and verse
48. So this is quite a step change
of faith. We've got to, as it were, follow
this through. Acts 7 and 48. Heaven is my throne,
and earth is my footstool. What house will ye build me,
saith the Lord? is the place of my rest. Hath
not my hand made all these things? This is Stephen's defense. How can we build, as it were,
a house for God? And he's quoting there, again
it's from Isaiah 66, the first two verses. How much gospel we
know we draw from Isaiah. Thus saith the Lord, the heaven
is my throne, the earth is my footstool, Where is the house
that you build unto me? And where is the place of my
rest? For all those things have mine hand made, for all those
things have been saith the Lord, but to this man will I look,
even to him that is poor and of a contrite heart, and trembleth
at my word." All these wonderful truths, glorious truths, so we
look to God, not made with hands. There's something more precious,
Hebrews 9 and verse 11, in the economy of God, in the truths
of the Scripture. But Christ has become a high
priest of good things to come. And we know that great truth,
we've been looking at it. He is the high priest of a greater
and more perfect tabernacle. These are the ones who were looking
to a temple in Jerusalem, the Jews, the Hebrews. And this tabernacle
is not made with hands. That is to say, not of this building.
It is a spiritual These are very important truths. People want
buildings. Let me just say that. You know
where I'm coming from. People love buildings. I've been, as a young man, I
went to visit some pieces in Rome. They appalled me. People
loved it. They think it's a holy place.
There were legions of people going through and crossing themselves
and bowing to statues and idols and all the rest of it. And people
love that. But that's not the truth. They
love buildings. Let me say, I've known, even among strict Baptist
people, people making far too much of buildings. We mustn't
do it. We thank God we have this lovely
little chapel. Amazingly, by the providence
of God, even through war and destruction, this was provided
for us, a very suitable place. It's a house of prayer. And it's
a meeting place. And we must not, as you were,
treat it as a holy place. Yes, we respect it and reverence
it, but it is not a holy place. The church is, as it were, the
temple of God. Oh, but people love those. They
want the chapel, they want the trimmings, they want the flowers
and the ornaments. I know people who love churches
because of the colour of the windows and the candles and all
this. We won't have these things, will we? We want Christ. and
I'm sure you know all those things. And that church is built on Christ
and we were reading that of course in our reading this morning in
that lovely chapter we often go back to that such a powerful
gospel chapter, Ephesians chapter 2, perhaps we don't always come
to the latter part of the chapter. We've been brought nigh by the
blood of the cross. We were outside, we were Gentiles,
we didn't understand that which the Jews had revealed to them,
what was in the prophets. We were strangers, weren't we,
to Israel and how you dealt with it. He'd abolished that enmity,
the law and commandments and he's done this work of reconciliation
on the cross. and he preached peace and he
brought us in if we'd be in Christ. He's writing to Gentiles, no
more strangers. Peter's writing to Jews, Paul's
writing to Gentiles, no more strangers, he says, foreigners,
fellow citizens. That's where we are in the church
of Christ. And it's a household. It's another
picture of the church, isn't it? It's a building. It's a company of God's people.
It's the sheep of the fold. It's a household, there are so
many analogies. But it has foundations. This
church has much better foundations than the Temple of Solomon. That
was knocked down, destroyed. The Babylonians destroyed it,
set it on fire and broke it to pieces. Subsequent attempts to
build a temple were destroyed. We'll look at that shortly. But
they are very sure and certain foundations to the true Church
of Christ. And in the corner, the chief
and sure foundation is Jesus Christ. Is that our sure and
certain foundation? Is that what you're standing
on? Is that what your life is built upon? And we thank God
there are the apostles and prophets, there are those who speak, who
as it were help to build that true church, who bring us God's
revelation, who bring us the truth. But they can do none of
that. There is no church, there's nothing without the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I say, and it's a perfect
thing. The Church of Christ as a building,
it has the best eternal architect it's it's not like you know you
if you go into buildings or modern buildings sometimes you see them
and you think why did they do this and why did they do that
or you find you get a new building then you find the air conditioning
doesn't work or you build a tower in Portsmouth and you can't make
the lifts work but not with God in whom all the building fitly
framed together grows into an holy temple in the Lord in whom
ye also are built together for an habitation of God through
the Spirit. We see what God is doing. Paul understood that. He understood what his work was
as an apostle and had great revelations to him that have been very humbling
to him. In his epistles he shares some
of this with us. If you go to 1 Corinthians again
and chapter 3 and verse 10 It says according to the grace
of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder I have
laid the foundation. And another man buildeth thereon,
but let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. Because
he recognized that in the church of Corinth there was a Porus
and others who were of course Cephas, who God was using to
build the church. He says for other foundation
can no man lay, then that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
You know that he is saying to the Corinthians were very full
of themselves. They were very important. They
were saying we don't need Paul. and these apostles, you know, virtues
who we listen to, Paul is saying, no, you need to understand the
true foundation is Christ. Now if any man build upon this
foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, and even wood, hay, and
stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day
shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire. And
the fire shall try every man's work, what source it is, but
the foundation must be the Lord Jesus Christ. He holds all things
together. Christ holds the church together. We are one in Him. If we're not in Him, how can
we be one? We can't be, can we? And that is the great truth of
the Gospel. The one we know, we were singing
it in that hymn, Contracted to a Span, one who came down to
this world who made himself of no reputation. The word there
is to do with emptying himself of that reputation of his apparent
position in glory. So that when people saw him,
they saw, as I said, there was nothing in him that we should
desire. When Pilate saw Jesus, he just saw him as a zealot,
didn't he? He saw nothing in Jesus. Nothing. Even when Jesus
said, I've come to tell the truth. And if you believe in free will,
you'd wonder why wasn't Pilate converted? Why couldn't Christ
convert Pilate? But he couldn't. This man was
lost, dead in his sins. It wasn't the will of God. We have to have that revelation.
But when we are in Him, as we see in this passage in 1 Peter
6, we're in a great position, that chief cornerstone. If we
believe in Him, verse 6, we shall not be confounded. We shall not
be put to shame. We shall not be, as it were,
in a bad place. To be in Him is the best place to be in this
world, isn't it? It is the safest place, the most
secure place to be. It's the happiest place to be.
Blessed is that man, isn't it, who dwelleth in the Lord. We
know these things. That's what the Church is all
about, to be in the true Church. It's, as it were, that thing
we must aspire to. That's God's best for us. It's not just, you know, pick
and choose which church I go to and so on. But we need to
be in a faithful company of God. Then we will help others in the
faith. They will help us. We work together,
we labour together, we pray together. That is the nature of the church. And together then we see this
in verse 7. Unto you, plural, therefore,
which believe, this is a corporate thing here, precious, and I love
that word, and it's interpreted in different ways. In here, in
my margin here, it says an honour, but it also has that feeling
of rareness, of special, unique as well, that is bound up in
that particular word. He's precious. Is he precious
to you? Is he precious to me that's how
that's what God wants us to know God has presented his son to
us and said here's my son and I'm well pleased hear ye him
is that what we're doing are we saying above all things that
we know all things that we see all things we've experienced
the most precious thing is Christ and I've met people and the most
precious things to them are all sorts of things all sorts of
ambitions and goals they have in life, you talk to people and
they're the things they want to do but what is it we want
to do? what is our goal? but we read
that to them who be disobedient this stone, the stone which the
builders disallowed, the Jews disallowed him so we won't have
this man to rule over us, away with him Crucify him. That's
what they thought of the Son of God. That's what they thought
of all his precious teaching. That's what they thought of the
miracles he performed. That's what they thought of the
words of God that he brought. They said, away with him. We
will not have him. He's disallowed. Away with this man. Crucify him.
But God says, the same is made head of the corner. Isn't that wonderful? In his
deepest humility, Christ was in His greatest glory. And we
thank God for that. But if you don't believe, let
me tell you, the Word of God said, this is a stumbling block
to you. The Gospel, I've known people,
I'm sure you've met them, it's a stumbling block, it's an offence.
I've had people very, very angry with me because I believe, shouting
at me, threatening me, because I believe the Gospel. They can't
see why I'm not like them, atheistic humanists. Why I believe what
they think is nonsense. They believe the most terrible
nonsense, really. They won't let you explain how
illogical so many of the world's views are. It's an offence. It's a rock of offence. It's a stumbling block to both
Jew and Gentile. He was disallowed by the builders,
even the Jews. They should have been those who
were building the true Church of God. Those who should have
faithfully followed God, the scribes and the Pharisees. When
they saw Christ, they knew the word of God, they knew those
things in Isaiah that we've looked at. They should have seen, this
is the Messiah, this is the one who was promised, they should
have followed him. But they were dead in their trespasses and
sins. On the contrary, they were those
who opposed him. Isn't it remarkable? And in our
day, just as an aside, we know there are religious leaders,
in different denominations, who oppose the truth, don't they?
Isn't that a wicked thing? God will judge them. God is not
mocked. We follow the word of God, but
we see that this is all being appointed by God in his sovereign
power. He has a wonderful purpose for
the church. Every part of it, even Salem
here, don't you believe that God has a purpose for us? We
might feel we're just a few and we're mean, but oh we trust that
God is with us. speaking to us, helping us to
live day by day. I think I've said it before,
I've sat in there praying with the pastor before the service,
and Sunday morning we say, this is the place we want to be. We
don't want to be anywhere else. We want to be here. We want to
worship. This is what we want. This is
the worship we desire. We look to Christ, don't we?
He's the Living Stone. And we are to be lively stones.
We are to be like Him. We are to be patterned upon Christ. are to serve. It's a spiritual
temple with many parts. The temple of Solomon was glorious. It was the high point, wasn't
it, of the nation of Israel. Wonderful days, weren't they?
And so the church of Christ, spiritually, has to be as glorious. It's not a visual thing in a
sense, but spiritually it has to be glorious like Solomon's
temple. The disciples, when they came
to Jerusalem, that last time they cried, said, look at this
temple, look at Herod's temple, look at Jerusalem, what a fantastic
place, and Jesus said, every stone will be thrown down, but
this body, my temple, will be raised again in three days, and
you know when Jesus was at his trial, that was held against
him, he said, he's going to destroy this temple, and raise it again
in three days. As if that was a charge against
him. Anybody can say I'm going to knock down the houses of Parliament
and build it in three days. How can that be punishable by
death? But you see, they were trying
to find some blasphemy in him. No, he was that chief cornerstone. Now we come to the Eternal State.
What about Temple in the Eternal State in Revelation 21 and verse
27? we shall read here, we read there
shall in no wise enter into it the holy city anything that defile
it neither whatsoever worketh abomination or made a lie but
they which are in the Lamb's book of life and I think I might
have the wrong verse there we read that the city, verse 22,
had no need of that's right, verse 22, there was no temple
therein for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb of the Temple of
it. There's an end coming, an end of this idea of Temple. It
has a purpose and it's all part of the revelation of the Gospel
to us. But in the Holy State, when we see all things, when
we know as we are known, when we are there in the presence
of God, we don't need a Temple. We don't need somewhere, as it
were, for God, the Spirit, or somewhere to come and dwell.
We are with Him. We're in that eternal state.
There is a fulfilment. And we read the Lord God and
the Lamb are the temple of it, as it were. We're there, beyond,
as it were, the temple of the Church. We see God. And so we
see here that there is a need then to come and embrace and
understand Christ. We thank God that we have the
testimony of Peter in Matthew 16 and from verse 13. Peter has a testimony. Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the Living God. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood
have not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And so we thank God that there
is that revelation. Peter had it. Have you got it?
Are you clinging to Christ, to embrace Him by faith as though
God has revealed Him to us? Do not spurn Him. come to him. This is what the gospel says.
So we see in all this there is a challenge of trust to our view
of the church as glorious and the nature of the church. May
God lead us on and help us to understand these truths, the
nature of the church but also in conclusion that we might see
our membership of it how important that is to be. We might understand
that we all have a role, we all have a purpose. There are all
those works that Christ has before ordained that we should take
part in, that we should serve together and together as the
Church of Christ. Based upon that foundation of
Christ we should be as it were a temple, a spiritual temple
of lively stones that we should be to the praise and honor of
God Almighty. Amen.