All right, brethren, we're going
to begin in 1 Peter. 1 Peter, chapter 2. And our text will be in verses
4 and 5, but I'm going to read the first five verses. 1 Peter
2. Wherefore, laying aside all malice,
and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may
grow thereby. if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious
to whom coming as unto a living stone disallowed indeed of men
but chosen of God and precious ye also as lively stones are
built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So the last
time we met in our last Last week, we saw how the Lord's people
lay aside the works of the flesh there that are listed in verse
1, and that is by the power of Christ our Savior giving us a
new heart and a new spirit that desires to walk with the Lord
and looking to Him and trusting in His works and not our own
works, so that we leave behind those works of the flesh that
we were under when we were under the law of sin and of bondage,
just under the dominion of those things, and under the dominion
of the works of the flesh. But God the Father comes, and
he gives us life, he gives us his Spirit, he washes us in the
blood of Jesus Christ, so that we're cleansed from our sins
in the blood of Christ, our Savior, and we're taught of God, that
we might know him, and be settled in Christ, and grow in Christ. And so the believer comes The
God, the Father, not in their own works of righteousness, not
looking to the things that they do or don't do or what they have
done, they're looking to Christ. And they're resting in Him and
they're trusting in Christ because that's how God accepts us. He accepts us in the person of
His Son, Jesus Christ. We come offering, not our works,
but we come offering the blood of Christ. That is, we trust
in the blood of Christ, knowing that that's why Christ came.
to put away our sins. At that time, when we were in
our flesh, the law had something to say to us, right? And the
law demands a perfect righteousness. It demands perfect righteousness
from us, and we must give it in order to be accepted by God. So, when we were under that dominion,
we realized quickly, we can't keep these things. We can't do
these things perfectly. So, in our flesh, we turned to
the natural works to guile and hypocrisy and malice and all
kinds of craft and things like that, that we might convince
ourselves and convince others that we did know God, that we
might have some sort of feeling of satisfaction and acceptance
with God by trusting in those works. It's like that story you
hear of two men coming upon a bear and they're both trying to run
from the bear and one says, I don't have to outrun the bear, I just
have to outrun you, right? And so that's how we are in the
flesh. We're just looking to outrun other people so that we
might appear better and convince ourselves that, yeah, I guess
I am a Christian because I'm doing better than that guy over
there. And those are the things that we look to. And even now,
I'm sure it's here, maybe in different ways or in different
amounts, but help North, Northeast, You see how people hate God.
They've put God out of their mind and out of their thoughts.
As Paul said to the Romans, even as they did not like to retain
God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reparate mind
to do those things which are not convenient. So that now we
find ourselves living in those last times, those last days,
which Paul called perilous times, where men and women are just
outward and bold in their sin and their hatred of God and doing
that which pleases their own flesh. They don't even think
about the things that at one time they maybe would have had
shame over because they've just put God out of their mind and
they don't think about the Lord anymore and whether or not what
they're doing is evil or not. But turn over to Romans 6 verse
20. Christ our Savior has to break
that power and that dominion that sin and Satan has over us
by nature. Before we knew Christ, by nature
we were under the power and the dominion of Satan so that he
could just take us and use us at his own will. But Christ must
come and deliver us out of that power. So in Romans 6.20, Paul
says, For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those
things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is
death." So that as we were laboring and working under the power of
the flesh and under sin and of Satan, we did those things that
we thought were right or didn't care if they were wrong. We just
didn't care. We were spiritually dead. And
so Christ comes along and he by his power and his grace and
his spirit gives us life, and he's the one that brings us out
from that darkness and out from that dominion of sin and Satan. And Paul goes on to ask in Romans
7, 1, Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know
the law, how that the law hath dominion over man as long as
he live it. So by nature we were under the
dominion of the law. But watch now. We'll see how
that God himself takes us out from under that dominion, and
he brings us under the law of Christ. He brings us to Christ
our husband. So that Christ now is, we're married to Christ,
and he bears fruit in us unto God. We couldn't do that in our
own flesh. We were dead in trespasses and
sins, and we may be labored and clawed and scratched to bring
forth fruit, but we were unable to bring forth any fruit to be
pleasing to God. Romans 7 2 for the woman which
hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as
he live it but if the husband be dead she is loosed from the
law of her husband so then if while her husband live it she
be married to another man she shall be called an adulteress
but if her husband be dead she is free from that law so that
she is no adulteress though she be married to another man right
so by nature Either we had no regard for God or we were religious
and we tried by the law to be pleasing and to make ourselves
pleasing to God and to do those things that might be accepted
of God our Father. Well, we couldn't bring forth
anything. The best that we could do was bring forth stinking,
rotten, dead fruit, because that's all that the flesh can produce.
It can't produce anything that God will accept Himself. But
God in mercy had determined to save His people. He didn't leave
them to themselves, because we know by ourselves, by our own
works, we can't please the Father. We can't undo what we've done.
We can't clean ourselves up and make ourselves clean of the sin
that we've committed against God, but God sent the Son, sent
His own Son Jesus Christ into the world for the very purpose
of putting away our sin, doing for us what we can never do for
ourselves, so that Christ is the propitiation for our sins.
He is the means of forgiveness that God has provided for His
people, so that in Christ, when Christ walked the earth, He fulfilled
all righteousness. He, as our substitute, fulfilled
all righteousness on our behalf. And when He went to the cross,
He bore our sins, and He bore us in Him so that when He died,
we died, so that the law no longer has dominion over us. The law
can say nothing more to us. We look to Christ. We're under
the law of Christ. And the law looks at us and says,
you're perfect now. There's nothing I can say to
you. There's nothing more I can say to you. We're no longer married
to the law. We're no longer under the dominion
of the law. There's nothing more the law can say to us. It's been
satisfied completely by the Lord Jesus Christ. So that now in
Christ, being married to him, we bring forth fruit unto God
the Father. And he accepts it. because he
accepts his son Jesus Christ. Look at Romans 7 verse 4. Wherefore,
my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is
raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto
God. For when we were in the flesh,
the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from
the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should
serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. So we see now how God has provided
the salvation in his son, Jesus Christ. And that brings us to
our study here in 1 Peter 2, verse 4, where he says, to whom
coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but
chosen of God and precious. so that we come to our Lord Jesus
Christ who has provided a better hope for us. We were hopeless
under the law because we could do nothing to please God. We
couldn't bring forth living fruit. All we brought forth was dead,
corrupt fruit of this flesh. So that it pleased God that in
time to send his son, to bring him forth, being born of a woman
under the law, to fulfill all the law on our behalf, so that
the law is now perfectly satisfied and it's been fulfilled in Him.
And He being righteous and we being in Him are perfectly righteous
before God, our Father now. And He's pleased to send His
Spirit to dwell in us, to make us alive to the things of God
so that we hear His voice, we see who the Lord is, we understand
what we are by nature, so that we no longer have confidence
in those things. And He teaches us, breaking us from all that
filth and those grave clothes, and he takes us away from that,
turning us more and more to see that everything that we need
is provided for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we rest in
him, rest in him, rest in him. And that's why he sends us the
gospel, that we might hear it over and over and over again,
because that's what we need. That's where we're fed. We are
fed Christ, and that's by whom we live. by whom we delight to
hear and rejoice to hear in Him, because that's in whom we have
life. The Lord doesn't look to us for
anything, not the things we do or the things we don't do. He
looks to the Son, Jesus Christ. And as He enables us to hear
that and to rest in Him, we walk rejoicing in what He's done.
And we stop having to look at our flesh and fight those things
of the flesh, you know, looking to them. thinking about those
things because we're looking to Christ and we're resting in
Him and delighting in Him and what He's done. So, we need Christ
and the Lord's going to show us our need of Him. In Romans
3.23 it says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. for whom God hath set forth to
be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through
the forbearance of God to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
that he might be just and the justifier of him which we leave
it in Jesus. So our Lord brings us to the
Savior to behold him that he is sufficient for all our needs
and he breaks us of that dead dead-letter religion, which is
always looking back to self, right? When you were just dead
in religion, you were always looking back to something that
you could find some comfort in, right? Either the date that you
gave your heart to Jesus, or remembering some verse that hit
you with power in particular one special day, or some experience
that you had But dead religion never looks to Christ and is
never satisfied with Christ. It doesn't see Christ as all
and sufficient to receive them. They're still looking to the
flesh, looking inwardly for something that they can fix their hope
in. Because Christ just isn't tangible to the flesh. The carnal
man can't receive the Lord Jesus Christ. Let the child of grace
will bow before God's salvation that he's provided in the Son,
and will give him all the glory and the praise for saving us,
for having mercy on us, and doing everything needful to make us
accepted with God. All right, now how we come to
Christ. And we'll look at three things
here in how we come to Christ. First, in the second half of
1 Peter 2.4, the second half where it says, we'll see that
it's the Lord who brings us to Christ. We come to Christ because
of the Lord's work. The second half says that Christ
is disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. And second, we'll see that he
continually brings us to the Lord Jesus Christ. We never stop
coming to Christ. We never go beyond the Lord Jesus
Christ. As he says there in the first
half of verse 4, to whom coming as unto a living stone. And then
third, we'll see how coming to Christ, being taught of God,
we come to Christ, we rest in Christ, continually looking to
Him, and He causes us to live upon Christ and to grow in Him. Ye also, as lively stones, are
built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. All right,
so let's look at these three points, sub-points, a little
more. First, we see that it's the Lord's doing that we come
to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's by God the Father doing
this work that we come to Christ. Christ is disallowed indeed of
men but chosen of God and precious." So that the point here is that
the child of God, they don't boast in what they've done for
Jesus. The world boasts in their faith
and how they've believed in Christ and how all this opposition was
against them and yet they trusted Christ and they believed in Christ
and it's all about what they've done and they're looking to how
tightly they're holding on to Christ and what they're doing
for the Lord Jesus Christ because that's where they believe they
are blessed, that it's in their faith and what they've produced
and how well they're believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. So
when you hear someone talking about their faith and what they've
done, they're a liar. They don't know the Lord Jesus
Christ because the child of God doesn't talk like that. They
may talk like that for a time, but God is going to break them
of that and deliver them of that to see that, all right, it's
not me. This isn't of me. Everything's
of Christ. Everything I have is of the Lord
Jesus Christ, so that he'll bring his child to see even their very
faith is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see that. It's not of us. Look at 1 Peter
2.9. We see that it's God doing the
work. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy
nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises
of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous
light. In darkness is where the Lord
finds all his people. None of us can boast of having
come out of the darkness and been standing in the light when
God found us. You're either found in darkness
or you're not found at all. None of us gets ourselves out
of that darkness. The Lord Jesus Christ was sent
into this world to save sinners, to save his people out of the
darkness that we're in by nature. As Zacharias prophesied of Christ
in Luke chapter 1 verses 78 and 79, he said, Through the tender
mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on high hath
visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in
the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace.
So if you're not sitting in the shadow of darkness, then you're
never going to see Christ, because Christ comes to sinners who are
sitting in darkness. He delivers his people out of
darkness. There's none for whom Christ
died that got themselves out of the darkness first, that cleaned
themselves up and made themselves so that they can be accepted
of God. You're either saved completely of Christ, or you're not saved
at all. It's either by Christ, but never
by your flesh. So men in darkness, though, they
don't know or understand the depth of their darkness, the
depth of the sin that they're in. We don't understand these
things until the Lord reveals them to us. All right? So we know people that that would
hear us say these things and would still seek to justify themselves
because they think that if they can convince you or themselves
while they're convincing you that maybe everything is alright
and they just don't want to let go and accept the fact that they're
wickedness and unable to save themselves. And Christ warns
us faithfully not to trust in what we know, not to trust in
our works, not to trust in our flesh, how well we can convince
ourselves or another that we're His. He said in Luke 11 35, take
heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. Because by nature, so often,
we presume that we know the Lord. And we just assume that because
we go to church or pick up our Bible once in a while or can
quote a few verses, even if we do it a lot, and even if we're
faithful in saying prayers every morning or at night, that somehow
this must be a clue that we're the Lord's. But that's just trusting
in those things. It's not trusting in what Christ
has done. The Lord tells us what Christ
has accomplished, that He put away our sin by the death of
Himself. And the child of God hears that, and they delight
in it, and they rest in it. When they look at themselves,
they may see a lot of things that they don't like, or think,
this shouldn't even be with me, this shouldn't be part of me.
It shouldn't. We shouldn't have sin. We shouldn't
do those things. But the reality is we do. We live in this flesh
and we do have lusts and sins and darkness and all manner of
things. So none of us can look at that,
at our own flesh and what we're doing or not doing to gain any
comfort. Because that's not salvation.
That's not life. That's not the bread of life.
Christ himself is the bread of life. Are you looking to the
Lord Jesus Christ, to his life, to his blood, what he did for
his people. Did you hear that? Do you trust
that Christ has put away your sin? Just as the Lord says, Christ
was sent into this world to put away the sin of his people. So
in spite of what you see in yourself, you're not looking to that to
find comfort. You're looking to the Lord. Rest right there
in what Christ has done. John 1, 4, and 5 declares to
us, in him, in the Lord Jesus Christ, was life, and the life
was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and
the darkness comprehended it not. So in religion, we're taught
so often to look inside, right, to examine our feelings or to
look at our fruit and to compare with our fruits better than another,
but That's not looking to Christ. That's not a Christian. That's
not, I guess they would say it's being a Christian, but that's
not how we're doing it. We're not measuring ourselves
and how well we did as opposed to yesterday or anything like
that. All of that is darkness and it's
just that our dark natural heart trying to find something whereby
we can comfort ourselves and feel that We're comforted in
that we are the Lord's. But again, we find our comfort,
we find our peace, trusting what the Lord has said concerning
his son, Jesus Christ. And I don't mean it by knowledge.
He gives us a spirit. He'll teach us. But we continually
look to Christ, resting there in what he's done, even when
our feelings tell us, I don't feel like a Christian. And if
I was the Lord's, I wouldn't do what I just did there. We'll
do that to ourselves all the time. And that's why it's not
a stable place. That's just sand that we're standing
on there. Our Lord said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. So the natural man's never going
to understand it. The natural man's never going
to understand that Christ is all, that Christ is everything.
He said in John 3, This is the condemnation, that light is coming
to the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their
deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God. So we must be taken out of that
kingdom of darkness, out of that blindness, from looking to ourselves
to looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. As Paul said to the Colossians
in 1.12, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath
delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated
us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom We have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, so that we always see
salvation as a work accomplished. It's done in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's not anything left for
us to finish or complete, to connect the dots, to bring it
together. Christ has done all the work. And so we continually
just hear what Christ has done, right? We have redemption through
his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. And thereby is how the
Lord heals his people. He instructs them this, he teaches
them this, he convinces us this in the heart. So that looking
to him, he washes away the guilt, he washes away the sin, and he'll,
by his spirit, will walk at looking to Him, and these other corrupt
things of the flesh, He'll turn our desires and our heart from
longing after the things of the world and sets them on Christ. Because we see how unprofitable
we are when we sin. We see how, you know, once we
sin, our mind is on the guilt and the corruption that's in
our flesh, and now we see, I'm not even able to serve my brethren,
because all I'm thinking about is what a wicked man I am. you
know, and then we're unprofitable. So it's not that we're doing
those things to save ourselves, but because we don't want to
walk in that way anymore. The Lord turns us from that,
and we want to be profitable. We want our hearts and our minds
to be set on Christ, because that's when we're free, not worrying
about looking to the things of the flesh, and we're thinking
about Christ and how we might be able to serve our brethren
and be a help to them, rather than just thinking of ourselves.
Paul told the Ephesians in 5.8, For ye were sometimes darkness,
but now are ye light, and the Lord walketh as children of light. So just keep looking to the Lord,
and He'll help you. He'll enable you to walk as children
of light. That doesn't mean you're perfect
and without sin, and we certainly never look back to the law to
help us walk as children of light, because that's the quickest way
to get back to being a child of darkness, because that's when
you're going to resort to those works of the flesh. That's when
you're going to resort to being tricky and crafty and hiding
your sin and using guile and hypocrisy and malice and things
like that. The law is just going to lead
you right back to the works of the flesh. We look to Christ,
resting that He's done the work, and when we sin, we confess it
to the Lord and we ask Him for forgiveness and we rest right
there in Him, trusting Him. First on, 1.6-9 says, if we say
that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we
lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light,
as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all
sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So, together we're walking in
light with one another because we're confessing, in my flesh,
I'm a vile, dead dog sinner. There's nothing good in me. I'm
not hiding that from you and you're not hiding it from me.
We're all here confessing we are sinners in need of the grace
that God has provided in his son Jesus Christ. And so we're
walking in that light together because that's what God has shown
us. The law has pronounced us guilty. There's nothing good
in me. There's nothing good in you. We're trusting in the Lord. And so that's how we're walking
in light. And we're joined with one another
in that confession, in that belief that, yep, there's nothing good
in me, but my hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. So we're not
walking in darkness. Walking in darkness is saying,
well, I'm a little better today than I was yesterday. No, you're
not. I'm not. You're not. That's lying. That's walking in darkness and
continuing that charade of religion. that somehow we're better and
that's why God accepts us. Now, second, he brings us continually
to Christ. We never stop coming to Christ.
We never graduate or go above or beyond the Lord Jesus Christ.
We always need the Lord Jesus Christ. As Peter said, to whom
coming. We're coming, continually coming.
We haven't came once. Christ came once and he put away
our sin once and for all. We are redeemed. But we continually
come to Christ. We never stop coming to him as
unto a living stone. So that Christ is the believer's
life. Just as you make sure that every
day you have food and water and you have shelter. You're diligent
about those things and providing those things for your family
because they're necessary. So we are to be diligent about
ensuring that we're looking to the Lord, that we're spending
time seeking the Lord. There's great benefit. seeking
the Lord and praying and seeking the Lord for these things. He
says, I will be sought of by the house of Israel for these
things. We have many things, you know, there's things in your
hearts about what the Lord is doing here. So don't just assume,
well, you know, if it's the Lord's will, you know, something's going
to happen. That's true. If it is the Lord's will, something
will happen, but he's going to lay it on our hearts to care
and and to think about it, and to pray about it, and to seek
to see the Lord's work established here. We're not going to be lazy
or indifferent to it, just assuming, well, that's God's work, let
him figure it out. He's going to give us a heart
for those things. I could see it to a certain degree
when I was So when I sold my house and moving down here with
everything in the truck and my dad's in the truck with me, you
know, my wife and my daughter are back up there in New Jersey
still for a couple of days and I'm coming down here. I was okay
even though I was not, you know, without shelter and I didn't
necessarily know when I was going to eat or whatnot. But I was
okay because there was an end result. I could see it coming.
But then in the middle of the trip, I spoke to my realtor and
found out that the funding still hadn't gone through. So my house
was sold up there. My house down here was not really
closed all the way. And I'm driving down here and
I could immediately feel in me a sense of Am I even going to
be able to get in the house? What am I going to do? And immediately
that instability hits and that anxiousness hits and everything
falls apart. And it's a good thing for us
to be reminded because everything always seems to be going well,
doesn't it? Until suddenly it isn't. And
all of a sudden it just, the floor falls out from beneath
you and you're in this whirlwind and you're thinking everything
was so good, and I was going on my happy little merry way,
and suddenly everything fell apart. And then immediately you
begin to scramble and think, oh, I haven't been reading my
Bible or praying much. You know, you go to those Arminian
type thoughts, you know, of what we should be doing. But the Lord
does show us that we never know when catastrophe is going to
hit. We don't know what's going to
happen to us later today at all. And that's why we continually
feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, because you're never more stable
or more prepared for the catastrophe or the calamity that hits than
when you're looking to the Lord. And He's the one that's going
to help you through it. He's the one who's going to comfort
you in it and keep you looking to Him. And I don't wish calamity
on any of us, you know, at all. But the Lord will use, you know,
he'll be with his people and he'll teach his people and comfort
his people. So what better place than to always be looking to
the Lord so that when it hits, we're always ready to give an
answer for the reason, the hope that's within us to whoever it
is that asks us those things. So, you know, we always want
to be looking to the Lord and never like, you know, like this
world, right? That seems to be fine without
Christ. They come to services on Sunday
and then right after services they go and then you just forget
the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done for his people and
what he's done for them. We always want to be, you know,
like, like the apostles where Christ said to them, will you
also go away? And we pray to have that spirit
like Peter who said, Lord, Whom shall we go? You alone have the
words of eternal life. And we are assured that you're
the son of God, that you are the lamb of God, that God has
provided. Where are we gonna go, Lord? And let us always have
that spirit to never trust in ourselves or think of ourselves
as something. So Christ is our living bread,
right? He says, I am the bread of heaven. So we continually
feed upon him. All right, third, we come being
taught of God so that we live and grow up in Christ. 1 Peter
2.5 Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house
and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ, so that The beauty in this point is that
we see that Christ has given us everything that we need. If
you remember, he said to the woman in Samaria, he said, God
is a spirit. Men that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth. And we see how Christ, in 1 Peter
even, how the Lord has given us a new birth. He's given us
life in himself so that We now are that spiritual house. We're
built up in Christ, being made a spiritual house, being made
lively stones or living stones in that spiritual house so that
we offer up spiritual sacrifices. That is, we stop offering up
the works of the flesh and trusting in them, and we're just coming
in the blood of Christ. Because that's that spiritual
sacrifice that God accepts. That's in whom we come to God
accepted of Him. in the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So, he's the one that makes us
acceptable to God. So, we see that there to offer
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ there
in 1 Peter 2.5. That's all coming to the Lord
in Christ Jesus, the one sacrifice that God the Father accepts and
receives. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. We
don't come in our own works trusting what we've done. We cease coming
to God and trusting Him and those things and He teaches us that.
He shows us that Christ is sufficient and that becomes our confession
and that continually is our only confession. We stop talking about
us. and we just talk about what Christ has accomplished, that
he has redeemed us, he has put away our sins. So, ask yourselves,
is Christ precious to you? Is Christ precious to you? He's
precious to the Father. That's what God himself said. He's disallowed indeed of men,
but chosen of God and precious. God counts Christ precious. and he's precious to the child
of God because we know that that's the only ground upon which God
accepts us. He only receives us in his Son,
Jesus Christ. And when you know what a sinner
you are, and you know that you desperately need peace with God,
and the only way he's going to have peace with you is in the
Son, Jesus Christ. That's where he'll meet with
his people, is in the blood, the blood of his Son, Jesus Christ.
That's when Christ becomes precious to you. You stop counting it
just a component of your salvation, let alone a worthless thing. So Christ is made precious to
us. He's our life. He's our all.
To whom coming continually. So let me just close. To whom coming as unto a living
stone. Disallowed indeed of men, but
chosen of God and precious, ye also as lively stones are built
up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. This is by Christ
that God accepts us and receives us. Let's close in prayer. Our
gracious Lord, we thank you for providing your son, Jesus Christ.
Lord, make him precious to us. Help us to see that we have no
ground to stand on before you, but in Christ alone. Lord, cover us with his blood,
give us his spirit, make us alive to our Lord and our God in Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name,
our Lord and Savior. Amen.