Alright, go to 1 Peter chapter
2 with me now. I texted everyone the title of
tonight's message, which was supposed to be God's Peculiar
People of God, but after going over this, I decided to devote
that to a message on Sunday morning, verses 9 and 10. But the first
eight verses is what we're going to look at tonight. And what
a verse or two verses these are, speaking of Christ, the chief
cornerstone. Now all these verses are profitable. All Scripture is profitable.
And so let's look at all of it. Verses 1 and 2 begin this way.
Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies
and envies, all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the
sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. As newborn
babes. It begins with wherefore, and you know that Scripture was
not written in chapters and verses, but that was added by the translators
to make it easy for us to find these phrases and words and verses
and so forth. And so many divisions are not
good. Wherefore, you never begin, you
wouldn't stand up and just say, wherefore? But, alright, what
all went before this? Look at verse, back in verse
3 of chapter 1. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His abundant mercy, have begotten
us, born of God. Born by the Word of God. Verse
23 says that. Being born again. Not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible the Word of God. And then verse 22
says, seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth,
He goes on to say, see that you love one another with a pure
heart, fervently. So chapter 2, wherefore? Born
of God, being the people of God, we're told to love one another
as brethren, fervently. Lay aside all malice. Lay aside all malice. Now these
things are in nearly every epistle. I know you recognize them. Look
at Ephesians 4. Peter writes these things. James,
Paul, all the apostles write these same things. It's amazing
how similar Scriptures of Acts chapter 4 of Ephesians. He says in verse 31, let all
bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking
be put away from you with all malice. Read on. And be kind
one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Be, therefore,
followers of God as dear children. So he says as children of God,
born of God, Lay aside all malice. Look at Colossians 3. We just
looked at it. We just went through the whole
book of Colossians, didn't we? Look at it again. Do you remember
this? In Colossians chapter 3, he says in verse 6, he talks
about the wrath of God coming on the children of disobedience.
And he just dealt with that, didn't he? Peter did. as obedient
children. He said, verse 8, but now put
off all these, anger, wrath, malice. There it is again, malice. What is malice? Well, malice
is the intent of inflicting suffering upon someone, wanting someone
to suffer injury. wanting someone to exact vengeance
on someone, or suffering. And our Lord says, put all of
that away. Don't wish for, don't cause,
don't have any intent of hurting anyone. Our Lord said, Scripture
says of our Lord that He was holy, harmless, Didn't it? Separate from sinners. Harmless.
And he tells us to be wise as serpents and what? Harmless as
devil. Lay aside all malice. And you
know, we've got it in us, this old man. And I don't think it's
shown any more clearly than when you're driving an automobile. I mean, how easily, I'll get
him for that. I'll slam on my brakes. Put that
away. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14,
he said, Be men in understanding, but be children in malice. That's what he said. Don't wish
for and don't do any injury to anyone. Read the next thing. Lay aside all guile. Guile is a cunning, crafty, wily
trickery and deception to try to pull something over on people.
This world is full of people like that. You have people, some
people you just don't trust them. They're just full of guile. I love what he said of, was it
Nathaniel? Even before the Lord saved Nathanael,
He said, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no... Well, read on. It says, In all
hypocrisy, all guile and hypocrisy, Oh, be real. Be true. Be honest. Be just. Be upright. All hypocrisy. Don't act apart. And envious. Who or what do we envy? David
wrote Psalm 37, didn't he? I was envious at the prosperity
of the foolish. Why? And then he said, I was
dumb. I was so ignorant. Psalm 73.
I was like a bee. Why would I envy anybody or anything? He said, I belong to the Lord.
This is why the Lord said, having food and rain would be content.
You don't need anything other than that. Everything else is
just gravy. Christ is the bread. So He says,
lay aside all hypocrisies and envies and all evil speaking. All evil speaking. Speak evil
of no man. And the worst kind of evil really
is gossip. It really is. Tail-bearer. And,
you know, someone said, if you're not saying something good, what's
the opposite of good? Evil. And don't say anything
at all. If it can't be good, don't say
anything at all. Read on. As newborn babes, newborn babes,
and our Lord said, be little children. Receive the kingdom
and hear the word as little children. But as newborn babes, desire
the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Babies. You know, babies, when
they're born, and this is the way it is when someone's born
again, they have a great insatiable desire for milk. And that's the
Word of God. And that's the way it is with
God's people, born again. just can't get enough. And he
says, well, no matter how old you are, be a baby when it comes
to the Word of God. Sincere, what does that mean?
Pure, unmixed, unadulterated. And, you know, the translations
of Scripture are getting so perverted, so far removed from the truth
that this is why I'm a A stickler for the King James. This is the
closest thing to the original Greek and Hebrew that we have.
Stick with that. Pure, unadulterated, unmixed,
untainted. The offense is still in it. Desire
it. How do you desire something?
Can you make yourself desire something? Well, the desire is
there in all of God's people. But can you cultivate it? Sure you can. In fact, the more
you eat of it and drink of it, the more you want it. Isn't it
so? The less you do, the less you
desire. If you put off doing it, put it off, put it off, put
it off, till you've pretty much lost. Is that not true? So you cultivate the habit of
drinking the milk of the Word. And you'll find yourself wanting
more and more of it to where you can't do without it. If you,
by God's grace, you make it a habit, get up in the morning and start
reading, if the day goes by and you miss it, you'll miss it.
And you'll actually feel the results of that, won't you?
If you don't seek first the Kingdom of God, so many of you are nodding
your head. It's so little. You go through
the day, it's because I wasn't seeking. You've got troubles
with mind and heart and whatever you think. It's because I didn't
seek the Lord first. It's because I forgot Him. It's
because I didn't call on Him. It's because I didn't start my
day seeking His faith. Settle in. So, desire. Set your affection. Isn't that
what Paul wrote? Set your affection. You know,
when we set our minds and hearts on something, if we really want
it, we'll go after it all night. Doesn't matter what it is. I'm
going to get that. Good or bad. Oh, this is all
good. So, set your affection. Desire
the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. Grow
thereby. The very last thing that Peter
wrote, I believe it is, yes, in the second epistle was grow
in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him
be glory both now and forever. Amen. Grow in grace. Desire is one way to grow. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing
by the word. And growth cometh the same way. by the milk of
the word, the hearing of the word, that you may grow in grace,
the word of grace, the truth of the gospel of grace, and grow
gracious in the knowledge of the Lord. If so be you have tasted. Now he's talking to people that
do know the grace of God, that if so be that you have tasted,
that the Lord is gracious. And if you have tasted, there's
nothing else you want. The gospel of God's grace. If
you taste it, nothing else. Nothing like it. David said it.
He said, Thy love and kindness is better than life. In another
place, Psalm 4, he said, Thou hast put gladness in my heart
more than the time when their corn and wine increased. See,
when their crops increase, they're just full of happiness. But when
God shows me something in His Word and gives me a taste, a
fresh taste, and blesses me through the Word, it's better than what
they got. Oh, man. If so be you have tasted. Nothing tastes like God's grace
to a sinner. To whom coming? I dare not rush through this.
To whom coming? Our Lord said this. All that
the Father giveth me shall come unto me. And him that cometh
to me. He's going to go on to say, he
that believeth on him shall not be confounded. And him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. Isn't that what he said?
Him that cometh to me. What does it mean to come to
Christ? It means to come to Christ. To go to Him for mercy, for grace,
for salvation. The Lord helped me. The Lord
saved me right there. It means to believe on Him. To whom? Coming. That's how you know you're a
child of God. That's how you know the true people of God.
It's like a dog called by its master, they come. They shall all be taught of the
Father. And every man that heard and learned of the Father, He
cometh unto me, Christ. It's all taught. All our children
are taught of God. And they come to Christ. The
true people of God, like sheep, come when He calls, called by
the gospel. And we keep coming. To whom? To Him. To whom coming? Remember in the Gospel of John
where many disciples went away, walked no more with Christ? Well,
they were never His disciples then, were they? And some now forsake the assembly
of themselves with us and wherever. It's a bad sign, a really bad
sign. Simon, all of God's people say
this when the Lord says, Will you go away? They all say, To
whom? To whom? Not what? Whom? You're married. We're married. You ladies don't pause and stop
and think, am I going to go home? Irene, maybe I better not ask
this question. Christ's bride never say, am
I going to go worship Him or not? I have to. Have to. That's how you know Him. They
need Him. To whom? Coming. And coming.
And coming. And we're prone to wander, Lord,
I fear. We're prone to leave the God
I love. But what's He do? He calls us back. What do we
do? We come back. To whom? Coming. Keep coming. We might go away
when He calls us back. To whom coming? Never will finally
fall away, but to whom coming? Keep coming. Keep coming. Do
you remember back in Luke 19, that last verse of Luke 19? Didn't you like that? I loved
it. It says the people were very attentive to hear Him. And the
margin said, they hanged on Him. They were hanging on Him. Will
you go away? No. To whom? To whom? This is my life. Christ really is his people's
life. He really is. They're not hypocrites. They really, Christ, he really
is. And that's proved by the fact that they hang on him and
to whom come him. Little or no attendance or lack
of is not a lack of commitment. It's a lack of need. It's a lack
of hunger. It's a lack of taste. You must
have lost your taste. That's a bad sign. God's true
people have a and desire for Him. Alright, verse 4 says, as a living
stone. Now let's get into this. We come
to Him as a living stone. Disallowed indeed of men, but
chosen of God and precious. Oh, what a verse. A living stone. Rock of ages. Do you remember
that smitten rock in the wilderness? That of which poured water and
they drank from that rock for 40 years. And it followed them. Rocks don't follow people. This
one did. But what did Paul say that rock
was, or rather who? That rock was Christ. That rock was symbolic. And it
represented Christ. Oh, my, my, that stone, that
chief cornerstone of the temple on whom the whole building rested,
built, God is the one that laid that stone. Disallowed, look
at verse 4, it says, disallowed indeed of men. Dishonored, disrespected,
despised and rejected of men, but chosen of God and precious. Precious to God and precious
to His people. That stone. That living stone. Christ our solid rock. On Christ
the solid rock I stand. Didn't you love that? Don't you
love my hope? is built on nothing less or nothing
more than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And I dare not trust the sweetest
frame or feeling or whatever, but I wholly lean on the Lord
Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sick and
sound. And every man that builds all his hopes and his salvation
on this solid rock is a wise man. He goes on to say His oath
and His covenant, His blood, support me. This is that rock-solid
truth that is Christ Himself. Support me in the overwhelming
flood. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my
hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stay. He wants to sing it again right
now. When He shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in
Him be found. Like Moses, the Lord said, there's
a place by me, I'm going to put you in a cliff, a rock. Dressed
in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne. If you stand on Christ, all your
hope, all your righteousness is on Christ, the solid rock,
you'll stand. All other ground is sinking sand.
That's wonderful, isn't it? Wonderful. Now He says, verse
5, We also, ye also, are as lively stones, living stones, alive,
quickened, stones set in the temple. I want you to see this,
1 Kings 6. Go over to 1 Kings 6. When the Lord gave instructions
to Solomon on the building of the temple, it was to be made
of stone. And look at this, 1 Kings 6. Look at this, this is good. You
have it? 1 Kings 6, verse 7. The house, when it was in building,
was built of stone made ready before it was brought there.
In other words, those stones were chosen by the master builder,
chiseled, made ready before The building
was built so that when they brought them there, there was no, look
at it, verse 7, no hammer or axe or tool of iron heard in
the house when it was built in. There was no work. Christ built
His temple down. And all of God's people were
predestined before the foundation of the world to be in this building,
built up in Him. The work was finished even before
it was started. And God's people were predestinated
to be put in this building, according to the wisdom of it, fitly built
in this building. So that when we're going to be
molded and conformed and predestinated in the image of Christ, they
brought those stones to that building. to put them in the
wall, they put that stone in there, one of those stones in
there. Why, it's perfect. Look at that. Don't need to chop
off this or chip off that. Oh, no. In Christ, there's no
work. In other words, Christ does the
work, and He's the one that perfects it. That was concerning. And
nobody's going to say, well, He needs a little more. Nope.
He's perfect. Perfect fit in the building. Stones made ready. Living stone. Go back to our text. You also
as living stone set in the temple. Set in the temple. Now this truth
is taught throughout the epistles also. Listen to Paul in Ephesians
2. He said, You're built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the cheap cornerstone in whom all the building fitly framed
together groweth unto a holy temple. in the Lord, in whom? In Christ. Ye also are builded
together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. The temple
of God is His people. And Christ is the one that chooses
and puts them in the temple. And His work is perfect. You
don't need to add anything to it. You don't need to hear a
hammer or chisel. Okay? All right. It says in 1
Peter 2, it says in verse 5, you're lively stones, you're
built up a spiritual house. Not flesh. God's church is not
flesh. We worship God in the spirit,
we rejoice in Christ, we lift up the head, the chief cornerstone,
the headstone, and we have no confidence in the flesh, nor
do we use any fleshly means or things, do spiritual things. It's a spiritual habit. This
is not a den of thieves like religion, but it's a house of
prayer. What we're doing here is spiritual
things. Things of God. Things of Christ.
Here it is. A holy priesthood. And he's going
on to say that in the royal priesthood. A holy priesthood. God's people are priests. He's
made us kings and priests. That's what Revelation said.
Thou hast made us kings and priests. Revelation 1. God's people are
priests. Now, I've got to be careful because
I don't want to deal with that Sunday. But the priests in the
Old Testament had one thing they were concerned about. It's the
temple. That's what they were about.
Everything they did was in reference to the temple. What was the temple
for? Sacrifice of Lamb. The Atonement. Worshipping God's
Atonement. So the priests in that temple,
all they were about, their whole purpose was to serve the temple,
which was a place that was for the sacrifice of a lamb to worship
God. God's true church does one thing
God's true people don't do one thing. They know one thing is
needful and that one is Christ and Him crucified. This is what
we're about. This is what the church is about.
It's not a place to have fun. It's the place to worship. It's
not a place where we have family gathering, but it's the family
of God meeting around Christ and Him crucified. It's a holy priesthood. God's
people are priests. Look at verse 5. Offer up spiritual
sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. What spiritual
sacrifice? There's one sacrifice. Christ,
crucified. Well, it says sacrifice it, but
we offer the sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving, the sacrifice
of our lips. and even giving, and everything
we do, everything is for this purpose, the gospel. Right? From the giving, to the
singing, to the praying, to the preaching, to the cleaning the
building, it's all about Christ. See that? Acceptable. We're accepted, how? One way. Anything not for that
purpose, the cause of Christ, is unacceptable to God. That's
why he cleaned out that temple when he came. He did it twice.
He said, my house is for one purpose. And he cleaned it twice. Spiritual sacrifices which God
accepts, and that is one, Jesus Christ. Verse 6, Wherefore, also
it is contained in Scripture, Behold, this is Isaiah 28, Behold,
and we read Psalm 118, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone,
a chief cornerstone, elect, chosen of God, precious, and he that
believeth on him shall not be confounded. Wherefore, it's contained
in Scripture. What Scripture? All Scripture. He's the foundation of all Scripture
in there. You dig and you'll find Christ there. The chief
cornerstone. I lay. God said, I lay. No other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid. Jesus Christ.
God laid it. I lay in Zion. This chief cornerstone. Brethren, the Word, the Word
of Truth, the Word of the Gospel, the Gospel of Christ who is the
Truth is set in stone. Foundation laid by God and nobody
can change it. It's the unchangeable Truth of
Christ our Redeemer, Christ our Sacrifice. It's set in stone
because there Christ sits at the right hand of God. Behold,
I lay in Zion. His church, a chief cornerstone,
elect impression, a cornerstone. I know you men have done some
building. When you build a building, you
dig and you do the foundation, right? Okay? If the foundation
is not right, the whole building is going to be out of whack.
If the foundation is not solid, on solid rock, the building's
going to shift. The building's going to sink.
It's going to crack. It's got to be on solid rock. That's what we're talking about.
Christ is solid rock. It's not going to crack. It's
not going to shift. It's not going to be shaken. It's not going to be removed.
Christ is there to stay. All right? And I've learned this. If the foundation's not right,
the rest of the building's not right. If it's not level, the
rest of the building won't be level. It's foundation. Got to get it right. Well, back
then, they would start the whole foundation with a great big stone.
And the master builder would chisel this stone and make this
stone just perfect, exactly perfect. Okay? So the whole building was
fitly framed on that one stone. If that one stone is perfect,
the rest of the building is going to be perfect. That's Christ. Perfect. Chief cornerstone. It was all measured by him, in
him, and built on him. So he says, I lay a chief cornerstone,
chosen of God, elect, and precious. You know, the foundations in
Revelation 21 says the foundations of the city is built on 12 precious
stones. Now, who would build a building
on diamonds and pearls and amber and rubies and all? Who would
do that? God did. Well, nobody can see
it. We know it's there. The world,
you know, passing by, they can't see it. And they don't put much
estimate on God's true church, God's people. They know these
precious stones all represent Christ. I'd like to do, we did
one years ago on those twelve stones representing Christ. Look at this, he that believeth
on him shall not be confounded. The word means put to shame.
Disgraced. He that believeth on Christ shall
not be confounded. I looked up in the dictionary.
It means bewildered or confused or perplexed. The world is in
a state of confusion. Why? Because they're building
their hopes, building their dreams on a world that is shaken. God shakes it all the time. I
told you about those worms. I'd go down there every now and
then and just shake the box. Just because I could. Just to
see if any of them caught on. Well, God does it all the time,
doesn't He? Shakes His third. And He said in Hebrews 12, He
said, Once more I'm going to shake it all. And only that which
can't be shaken What's that? Those on Christ.
The whole world is in a state of confusion because they're
building all their hopes and all their wisdom is in man and
all their safety and all that is in man and his technology
and his knowledge and God says it's foolishness. You're building
your hopes on sand and it won't stand. Not God's people. I can't
wait to get to The last chapter of this where
it says, after we've suffered a while, He will make us perfect,
establish, strengthen, and settle you. But God's people are settled. It's settled in our hearts and
minds, isn't it? It really is. Firmly fixed on this rock-solid
truth. What is it? Our God reigneth. There. The Lord Jesus Christ
reigns. Here's some foundational truths.
And David wrote, if the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous
do? They have no hope. But the foundation is sure, and
Christ is. Foundational truths, here's some
of them, all right? Number one, God is God. Yes,
He is. Our God is God. Like, who was
it, Nebuchadnezzar said, he's God. Was it Darius said, Daniel's
God, he's God. He's God. Our God's not trying
to be God, he is God. He's not running for election,
he does the electing. God is God, okay? We don't make
him God, nobody does make him God. He's God. Aren't you glad? All right? God's Word is true.
Every word of it. Every promise. Every word. Every
warning. Every judgment. Everything is
absolutely true. Rock-solid truth. You can build
on every word God says. You'll not be confounded. All right, Christ is God. Yes, He is. He wasn't just a
man. He was God manifest in the flesh. He was God before He came here.
He was God when He came here. He's God when He left here. He
still is God. Christ is God. And Christ is
all. He really is. If you believe,
if you trust, if you look to Christ as all your hope of eternal
life, you've got a good hope, a sure hope, built on Christ
throughout. Foundational truth. And it goes
on to say, He's precious. He's precious unto us. Precious to God, verse 7, unto
you therefore which believe, He's precious. He's precious
to God's people. You remember 2 Peter 1, it says,
To those who have obtained like precious faith through the righteousness
of God. Precious faith. Precious means
rare. Precious means invaluable. Precious
means something dear to you. Precious faith. We've been given
this rare thing, this invaluable gift from God Himself, which
is faith in Christ alone. You know how few people really
believe God and Christ. You know how few people really
do. Do you? Do you have any hope in anything
or anyone other than Jesus Christ? Do you? Do you know how rare
that is? Precious faith, precious blood.
But He says, and I close with these two verses, But unto them
which are disobedient, disobedient to the faith, reject the truth,
disobedient to God's Word, The stone which the builders disallowed,
the same is made the head of the corner." Do you not marvel how that God
bears witness with us? You know what the next... We're
in Luke 20. Luke 20. You know what the next
thing is? Where Christ said, have you never read, the stone
which the builders rejected is the head of the corner. I just,
when I, I didn't plan this. I didn't think we'll, we'll look,
we'll go and look at Peter, and just exactly the same time that
we're looking at this in Luke, we'll be at, I didn't plan that.
I was just reading this, and I like Peter. And here it is. We'll be reminded again. Barely. Barely. Christ is this strong. And he said this himself to those
Pharisees. Have you never read? He said, it's written, the stone
which the builders rejected, the same has become the head
of the corner. And in Matthew it says, this is the Lord's doing,
it's marvelous in our eyes. And he went on to say, our Lord
said, whosoever shall fall on that stone shall be broken. Broken,
your heart broken, that's good. Broken and contrite, God will
not despise and He'll heal that broken heart. But on whomsoever
that stone will fall, it will grind him to powder." And so
he said, disallowed. The stone which the builders
disallowed, he's made head of the corner. I remember when George
Bush was elected, George II George Bush was elected, and people
that didn't like him, I remember seeing shirts and t-shirts and
bumper stickers that said, he's not my president. Remember that? And even now they say that about,
you know, Trump supporters say, Biden's not my president. Well,
he is too. He absolutely is. Whether you
like it or not. Okay? And let me tell you something
about the President of the United States. If you get on death row,
And you're ready to be hanged or electric chair? There's one
person on earth that can pardon you. And you will be saved at
that time. He is my president. Well, I'm
here to tell you there's one person in this universe and one
alone that can pardon me. And men say, he's not my Lord.
Oh yes, he is too. And you know, men say, well,
I didn't elect the president that was elected. I didn't vote
for him, so he's not my president. Well, this guy didn't vote for
him. As I said, you don't elect him.
He might elect you. So the thing to do is bow. I will not have him. Yes, you will. I'll not believe
that. Yes, you will too. Every knee shall bow, every tongue
will confess. Many, too late. So do you realize
how precious, how merciful, how gracious God is to us? There
was a time when I said, I don't believe that. Bless God, He said,
you will too. and not before it's too late.
You will believe and therefore will not be cast out. And all the people will bow and
every knee will bow and tongue confess. The stone of stumbling,
the rock of offense to them which stumble at the Word being disobedient,
they're appointed. They're appointed. That's the
mystery in it. Romans 9 speaks about it. Jude
of the places. But here's the thing. Here's
the thing we need to bless our God for. As He hath not appointed us to
wrath, but we've been appointed to salvation. And the way we
know it is He reveals Christ to us, to Whom coming. Okay,
stand with me.