Jesus calls me on to perfect
faith and love, to perfect hope and peace and trust, for perfect
in our love. Thank you. John and Jeanette, I'll go to
1 Peter 5. Let me remind you what Peter
said about this book. And most Bible scholars, most men of wisdom in old days, believe
that this is the oldest of all the epistles, that this was the
first epistle written. So that makes it significant,
doesn't it? It makes it very important. And
that's fitting, since Peter was the first apostle called, for
a time anyway, he was the chief spokesman, wasn't he? He's the
one that preached Pentecost in the first until Paul came along,
the Gentiles. So this is the oldest epistle,
and so what he is telling us, what he is writing to us is what
we need to know. The church. In 1 Peter chapter
5, remember verse 12, he said, I've written briefly, exhorting,
this is the purpose of the letter, exhorting and testifying that
this is the true grace of God wherein you stand. Exhorting
you to stand upon the grace and stand for the gospel of grace
and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein you
stand. Verse 10, he says, He talks about the God of all
grace who hath called us into His eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After you have suffered a while,
make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be glory and dominion
forever and ever. Establish and strengthen and
settle you. is to establish us in three things,
basically. Faith, establish us in the faith. To establish us in obedience
or works, exhorts us throughout this book to obedience, to adorn
the doctrine. And thirdly, patience or under
trials and suffering. So this is to establish us in
believing, establish us in doing, and established us in suffering,
which brings him great glory, enduring suffering. Alright,
so go back to chapter 1, really. We began reading there because
verse 1 of chapter 2 begins with wherefore. You don't begin with
wherefore. You go and see what it's there
for. Wherefore. Why is that there
for? Because he said, being born again. You are born again, verse
23, born by the Word of God. This is how every single saint,
every single child of God is born of God by the preaching
of the gospel. He said, not corruptible seed,
seed of man, but incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth
and abideth forever. If anyone's born again, a new
creature, they're born by the Word of God. James said that. He begat us with the Word of
Truth. In verse 24 he says, now, in
the Bible, all the way through God's Word, prophets and apostles
keep telling us, all flesh is grass. Everything about this
world is perishing. And all the works of man, all
the works of man, all the glory of man is the flower of grass.
It withereth and fadeth, but verse 25, the word of the Lord,
the sure word of God, the promises of God, the gospel of God endureth
forever. Forever. And this, he said, is
the word. The word. The whole Bible is
the gospel that's preached unto you. Wherefore? Wherefore? Then born again. Okay, realizing
that all flesh is grass, the time is short. Lay aside all
malice, guile, hypocrisy, envies, evil speaking, as newborn babes,
like little children. Lay aside malice. Malice in all
the epistles. Paul tells us that. Go over to
Ephesians 4. Ephesians, Galatians, Ephesians,
Philippians, Colossians, all through the Scripture tells us
these same things. Lay aside malice. Malice means
to want to inflict harm on someone. Malice. He said lay that aside. Our Lord, Scripture says, was
holy and harmless. And he tells us to be wise as
serpents, but harmless as dove. God's people are peacemakers.
Sure, people may treat us badly, but don't render evil to evil. Lay aside malice, harm, wanting
to inflict harm. We don't want to inflict harm
on people. We want to be merciful to them. Look at Ephesians 4. It says,
Verse 24, put on the new man, which after God is created in
righteousness and true holiness, putting away lying, speaking
to every man truth with his neighbor. We're members one of another.
And in verse 30, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. Spirit of
God who's called us to bear fruit, love, joy, peace, gentleness,
goodness, meekness, faith, temperance, so forth. Verse 31, let all bitterness,
all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking
be put away from you with all malice. Be kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Why? As God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven you. So, he says, lay aside all malice
and all guile. Go back to the text. Guile. Guile means you're not transparent. You scheme
or trick or trickery or you have some ulterior motive and you're
not being honest. Lay that aside. Our Lord said,
what we read there in chapter 2, didn't we? It says that there's
no guile found in his mouth. In Proverbs 8, he said, all my
words, there's nothing forward or perverse in them. Honest, upright. Mean what he
said. No guile. Lay it aside. That's
not fitting. This is unbecoming of a child
of God. Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is acting. Know that. Don't play a part. Don't say and do not. That's what Pharisees the Lord
called hypocrite. They say and they don't do. Remember we read up there, with
love unfeigned, not fake, really, truly love. Lay aside hypocrisy
and envies. Love envieth not. No way you can envy the prosperity
and the well-being of someone you love. That's just not possible.
If you think on things of others, you can't possibly envy them.
You want them to prosper, don't you? Evil speaking. He said, lay aside all evil speaking. That includes gossiping, that
includes whispering, that includes backbiting, that includes a little
criticism. Criticism is self-righteousness. Our Lord said, don't judge your
brother when you've got a beam in your eye. Don't say, let me
get that mote out of your eye. Don't do it. The Lord is the
judge. So lay aside all evil speaking. Let it not come out of our mouths.
Criticisms. As newborn babes, verse 2. Now
this is real grace. What we're going to look at is
grace tasted and grace growing and true grace. As newborn babes. As newborn babes, Paul once said,
let's see if I can find it, I think it's in 1 Corinthians 14. He said concerning this thing
of our attitude and malice, he said, Brethren, be not children
in understanding. How be it in malice? Be like
children. Children don't have any malice.
They don't harbor grudges. Little children. They don't harbor
grudges, do they? They don't hold a grudge against
their mate. Neither do Bradford. You know,
my brothers, we shouldn't have fought. I didn't fight with my
older brother. He was eight years older than
me. And there was a big gap between us. But my middle brother, four
years, we got into it. It's all his fault, you know.
No. It wasn't. But anyway, we shouldn't
have fought at all. It shouldn't happen. And my parents
didn't want that to happen. But it did. But, you know, we
could get in the biggest scrap and just some mad, frightened
mad at one another the next morning. You don't even remember it. You
just go play. It's like it never happened.
That's a brother. And our Lord said, and John wrote
a whole book about this. about loving his brother. He
said, if you don't love your brother whom you see like that,
how can you love God? He said, that's not possible.
We're brethren. We're brethren. So, in malice
be children, but in understanding be men, he said, in wisdom and
in character and attitude. Our Lord said this, except you
be converted and become as little children. You won't even get
in the kingdom. That's what he said. You won't
even get there. He said, except you receive the
Word as a little child. You won't even get there. You
know, we've got a lot to learn. We've got a lot of growing to
do. Any man thinks he knows anything, Paul said, you're going to have
to start all over again. Grace? How much grace do we have? The last thing Peter says in
his second epistle, the very last thing he says to us is,
grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our
Lord said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. I am what? Meek and lowly in
spirit. He said, if you do, you'll find
rest for your soul. There's no rest for the wicked.
There's no rest for the the bitter and so forth. This is wonderful
counsel, isn't it? Wonderful counsel. Now, as newborn
babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow
thereby. We need grace, don't we? We need the grace of God,
restraining grace to keep us from malice. We need the restraining
grace of God to keep us from guile and make us honest. The
constraining grace of God, the love of Christ Constrains us. We need that, don't we? Where
are we going to get that grace? The Word of God. The Word of
God. As newborn babes desire the sincere
milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. It's called milk
because, well, it comes from the very breast of God. That's
what Isaiah wrote, didn't he? That's what he said. We may suck
the breast of consolation. This Word is, as it were, the
breast of God where the milk of His Word comes. Milk is what
babes live on, nurse upon. Sincere milk of the Word that
you may grow thereby. Do you feel like you've grown
in grace? Anybody? I hope nobody does that. Oh, my. Well, he says, desire it. Set
your desire upon it. Set your affection on it. We
do that. We do that on the things. We
do that on things. You know, we set our desire upon
having something, and we're going to get it. If we really want
something, we go after it, don't we? Well, he says, this is what
you need to do, by the grace of God. Set your desire on this,
because everything else is perishing. Set your desire on this, that
you may grow thereby. And this growth in grace, oh
my! Be like Christ to the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He had perfect peace,
didn't He? Perfect contentment. He had nothing,
but He had everything. Lord, let me grow up and be like
that. It's carnal, it's worldly to
be taken up with things, but it's mature and it's peace to
have your affection set on things above where Christ is. As newborn
babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow
thereby, set your affection on these things. If so be you have
tasted. If so be. that you have tasted
that the Lord is gracious, if indeed you have experienced the
grace of God, if indeed you have been born again. Tasted implies
that you're hungry. Taste implies that you're hungry,
that you see something that appeals to you, Take it and you eat it. Our Lord
said, except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have
no part in it. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after
righteousness, they'll be filled. In Psalm 34, is where I believe
Peter is thinking of, where David said, Oh, taste and see that
the Lord is good. The grace of God. If indeed you
have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Tasted of the grace
of our God. The gospel of God's sovereign
saving grace. You know, it's distasteful to
the world. That's why it's hard to attract
a crowd. It's distasteful. But God's people,
it's most... David said, thy word is sweeter
than the honeycomb to me. Sweeter than honey, than a honeycomb. Taste and see that the Lord is
gracious, the grace of our God, the sovereign saving grace. Is
this familiar? What grace are you talking about,
Peter? Well, Ephesians 1. Run over there
real quick. Ephesians 1. Here's the grace
of God he's speaking of, that all of God's people taste and
experience and love saving of their soul by this grace. Just as Peter began in 1 Peter
1, he said to the strangers, and he said, elect according
to the foreknowledge of God. Well, this is how Paul begins
the letter to Ephesians. Also, verse 2, grace. Grace be
to you by the will of God to the faithful In Christ Jesus,
grace be to you, peace from God our Father, from the Lord Jesus
Christ. Oh, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessing in heavenly
places in Christ. Now, here's the first way that
our God was gracious to us. And this is the first thing you
taste when you hear this gospel. According as He hath chosen us.
Like Peter said, elect. according to the foreknowledge
of God. When you finally realize that, an unworthy, undeserving,
by nature God-hating sinner, and you finally realize it, He
chose you, and called you, and bought you, and brought you,
and taught you, and redeemed you, you think, Why did he choose
me? That's the first thing. First
thing. Blessed be God. That's electing
grace. Verse 4. Choosing grace. Verse
5. Predestinating grace. Everything
about us has been predestined. Don't you love that? I love it. Adopting grace. Adopting. You remember Brother David Edmondson's
message on adoption? Anybody in here love adoption?
Ed Berry loves adoption. Somebody chose Him as a child.
Oh, don't you love it? Chose us to be His family. His family adopting grace. Look
at verse 6. To the praise of the glory of
His grace. This is all to the praise of the glory of His grace. Wherein He made us accepted.
Accepting grace in the Beloved. We're accepted in the Beloved.
That's on our sign out there, isn't it? That's our motto, if
you will. Central Grace Church, to the
praise of the glory. What is this church about? To
the praise of the glory of His grace who chose us. adopted us, who predestined us,
who accepted us in Christ, who redeemed us. It's all to the
praise of the glory of His grace. Verse 7, who redeemed us, redeemed
us. Verse 9, and made known unto
us the mystery of His will, that's revealing grace. Verse 10, He's
going to gather together in one all things in Christ, gathering
grace. Verse 11, to an inheritance, that's inheriting grace. It's
grace. And what about chapter 2? Shall
we go over there? Oh, by grace are you saved. Not
of works lest any man should boast. We're His workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus unto
good works which God ordained that we should walk therein.
So go back. That's the grace we're talking
about. The grace of our Lord's work for us as we began this
whole study saying that the true grace of God And you have to
define it today, because men today make it an offer of God,
a general offer of amnesty. That's not the true grace of
God. The true grace of God is a powerful operation of God for
His people. It's a sacrifice Christ made
for His people. It's an operation of the Holy
Spirit of God in His people. It's an act of God, not an offer
of God. It's a bestowment upon us. He said, the Lord is gracious.
He's gracious in His work toward us. He's gracious in His person. The Lord Jesus Christ, gracious
in His person, everything about Him, grace poured from His lips.
He went about doing good, healing, feeding, leading, guiding, teaching,
directing. This is the Lord. Here's what
it says about our Lord, the grace of our Lord. The Lord is good
and ready to forgive. Plenteous in mercy unto all them
that call upon Him. Psalm 145 says He is tender mercies
over all His works. He's good to all. He said God is full of compassion. Gracious, long-suffering, plenteous
in mercy and truth. Moses said, what's your name?
He said, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious. That's my name. Gracious. Have you tasted that the Lord
is gracious? Has He been gracious to you? And then he says in verse 4 of
our text, If so be ye tasted, the Lord is gracious." If you've
heard this gospel of grace and need this gospel of God's grace
for your center that needs sovereign, saving, effectual, eternal grace,
then you come to Christ. To whom? Coming. All who have
been chosen by God, that were given to Christ, And he said,
all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that
cometh to me. I would have no wise guess there.
To whom coming? We come to Christ. We come to
Christ for everything, don't we? We come to Christ as our
prophet, our priest, our king. We come to Christ to tell us
all things. We come to Christ as our priest to confess our
sin. We come to Christ as our king
to provide all things. We come to Christ, who of God
is made unto us. You finish it. Who of God is
made unto us. Come on, try it again. Of God
is made unto us. Righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. We come to God, we must have
all those things. We must have all those things.
Christ is all. We come to Him for all those
things. To whom coming? To whom? To want Christ. Come to Him. We don't come to
the church, although Christ is found in the midst of His church.
That's where you'll find Him. That's where His gospel is preached.
That's where you'll hear from Him. But we're not coming to
an organization. We're coming to a person. We
don't come to the altar. We don't have an altar call.
We have an altar. Hebrews 13 says, it's Christ. We bow the knee to Him, not on
a bench. We bow the knee to Him. We confess our sins to Him. To whom? Coming. To Christ we
come. To whom? Coming. That's a continual
thing. And coming, and coming. You never
quit coming. You never quit coming to Christ.
You come in the beginning as a sinner in need of mercy and
grace. What are you now? Same. You keep coming. And no matter if you've strayed,
no matter if you've gone astray, always like sheep go astray.
David, the very last verse in the Psalms, Psalm 119, the very
last verse of Psalm 119, he said, I've gone astray like a lost
sheep seek me. David came back. How do you come
to Christ? How do you come to Christ? Well,
you come as a sinner. You come in humility. You come
as a poor and needy sinner. Stay that way. Stay that way. Don't ever rise above that, because
He'll hear you. He'll receive you. You come to
Christ as a poor and needy sinner. You come to Christ as a sinner
to be saved. How do you come to Christ? You come in faith, believing.
He said, come unto me. Come unto me. All you need is
labor and a heavy laden. I'll give you rest. That's the
promise. Just come. Come to Him in faith. You come to Him by
prayer. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. Never quit calling. Keep coming.
Come to Him in His Word. Lord, speak to me. Lord, speak
to me. To whom coming? Keep coming.
Come to Him where His people meet. He's promised to be where
two or three are gathered in His name. He's promised to be
there. Keep coming. Because He's promised to be there.
You need Him? Keep coming. Keep coming. To
whom? Come Him. And no matter how far
you've astrayed, no matter how long you've strayed, if He'd
come back, would He take you? He said, He that cometh to me,
I'll in no wise cast it out. I think somebody is listening
to this right now over the computer that is really thankful for that. I hope you are. Oh my, he says,
we come to Him as a living stone, verse 4, a living stone. See why I didn't, man, oh man,
I've got to hurry. To whom come Him as a living
stone? I thought about that story of
of Moses back in Exodus 33, and the Lord said, there's a place
by that. It's a rock, and I'm going to
put you on it. You're going to stand on that
rock, and I'm coming down to be with you. Better yet, the
Lord said, I'm going to put you in the cleft of that rock, and
I'm going to come and reveal myself to you. A rock of ages.
Let me hide myself in that rock." Back there, David's day, well,
all the early days, a cave was a sure refuge. The Lord is my rock, my refuge,
the rock on which I stand. Now here, he's talking about
a foundation stone. Read on, "...this allowed indeed
of men, but chosen of God and precious..." Go on. You also,
as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood,
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. He's talking about the church
that's built upon one foundation. Paul said, other foundation can
no man lay than that which is laid, which is? Christ Jesus
the Lord. He's the foundation of our salvation,
our faith. He is the one upon whom we stand.
He's the one upon whom we rest. The whole thing of salvation
rests upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a solid rock. Unmovable. Unshakable. Eternal. Unchanging. Christ the rock. The foundation of our faith.
And he said, this is the stone that God chose to lay, the cornerstone,
elect. He chose it and it's precious.
He is precious. Read at verse 6. It's written
in Scripture in Isaiah 28, Behold, I lay in Zion. That's his church. A cheap cornerstone, elect, precious,
valuable, much needed. He that believeth on him, he
that casteth all his care on him, casteth his soul on him,
confesseth his sin on him, shall not be confounded, shall not
be put to shame, shall not. Whosoever trusts in him and believes
on him shall not be put to shame." Oh, we're ashamed of ourselves,
but our Lord said, Scripture says, He's not ashamed to call
us brethren. So, believe on Him. Trust Him. Now, He said we're a holy priesthood. We'll look at that to offer a
holy sacrifice, spiritual sacrifice. Read on, verse 7, "...unto you
therefore which believe, He is precious in thee." Oh, my! "...unto them which be disobedient."
You see, unbelief is not just ignorance, people. It's rebellion.
It's not just ignorance. It's rebellion. It's refusing
to believe and look to Christ. It's preferring one's own righteousness
and so forth. They said to those that are disobedient, the stone
which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of
the corner. And he says, a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense.
You know, everything our Lord said offended the religious people
of His day, and it still does today. The gospel of God's sovereign
grace in Christ offends man's wisdom. It must be revealed. God must reveal. A man cannot
know God except He reveal Himself to him. It offends man's worth. Scripture says, None righteous. No, not one. None good. No, not
one. It offends man's sense of worth. It offends man's will. It's not your will. It's his
will. It offends man's works. It's not your works. Your works
don't account for anything. Our works don't account for anything
in salvation. Only Christ's works. That offends
man. Our Lord in John 6, we're going
to get to that soon, He said, does this offend you? Because
they said, these are hard sayings. They said, we're not going to
have this anymore. But his people, Peter, Peter, when the Lord said,
is this too hard for you? Does this offend you? And Peter
said, no, this is life. This is my life. If you hadn't
chosen me, I wouldn't be here. If you hadn't called me, I'd
be out there fishing. I'd die fishing without you,
without hope, without crying. Oh my, this is words of life.
I want to hear it again. It doesn't offend me at all. I love it. A stone of stumbling, a rock
of offense to them which stumble at the Word, being disobedient.
The Word of God is plain. The Word of God is very plain. It's not that it's not hard to
understand. It's just men don't like it.
Whereunto they were appointed. Romans 9. He talks about that. Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction,
but vessels of mercy made up by God. Oh my, you, he says,
verse 9. Oh people, if you love this truth,
if you've tasted the Lord's grace, if you've made this known to
you, yourself known to you, you're a chosen generation. See that? Chosen people. A royal priesthood. He talks about a priesthood.
Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic priesthood is priestcraft like
witchcraft. Call it that, priestcraft. There
are no more priests in the sense of men that take confession.
No, no, no, no, no, no. There is one high priest, and
that's the Lord Jesus Christ. We confess to Him. This priesthood
he's talking about, look at verse 5 again, offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And it says in, I believe it's
Hebrews 13, let us offer, let me see if I can find it, I think
that's it, Hebrews 13. Yeah. It says, by Him therefore
let us offer the sacrifice. By Christ. We don't come to God
except by Christ. He's the High Priest. We come
to Him to offer sacrifice of praise to God. We don't celebrate
the Mass that's killing Christ all over again. We don't do that.
There is no such thing as a priest in that sense. But the priests
were like the Levites, the chosen people of God, who would minister
about the sanctuary, and all they did, the common priest,
was wash dishes, cut wood, bake bread. One man went into the
Holy of Holies and offered the blood, and that man is Christ.
And the rest of the priests, and David had priests, Levites,
that he appointed as singers. A bunch of them. David loved
to sing. He loved to play the harp. And
he appointed a bunch of Levites to sing, to offer this sacrifice
of praise. Sing! And he wrote all these
psalms for them to sing. That's the priests we are. That's
what that means. Royal priesthood, that means
kings and priests. Isn't that what he says in Revelation
1? He's made us kings and priests. Now, do we reign over anybody
or anything? No. What that means is we're
sons of the King. We're joint heirs with Him. He
reigns. We reign with Him. The new heaven,
the new earth. We're going to live as kings.
We live as kings now. Read on, it says, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, that's a separated, sanctified, chosen, consecrated,
holy nation, made holy in Christ, spiritual Israel. Not that nation,
the national people, but a spiritual people, a holy nation. A peculiar people. Peculiar. You remember how he started this?
You remember verse 1? To the strangers. To the strangers. Strange to the world. Strange
doctrines, strange God, strange beliefs, strange practices, strange
methods. And the more the worse this world
gets, the stranger God's people are going to become. The stranger
this truth will be. That you should show forth. Why did he do all this? for us
and to us, that you should show forth the praises of Him. To
the praise of the glory of what? His grace. That you should show
forth His praises. Who called you? Out of darkness
and His marvelous light. In time past you were not a people.
I'm looking at some of you who in time past, you weren't here. Most in this room were not here
when I came in. I've had the blessed privilege
of watching God make you His people. You were not a people. You had no interest in this gospel. No interest. You weren't here.
You were not the people of God. You were out in the world, weren't
you? Made you His people. But now
you are His people. You didn't make yourself His
people, did you? Yourself, His people. No, no.
You show forth the praise of Him that called you. You now
have obtained mercy. What's this all about? Sovereign
grace and sovereign mercy. You have now obtained mercy. You're God's people, chosen,
called, predestined, redeemed, justified from all things, and
glorified. You have been highly honored
to hear this message tonight. You are highly honored if you
believe this message. You are highly honored and favored
of God if you love this message, if you find it good to your taste,
God's given you a taste of His grace. Oh my, taste and see that
the Lord is good. Okay, stand with me. Our Father in Heaven, thank You
so much for Your Word. Thank You, thank You, thank You.
Thank You for Your gospel of Your marvelous grace in Christ
Jesus. Thank You for Him who is the
grace of God. Thank you for that unspeakable
gift, Christ crucified. He is the gift of salvation.
He is our salvation. He is all to us. He is precious to us. O Lord,
make him more so. Show us the vanity of this world.
Show us the frailty of these things. Show us how everything
is perishing. and set our affection on things
above where Christ sits, at the right hand of God, as newborn
babes set our desire upon Him. It's in Christ's name we have
met here tonight and give you thanks and ask these things.
Amen.