The Church of Eleven22 - Stand Alone: A People for a Purpose

Episode Date: September 29, 2019

God has set apart a PEOPLE for a PURPOSE.

Amen, amen. It never gets old, celebrating life change. Hey, welcome to the Church 1122. If we haven't met yet, my name is Ryan Stone. I'm one of the pastors here. I have the opportunity to be the campus pastor at our Bay Meadows campus. And so it is a joy to be with all the campuses today. The saints at Bay Meadows send their greetings. We love being a part of this big dysfunctional family that stretches from the beach to Baker, Correctional.

And we've even picked up a brand new island. Hey Fleming. I'm not exactly sure technically. how you're an island, but we still love you. We're glad that you are here. I'm going to get a bunch of emails on geography. I probably won't read them, but Fleming, we're glad you're here. Hey, I am an honor to be able to preach today.

Last week, we wrapped up a series called Bridges. And for seven weeks, we just looked over and over again about this reality that Jesus is the bridge to us, that he has bridged our religion, he's bridged our shame, he's bridged our brokenness, he's bridged our sin, that Christ came for the purpose of bridging us into a relationship with God. And next week, we're going to start a series called One, Loving God with All. We've been looking at Deuteronomy 6th of the last year, and we're going to take it and go week by week through each one of the loving God with all your heart, loving God with all your soul,

loving God with your mind. Pastor Job is going to be back. And over the next five weeks, you do not want to miss that series as we continue as a church to wrestle with a question of, is God the one thing that drives all things? And today I have the task of bridging us from the series bridges to the series one. And so what we're going to do is we're going to look at 1st Peter chapter 2. Do me a favor. Go ahead and turn your Bibles there or scroll on your screens.

If you don't have a Bible that you understand or you just don't have a Bible, there's all of our campuses. We've got a Bible in front of you. We'd love. That's our gift to you. We're going to dig into 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 1 through 9. guys ready to go? All right, the 12 of us up front, everybody else can join us, right? I'm just kidding. Let me give you one more chance. You guys ready to go dig in God's word? There we go.

You know what they didn't need at Baker campus? A second try. They got it the first time. They were excited. The rest of us are slow, right? Verse one, so put away all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. The word so, we just caught Peter mid-conversation, and we want to back up real quick and just catch up on chapter one. We're going to do this kind of cliff notes style so that we're not here all day and until tomorrow. But real quick, in chapter one, we've caught Peter mid-conversation. Peter started the conversation by reminding us of these truths.

In chapter one, Peter tells us that we have a living hope in Jesus. Peter tells us in chapter one that in great mercy, God's called us to be born again. Peter also reminds us that God is the one who gives us the faith to even see him. It's a gift from him. And in chapter one, he reminds us that we are ransomed, not by our actions, but we are ransomed by the blood of Jesus Christ on a cross. And so verse 22 of chapter 1, I want to stop and read it, and it'll help us understand what Peter means by so. So verse 22, we are commanded to love one another earnestly from. a pure heart. Since, underline that word, since you have been born again, not of perishable

seed or imperishable through living, but through the living and abiding word of God. So Peter throughout chapter one has told us that the work of the gospel starts vertically. We've been born again. We've been born anew. We have this new relationship. The death of Jesus on the cross has made us right with God. But right here in verse 22 and 23, Peter's going to remind us that that's not where it ends. Peter's saying because we've been born again through the living and abiding word, because Christ has redeemed us, because of that, we now have the ability to love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Because God has purified our heart and we've been purified in this vertical relationship, it now spills over horizontally so that we love one another. It kind of

sounds familiar, right? I mean, the Shemah, Deuteronomy Six, the greatest commandment is love the Lord your God, all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then Jesus comes along in the Gospels in the New Testament. And he tells us, not only is it love the Lord your God, but love one another, love your neighbor as yourself. So the verse here, back to verse one. So because the Gospels not only changed us vertically, it's also changed us horizontally because of that, put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

Simply put, you cannot love God while your heart, soul, mind, and strength and hate those around you. It's oxymoronic. It doesn't make sense. When the gospel takes root in your heart and you learn to love the Lord your God, all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, the natural outpouring of that love is to love one another. In fact, as the gospel takes root, it purifies our heart. The gospel takes root and it presses out the ill intent of malice. The gospel comes in and presses out the falsehood of deceit. You no longer need to lie to protect yourself. The gospel comes in and presses out the insincerity of hypocrisy, the fake you. You don't have to worry about it anymore because Jesus died for the real you.

The gospel comes in and presses out envy and replaces it with true thanksgiving. That when your brother and sister gets something good for them, you are excited for them getting things for their good. The gospel presses out the haphazard harm of slander. The gospel comes in and begins to renew vertically and horizontally our ability to love one another. I want you to hear this. I want you to be encouraged by this. This is a response to the gospel.

This verse, to put away these things, is a response to the gospel. It is not the merits by which we attain salvation. Meaning this, the verb to put away. We'll get nerdy for a second. Keep up with me. We'll get it right in and out of it, right? This word, this verb is not in the imperative form. To which somebody who's like, I don't even know what imperative is. It's all right. You graduated from Placa, but we're glad you're here. And so the imperative, right, is like a command.

So the word put away is not a command here. It's not the imperative. It's not an order being shouted. The actual verb form is more responsive. It's more of a sense then. Or so because God, loved you and now you love people, now put away the things of malice and envy. Peter is not saying, put these things away so God will love you. Peter is saying, since God so loves you, since he's already redeemed you, since he's already done a great work, put away the things that no longer fit you. He's saying put these away.

The Greek word apothe thethymai is the verb we would use in like changing clothes. I got a six-year-old and eight-year-old. Many times throughout the week, when it's getting close to dinner and bedtime and stuff, as a good father, I tell them, take off your clothes and put them in the dirty clothes. They stink. Now, I have to tell them where the laundry room is, even though it's the door next to their bedroom, because apparently those five feet of carrying dirty clothes are too much for a six- and eight-year-old. But I tell them, take off your dirty clothes, they stink it.

That's the verb here to take off. Peter's saying take off these actions. They don't fit you anymore. Now, if you've been around 1122 for a few years, you know this to be true. I used to be fat. All right. Now, the kind of fat that someone should have pulled me aside and rebuked me with the gospel, like not healthy.

I was unhealthy. None of y'all did, so I don't know if you just don't love me or what. But anyway, I was fat. And I said this earlier in a different service, and somebody said, you weren't that fat. And I said, you're just still trying to be nice to me. I was. I was big. And by God's grace, I was convicted and laid some things.

and have lost some weight and gotten healthier. I'm not skinny, right? I don't think I'll ever be skinny. I'm kind of stuck between fat and skinny, which is what I call healthy, and I'm trying to live right there. Now when I got healthy, I took all my fat stone clothes, and I put them in a bag, and I took them to Hope's closet, and then I bought some skinny stone clothes, and I put those on.

Why? Because those clothes didn't fit me anymore. Since I had become healthy, I needed to put off those clothes. That's what Peter is telling us, the work of Jesus on the cross. has changed you. And because it has changed you, the actions of your flesh, they don't fit anymore. Lay those things aside and put on the things that fit. Verse two. Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation. Salvation is ours to have and ours to

mature into. We are saved by grace. We are justified by Him. We are justified by Him. his works and we are being sanctified by grace. It's this beautiful picture. Verse three, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Peter says, look, like new more infants, long for spiritual milk, grow up in your salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. This is not a scare tactic. It's not a cause for fear. Peter is saying, if you've tasted the Lord, you've tasted that he's good, you'll long for more. Our longing to grow spiritual is rooted in the fact that we have tasted the beauty of God and we want more of that. Peter's saying this, when you experience the kindness and the goodness of who God is,

it leads you to long for more. Now, I'll say this across all of our campuses. If you're sitting and going to stone, I've never tasted the sea that the Lord is good. I'm here, but what you're talking about, the kindness and goodness of Lord, I've never tasted. Can I just encourage you to just ask God to do what only God can do? just through prayer, go, God, I hear about your kindness and I hear you about your goodness. Can I taste it? And he's a good, good father that wants to reveal himself to us.

And I think a lot of times he's just waiting on us to be in a position. We're like, okay, God, now I'm ready to realize your greatness. So I always encourage you to ask them. Now, he says if you've tasted and seen that the Lord is good, then you should be longing for pure spiritual milk. Now, I know some of us like me, the first time I read it, I was like pure spiritual milk, Is this related to like coconut milk or oatmeal? I mean, I don't even know how you milk an oat. I mean, I digress.

But I began to read it and go, what is he talking about here? And Peter is using this kind of illustration to kind of show us that just like babies crave milk, the believer should crave the pure spiritual word of God. Simply put, the Bible in God's word is life-giving substance. It is what gives breath in our lungs. It's what gives nutrients to our spiritual walk. The very word of God, literally the written word of God, the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is God's word to us, useful for teaching us and encouraging us.

And there's also the spiritual spoken word of God that as we sing and as we pray, the Holy Spirit speaks to us. Peter is saying we should long like babies, long for milk. We should long for the word of God. Now, don't get fooled here. Peter's not just talking to baby Christians. It'd be really easy if you've been a Christian for a little while to go, okay, great, what's next? There's not a next.

The actual book of First and Second Peter was written to Christians who had been kind of ran out of Rome and they were living throughout all of Asia Minor. And so Peter's writing this letter to these believers. And so as he's writing like babies, he's talking to people who may have been a Christian for a day and he's talking to people who had been Christians for 30 or 40 years since Jesus had literally died on the cross.

Piers are saying, no matter where you're at in your journey, we should long like newborn babies. We should have cravings for God's word. Now, if we're going to be honest, newborns are very, very simple, yet complex humans, right? If you're like, you've never had a baby and you're on your way, maybe you're pregnant now or maybe, you know, that's in your future, I'll just tell you, babies need, they do three things.

They eat, they sleep, and they poop, and then they repeat. And some of you're like, I'm a little offended about the word poop. I'm the least offensive pastor here, right? And so they do this over and over and over again. And babies crave one thing. They crave life. They want to live. It's what they crave milk.

That's what an infant lives for. Their entire life is about milk. It's about getting substance and living. They don't care about your preferred sleep pattern for them at all. They don't care about the roof over their head. They don't care about the brand of their diaper. they don't care about the style of their onesie. They don't even care if they have a onesie on.

They don't care about their name yet. They don't care about their birthday. Infants don't care about their eneagram number. They don't care. You can dress them in red and black and raise them up in the way a child should go, and they still don't care what college to cheer for yet. You know, babies, they don't worry about anything. Like, you have never seen a baby with a complex look on their face going,

I'm worried about the stock market. They don't worry. they simply crave one thing. They crave milk. You know why? Without it, they would die. Babies crave milk frequently. They crave it eagerly.

And I'm praying that the same would be true of us and our craving for God's word. You know, church, the truth is, is no matter if we miss God's word, if we miss the life-giving substance of God's word, we miss it all. Like our prayer, without God's, without the word of God. Our prayers are empty. Our singing is empty. Our gathering is empty. Our serving is

empty. Our mission is empty. We crave God's word because it gives us life. We need the very word of God the same way a newborn needs milk. May we crave the word of God frequently and may we crave the word of God eagerly. And here's one of the reasons we crave God's word. Verse four, as you come to him. as you come to who as you come to Jesus how do you come to Jesus well through the word we just read that as we read the word and study the word as we read the written word of God it leads us to the living word of God Jesus is described in John 1 as the word was with God and the word was God so as we read God's written word it draws us to the living word it draws us to Jesus himself it says this as you come a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and

and precious, you yourselves are like living stones being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Now, here's the point of the sermon. The point of the sermon is this. God is redeeming a people for a purpose. God is redeeming a people for our purpose. Now, I know some of you regulars are thinking, we got to the point already. We're going to get out of here. No, we're having, we're having to the point already. We're going to get out of here. No, we're halfway through the manuscript. We're going to keep going. I want you to see this point because this is the drumbeat that Peter is beating throughout this entire text.

He's saying God is active in redeeming a people for his own possession that God, through his son, his only begotten son, has ransomed mankind and is redeeming a people for his own possession and giving us the believers a purpose beyond our wildest, imagination. That's what God is doing. I want to show this to you. Verse five says this. You, yourselves like the living stone. The Greek there is like, yes, even you. Right? It was just comforting to me. I'm like me. He's like, yeah, Peter's like, yeah, even you. You made it, right? So you, yourselves, the living stone. Jesus is the living stone. Jesus is the living stone. He is rejected by man, but he is chosen by God. And don't miss this. Peter's saying, you and I

are like Jesus. Don't miss that. Peter is acknowledging the fact that we are like, we have been chosen by God. We've been declared precious. God, our Father in heaven said, I choose you and I declare you precious. Now, you nor I, we are not chosen because of our action. We are chosen because of Christ action on the cross. And we're not precious because your mama said so. She's supposed to. That's her job. Some of you, she lied to. But you were not precious because your mama said so, you're precious because you've been purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ. You've been declared precious and valuable. But why has God chosen us? Right? We get to this question of like, I don't understand. Why would Jesus spill his blood for us?

You continue in the verse. It says, you're like living stones and we are being built up as a spiritual house. Now this is contrary to Western thought, but you and I were not saved for a personal private relationship with Jesus Christ. Yeah, there is deep intimacy that comes from the work of Christ on the cross between God's father and you as the believer, but you and I were not saved to personal private relationships. Those words, that language is not anywhere throughout scripture. We were not saved for a personal relationship. We were saved to be a part of the people of God. Throughout all of scripture, salvation over and over again talks about salvation into the community, salvation into the family of God, salvation into the spiritual house of God. Think about the

imagery here. You and I are being built into a house. If you look at the house, you know, you drive around right now, there's construction kind of everywhere. Economies. and you can drive up to a construction site and you can see all the raw materials. You see the dry wall laying out in the front yard. You can see the two by fours and the framing and the wires and you can kind of see everything. But if you drive back by when that thing is complete, you don't see all the raw materials. You see the house. You see this thing that has been built to protect the people who live in it.

You see this thing that displays the beauty of the builder. And Peter is stressing you and I are the same. on our own we are but mere raw materials meaningless in our existence but we are being built together by God's grace and mercy to be the dwelling place of God that we would declare the beauty of our builder you see we are not being saved we are not saved unto self we are saved into community we are redeemed as a people and not only is redeemed as a people but we are redeemed as a people that God has given this great purpose, that we would be a holy priesthood, that we would offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. Peter's blowing, the reader of the first century,

that's crazy. Because throughout the whole Old Testament, the only people who could be priest were men from the tribe of Levi. So there was Israel, and then there was a tribe of Levi, and then there were men, and they would pick some of the men, and they would serve God as priest. priests started out early in the temple, the tabernacle. And then after the tabernacle, the tent, Solomon built the temple. So they moved into the temple. And these priests served God. They served the people of God. They represented the people of God to God. And they would go in and they would do the sacrifices. Their job was to serve God by leading the nation in worship. But what Peter is saying is now, through the work of Jesus on the cross, every believer is a priest. All of God's people, not an elite group,

all of God's people are priests. Now, I know we've got some Catholics here and going, man, I just found out a few weeks ago, I'm a saint. Now you're saying I'm a priest. I can see your brain working right now. It's blowing your brain. All of us are. Now, here's the thing. I'm not saying many of us, like for the large majority of us being a priest does not mean you need to go into vocational ministry. Like if there's one thing I could encourage you to do, as the Lord stirs in you and you walk into spiritual maturity, the answer very rarely is that you would walk into vocational ministry. In fact, the call to be a priest is the call to go wherever I'm at, I'm a priest for God. In fact, God has placed you in positions, whether it be boardrooms or carpool lines

or the east block at Baker or wherever God's placed you, he has placed you in a position to be a priest to represent God to the people, to declare to those around you, the glory of God, to lead in worship. And so for every single one of us, God has placed you on purpose to declare his glory, to mirror his glory to the nations. Very, very few folks should go into vocational ministry, but every believer is a minister. Every believer is a priest, and all of us should be leveraging our entire lives to glorify God and work. worship. Verse six. For it stands in scripture. Now what Peter's about to do of these next few verses is he's about to go to the Old Testament and he's going to use some Old Testament Bible verses

to preach this New Testament message. Super important here for two reasons. One, Peter is showing us that the New Testament of the Old Testament are hinged together. They are one book from Genesis to Revelation that points to Jesus and the love of Jesus for mankind and the glory of God. We can't separate the Old Testament and New Testament, Peter didn't, we don't. The second thing that I think it's cool that Peter is showing us is scripture, interpret scripture well. So if you ever get to a verse, you're like, man, that one is tough. No problem. Look around it. Begin to look at other scripture and let scripture interpret scripture. So Peter is going to start by quoting Isaiah 28. He says, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, chosen and precious. And whoever

believes in him will not be put to shame. Now, Peter hops back into Isaiah. And in Isaiah chapter 28, I'll summarize it for you really quickly. The summary is this, rebellious people will be rejected, but people who repent and believe in Jesus will be received. That's the overarching message of Isaiah 28. For those who reject Yahweh or reject God, they will be rejected. For those who repent to Yahweh, repent to or as we know in the New Testament, Jesus, God, and flesh, they will be received. Jesus here is what we're talking to Isaiah 28. Jesus is the perfect cornerstone. He's the cornerstone by which all of everything is being built to, leveled to, held standard to.

Jesus is the cornerstone, elected by, chosen by, and precious to God. Jesus is such a perfect cornerstone that God is shaping the entire building to his shape and form. And by building, we mean the church. And by church, I mean you and me. I need to just despunk a little heresy. Some of us grew up in. Help me, if you remember this. This is the church.

Come on. Like more than three people know that one, right? This is the, and this is the, open the door and see all the heresy. Pure heresy. The church is not the building with the tall steeple. The church, the people are the church. And what Isaiah 28 is showing us is that Jesus is the cornerstone to which you and I, the church, the church is not a building, it's a people, it's a movement of God.

We are being built to the perfection and to the level of Jesus Christ. Verse 7. So the honor is for you who believe. The honor to be built into the shape and form of Jesus. But for those who do not believe, Peter's now going to quote Psalms 118. the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. And now Peter's going to quote Isaiah 8, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Peter adds this in his own commentary, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.

Now here's the truth. All of us, at every single campus, the podcasters around the world, all of us deserve the shame of our sin. Every single one of we have sin, we have fallen short of the glory of God, and every single one of us deserve the shame. But what Peter is declaring, what the gospel declares is this, but for those who believe in trust in Jesus that he took their shame to the cross, their shame will be removed, their shame will be dealt with, but the shame will remain on those who reject Jesus. Peter is saying the same thing that's been said throughout all of Scripture that those who rebel and reject, God will give them to their rebellion. Those who repent, God will receive and take their shame and make them sons and daughters. All of us deserve it.

The reality is those that reject Jesus Christ have been and will always be proven wrong when God exalts Jesus. Here's the truth of Scripture. Here's the truth of life. Jesus is offensive. He is. The way that Jesus lived his life perfectly, the way that Jesus spoke of himself, that he is God and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Jesus, he is in himself an offensive person. He's offensive to us because the way he lived and the way he spoke declares that we cannot live however we want to and be declared righteous. We are not righteous by our own acts. Those that refuse to believe in Jesus will stumble over him. That's what the text is telling us. Like the cornerstone that was laid, that the church would be built to the image of Christ, that we would lay down our lives next to Jesus and be laid next to him and be built in this spiritual house.

That same stone becomes a stumbling block to those who refuse to repent. And it's actually the kindness of Jesus. I mean, you think about this, there's this cornerstone that's being laid and this house that's being built into the dwelling place of God. And for those who see Jesus as the cornerstone, they repent, they're redeemed, they're built into it. into the house. But for those who don't, Jesus causes them to stumble so that even in their stumbling, Jesus would say, you tripped over me. I love you. I came to die for you. My life came to show that your life can't measure up, but my life has measured up for you. And even in stumbling over Jesus, Jesus is declaring his mercy for all who believe Jesus is the living stone.

God is redeeming a people for a purpose. Verse 9. but you Peter has addressed the fact that Jesus is the cornerstone and he said some people are still going to reject him some people are still going to refuse to surrender to his lordship but for you for those of us who have surrendered our life to Jesus Christ declared he is Lord that received the truth that when he said it is finished on the cross

it counted for me but you are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of the darkness into marvelous light. But you are. Does it say you are a new person? No. I mean, yes, that's true. It is true that when we meet Jesus and surrender to the Jesus, his righteousness becomes our.

We are purchased and redeemed by his blood. But Peter is not stressing, he's stressing this. Salvation is not about simply a new you, salvation is about a new us. What Peter is stressing here is, yes, you are radically different, but you are part of, the biggest part about being radically different is you now belong to God's people. You used to be alone and now you belong. You see sin by its nature.

Sin will isolate. Sin drives us to self-preservation. Sin drives us to judging others. Sin tears us apart at the fabric of relationship. If you go all the way back to Genesis chapter one, God created Adam and Eve. They were in perfect relationship. Adam and Eve to each other. Adam and Eve to God, God to Eve. It was a perfect harmonious relationship. And the moment sin enters, it rips at the fabric of relationship. No longer is man in a relationship with God. It's broken. Man and woman's relationship. Adam and Eve, their relationship is broken

with each other. We now live in a world in which sin rips at the fabric of our relationship. But what God does in salvation is he restores and redeems the fabric of relationship vertically and horizontally. It reminds me of Ephesians chapter two. If you want to flip over there real quick, we're going to hop over and come right back. Ephesians chapter two, verse one, I love this passage. It says this, and you. Now the Greek there is like y'all. It's plural, right? So if Peter was writing to my people, he'd have said, and y'all were dead in your trespasses in your sin. I don't know why when I say y'all, I can't get back out of the country accent, but we'll see what happens, in which y'all once walked. Peter's going,

the sin has jacked y'all up, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience amongst whom we all once lived in the passion of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Versus one through three, Paul says this, sin destroys and y'all were jacked up. Verse four, but God, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love in which he has loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses. And now all of a sudden, it's like, it goes from like, y'all were jacked up, but because of what Jesus has done, it now becomes about we. It made us alive. By grace you've been saved. You've raised us up with him.

You've seated us with him in the heavenly place so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you've been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It's a gift from God. Not as a result of works that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should welcome them. Throughout Scripture, God is declaring he is redeeming a people for a great purpose, that we have been redeemed and set next to him and brought into the family that we would go about doing these great works that he has prepared for us. You see, in salvation, in redemption, I becomes we.

In the moment of redemption, the y'all becomes us. in redemption, enemies of God become family of God. In redemption, the isolation of sin becomes the community of salvation. In redemption, the spare raw materials are redeemed and built into something beautiful that in redemption we are being built into the dwelling place of God. He says, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. because of what Christ does on the cross, he creates three new things. The first thing that's created is a new race.

Jesus creates a race that is not determined by skin color or heritage. It's determined by this open invitation for all people to belong to the blood of Jesus Christ. The privilege of this race is extended to all because we all are invited to belong to him and to belong to one another. And what Jesus is doing here, there is no room. for inequality because he has made all equal at the foot of the cross. The second thing that Jesus creates is a new priesthood. Priesthood originally was for this elite group and now it's for all. Now it's now the mark of every single believer.

Everyone who is a believer is a minister of the gospel. Everyone who calls God their Heavenly Father, he calls them his priest amongst the nations, that we would be a mirror to declare the glory of God in this. new priesthood. And he creates a new nation. The work of Jesus creates a nation that's no longer bound by ethnicity or birthplace or geographical boundaries. It's a nation where everyone's citizenship is purchased by Jesus. All are equal in this new nation. There's no hierarchy. There's simply God, the father, and all of his children. Every citizen in this nation is invited together to enjoy the

eternal presence in favor of God, our Creator. We are a people for his own possession. And I love this. We're going to see this. Not only we are a people for his own possession, but we are a people with a purpose. We're not just like baseball cards that's been collected or trophies. It's been added to a trophy case.

But we are a people for his own possession that you might proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into a marvelous light. We're not just a collection. We have been redeemed for the great purpose. And this is the great purpose in which all believers has been redeemed for him. To declare the excellencies of God. Simply put, to worship him with our lifestyles, to point to him and to clear, to tell everyone we know how excellent God is.

To point to our past that is filled to the brim with darkness and to point to our present in which Christ has shined his marvelous. light in every corner. And in the dark, all of our shame was covered up. And in the light, what Christ has done is not only exposed our shame, but removed it. That is what we have been given to. That is the purpose in which we have been created. Now, the truth is we have a real enemy. And our real enemy would love to isolate you. If he cannot keep us from knowing Christ's Lord and Savior, his next best tool is to keep us isolated from knowing each other as brother and sister. The enemy would love to make you idle.

The enemy would love you to lead you to waste your life, to convince us that salvation is but a personal thing, to lie to you, to lie to me, that our day-to-day activities have no value. We are just simply cogs in a machine, but God has redeemed us to belong to one another. God has created us to be a new people. God has sent his one and only son to die that we might be redeemed and live with the great

purpose of declaring how great thou art, of declaring how excellent God is. Now, as a preacher, there tends to be a few different goals of a sermon. Obviously, we want to herald God's word, but sometimes we want to preach God's words for your hands. We want to give you something to go do. I want to encourage you that you can do it. Sometimes it's for the head. We want to cause you to think about things in a new way, maybe shape and change the way you view the world

and give you a biblical worldview. And sometimes we preach for the heart. And that's my heartbeat today. I'm not trying to give you an action list of go put these things off and put these things on. I'm not trying to even give you something new to think about. But what I want is walking out of here is that I want you to know some things. I want you to believe some things.

I want you to experience some things. And when I say no, I want you to know, like, deep down in your soul, like pressing into your bones, like the type of knowing something that changes the way you breathe and changes the way you think. I'm not talking about, like, cognitively, do you know the score of the Georgia Notre Dame game? I know that. What I'm saying is deep down in your soul, does this knowledge change the way you view the way? world. I want you to believe some things walking out of here. I want you to believe wholeheartedly, the kind of belief we see in the Bible where it talks about putting your full faith and trust in

something. Not the belief of like, I believe that might be true, but the belief that says I'll stake everything in my life. I'll put the full weight of my life on that being true. And I want you to experience, not hear about, not see someone else. I don't want you to have a secondhand experience. I want you to have a first-hand experience with the goodness of God. So I want to encourage you the few things. Number one, I want you to know this. I want you to believe this. I want you to experience.

I want you to know this. God loves you. God loves you. He declared it in John chapter 3. It says, for God so love the world, the cosmos, all that was in creation. All that was in creation, all that would be. And sometimes we read God so love the world. We can just go, oh, that's cool. God loves the world.

He is declaring God so loved you. Put your name in there. God so loved Ryan. God so put your name. God so loved you. He is so, he loves you so much that he sent his only son to die. A death that you and I deserve for the sin that you and I, we did. We were guilty of it. But God, he doesn't fall in love with you. He's not like a middle school relationship where it's in and out and in and out. God is love and overflowing in his presence towards you is his love. love for you declaring you that he so loved you that he sent his only son. Now I'll tell you where I get convicted, I wholeheartedly believe in the gospel past and I whole heartily hope for the gospel future. Here's what I mean. I wholeheartedly can look back at my life

and go, I was a sinner and God saved me and I now have a relationship with God. I can look at the future and I can get excited for the things that God's going to do in my family. I get excited for things God's going to do in this church. But here's where I struggle. In the gospel past, I see my sin in the gospel future. I see his glory in the gospel presence. I just need to know this. He loves me. And you need to know that too.

God loves you. He loves you right where you are. Does he long for you to have a better hope, a better future? Does he have plans to prosper you? Absolutely. But those plans are not to get you ready to be loved. Those plans are because he loves you so much right now in this moment, wherever you're at, he declares, I love you.

When Jesus stretched his arms out on the cross, it was a declaration. He loves us so much he would die for us. Church, I want us to know that deep in our bones. I also want us to know this. You were created to belong. You were created to belong. Theologians call our existence and existence of Imago Day, which simply means this, the image of God.

But you and I, all of humanity have been created in the image of God. And what we know to be true about God is God is a triune God. He's three persons in one. He's God the Father. He's God the Son. He's God the Holy Spirit. He's one being with three persons. And here's what we know about the Trinity.

Before God created anything, he was an absolute perfect community. And when he created you and me, he created us to reflect him, meaning we were created for this deep, almost unsessatial desire to be in community. Ecclesiastity says, in the heart of every man, this is longing for eternity. We long for perfect and healthy and whole community. It's why loneliness is such an attack of the enemy. It's why isolation is such an, just an awful attack of the enemy,

that he would lie to you and tell you you are not worthy of community. He doesn't get to declare that. Your creator does. God said he loves you. and God created you for community. We live in a culture that by its nature is just, it just declares the fake you is doing fine. We live in a culture where we create this social media presence

as if it's never even rained on us. We create this social media presence. We create this kind of fake version of us saying everything's fine. The problem is this. We are citizens of a kingdom that says the fake you, Jesus doesn't need. The real you, Jesus died for. We live citizens of a kingdom that says authenticity and vulnerability are gifts from God because

we were created to belong. And we belong best when we're most real, when we realize I am weak, but he is strong and you're broken and I'm broken, but he is healing us and making us whole together. Now here's what I know. Yeah, I know this. I know in our culture, it's hard. I know in this church it can be difficult. It's a big church.

And some folks, right now you're going, no problems, don't I want community? Now here's the thing. Community best happens organically. But sometimes, sometimes we've got to organize some things so organic can happen. That's why we've created disciple groups. That's why we've created surf staffs. We've created all these places to connect because we want to organizationally. We want to organize the organic. And that's why every week there's these response cards.

And right now you could pick it up and go, you know what, I'm going to take a step to get a disciple group. where I want to join a service staff. I promise you, if you started serving at church at your campus, the church would shrink in half immediately. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to be like the first day into disciple group. You're like, oh, I'm in deep community. You've got to work at it. And if you go in with that expectation, you're probably the problem.

So just get in a group and get in an organized place and go, you know, I've been created to belong. God created you. And so we're going to organize some things and organically beg the Lord to bring us into community. Because he created you for that. God loves you. I want you to know that deep in your bones. God, you are created to belong in the image of God. The third thing I want you to know, church, I want this to be like the kind of thing that as we fall asleep tonight,

we fall asleep resting instead of worrying because these things are true. Your life has a purpose beyond your wildest imagination. Your life has a purpose beyond your wildest imagination. If you flip over to Ephesians, it says this, God can do more than we can. ask or imagine, which means this. I want you to think about the craziest, wildest, most influential thing God could do with your life for the kingdom that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of God's plans for you. Why? Because Christ died for you. Christ redeemed you. Christ made you a part of a people. And now because you're part of the people, you live with this purpose, you and I were

created to declare the excellencies of the creator of the world. which means this. We live our entire lives as priests, worshiping God going, he did it, he did it, he's doing it, he will do it, he's worthy, he's worthy, he's worthy. Look, here's the deal, you're not a breadwinner, you're a kingdom builder. You're not raising kids, moms and dads, you're not raising kids. You're raising missionaries to get on the front line of war. We're not going to school to just get degrees. You're going to school to get your platform built so you can herald the gospel from science to banking to teaching to wherever you go.

You're building a platform so that you're well trained to point to Jesus. We're not living lives waiting for the weekend. Yolo is not our mantra. What our mantra is every single moment of the day is going to be leveraged for this great purpose of declaring God. The king of the universe is redeeming a people. You're going to look at people in your cubicles and at the board tables and the court tables and the carpool on, you're going to look at them this week differently because you're going to look at them going, God is redeeming the people, and he has sent me for you that you would know the love of Jesus,

and that you would belong before the storms even come, you would already belong. And we're not attending church. We're not attending an event. We are gathering the saints to belong to one another so that throughout Jacksonville and throughout the world, this group of people that God is redeeming, that he would raise us up for the glorious purpose of making known the name of Jesus. Church, stand with me as we pray and we're going to worship. Lord, we love you and we thank you for loving us.

God, I pray that in this moment of singing, that we would be encouraged. I pray that in this moment of worship, we would be stirred to repent. We would be stirred to submit to your kingship. God, may we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are loved, that we are being redeemed, that we are being set apart as a people for your possession for the glorious purpose of making known your name to the nations. As in your precious and most holy name that we pray,

well, we love you. We thank you for loving us. We thank you for knowing us. We thank you for redeeming us. We thank you for calling us yours. So our heavenly Father, thank you for sending your son, Jesus. He's a name that is worthy of all our praise. In your name we pray.

Amen. Amen. Church, we're going to respond. We're going to pray. We're going to sing. We're going to give our tithes of offering. We're going to declare that God is the one thing that drives all things. And as a people, we're going to declare to God his glory and declare it to each other.

And we're going to ask God to set us apart for a purpose. So may we sing. May we give, may we pray.