Father, I pray for your spirit as we meet this morning that the matters that we're talking about are so great and so glorious So wonderful to conceive and I pray that you'd help us to understand them and embrace them. I Pray that our hearts would be greatly encouraged by them. It is It is an overwhelmingly wonderful thing that you should be pleased To create a people, recreate a people for yourself and gather that people to yourself that We might delight in you and and also be your glory bearers before the world O Lord, may that be true for us. May that in some real measure be true for us and And again, we know that we need your spirit if we're to understand your word if it's to if it's to penetrate our hearts and and Take root in our hearts and so we ask for your spirit to come this morning and to shape us a bit more as We think about ourselves in our relationship to you We thank you for the church and Pray that our understanding of the church would be increased as well. We pray in Jesus name. Amen
Let me have you look at first Peter 2 verses 9 to 10 what were them what we're Talking about in this class is the church and There are a couple of Couple of pictures that we've painted already one of them we painted by looking at Jeremiah 29 and and thinking about Israel in exile in Babylon and
There is a sense in which we we have been exiled we have been exiled from paradise and Our true home is paradise and while we're away from paradise We're living in a kind of Babylon and that passage in Jeremiah 29 is a great encouragement to us Even though we live in Babylon. We're still the people of God and we have our Distinctives and those distinctives are not to be negotiated or compromised We're to live faithfully in the midst of Babylon and and yet we're not to be a ghetto We're not to to withdraw from Babylon and live in isolation in fact We're admonished to to seek the peace of the city where the Lord has called us to dwell and that means taking Taking the whole of our understanding of God and the world and and the implications of all of that out into the marketplace and Prosecuting it in every area of life and And promises that as we seek the peace of the city and that's what we're doing We're simply living our lives faithfully In all of life as we seek the peace of the city the promises that we will know peace hey The gospel is 11 in our souls and we become 11 throughout Babylon That's one of the pictures that we've That we've painted in the land then last week We spent a good bit of time talking about The idea that we are a people gathered for God The church is Is God's church it is a church which he is building which Christ is building and Today we're going to talk about the idea that we are a people gathered to God now We're gathered for God we're gathered to God and then next week we're going to Talk about the fact that we're gathered by God And I'd like for you to look at first Peter 2 because as I sort of intimated in my prayer There is a very very lofty idea that that is conveyed throughout the scriptures and it's something that I hope I hope we can get over this morning and I hope will be a a source of great encouragement to you But let's get at it by looking at this passage in first Peter the second chapter And verses 9 and 10
Let me let me have you back up so that we get this thing in its context and we'll start at verse 1 Okay First Peter 2 1 Therefore laying aside all malice all deceit hypocrisy envy and all evil speaking as new born babes Desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious Coming to him as to a living stone rejected indeed by men But chosen by God and precious you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house A holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ Therefore it is also contained in the scripture behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone elect precious and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame Therefore to you who believe he is precious But to those who are disobedient the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense They stumbled being disobedient to the word to which they also were appointed But you are a chosen generation a royal priesthood a holy nation His own special people That you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light Who once were not a people but are now the people of God Who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy Now here's the here's the basic idea. I mean this is just a phenomenal passage. It is filled With old testament imagery all of this language is the language of the old testament A chosen nation a holy nation a royal priesthood in Deuteronomy The sixth chapter there are references to that in Exodus 19 a passage that That we've looked at When God says I bore you up on Eagles wings and brought you to myself There is there is reference in that passage to the idea that this this people gathered For God and to God is to be a nation of priests offering Praise and offering sacrifice to him a people in a special relationship to God and that's the kind of language That is that is throughout The old testament and Peter picks that up You know good Jew that he is picks up all that familiar imagery and applies it now and not just to Jews but to Gentiles Okay The letter is addressed to the people who are dispersed throughout Pontus and Galatian Capitose and asian Bethinia Elected according to the foreknowledge of God the Father not just Jews but but these you know people in these Gentile Lands, you know they they now Are this chosen generation royal priesthood, okay?
Now But look at why it is that this people is gathered The reason that this people is gathered according to people according to Peter Is in order that they might proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness Into his marvelous light Here's the here's the goal and I don't know if you've ever thought about it this way before
But here's the goal in the purpose which God has in in in redemption and for his church
God's purpose and goal which he has in redemption and for his church Is that he might that he might create a people To reflect his glory and sing his praises
God's purpose in redemption is that he might Actually recreate a people Gather a people to himself That might reflect his glory and sing his praises Now I mean I this is one of those pervasive kinds of thoughts and ideas um The Church of Jesus Christ is to be a singing church
everywhere Right worship here's the word great wonderful word
Who knows what that word means Come on Greek students What's a doxology It's from two Greek words What is it? What is it? Okay, a word of glory A doxology is a word of glory a doxology is how is how is dox I used in the New Testament To refer to You don't have your laptop to see these guys can't do anything without computers I remember the good old days when we had a we had to cut out little flash cards and put these words on flash cards You know Go to the store and buy three by five cards and get the proportions just right so that when you cut them into thirds The rubber band would go around them without bending the edges over Right no never done that have you Hey doxah is the word which refers to God's glory and the glory of God elicits what from his people Praise a doxology How does Paul end look at look at 11 the 11th chapter of Romans Have I mentioned this before? It's sort of out of place, but what the heck It's out of place in my notes
This is this is a glorious thing What what has Paul been doing in in Romans so far Romans 118 through the end of chapter 11 he's been setting forth the gospel What's he been dealing with particularly in chapters 9 10 and 11 The mysteries of election the mysteries of God's electing grace This thing that we have to do back flips about and apologize to people for Right, I mean I've said this to you before John Calvin didn't invent election Neither did a gustan Neither did the apostle Paul God did It's his word and the word is in his word And what Paul's been dealing with at Romans 9 10 and 11 and I'm not taking shots at anybody I'm just pleading with you that you understand this word is not the creation of some 15th or 16th century madman It's a word that's found in the Bible. It's not the creature of some anal retentive person whose Father didn't treating well as a child
It's a word that's found in the Bible and it's a word that needs to be understood and explained and explored And when Paul does it in chapters 9 10 and 11 and he comes to the end of his presentation of the gospel And he comes to the end of this particular discussion God's electing grace And its implications for Israel and the Gentiles Does he end with an apology? He ends with a song of praise. He ends with a doxology For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has become his counselor? Who is first given to him and it shall be repaid to him For of him and through him and to him are all things To whom be glory forever. Amen See he ends with a song. This is just one of any number of illustrations that could be used That the life of the Christian is a life of doxology Worship is doxology Evangelism is doxology When when is it when are you most likely to share the gospel with a non-believer?
Well, yeah, but when are you most likely to respond to that need? When your heart is full of praise, right? When are you least likely to share the gospel with somebody who may be in great need? When your heart is empty you got to screw up your courage You got to stir yourself up you got to force yourself to do it But when your heart is filled with praise when you've tasted and seen that the Lord is good When doxology is the thing that characterizes your experience you want to tell everybody No matter how stupid or foolish you look Right, this is what Peter says He has got has made us a chosen generation of royal priests that a holy nation his own special people That we may proclaim the praises that we may sing the praises That doxology might be the characteristic of our lives That we might sing his praises The praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light Okay, look back at Isaiah 43
um, you know while while you're turning there You know you got to keep this kind of language Always in your minds are these kinds of contrasts Peter says that God has called us from darkness into light Right Those kinds of contrasts are all over In the New Testament darkness and light death to life Sin to freedom bondage to liberty And the words are there, but the concepts are there gosh on almost every page And as you look back at the Old Testament you think about Israel Israel is a model. Israel is a picture delivered from bondage into Egypt and led to a promise land a land flowing with milk and honey See Those are the contrasts that are always there in the scriptures and You know that the thing that causes God's people to sing Is the wonder of their own redemption the wonder of their own salvation Right And in order for us to be a singing people We can't ever lose sight of who and what we were Who and what we were That's the contrast Always I said to my inquires class last week You're talking about them, you know, we're working through the gospel in my inquires class We take the first three sessions to walk through the gospel And the gospel is basically I'm a sinner and God has met my need in Christ And I say to those folks The cross will be as big to you as is your own understanding of your need The cross will be as big to you as is your own understanding of your need Jack Miller, you know that this guy who died Um died last Easter or right around you. I think you died Easter Sunday Uh, you used to put it like this This is the gospel you are more sinful
Used to preface it by saying this lighten up You're more sinful than you dared imagine But you're more loved than you dared believe Lighten up you're more sinful You're more sinful than you think you are you think you're bad you're infinitely worse than you think you are But you are but the love of Christ for you is infinitely greater Then your ability even to conceive you get taste of it every once in a while Okay, and that's what Peter has in mind as he talks about this contrast between darkness and light And as he uses this language that's very familiar to him But would have been new and startling to Gentiles who have been kept at arms length by the Jews for centuries You've been delivered from darkness and brought into his marvelous light Look at Isaiah listen to this language Isaiah 43 But now thus says the Lord who created you oh Jacob And he who formed you oh Israel
created and formed What did that language reminiscent of? created and formed Genesis one right Genesis one could you just kind of stick your finger in Isaiah and flip back to Genesis chapter one
I want to I want to try and make some connections Genesis one familiar familiar words in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth The earth was without form and void And darkness was on the face of the deep and the spirit of God Was hovering over the face of the waters Okay In the original creation There is this formless chaotic massive stuff And the spirit of God hovers over that formless chaotic mass of stuff And through the progression of days the spirit Who is commissioned by the father Through the word to bring order out of chaos through the progression of days Day after day after day creates a thing of beauty Okay, creates a thing of beauty And at the end of the creative activity of God where the spirit has hovered over this primordial chaos Remember the Tohu wabohu that I referred to last week The world world was formless and void. It had no shape. It had no beauty. It had no order And the spirit hovers over it and brings forth out of that chaos a thing of beauty And it's it's as though You can't press this too far because it's only an illustration. It's a word picture But it's as though the spirit finishes his work And he has been a veil over the whole of this thing And the father is on the other side of the veil And when the spirit brings his creative activity to a conclusion He steps back and the veil is drawn away And the father looks at what has been created and says
It's beautiful It's beautiful. I will never forget The day of my daughter's birth my first daughter's birth I mean, you know here is this Incredible thing that goes on Where a child In hidden places Invisible to the eye Sonograms can show you some things you know, but But they keep the here is this work that goes on and it's a hidden work And then the day comes the sixth day arrives Right And here's the doctor, you know the the obstetrician Is that what he is the obi guy He's hovering, you know, and there's these technicians and they got machines And they're hovering over this thing And then boom you hear this cry And the doctor delivers this child And in this case the doctor gave Katie to barb and then gave Katie to me And there I am holding this precious little child And and everything's there All the fingers all the toes The screaming lungs, you know the crying face And I looked I looked at this child And it was so it it was the weirdest experience almost of my life Because I looked in this face And I saw a face that I had seen before And it was you know how you have those it's like falling into a time warp or something and you think Where am I you know What's happening here it was one of those instantaneous kinds of things and I looked at this face And it was the face of my sister And the family likeness Was reflected in her face And in the course of her growing up people alternately have said she looks like barb she looks like like She looks she reminds people of barb she reminds people of my mom her grandmother The family likeness Etched into the face of this little child Now that kind of imagery and we how do you think I did when she when they gave me this child It's like I could barely contain myself I was supposed to be taking pictures of this thing I couldn't get the film in the camera right and I'm running around snapping and there's no film even in the camera I'm so overwhelmed and overcome by this whole thing and I said this is the most sublime experience of my life Second only To my encounter with Christ But that sort of imagery the imagery of these you know of this unseen thing and then the veil being pulled back And this thing of beauty being handed to me It was overwhelming Overwhelming now the other thing that is said in Genesis so in chapter two Is that God creates the man and the woman how In his image after his likeness You see in his image and after his likeness It's just I mean it's like there's the family likeness etched into the face of this little child What are you to be What are you to be you're to be a glory bearer You are to reflect the glory Of the transcendent infinite God who is there You we're we are created to bear his likeness Before the world When Peter says that God has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light What's he thinking about taken out of a closet into a fellowship hall with lights on Oh Spiritually speaking he has this kind of imagery in mind That you are delivered from the chaos of sin and death and darkness And by the spirits ministry in recreation
You are made after the image of Almighty God To be a glory bearer
To bear his glory So that you become an expression you you in fact become a mirror just like just like Katie And Leslie and Annie all three of them have these characteristics Which they get from Barb and me and from the gene pool You know, I mean there you know there's a line that goes back for centuries and some of that stuff from centuries ago Is present in them And and they give expression to The family image and you as God does this work of recreation Are to be after his likeness in his image and a glory bearer before the world Okay Back to Isaiah now thus says the Lord we're going to come back to this idea in just a minute But now thus says the Lord who created you oh Jacob and he who formed you oh Israel Let me make the connection to the Deuteronomy 32 you remember that we refer to that passage last week As God brought Israel out of Egypt. He brought her out of Egypt and saw her As Tohu wa bohu as formless and void in a desert waste And as an eagle hovers over its chicks so the father hovers over over Israel That same imagery is there in Deuteronomy 32
And then this fear not For I have redeemed you I have called you by your name you are mine When you pass through the waters I will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overflow you When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned nor shall the flames scorch you For I am the Lord I am Yahweh The personal name of God I will be what I will be I am what I am I am the self-defining Self-existing self-determining God I depend upon no one. I depend upon no thing. I have power within myself to exist the power to be within me Every one of you is dependent Try and survive for five days without water Try and survive for three months without food You can't do it God can Right He is the self-existing self-determining self-defining Lord of all that is made Okay I am the Lord your God the Holy one of Israel your Savior I give you the Egypt for your ransom Ethiopia and Seba in your place Since you were precious in my sight you have been honored and I have loved you Therefore I will give men for you and people for your life Fear not for I am with you I will bring your descendants from the east and gather you from the west I will say to the north give them up and to the south do not keep them back Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth Everyone who is called by my name whom I have created for my glory I have formed him yes. I have made him
See bring him Bring him from the east bring him from the west bring him from the north bring him from the south What is God doing? He is gathering a people To himself that he might hover over this people which he loves That this people might bear his glory That they might be the reflectors of his glory Huh That's what we're to be that's this high thing that God has called us to To be glory bearers before the world Look at Romans 8 17 and following
I this is just a wonderful thing. I tell you
Verse 17 16 the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God And if children then heirs heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him that we also may be glorified Together this is like This is like a rising crescendo in a symphony Okay You ever listen go go on this afternoon and and listen to the end of Beethoven's fifth symphony Just listen to the last movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony I mean it is electric and and it just keeps building and mounting and piling up until you come to this Glorious glorious conclusion at the end And you just want to jump up and shout when it's over okay listen to the things that Paul links together here He links first of all that we are children Of God and our standing as children enables us to cry out to to the Lord To Yahweh the self-existing self-defining Lord of creation Our standing as sons and daughters enables us to cry out to him Abba Father Right you know you know that term Abba that term of endearmate that term of tenderness Daddy it is a term of affection It is a term of intimacy You know, I mean this is if we lived in a perfect world we would know this perfectly We live in an imperfect world so we only see it imperfectly But you know how young children ideally approach their parents they know they're safe They know they're secure and they can speak to their daddy not as reverend Malone
Pastor Malone You know they don't think in those terms They approach God or they approach their parents with an intimacy I I tell you know anybody who's a parent knows this experience The most precious times in life for those times where your child just kind of crawls up in your lap and you just sort of sit there And he kind of revel in the moment you glory in the moment I you know, I mean I can't wait till I have grandchildren. I hope I do because I they're too big now They don't crawl up into my lap anymore But there's still an intimacy and a tenderness at night. It's Good night daddy. Oh, it just melts me You know Suns of God, but listen not just sons. He piles it up even more now. We are airs Co heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ See, it's not just that we're adopted kids who are second-class citizens in the kingdom He identifies us as co heirs with Jesus our elder brother the eternal son But that isn't the end of it Look at what he says in verse. Let me read 17 and 18 then If children then heirs heirs of God and joyed heirs with Christ If indeed we suffer with him that we may also be glorified together And then he goes on to talk about him more. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy To be compared with the glory Which shall be revealed and what's the preposition in your text in Not to But in us You know, it isn't just that you get invited into some stadium someplace and God puts his glory on display and you get to witness it The outcome of your salvation the end of your salvation is your entire and complete transformation So that you become the glory bearer of God The glory of God is reflected in you and revealed through you I don't get that But but if you go back and you read and I we can't do this now if you go back and you read through particularly Leviticus And you see in Leviticus all of the things that the high priest war All of those things in one way are another underscore this idea. What's written on his forehead
Been a while since you read Leviticus
holy to the Lord right Holy to the Lord that that that very uh Characteristic of God which is regarded More highly in a certain sense than any other characteristic is imprinted on the high priest What is all of that beautiful Garmentary that he wears You know the ephod and the cloak and the jewels the the precious stones the the gold and all of that What is all of that supposed to symbolize to the Israelites it is glory And the high priest who ministers in the presence of God Bears that glory. Where's that glory displays that glory? That's what we were made for See when God gathers us out of darkness and into light It isn't just that he delivers us from an environment. He delivers us from a condition He delivers us from a condition of darkness It isn't just that Israel gets delivered from Egypt the place It is that Israel gets delivered from Egypt the condition Of bondage and deliverance into light
This is what you were made for And this is what God is doing when he gathers a people for himself and to himself Let me uh, let me have you go back And let me finish the Isaiah reading
Uh, where's Isaiah? I can't find anything Yeah, after Psalms. Thank you very much
Isaiah 43 start at verse 16 now
So God gathers this people Uh, and and uses this language of creation To describe his work of recreation reshaping refashioning us After his own image and likeness that we might bear his glory You know I talk all the time. I refer to Augustine, you know Augustine's confessions the opening section where he says you have made us for yourself O Lord and our hearts are restless until they rest in the um You know, we know something of this restlessness in our souls What is it that we're restless for? What is it that we long to have? What is it that we will not be satisfied That makes us so unsatisfied until we have it. What is this thing? It's the glory of God. It's to be filled up With all of the fullness of God Now, this is not pantheism, okay? This is not eastern religion. This is not this is not the union of the individual into the into the You know kind of the cosmic divinity This is the retention of an individual's personality But being united to the God of glory and becoming the expression Of the God of glory the glory of God being reflected that's what we long for and will not be satisfied with anything less It isn't just that we want to see God It is that we want to be in union with God So that we become as image bears Glory bears, okay, so that's what God is doing and bringing us to Himself Then then 16 to 21 thus says the Lord who makes a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters You remember earlier in Isaiah God It said don't be afraid when you go through the waters that Why don't they need to be afraid because God makes the path through the waters God makes the path through the waters God keeps them safe Who brings forth the chariot and horse the army and the power they shall lie down together They shall not rise. They are extinguished. They are quenched like a wick. What do you think is in Isaiah's mind as he writes those words? The Exodus and the Dead Sea and that's what's being described here is a second Exodus where people again are brought out of darkness brought out of Egypt Do not remember the former things nor consider the things of old behold I will do a new thing Now it shall spring forth Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert And the beast of the field will honor me the jackals and the ostriches Because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my people my chosen Okay, what is it that's being described there Rivers in the desert All of the created beasts praising God honoring God. What's that a picture of? Paradise Paradise What is God saying? I'm going to restore you to paradise and what is it that makes paradise paradise God God is in the midst That's why Moses would say you know back in Exodus 32-33 When God said I'm not going to go up with you. I'll go ahead of you And Moses says no no no no no no no No, what makes Israel Israel is that God is in the midst of her And we would rather stay in the wilderness with you than go into the promised land without you in our midst Is God and all of his blessedness extended everything and here you have a picture of a second Exodus As the people are brought out and as God in the midst of her creates a paradise in which they live And then verse 21 This people I have formed for myself. They shall declare my praise In the first part God talks about what he's doing in creating them But the whole thing comes to a conclusion kind of the inevitable conclusion That is the people are created recreated. They shall sing forth. They shall they shall resound With praise to God for the work that he has done In gathering them to himself and in shaping and fashioning them after his own image and likeness To bear his likeness bear his resemblance Show forth his glory before the world See that's what God is doing when God gathers a people to himself He does it so that they might be his glory bearers and sing forth his praise in all the earth Okay, now why does he do this? Why does he do this? Look at Deuteronomy 7 Start at verse 1 Deuteronomy 7 That tab, John Get the right tab Okay 7 1 when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess Okay, when the Lord brings you into the land which you go to possess. What is that land? It's a land flowing with milk and honey, right It's a it's again. It's a picture of paradise This land that they're going into possess all the promises that are associated with it They're they're in it Not in an ultimate sense, but in a penultimate sense They're being taken back to paradise to a place where they will know the presence of God in their midst And where his blessing will flow from his throne in the midst of Israel and will touch all of life Okay When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you the hit tights In the gearga shites and the amourites and the canaanites and the parasites and the hivites and the jabby sites And the parasites and all of the otherites Seven nations greater and mightier than you and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you You shall conquer them and utterly destroy them You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them Nor shall you make marriages with them You shall not give your daughters to their son nor take their daughters for your son For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods So the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly But thus you shall deal with them You shall destroy their altars and break down their sacred pillars and cut down their wooden images and burn their carved images with fire Because this is not an ultimate picture of paradise because it is penultimate Because it is this side of the glory of Canaan in its consummation There are these warnings to these sinners who live in this promised land Don't give your sons to pagans. Don't take pagans for your sons Don't be engaged in idolatry If you do you will suffer You will suffer the discipline of the Lord Don't lose sight of the fact even though it's a penultimate view of paradise. It is a view of paradise It is a part of what God promises to his people that their land be a land flowing with milk and honey For you are a holy people to the Lord your God The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself A special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth And listen to this the Lord did not set his love on you Nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people For you were the least of all the peoples But because the Lord loves you and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers The Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh and the king of Egypt Why does the Lord love his the prayer question is why does God do this for his people the answer is because the Lord loves his people But why does the Lord love his people
Does he love his people because they're technologically superior to the other nations of the earth
Why does the Lord why does the Lord love his people according to Deuteronomy 7 because they're more numerous
He did it to keep his promises Why did he make those promises in the first place
Look stick to Deuteronomy 7 here Because he loved you it's like this okay It's like this Sit out with a husband and wife who are really in love with each other Right And and you and you ask him Why why do you love your wife? right Why do you love your wife? Why do you love your husband? well I mean when when people are expressing themselves at the deepest levels They're expressing a love that is unconditional That is a part from Right a part from not cognizant of The sins the faults the weaknesses the deficiencies all of the things that could be mustered by somebody else And out of which a case could be made for why that person ought not love that person
Right Why does God love his people Not because of anything in them it's like this I love you Because I love you I love you because I choose to love you I love you because I make you the object of my affection And God had made Israel the object of his affection Way back at the time of Abram and really way back before the time of Abram When God in covenant with his son But the determined that he would save the people through his son Not because there was anything in them that warranted that love But simply because he delighted to love a people And set his affection upon that people And determined to save that people and bring them out of darkness and into his marvelous light And call them a holy nation and a royal priesthood And his own special treasure And called them not only to be those things But called them as well to reflect his image Called them to bear the family likeness Before the watching world And before the principalities and powers in heavenly places
A promise first to Christ who would be the Redeemer of his people The father and the son covenanting together to redeem the people Christ being commissioned by the father To do the redemptive work in behalf of this people upon whom he had set his affection Apart from anything in them Yeah And we are those people That's your destiny folks when God gathers of people to himself He gathers them to himself That he might buy the spirit hover over them and do this recreative work in their lives That they might be brought into conformity with the image of his son And in being brought into conformity with the image of his son They are reconstituted, reshaped, remade, recreated and become his glory bearers Those who give expression to his existence and his character Before the world and before the nations Now you know where this all leads You know Grace the grace of God certainly leads to gratitude a sense of thanksgiving But it leads to gladness That's the first Peter 2.9 thing He's called you out of darkness into his marvelous light That you might proclaim his praises That you might sing his praises Okay And so that's you know that's why we say there That there is a very real sense in which everything is doxological Worship certainly is doxological But so is every other aspect of the ministry of the church And you know when you think about evangelism maybe particularly when you think about mission Our work is individual missionaries in this place Or our work together is a church as we think about the worldwide extension of the kingdom As we think about taking the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth What's the motivating thing there What's the highest thing What is it that drives us What is it that fuels the fires in our souls Now I know there's a great need out there. I know there are lots of people who don't know christ But that's not the highest thing The highest thing is the glory of God that God's glory might be put on display That people might be brought out of darkness into his marvelous light and be made glory bearers It's the glory of God that this whole thing revolves around God's glory being put on display as the gospel goes into all the earth And as the gospel delivers people from darkness and recreates them, reshapes them, refashions them After the image of the Lord Jesus Christ so that they become those Who bear his glory before the nations That's a high thing But that's your destiny that's our destiny together as the people of God. So God gathers a people for himself But he gathers this people to himself that they might bear his glory and sing his praises Throughout the world and forever And forever just one last little passage here. Let me let me have you look at Hebrews chapter 2 Start at verse 10 and then we'll stop and and you can make comments or ask questions
For it was fitting for him that is Jesus For whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons To glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings That's a without preach That'll preach How do you get to glory? Through the cross Through sufferings Whoo Make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings for both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one For which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren saying I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to you What you've got here is a picture of heavenly worship Where the ones who are being sanctified and the one who sanctifies are together as one brought to glory and in the midst of glory Who does the singing? Jesus Jesus sings of the glory of his father to the assembly and then Jesus leads the assembly in singing praise to God That's heavenly worship That's the future glory Jesus in the midst of his people Singing to his people of the glory of God and of his great salvation which delivers people from darkness to light And the people of God responding and tiffingly and singing back to God in praise and thanksgiving For this great grace which has led them out of darkness in the light That we might proclaim his praise
I'm ready Okay Thoughts or comments or questions before we break
They were it means that they were destined to reject the stone
They were that's that's what that text is referring to it's back in it's in the earlier part of first Peter
Being disobedient to the word to which they also were appointed They stumble being disobedient to the word to which they were also appointed
I mean, it's all of a piece really they're their stumbling was was Was their destiny and And their disobedience was that to which they were their destined Right Right and and if you you know if you keep that's another great juxtaposition of ideas another great contrast Because anybody who's reading this with his eyes open Aut to realize that apart from the intervening grace of God and God rerouting me That is my end I am destined apart from the intervening grace of God I am destined to disobey the word and to stumble over the stone that becomes my deliverance So there's a great contrast there between what our destiny is and and the and the intervention of God You know somebody has said the biggest word The biggest and most glorious word in all of scripture is the word but but But God but you are a chosen race Okay, the contrasting word Okay, we need to go I need to go you can stay um, but I need to go Let's pray father. I pray that you would press home to us What it is that you have created us for Lord as we look at our own lives and as we maybe even think our way around the room We don't think of ourselves Nor do we consider ourselves together to be much in the way of glory bearers priests Who wear in themselves and upon themselves the beauty of your own holiness But that is what we are And just like the high priest who has holy to the lord etched upon him Who wears in his garments the diversity of the beauty of the god of heaven and earth We are a nation of priests destined To wear that glory Oh lord, would you give us a great sense of who we are And would you give us grace that we might pursue this thing for which we have been made May we not rest May we pant after you as the dear pants after streams of water So that we taste and we see That you are good and we find your glory somehow in the midst of our foolishness and sin and corruption We nevertheless find that your glory does transform us and does work itself out through our fingers and toes Oh lord, give us this grace to pursue you And would you come to us and satisfy us with yourself Father as we come to worship I pray for your people that they'd have a taste of this And that that taste would wet their appetites for even more The send of god and come among us be upon us For the sake of your own name and for our good and joy We pray in Jesus name amen