I want to start with some statistics about a product that
you're all familiar with. That is the famous Lego block.
If you can throw that photo up there, you've all seen these,
certainly. Lego was founded in 1932 in
Denmark by a Danish furniture maker.
Lego manufacturers somewhere around 60 billion bricks every
single year. There are currently
approximately 1 trillion Lego blocks in circulation in 60
official colors. Each brick is manufactured with
a precision of five micrometers. And to give you a little bit of
scale, a human hair is 70 micrometers, so extremely
precise. There are less than 18 defective
Lego bricks in every million that are produced.
And you can actually still interlock bricks from the 50s
with bricks today. They still fit together due to
the extreme precision needed. The steel mold for one brick
costs somewhere between 2:00 and $400,000 to produce just the
mold for one little brick. So pretty impressive, right?
Lego. If one Lego block is impressive,
you know what is vastly more impressive?
What you can build, right. That's the sky is the limit.
You can do all kinds of things. Couple photos, I mean, amazing
if you've, if you've ever watched Lego Masters on TV.
My it's one of my family favorites.
It's just astounding the things that you can build.
Is there another one with the cityscape?
I mean, who has the time? I just want to know, you know,
actually the largest Lego structure ever.
This is the final picture as a promo by Land Rover and you can
see the size. It's it's a replica of the the
towers in London. There's two cars that are parked
on the bridge. So that was built with 5 million
Legos. So just amazing what you can
build with Lego bricks. Now keep all that in mind.
OK, You're like, is this a lecture on Lego?
No, we're going to get into the Bible now.
We're teaching through a series called Church anatomy one O 1.
We're talking about this image that the Bible comes back to
over and over again when it's talking about the church, that
the church is the body and the body is composed of many
different parts. Today we're going to be looking
at a little bit different image. Today's image is that the church
is like a spiritual house that is composed of living Legos,
right? Living bricks, living stones.
It is important that every brick in this structure that God is
building is strong and it's connected.
Otherwise, the structure is compromised.
And so today in first Peter chapter 2, we're going to see
Peter the apostle calling Christians to put away sin that
harms us and harms our unity with one another and calls us to
realize that God is building us into something beautiful that is
meant to proclaim to the world how excellent not we are, but
how excellent God is. So that's where we're going this
morning. I want to give us a moment of
quiet as we do every week. We recognize that we all come
into church are gathering together.
We've had some of us have had very difficult weeks or very
difficult weekends. Some of us are very distracted
by things that are going on in our life or in the world around
us. And but this really is one of
the most important times of the week where we are here together
to hear from God. And so we want to give you a
moment just to to center your thoughts on him, to open up your
heart to him, to humble yourself.
You may pray a quick prayer like God, meet me right now, God,
speak to me right now. God, I give myself to you
something like that. So I'll give you just a few
moments and then I will read the text for us and pray for us.
First Peter chapter 2 starting in verse one Apostle Peter
writes he says so put away all malice and deceit and hypocrisy
and envy and all slander like newborn infants long for the
pure spiritual milk that buy it. You may grow up into salvation
if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good as you come to
him, a living stone rejected by men, But in the sight of God,
chosen and precious. You yourselves, like living
stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy
priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture.
Behold, I am laying in Zion, a stone, a cornerstone, chosen and
precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
So the honor is for you who believe.
But for those who do not believe, the stone that the
Builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of
stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they
disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
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 darkness into his
marvelous light. Once you are not a people, but
now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy. God help us today.
We thank you that as we gather together, you're with us here by
your spirit filling this place. And we pray, Lord, for we pray
for our own purity and strength as individuals.
Help us, Lord, that we would be living stones that are, that are
undefiled, that are strong, that are connected to you, the
cornerstone, and connected to each other.
We pray for our unity, Lord, where there are so many things
in the world and even in the church that try to divide us.
God, protect our unity as a body.
We pray for our witness as a church that we would together
proclaim Your excellencies that people would come in and they
would hear about how amazing you are and they would see how
amazing you are through your church body.
It's a tall task, but I thank you God that you're with us and
you help us to accomplish these things.
And so now teach us, encourage us, bless us this morning.
Help me give me a clear mind and A and a clear heart to be able
to preach to your people. We give you this time and we
pray this all in your name, Amen.
So before the apostle Peter encourages these disciples here
in holiness and unity, as obviously the the chapter is
about, he calls their minds back in chapter 1 to the cross.
OK. And that's very important.
I want to start there because before we talk about holiness,
being holy as God is holy, we need to talk about the cross.
Otherwise you get legalistic and it's all about just our
behaviors. And so just look briefly with me
in first Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 14, Peter says
as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of
your former ignorance. But as he who called you is
holy, he's talking about God. Obviously you also be holy in
all your conduct, since it is written you shall be holy, for I
am holy. He's calling them to a life of
godliness, of Christlikeness of holiness.
And he goes on in verse 18 and he says, and really this is the
why he calls us the holiness. He's because you were ransomed
from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with
perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious
blood of Christ. So holiness is not what makes
you right with God, good behavior.
It is the proper response. Holiness is the proper response
for those who have received all the benefits of the cross,
right? Says you've been ransomed,
right? It's like we were kidnapped by
sin. We were made for relationship
with God, kidnapped by sin, separated from God.
But he says you were ransomed with the precious blood of
Christ, right? Jesus bought us back not with
silver or gold that perishes, but with his eternal precious
blood spilled on the cross so that we could be reconciled to
our heavenly Father so that we could become holy as he is holy.
And so that's the kind of framework that Peter has before
we jump into chapter 2. And what he says in chapter 2 is
now just, it's just not just kind of logical, right?
It's like sin separated you, sin kidnapped you, sin was killing
you. You've been rescued from all of
that. OK.
And so chapter 2, verse 1, So right.
Therefore, in light of what Jesus has done for you on the
cross, he says put away. And then he lists all of these
sins and that phrase put away as a, a word that you would have
used in that day to take off an old garment, right?
It's like take off these dirty old tattered clothes that you
used to be wearing, these filthy clothes that used to be clothed
and take these things off. And then he gives us this list
of sins that he is highlighting. He says put off malice.
Malice is anger or wrath, whether it's in your thoughts or
in your actions. It's ill will towards one
another where you desire someone else's harm or you actually
somehow cause them harm, emotional or physical, whatever
it might be. You know, I noticed yesterday
when I was watching the game, there was one point I said out
loud, you dummy, and I thought about this verse.
I thought, Oh no, there it is in my heart, right?
It's me wishing I'll to someone because they didn't do what I
thought they should do. There's all different kinds of
way that we can, we can express that.
But he says that's not for you anymore.
You put that away now he says put away deceit, right?
Deceit is lying. It's misleading.
It's missing misrepresenting the truth to harm another or to
protect yourself or to promote yourself and deceitfulness.
Lying destroys unity among God's people.
If we can't trust each other, right, this is not going to go
very well. We're not going to do a good job
staying together. He tells them to put off
hypocrisy. That word literally means play
acting. OK, play acting.
Or it's it's a false front where your actions do not align with
your stated beliefs. And how many of you know,
hypocrisy turns a whole lot of people off from Christianity,
right? They hear our message, they hear
what we say with our mouth, and then they watch our lives and
they say, oh, that doesn't seem to be working very well for you,
right? You, you're a hypocrite.
There are different kinds of hypocrites, by the way, because
everybody is a hypocrite, right? The most, the most righteous
among us is still hypocrite. We all fall short.
But there are humble hypocrites who say, I know that I am and I
hate it and I want to change. And then there are proud
hypocrites that say, I don't care.
I'm a hypocrite and I don't care.
And I think God can work with humble hypocrites, right?
All of us, I hope, are humble hypocrites.
Proud hypocrites can destroy a church and need to be brought
under church discipline, which is what we will actually talk
about in a few weeks. So he says put off hypocrisy.
He says put off envy. Envy is resentment or discontent
over another person's blessings, right?
Social media stirs this up like crazy.
We're always looking at other people's lives and we're saying,
oh, look at how good they have it, which they always put the
best, same, most sanitized, happiest version of themself
online. You have to remember that,
right? But we see what they have and we
say, oh man, I wish I had that. You know what the proverb says?
Envy rots the bones, right? It's like a cancer inside.
He tells him to put off slander. Slander is speaking evil of
another person, defamation, trash talking, tearing down with
your words. Whether it's behind their back,
if it's maybe in front of their face, or even online.
You can slander online. A lot of people do.
But notice something about the this list of sins that Peter
highlights here. These are all sins that very
clearly destroy unity in the church.
They become a wedge between people.
They separate people from one another that cause hostility.
They spoil relationships. They cause the Legos to not fit
with one another well. And so Peter is urging them to
recognize these attitudes and behaviors in themselves.
And as we read this, God is calling us, read this like
Peter's writing this to you. We recognize, Lord, where have I
sinned against you? Where have I had malice, deceit?
Where have I been a hypocrite? Where have I been envious?
Where have I been slanderous of others?
Recognize them and then repent, right?
Repentance just means to turn your mind to to change your
mind, and then to turn away, right, to do something
different. Turn away from these sins.
Turn back to God. Put these things off because not
only do they harm you personally, but they harm the
unity of the body of Christ. So what do we do instead?
And I think that's where Peter goes in Chapter 2.
Now he brings some encouragement.
He starts with a kind of a rebuke, a warning.
And now he brings some encouragement.
He says, like newborn infants. Because by the way, that's what
you are when you're saved, you're just a spiritual baby.
No one is born again, and they're mature right away.
OK? You're born a spiritual infant,
a newborn infant. Long for the pure spiritual milk
that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you've
tasted that the Lord is good. So long for this pure,
nutritious spiritual milk that you might grow up into maturity,
if in fact you've tasted and seen that the Lord is good.
If in fact you are a Christian, You can either drink the poison
of sin that kills you and kills your relationships, sometimes
little by little by little, sometimes boom.
You know, it just takes one sin against another person to
destroy a relationship. So you can either have that or
you can drink this pure spiritual milk and grow up.
So now the question is, what is the milk, right?
What is the milk? And we have to look at the
verses just before chapter 2. Look at verse chapter one, verse
22. He says having purified your
souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly
love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you've
been born again, not of perishable sea, but of
imperishable through the living and abiding Word of God.
For all flesh is like grass, it's glory like the flowers of
grass. The grass Withers, the flowers
fail. He says it's all temporal, but
the Word of the Lord remains forever.
And this word is the good news that was preached to you, says
you want to grow up spiritually, you need spiritual nourishment.
You know where you get that spiritual nourishment from The
Word of God, the Bible, God's holy scriptures.
The Bible teaches us that the world is under the power of the
devil. And one of the names for the
devil is he is the deceiver, right?
He lies. That's how he takes people
captive. That's how he destroys
relationships, that's how he destroys nations.
He is a liar. It's all he can do.
He constantly breathes out lies. His goal, the enemy's goal, is
to destroy you individually and to destroy collectively God's
people. He hates the church.
He is doing everything he can in His power to destroy the church.
The main way that we combat the effects of Satan in our life and
in our church community is by longing for and eating, drinking
God's spiritual milk. His truth, His truth combats
lies as you feed on the truth of who God is, of what He has done
in Jesus for us, in the Gospel, His commands, you will be
transformed. You will be transformed and it's
just like eating right. You don't eat one meal and then
whoop, you grow up. It's meal after meal after meal
after meal. Over time, as you feed on God's
word over time, you grow up. It's true that you are what you
eat. First Corinthians chapter 3
verse 18 says it like this. He says and we all with unveiled
face, right, We can see now Jesus, the deception has been
broken off of our eyes and we all with unveiled face beholding
the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image
from 1° of glory to another. Or you realize every time you
open this book up and you read the Bible and you see God in the
pages of Scripture, you are beholding the glory of the Lord.
And as you do so, He is changing you 1° by another degree by
another degree. Overtime you are what you eat.
Or another way to say it is you become what you behold.
I love it when people say things to me like I was reading my
Bible the other day and God convicted me over fill in the
blank. I'm like, yeah that's good.
This thing is a sword. This will cut you up if you let
it, right? If you read it with an open mind
and open heart, this thing will cut you up.
It'll convict you, it'll it'll show you your sin, it'll call
you to repentance. And that's how we grow.
So Peter's calling them to feed on this, to grow up.
If we're going to be a strong, healthy, unified church body or
church structure, we need strong, healthy, unified,
growing bricks, right? Every one of us has a
responsibility in this. We need bricks who know and love
our Bibles, that we let God's Word cut our heart when we read
it. We let it convict us.
We let it lead us to repentance. We let it feed us and nourish
us, and we grow. Americans spend 4 to 6 hours a
day on their phones, 4 to 6 hours a day.
What you are consuming what, what?
That's, that's what, that's what's feeding you.
That's what's shaping your attitudes and your perspectives
and your beliefs. Romans 12/2 says do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of
your mind. And it's God's scriptures, the
Bible, that renew our minds. So I have a challenge for us as
a church. Are you ready?
This is something that I've been doing for the past two or three
years. It's been wonderful.
I want to challenge you to commit every single day to not
look at your phone until you have looked at your Bible.
OK, some of you are like, I already do that.
Good. Keep doing it.
Do not look at your phone until you've looked at your Bible.
And I don't mean like, you know what I mean, right?
Like read some of it, you know, like slow down, turn to a
chapter, read it, digest it, think about it.
Don't look at your phone and what it some of you are like,
well, my Bible is on my phone and I'm you know what I say to
you, get a paper Bible. Go old tech, right?
Just make that commitment, figure it out.
We need this. This is how we grow.
This is our fuel. This is our nourishment.
Do it every day this week. Do it every day this week.
Don't look at your phone till you've looked at your Bible.
It will transform your mourning. And not only will that nourish
and help you and help you grow, but it will actually transform
the church. We will grow collectively.
We will grow in strength. We will grow together.
So Peter here is telling these living stones, these living
Legos, to put away the sin that harms unity and to practice the
things that are actually going to help us grow individually but
also collectively. Why?
Because God is building us into something beautiful.
He's building his people into something beautiful.
Look at verse 4 as you come to him.
He's talking about Jesus, of course, a living stone rejected
by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you
yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a
spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it stands in scripture. Behold, I am laying in Zion, a
stone, a cornerstone, chosen and precious.
And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
So he's saying Jesus the Master builder is building his people
into a spiritual house. And we saw this image last week.
If you were here in Ephesians 2, he just called us a holy temple.
But it's really the same kind of an image, right?
It's the place where God is worshipped, where God is
glorified. So he says as you come to him,
and this is key, you have to repent of your sin and living
for all of these other things, living for yourself first.
We repent of that. We come to him.
We trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior.
And if you've not done that yet, I would urge you to start there
and do that today. Come to him right now and just
pray to him and say, got it. I, I repent of the old things I
was living for. I don't want to live for that
stuff anymore. I believe Jesus that you are the
Son of God. I'm going to and you and you
live for me and you died for me and you rose again.
I put my trust in you. That's how you become a
Christian, putting your trust in Jesus.
You come to him. He was the living stone,
rejected by men, right? He died on a cross because he
was rejected for telling them the truth that he was the
Messiah. And he was dead and in the
ground and it looked like he was going to be a dead stone, but he
came back alive again and he is a living stone.
And then he says, you like living stones, right?
We're just, we're following Jesus.
We were dead in our sin and our trespasses.
Our hearts were dead. They were stone, Ezekiel tells
us. But now they've been made alive
through faith in Jesus. And so just like he is a living
stone resurrected, we ourselves are living stones.
We are being built up, right? He's assembling us.
He's putting us together. He's taking each individual
person made in his image. He's taking each individual life
and he's crafting something. He's making something that is
wonderful, that is going to be eternal.
He's building a spiritual house, right The the, the imagery in
the Bible of the temple is magnificent.
These amazing, astounding structures, so intricate, the
way they were commanded to to design them and decorate them.
Why? Because they want to magnify the
glory of God. This is who God is.
He's magnificent, and this is where he dwells with his people.
This is where you experience his goodness, the manifest presence
of God in the temple, in the spiritual house.
He says that's what we are now, that's what you are now.
By his Spirit, he dwells with us, among us.
That's where God is worshipped, Your holy priesthood, right?
Just like in the Old Testament, the priests are the ones that
had access to God. He says now all of you have
access to God. The priests were the ones who
served God. He says.
Now all of you serve God. The priests are the one to
minister to others. He says now all of you minister
to one another. The priests are the one who
experienced God's presence. He's saying now all of us can
experience God's presence. And Jesus, of course, is the
cornerstone, the most important brick in the entire structure.
The first one laid, the first one who died and the first one
who rose again. He anchors the whole thing.
My father laid tile for a living, 40 years plus on his
hands and knees laying tile, very, very hard labor.
And I used to go with him on the job site to help him when I was
a kid, young boy, before they had labor laws for that kind of
thing. And, and I remember the first
day of the job was my least favorite because he took forever
to lay the first tile. He would measure and measure and
then he would measure again and measure again.
And then he would measure and then lay it down and measure
again. Like, why do you have to measure
that thing 47 times? Well, now I understand because
when you cement that puppy down, that sets the course for the
whole project. So you want to make sure it's
right, the angle is right. And that's what that's what he's
saying. That's what Jesus is.
Jesus is that first tile that was laid down very, very
carefully, very precisely. He got cemented in, and now
we're all the tiles coming in around him, filling it out,
fleshing it out. The church is not a human social
service agency like the United Way or like the Peace Corps that
offers people temporary earthly support.
Those are fine organizations, right?
That's good that we have them, but the Church is not that.
The Church is Christ's body, His physical manifestation on earth.
He is the master Builder. He is the cornerstone.
The Bible tells us He is our head.
He dwells with us, through us. He speaks, He loves, He serves,
and he saves. That's a big deal.
I hope you are realizing and feeling that the church is a big
deal. A very, very big deal.
The church does the most important work in the world by
far, by far. And that is not an
overstatement. I'm not just trying to be
dramatic. It's true, the work that God has
given us to do, proclaim his gospel, to make disciples of all
nations, to glorify him is the most important work in the world
and it's going to last forever. It's eternal.
Now the apostle Peter wrote this and he's using this image and it
dawned on me this week as I was reading this.
I, I wonder if while Peter's writing this, he is remembering
the conversation that he had with Jesus in Matthew chapter
16, where Peter, Jesus says to his Son, says, who do you say
that I am? And Peter is the one who
confesses that you are the Christ.
This is a monumental moment, right?
It's like boom, the light bulbs went on for Peter.
He sees it and Jesus replies to him in in chapter 16 of the
Gospel of Matthew, verses 17 and 18, he says, blessed are you
Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to
you, but my Father who is in heaven, or in other words, this
is supernaturally attained knowledge that you have.
God has opened your eyes to see this and he says, and I tell
you, you are Peter. And on this rock I will build my
church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it
because I'm building something eternal.
I'm going to change the, the world.
I'm, I'm going to change people's eternal life through
the church and I'm going to build it.
And hell is not going to prevail against it.
It's going to last. I've helped plant 2 churches in
my life. Back in 2006, planted a church
with my wife and some friends in Lafayette, IN.
We were there for 10 years, got that church established and then
we started to sense God calling us to plant another church,
which was not on my radar. I can't say that I really wanted
to do that and I certainly had no plans for it.
We were very established in Indiana.
The church was doing quite well and I and over the course of
about a year, my wife and I, we, we felt like God was calling us
to it again. We were talking about it.
We're seeking counsel about it and just spend a lot of time
praying and asking God, is this you right?
Is this we because we only want to do this if this is really
you. And I remember very distinctly
one time in prayer when I was having this kind of conversation
with God, like, oh, I don't know, is this you?
Is this you? And I felt like he asked me, at
the end of your life, will you regret having planted 2
churches? And I just thought, well, of
course not, of course not. To have two congregations
established in two different cities and the Gospels being
preached in two different places and disciples are being made in
two different places. Of course, it's, it's a worthy,
it's a worthy use of my life. I'll do it again.
For me, that was a bit of a turning point where I was like,
OK, let's go, let's do this. The work we do is so important.
Other organizations and agencies, hospitals,
universities, not for profits. They're good, they're necessary,
they do good work. But that is not God's chosen
group for reconciling the world unto himself.
That is the church. The church is God's plan A for
reconciliation, and so we have an important work to do.
Please don't forget that it's easy to Pooh Pooh the church.
The church has lots of warts and flaws, and I understand that
completely, right. I see the whole thing from the
inside. But nevertheless, we are God's
chosen instrument for redeeming, reconciling broken, sinful
humanity unto Himself. What a privilege, what a
calling, what a thing to give yourself to.
He goes on in verses 7 and 8 and he says, so the honor is for you
who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that
the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
He's talking about Jesus here, rejected by the Jews.
They crucified him. He's become the cornerstone and
he's become a stone of stumbling in a rock of offense.
They stumble because they disobey the Word, as they were
destined to do. He's saying here, if you believe
that Jesus is the Christ and you've built your life on him,
you will not be disappointed. You will never be put to shame
in this life or in the next. Never.
But if you reject Him, if you disobey Him, and if you're
offended by his claims that he is God, that he is Messiah, he
says you will stumble over him now and forever.
This is the hard, scary reality of eternity apart from God.
The Bible calls that hell. You are separated from good,
almighty life giving God. You're in outer darkness where
there's weeping, where there's sorrow.
At that point it's too late. And so God is mercifully calling
you now to not let Jesus be a stumbling block for you, but to
put your trust in Him. And church, by the way, this is
just a call to evangelism for us, man.
We find so many reasons and excuses to delay telling other
people about who Jesus is. And we just get so scared and we
just kind of get into our little shells and, you know, circle
around with other people who just think exactly what we
think. And let's just be happy
together. And, and I just think you, we,
that is, that is the way it goes, right?
Because it feels safe that way. And the world is getting more
hostile toward Christianity, but we have to resist that urge to
just hunker down and just hang out with one another, right?
We have this message. We are called to be salt and
light in a world that desperately needs Jesus.
There are people who are stumbling over this message.
We're going to end up separated from God forever.
And that can't be OK with us. We've got we've got a message to
share with them that leads to life and goes on in verse 9.
But you, but you Christian, but you who are now part of Jesus,
Church says but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people for his own possession.
He's stacking these terms, these images to show us what our new
identity is in Christ, Right? We're a chosen race.
We are now the people of God and it's not based on skin color,
it's not based on your culture, but it's a people based on a
common faith and a common savior.
This is very important to us at Vita Springs Church that we are
a multi ethnic, multiracial church because that diversity
that comes together in unity does a wonderful job of
proclaiming to the world the unifying power of the gospel,
the healing power of the gospel. Your chosen race, your royal
priesthood, right? All Christians are priests.
We are all called to be active participants in worshipping and
in serving. Everybody plays in this game.
No bench warmers in Christianity.
Everybody's on the field all the time.
He says. We're a holy nation.
We're this new community set apart.
We're holy. That means set apart.
We're being made holy by the Holy Spirit and we're a nation
under the kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ who rules and
reigns over us perfectly and we are a people of his possession.
And I just I love that that phrase jumped out to me this
week. A people for his own possession.
He wants you. He claimed you.
He gave himself on a cross because he desired that you
would be his. And there's a picture on in the
Book of Revelation in the last times where our names are on his
forehead. It's like he's labeled you as
his own Bible tells us that you were bought with a price.
You belong to him now, thank God.
But notice these are all corporate images, right?
That were corporate corpus or corpse, right body.
These are these are body images. These are plural.
The Christian life is meant to be lived in the body, with the
body part of the body. We're not just dismembered
individuals kind of drifting around on our own.
We are in a body. Your Christian life is not just
about you and Jesus. It is about you and Jesus.
But it's about more than just you and Jesus.
It's about you and Jesus and us and Jesus, right?
Because he's put us in a body, in a family.
And this is where COVID was so hard for some people, right?
Because it's like, oh, I can't be with my body.
And I feel what? I feel like I'm missing an arm.
I feel like I'm missing a leg right now.
And some people didn't care. And it's like, oh, church in my
pajamas. Yeah.
You know, taking the virtual Lord's Supper with my friends.
And I'm like, that I understand in the time of emergency in
crisis, you got to do what you got to do.
But you can't stay at church in your pajamas.
You can't be at church. I mean, you can come here in
your pajamas. You'll get some funny looks, but
you can't do church in your bed alone in your pajamas with a
scream. That's not church.
That's not the body, that's you and Jesus.
It's fine. Read your Bible in your pajamas,
worship in your pajamas and you know, but come to church with
the body and worship God together with the body.
I talked to a guy once. He said, I said, where do you go
to church? He said my church is my tree
stand. I go hunting and I didn't have
the heart to say in the moment, but I thought that's not church.
You can't go to church in a tree stand by yourself.
This is a team sport. We do this together.
We're playing soccer, not tennis.
God's mission is to save a people, and God himself is our
triune God, three in one, Godfather, Son, spirit.
God in a sense, is a community within himself, and so he's
saving a people for the church to thrive, for the church to be
what the church is supposed to be.
Every member, every one of us has to reject the kind of
consumer, individualist mentality that is so common in
our culture. We have to reject that when it
comes to the church, and we have to adopt A community mentality.
Thank you. Becca agrees with me.
You know, when you come on Sundays, here's what I would
just advise you, coach you, I want to kind of plant some
thoughts in your mind for how to come to church.
OK, Come to church early. I know that's a tall ask for
some of you. Like I barely make it late.
OK, go to sleep 30 minutes earlier on Saturday night.
Even if the Gators are playing, sacrifice that for Jesus and
come to church and get here early.
And when you come, think I am here to serve, OK?
It's tricky because we call it a Sunday service.
And so it might feel like you're coming to be served, and in a
sense you are. But you're also here to serve
God first and then one another, OK?
So when you think of the Sunday service, you're thinking I am
coming to serve God. And my fellow brothers and
sisters in Christ, I think if you just did that mental work,
that would completely change your church experience.
And I think that would transform this church.
Now we have A250300 disciples who are looking out.
All right, Lord, what are you doing?
How can I help? How do you want to use me?
Who do you want me to pray for today?
Not just here I am. What do you got for me?
Big difference, right? Big difference.
We're a body, not just a bunch of individuals sitting in a room
together. This is why church membership is
so important. We're going to talk a lot about
church membership in the coming weeks.
We're going to launch our membership series in October.
So if you want to become a member, you can become a member.
We're going to try really hard to convince you why that's
biblical and important over the next 5 weeks.
OK? And I hope a lot of you show up
for the membership series in October.
We're also going to have Intro to Vita in a couple weeks.
If membership feels like that's too much too fast, we
understand. Come to the Intro to Vita lunch,
one hour. We'll tell you about what we're
about how you get connected. We want you to be a part of the
body. You have a new identity.
You are part of God's community. And then he goes on and he says,
what our purpose is, that you may proclaim the excellencies of
him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous
light. You have a purpose, your
purpose. And our purpose collectively is
to proclaim Jesus's excellencies.
Now what are his excellencies? And the easy cop out answer is
more than we can list, more than you can think of.
And His excellencies are more excellent than you have ever
imagined them to be. He is infinitely good.
He is infinitely wise. He is infinitely holy.
He is infinitely excellent. So we can sit here for a long
time lifting out His excellencies.
We're here to proclaim His excellencies.
He gives us a few of them in the following phrases.
Here's one thing he did that's excellent.
He called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
You were dead in your sin. You were blind and he Bam made
you alive and he called you out of darkness.
He planted you in His Kingdom of light.
He says in verse 10 once you are not a people, you are orphaned.
You were just individuals floating around living for
yourselves, but now you are God's people.
Praise God that we are His people.
What a gift. Once you had not received mercy.
You are under wrath for your sin.
Now you have received mercy. That is excellent good news.
It is our purpose, and it is our privilege as redeemed sinners to
proclaim His Excellencies and to display His Excellencies.
This is why our mission statement is written very
carefully. Vita Vita Springs Church exists
to glorify God. There's a reason why that is
first and foremost in our mission statement.
We exist to glorify God. We want people to see Him and
how excellent and amazing he is. And here's how we do that.
Loving God. He is utterly lovely.
Loving other people who are made in His image, right the the
bricks, the living stones that he has redeemed and making
disciples of all nations. It's our purpose.
It's our privilege. The church community is to be a
living witness, proclaiming and displaying the power of God to
restore people first to Himself and to one another.
He's restored us to Himself. So we worship Him, we love Him,
we serve Him, we live for Him, we devote ourselves to Him, we
tell others about Him, and He's restored us to one another.
So we forgive each other. We're going to sin against each
other. We got to forgive each other.
We love each other. We serve one another as we have
been forgiven, as we have been loved, as we have been served.
It's supposed to be that a Sinner walks into a church and
#1 they feel like they're on another planet.
That's what it's supposed to feel like for somebody who's not
a Christian. They're supposed to walk into
church and feel like, did I just go through some kind of a
portal? Like how did I where, what is
going? This feels like another planet
to me. This is so unlike the world that
I come from. That's what's supposed to feel
like in God's church. And then secondly, that person
hears how excellent God is. They see in our love, in our
worship, in our service, in our relationships, how excellent God
is. They understand that He's the
reason for the joy, He's the reason for the life.
He's the reason for the hope and the forgiveness.
It's Him. It's not that we're that
impressive. We're not that impressive, but
He is the excellent one. You and I are called to be a
part of that kind of community, living stones in that structure
that God is building. Some very practical steps.
And then we're going to sing together.
OK. I would encourage you to come to
church on Sundays regularly. Like if you can be here, be here
because for the structure to work, the bricks got to be here,
right? And so just make that a
priority. I know that people have work
schedules and you know, there are difficulties in sick kids.
And so I understand all of that, right?
I've, I've got 5 kids. Like I, I get stuff happens and
vacation, you need to go on vacation.
So live a life kind of a, you know, live your life, but also
make sure that it is a priority for you to gather with God's
church. So if you're in town and if
you're alive and if you're available, you should be at
church to worship God and to serve God's people.
Secondly, take a step deeper and get into a small group.
There's nothing magic about small groups.
You're not like a super disciple if you're in a small group, but
they're very, very helpful for building relationships with
other Christians to have that time in a smaller, more intimate
setting where you can actually get to know each other, right?
Share stories, share meals, share life #3 come to the series
when we do our membership series and learn what it means in more
depth to be a part of a local body of believers.
Those three things, Sundays, small groups, and series, you
see how they all start with us, so you can never forget them.
God is building something beautiful in His church, His
people, to show the world how excellent He is, and you and I
are living stones in that structure.
What an honor. We're going to worship Him now
together with song. And so if you would stand with
me and worship band, you can come forward.
We pray for us as we prepare to sing to Him.
Father, we are here for you. We're here for you first and
foremost. We're here because you're the
Savior, You're the King, You're the sovereign Lord.
You're worthy of all honor and devotion and praise and glory.
You're the excellent one. We're here for you.
And as living stones, we're also here for one another to
encourage each other, to pray for each other, to remind each
other of your goodness and your power, your promises.
And I pray that you would help us, God, that we would, we would
have the right kind of mindset and the right kind of attitude
and heart when we think about your precious church.
And so help us to be faithful, strong, living stones in this
structure, this spiritual house that you're building.
And I pray that you now would be pleased with our singing, with
our worship. These songs are for you, Lord,
And so we sing them to you. Help us to sing them with
sincerity and with faith and with joy.
We thank you, Jesus, for all that you've done and all that
you are, and we worship you. We pray all these things in your
name, Amen.