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First Peter, Chapter 2.
And we'll begin with.
Verse 3.
First speed or two verse 3.
If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious, to whom coming as unto a living stone disallowed indeed of men.
The chosen of God and precious he also as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture. Behold, I lay in sigh, and a chief cornerstone elect precious. He that believeth on him shall not be confounded unto you, therefore which believe he is precious.
But unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation.
A peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of him who have called you out of darkness.
Into his marvelous light, which in time past were not a people, but now.
Are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the King and Supreme.
Or under governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well.
For so is the will of God that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.
As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness.
But as the servants of God, honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward. This is thank worthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully, For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults, he shall take it patiently, But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called because.
Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example.
That ye should follow his steps.
Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again when he suffered.
He threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, who his own self. There are sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes he were healed.
For ye were as sheep going astray, and in our return unto the shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
As an aside, I'd like to make just a short summary statement about the two forms of love that our brother Bob mentioned, and rightly as being in that 22nd chapter. Sometimes we think of one of them as if it wasn't, and the other one as if it was divine law. Well, they're both divine love. In fact, the first one is used in John 1627 for the Father himself.
Is attached to you because ye are attached to me, or himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and so both forms of that love are attributed.
From the Father. And so whether it's the Juan paleo or agape love, they're both divine, they're different in their expression. And I just think that that's important that we not sort of downgrade the one as if it was something natural, but now the other one that's divine. But they're both divine love, the Father himself.
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Is attached to you that loves you because ye have loved me that that's that's all I had.
I believe, brother, you will explain that well when he said that brotherly love has my brother as its object and divine love has God as its object. And so when they're both divine, as you say in nature, and it's a good thing that we want to get along together, that is of God, love is of God, that we should want to get together and go on together. But sometimes.
This agape love which has God as its object may actually cause me to act towards my brother, which he may not perceive to be lover.
Would you say that's true, brother?
That's really the point of what Peter himself gives us by inspiration in the first chapter of Second Peter is to be added, yes.
No, nothing that we've said this morning or has been said by anyone is to set aside the need for.
The word that we don't like discipline or or speaking to someone. It says in Leviticus not to let evil rest upon your brother, that this is nothing to set aside that responsibility. But we should make sure that even in compliance with such scriptures, that if it doesn't hurt me to speak sharply to you.
You can't hide behind which form of love It isn't love at all.
The whole thought in Scripture, I believe, when God tells us of discipline, is to do it in love and with the principle and thought of restoration. It's not with the thought of well, it's sure good to get rid of that person that you will never find in Scripture.
Well, discipline really has in view the holiness of God, and it ought to be done in love. But I appreciate it. I, brother Ron Clawson, made a statement to me as a father that was helpful to me. He said when we discipline our children, it ought to be done in love, but it's not necessarily to show love, it's to show the holiness of God. And so when Peter dealt with Ananias and Sapphira, his object in that was really the holiness of God and God's house. I just say that because it's helpful to us that we ought to we discipline our children because we love them.
And yet that may not be what we're communicating to them in the act, and we shouldn't be preoccupied with that. What we're trying to communicate to them is that there's a holiness that becomes the child of God, and it becomes my son as my son. And it's good that, you know, when we were young and we told a lie and our parents took us and and disciplined us for us, and we realized that there were painful consequences to doing that. The reason they did that was because they loved us. But the real object was to show us that was an awful thing to tell a lie and that there were serious consequences in doing it. I just say that because sometimes.
So often, say we mix up the two thoughts of discipline and love to the point that we can no longer act, you know, with the proper object of discipline in mind.
There is an expression in the sense of mark.
Young man was referred to this morning and as he went away I'm reading verse 21 and.
Mr. Darby's translation and he says, And Jesus looking upon him, looking upon him, loved him and said to him, And so when we have to deal.
With issues that.
Cause us to have to judge.
We are to pattern ourselves after this example. We are to look upon the individual and love him.
Regardless of whatever action must be taken.
In the consideration of the leper in the 14th and 15th chapters of Leviticus, there is another expression very similar to this. It said the priest shall look upon him and declare him unclean.
And the thought came to me as I was meditating on that Why could it not have just as easily have been said? The priest shall declare him unclean.
Because the act of looking upon him and examining the situation is the way by which love is expressed toward one who has difficulty. And here is a statement, I submit, to your conscience.
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Correction without compassion does not do the work of God.
When the repentant one and 1St Corinthians 5 who had been put away from the company.
Of God's people showed evidence of repentance. What was the expression?
Confirm your love to such an one, lest he be swallowed up with over much sorrow. So we can't confuse the two issues, but there always has to be that compassionate consideration. So what do we get in Galatians 61 where one has been overtaken in a fault, considering by self lest I also should be tempted?
In verse three of our chapter, it is if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
Tasting is a very individual matter, isn't it? I can't taste for you and you can't taste for me.
But it's true of every true believer. They have proved that they have tasted it individually. They have proved that the Lord is gracious, Or, as it says in Psalm 34, that this seems to be taken from the Lord is good.
Brethren, we have a God who is good.
He's proved himself to be good and I just want to say in that.
It seems like a very basic.
Statement of fact and it is.
But I find more and more that people are having questions about it, so go around even believers.
Having serious questions about it. And it's Satan that calls in question the goodness of God, and that's the way he got Eve to fall in the 1St place by putting a question mark on what God had said. I want to say dear young people and dear older ones too, because sometimes these problems afflict those who are older and I must say.
Questions comma winging at me at times. Sometimes as well. I'm not going to say they don't.
But pick up the shield of faith and don't let those fiery darts in. Don't allow doubts as to God into his goodness, into your heart.
They will come, but don't allow them in because God has proved himself to be good. Sometimes people say, well look at my circumstances, How can you say God is good when so many things wrong?
Are going on.
Sometimes, say to young people, in that case to say, how much do you understand of what's going on in your world right now? It's just like you're looking through a little peephole. You don't understand what's going on.
God knows what's going on. He has all knowledge. You may have a little bit of knowledge, but when he shows you the whole picture at the end you're going to say, oh, I judged God wrong. I believe those doubts that came to me and that's why I say don't believe doubts as to God and to his word, believe God because God is proved himself to be true at all times, under all circumstances.
Believe him. Trust him. God is good. Oh, how wonderful.
To let that sink down into our souls. He has proved it, and we have the proof in its fullest measure at Calvary. If you want to look at a individual historical happening that shows that God is love, it's Calvary.
Don't try to judge God by your present circumstances because you do not have a good enough picture of what's going on in your life now. But we can see at Calvary that God is good in the fullest measure, and it's something that you must prove yourself. I must prove myself. Tasting is an individual matter. What you've just said, Bob is good for everyone, including the lot.
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Nor thou not that it's the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance. The goodness of God, it's universal, doesn't apply just to those of us in this room. That's everybody.
That is observable in the 5th chapter of Romans. That's fairly familiar to most of us.
Tribulation. Works. Endurance. These trials are real.
I may not understand much as has been suggested and truly so as to what these circumstances mean, but I understand they are real.
Tribulation works endurance. These trials that come give me strength and endurance to the end. An athlete actually puts weights on his ankles to build up his strength so that when the competition comes he is able to move more with greater agility, run faster if you please. The Drake Relays are going on and that's many of those athletes have warned ankle weights.
Well, tribulation works. Endurance. Endurance.
What's next?
Faith. Endurance. Hope.
And hope sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts. God has proven himself in all of these circumstances so that His love is unquestionable. And that experience gives hope. And hope confirms the love of God that has been given us.
If I am tempted to criticize something that has criticized God for something that he has allowed.
I just remember I haven't. I don't think I have read the last chapter yet.
We may have, the Lord may come while we're sitting here, but generally speaking, we say the Lord.
Has a last chapter to read to reveal and that actually we know because after we're gone and with himself, then we're going to see the whole thing as God sees it now.
No thinking about this, brethren.
We have perhaps. Well, there are many striking examples of it in the Word of God. But just go back into your mind and remember this occasion when a godly man who was a blessing in the assembly, one who is known for his godly walk being filled with the Holy Spirit, was taken out and stoned to death.
And upon that stoning of Stephen, it says in Acts eight, you don't need to turn to it, I'll just read it.
At that time there was a great persecution against the Church which was at Jerusalem.
Is God good? They just watched a brother in Christ who had been a tremendous blessing to them, murdered by being stoned. They were now feeling a tremendous persecution in the city that had rejected its king. It goes on, and it says they were scattered abroad, throughout all the regions of Judea and Samaria. Is that good? Was God being good? They had to leave their homes. They had to leave their acquaintances, maybe their families. They were scattered.
And you might say, if I'm going to look at that with natural sight, it's going to be a bit difficult to to see naturally in that that God is being good. But then hear this. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word. You might say the Word would have stayed in Jerusalem. God is good, and he allowed circumstances that allowed that gospel to begin spreading over the face of the earth.
Judea and Samaria 1St and then on beyond to the Gentiles. But it happened in circumstances that if we're not going to look at it with faith, brethren, we're going to say how can this be good?
How can I believe God is good when he's allowing this? And yet look at the good that came from it? And so for all of us. But if I could direct it a little bit more to the beloved young people, you may be saying I'm looking for a life's companion and I can't find one. Nothing seems to be working out. Is God good? Is he really interested in me? I'm looking for a job. I thought I had something really nice lined up and it didn't work out. Is God good? Is he really for me? Yes, indeed.
He is, because the Word of God says he is. And you have every example and proof of it in the word of God. But we have to look at it by faith. And if he denies something now, as not only God but our perfect Father, He's denying something now or not bringing something to pass Now it's because he's got something better and it's coming. And it takes faith. Beloved young people, you desperately. And I do too, Each of us. We need desperately to learn what it is to walk by faith, saying in spite.
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Of what it looks like.
I've tasted and I've found the Lord is gracious.
And I'm going to go on. I'm not going to give up because I'm going to believe by faith something better is coming. Is it going too far to suggest?
That Stephen's demeanor and these circumstances that have been described may have been an occasion to prick the conscience of that young man at whose feet the clothing was laid, and look at what came out of that.
I like Mr. Wigram's comment on that Brother Ton. I never heard it put any nicer, he said. When, and I'm not quoting it accurately. But he said when the hatred of man snuffed out.
Humanly speaking, the brightest light that God had in the early church. It was characteristic of the grace of God in this dispensation that it reached down and picked out the very worst one responsible and said, as it were. All right, you come and take his place and it's remarkable, isn't it, the ways of God in raising up a pall over the over Stephen. And it's happened a number of times in the church's history when.
Louis Berkman was burned at the stake outside of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France many, many years ago. They thought they'd snuffed out the man that was going to lead the Reformation in France. But a 15 year old boy ran away from that scene with his cheeks flaming and said that man has something. The boy was John Calvin. And so as you say, brother never questioned the ways of God no matter what he allows because.
There's always blessing in it, and if you and I can't see it, there's blessing down the road for others and for in the ways of God, and how wonderful simply to be, shall we say, expendable.
So that God can use us in whatever way he wishes. Faith. They want a mess. We want a mess in our lives. Just go on and have your own way.
And my mother used to say, act in haste and repent at leisure.
Faith says, as David did, Psalm 1/19/68 Thou art good and thou doest good. Teach us thy statues. So take that by faith. Believe it, rest in it, and it will bring tremendous peace to your heart and conscience, knowing that what God does, what he allows.
In the nation, in the world, in our lives.
Individually is good because God is behind it. It may be chastening. Take it as such, but take it from God, a wise and a loving Father.
It seems that this third verse is conditional on the second verse, isn't it?
Where it says, if so be, ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious, so we need to go back to what we read in the second verse, and that says desire, the sincere milk of the word you may grow thereby so.
Unless I I may observe something, and unless I taste it, I can't say that this is good. I've got to desire it for myself and I've got to partake of it myself.
Zoo with the desire in our souls to avail ourselves of the reading of the word of God, and from that we will realize more and more and the more we taste of it, the more we say this is good. And and so it I believe it, we might say it's conditional on our appetite as to what we are desiring. And I was thinking of what you know, Paul John says if any man left the world.
The love of the Father is not in him.
Now cannot be said of the believer.
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Is that or is that to an unbeliever? Well, if the love of the world is in my heart, the love of the Father can't be there. It doesn't say the love of God, but the love of the Father. I can't, I can't. I'm not experiencing the Father's love to me as long as I am tasting the book of the world. So if I'm going, it's depending what I'm tasting. So if I'm feeding on that which is of the word of God that I will say, then the then the love of Father is in my heart.
And not the love of the world. So we need to be careful on which what our appetites are desiring and what we're availing ourselves of and what we're eating in this world. So it's the if, so be, it says if, so be.
Ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
Without relation to the point, there's one other little word that might be made in respect to that which is good.
We've often heard, and sometimes very glibly so.
All things work together for good to them that are called of God and those that love God and those that are called according to his purpose. And I was noticing once and.
Meditation.
One translator said.
God will turn to our advantage.
And that's the sense in which we can be sure that every circumstance, whether we understand it or not, whatever degree of difficulty it may have for us, God will turn it to our advantage.
We find that faith having tasted the goodness of God.
The graciousness of the Lord, rather.
Allows us to be attached to that which is totally rejected by the world.
And it need not surprise us, and perhaps we often hear this, but it's good to remind ourselves again.
That.
The Christ, if I can say it this way, that we're in a relationship with.
And we've come to and tasted that the Lord is gracious.
That's the one that has been disallowed by this world. There's no room for him in the world. And we've often said this and it might bear repeating that any of the any of us sitting here.
Can fairly comfortably speak about Christianity to those around any of us here. Can fairly comfortably talk about reading the Bible. It's OK when you're at work or at school to say I read the Bible. You can say I believe in God and have a fair amount of people who would nod their heads.
But we've tasted the Lord as gracious. We've come to one the Lord Jesus.
Talk about Jesus in this world, his preciousness, and you're going to find one that's been disallowed, despised the world has nothing to do with and doesn't want him. Hates that name. Hates those whether they act like it or not, that bear that name in love, that seek to follow and obey that name in love. So it ought not to surprise us no matter what age we are, that the one that we have come to the one we found to be gracious.
Is one that's utterly spurned and despised and hated in this world. But that doesn't matter. We can go on.
And that's where God begins his building, doesn't it? With the one that the world rejected, In fact, that one that the world rejected becomes the chief cornerstone of this new building that he's building. And I think it is helpful in Scripture to look at the question of buildings because man has his building too. If you go to the Book of Genesis, you find the first building mentioned was the Tower of Babel, and they did it. And the purpose of that was not so much to reach to heaven, but to.
Make us a name, Let us make us a name. That was their purpose. And so even today's in today's world they have huge buildings. It's to make somebody a name, some company or some person a name. And that's the purpose of man's building, to make themselves a name. But when the Lord Jesus came and presented himself as a stone to the builders that were the religious Jewish leaders of that time.
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They said we don't have any place for this stone in our building and they cast it away. It's because the Lord Jesus did not come to make himself a name He made. He came to glorify the name of his Father, and that's what he did in all his life. It was God's glory he was here for and now he becomes the cornerstone, the foundation stone of this new building that is being built. In verse five, it speaks of this spiritual house.
But it's not for man's glory, and I think it's really helpful, brethren, to remember that that it's we are here for God's glory. If there is any way that I strive for a name for myself to be the best preacher, to be the most correct group of Christians in Des Moines, that's making a name for myself, and that will result as it did in Genesis.
In Babel and confusion. And that's what's happened, because men strive for names for themselves.
But the purpose of this building is to glorify the name of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, and I love the simplicity with which Peter speaks of it in verse 4. How do you become part of this building?
To whom coming like to put it this way, come to Jesus?
This is the way you become part of this building. Come to Jesus. That's exactly it when you come to him.
In simplicity as that living stone, then you are build up into this spiritual house as.
One of the living stones for his glory, for his praise.
You'll have to see too, won't we? I want to read that in Mr. Darby's translation.
Brother Bob, what you were saying? To whom Coming? A living stone castaway, indeed, as worthless by men. That's man's estimation of him. Think of that. The creator of this universe, considered worthless by men. Doesn't say much for our heart, does it, brethren? But then it goes on.
But with God chosen precious, now this phrase yourselves also has chosen yourselves also as living stones. I just was thinking, if we're going to come and be built on this stone that was considered worthless by men.
Should it surprise us very much if we're considered the same thing? And should we strive very hard to make a name for ourselves in a world that the foundation of everything we have for now in eternity has been considered worthless and cast out? We should expect, and though I know little about this, perhaps personally, with joy, take the place of also being considered worthless in this world because of who it is we're connected with.
But that's the eternal building.
When the apostle writes the Corinthians, he said.
God forbid that I should know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And this is exactly what we have in our chapter. It is the rejection and expulsion from His own creation, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gadarenes are a picture of it. When the swine went down the precipice and choked in the sea, they said depart out of our coast what they did to the Lord.
So God forbid that I should know anything except Jesus Christ and him crucified. The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, one brother has said, is the end of the first man outside of Paradise.
So if we identify with a stone that has been set at nought by the builders.
We are setting aside the first man and setting up the 2nd.
And dear young people.
You can gauge every word that you hear here this afternoon, and you can gauge every word that is purported to be ministry by whomever.
Gauge it by which man it exhausts.
That is a very sound principle. Do not accept what us older men, sitting here with the word open, say to you. Search the scriptures.
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The Lord said to the Pharisees He searched the scriptures for and then you think you have eternal life. But they are they which testify of Me and the Bereans more noble, and the Thessalonians in that they search the scriptures to see whether or not these things are sold. Your faith and your trust is to be in God and in that rejected 1.
And then that one who is the 2nd man. And this is just a little side point.
The idea between 1St and 2nd suggests the third.
When it comes to headship, you've got the first Adam and the last Adam. There will be no more heads of creation.
Adam was placed in charge of the creation of God as his head and the Lord Jesus Christ as the beginning of the creation of God Is the head of the new creation, the last Adam, but when it comes to the first man and the 2nd man.
That leaves room for a third, and a fourth, and so on. Behold, I and the children of God, which thou hast given me.
So we are identified with under rejected Christ in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore we are associated with Him in new creation. If you and I do not have by faith a connection with the Lord Jesus Christ in resurrection, we have no connection with God.
We're like Esau, A profane man, a man who had no affinity with God.
Because the only means by which we can be identified with the Lord Jesus Christ in resurrection and have affinity with God is through faith. We are all children of God through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. So the man that is put forward is the one by which we can gauge everything that we hear.
If it exalts man, it's not of God. If it exalts Christ. If it exalts Christ, we know it's of God.
This building that we have here is a little different than First Corinthians chapter 3.
First Sergeant Chapter three are workers that work in building, helping up that building but here it says.
Ye are built.
God is building that building, and I suppose it corresponds with what the Lord Jesus said to Peter on this rock. I will build my church. It's being built today by the power of the Spirit of God, not by the efforts of man. However, God chooses to use men to spread the truth, but it's God who is building the building. Ye are built.
And I like to think that God uses stones in his building. You never find one stone exactly like another. You ever met anybody like Stan Jacobson? I hope not.
But I never expect this meeting another one. But isn't that wonderful? The variety God uses? And man when he builds, he uses bricks. And you make bricks by pressing mud into a brick mold and it has to conform to all the brick mold. That's the way man builds. And if you want to become part of what man is building, you have to conform to their system.
But God uses stones, and every stone is different. Down in Bolivia they build out of stones some of their buildings, and I've watched them. It's a real work of art. And they take stone, the stone Mason, and he tries to fit it into the wall and he has to pick up his hammer and chisel and take off a few edges. But then it fits in and it becomes a beautiful building. This is what God is doing.
That they joined together as the way He's making us. And sometimes some of the edges have to come off brethren. They don't fit. And if the Lord wants to take him off, let's not be resentful at what instrument he may use to take him off, but realize that He's working on us, each one of us, to fit us into his building. I think it's so beautiful to think that God uses stones, not bricks.
And it's nice to see that there's a tremendous encouragement.
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At the end of verse 6.
For those that believe on him, says he that believeth on him shall not be confounded, or in Mr. Darby's translation, shall not be put to shame. Think of it. And those that identify with the one considered worthless Vitus world, and in doing so themselves, will be considered worthless. You've got a promise from God, you're not going to be put to shame. We don't like shame, do we? And we shirk from it. It's not something we enjoy.
But here's a promise from God.
That if I become one of those stones, or I am one of those stones, and perhaps there's an awful lot of chipping that has to be done, but let it be done I whatever has to go in a life, in my life or your life, that we might be suitable for the Lord's.
Usable and suitable as we're put into that building, we're not going to be put to shame. The world puts us to shame, but we won't be put to shame.
For the Lord Jesus could tell the lady that God sought worshippers. Well, that's what we have in this fifth verse, isn't it? We're built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And so the building is not put up just to see a beautiful building, but there's some activity there, and the activity is honor and glory and worship to the one who built the building.
And so we're each one of us, each one that knows the Lord Jesus Christ is a holy priest to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices. Later on in the chapter we get the the.
Holy Priest. And we get the Royal priest later on, which is a little different story. But that's our purpose. That's God's purpose, to receive from us the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. It's interesting that in that verse it doesn't specify a time. It's at all times.
The vertical here in verse 5 isn't it? It's offering up.
Spiritual sacrifices.
In verse nine, it's the royal priesthood. It's to show forth, that's horizontal, It's to show out to others around, and I think it's helpful to see the difference. It's the same contrast you see in John 4 you have the water springing up because it's the question of worship, whereas in John 7 the water flows out.
In testimony. So you have those two things here, but it really does exercise me, brother involve the question. You say. This is not for any specific time. It's to be always the case that praise should flow to God. And I must say rather than I feel we lack here.
I guess I shouldn't put it that way. Excuse me. I feel I lack here because praise does not flow nearly as much as it should When I consider how great and how glorious the God I profess to know it should flow continually from my lips.
And that's what it says in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 15. Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.
Dear brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, if I visit you in your home, will I hear praise to God continually?
And I must say, we like to try to make it a point to sing a song of praise to the Lord.
Now, there's a lot of nice songs we have. What a friend we have in Jesus. I love to sing that song. It's a comfort to my soul, but it's not exactly directed to God directly. But I think it must rejoice the Lord's heart to hear us stop and just direct something directly to him to praise his glorious name. Oh, what a God. We have a brethren. Does it show in your life and in mind that we really know this guy?
Is there praise that flows from our lips for this reason? He's building this building, rather, and I really believe that. That's why the Lord has to allow severe trials sometimes in our lives as He gets so occupied with things down here. No praise day after day, hardly any praise from our lips for our God brethren. For this reason, He chose us.
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And we need to consider our high calling of elevating the praise of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
And the service comes next. And if we haven't had praise in our hearts for the one who loved us and gave himself for us, how can we serve him?
And so God in his wisdom puts it in the right order. Praise 1St and then the holy priesthood first and then the royal priesthood comes afterward. When the Lord Jesus was here on earth, he could say to his disciples come he impart in the desert place and rest a while. Why was that? So that they could spend time with him. That was the reason.
Lively. Sometimes we plan to take out living.
But after what Bob has said, perhaps we should leave it lively.
You know, we can be living and still act like we're dead.
But when we're lively, we know we're not dead and so.
If we leave this word lively, perhaps that would say that there needs to be a little more praise from our lives.
All right that we can sit in a meeting, brethren, when we remember the Lord Jesus and allow long, long silent pauses. I don't mean to say that some silence isn't in place to enjoy the Lord, but it's evident our disinterested times and we sit in the breaking of bread meeting and our local meetings, and no praise to such a great God and Savior.
What is it that hinders in the expression of his praise? Brethren, I really feel in my own soul the need of being stirred up about this. Would somebody have anything to say to me, to stir me up, please, Because I really feel there's a need of this friend. It's our testimony. His phrase is our testimony. Sometimes we talk about our testimony and we're looking at ourselves. No, brethren, we're looking at him. And when we get occupied with him, our hearts get full.
And they start overflowing. But what is it that hinders?
I only say for my own self rather than I feel we need to practice praising him in our homes more than we do. Maybe that would help. That's only one suggestion. Maybe somebody has others, but something we need to be exercising at.
In 129 nuts that we have to sing it, but it comes to mind so often in in.
Let all his people join this.
The God of heaven above revealed in flash he shed his blood. Less truth of endoscla Jesus I love exceeds our thought. But this at least we see that soul and knows thy love is taught to value not but thee and all. I love thee faintly seen what's seen demands our praise. Without it, Lord, we still have been ensnared in Satan's ways. That first word awake. That's why I always think of that when I'm when sometimes it seems like we're asleep.
Perhaps the reason why we don't have praise in our lips to worship is because these are spiritual sacrifices and they may involve more than praise. And there's many times when there's a spiritual sacrifice I need to make and I really get into communion with the Lord when.
You know, perhaps a young person has an opportunity for a job and they have to enter into an unequal yoke to take that job. And you're a young, an older woman, And she was in our house and she was called by her first name. And I said, what would you like to be called? She said, I'd really like to be called missus. She passed up an opportunity to marry a wealthy man because he wasn't a believer. She didn't. That was a spiritual sacrifice. And so there are many sacrifices that one might make and spiritual sacrifices, and it produces praise in the heart. It brings us into communion with the Lord and I think sometimes the reason that we come before the Lord in worship.
00:50:02
Because it's not. We don't have things to say to the Lord, but there maybe haven't been those spiritual sacrifices in our lives in connection with our entire life.
I spoke to a young man not too long ago.
Who was attending an evangelical church?
And he made the remark to me. He said It's so nice sometimes just to sit there and not have to feel any responsibility.
And I don't mean to be critical. That's exactly what he said, and it ties in just with what Neil was saying. These are sacrifices when David was going to offer a sacrifice on the threshing floor of **** on the Jebusite, he said. I will not offer sacrifice of that which that cost me nothing.
It's going to cost something in order to.
Walk with the Lord in order to be in his presence, to be exercised before him.
But then.
More worthy of all of that than our blessed master.