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Man, this morning I'm going to be preaching through 1 Peter chapter number 2. Sometimes we import the Wednesday night Bible study on the Sunday morning so that some of you Sunday morning glories can figure out what it's like to be at church on Wednesday night. But anyway, just kidding. But on 1 Peter chapter number 2, we're going to continue here. But before we do, I want to start out by just giving you some notes on 1 Peter in general. I'm not going to re-preach my sermon from Wednesday night. If you weren't here, I would strongly encourage you to download that and listen to that important sermon that I did on 1 Peter chapter 1. But let me just make some additional points about this book in general, which is a so often misunderstood book. And the way that you can misunderstand this book is by just pointing it to the Jews. And this is what a lot of people will try to teach, that 1 Peter is written to the Jews, not written unto Christians in general or Gentiles. And not only that, but people will teach that 1 Peter was just sort of an epistle that he just sent out to Jews everywhere, which is absolutely not true. Because in verse 1, and if you would go to verse 1 of chapter 1, he spells out a specific audience here. It says in 1 Peter 1-1, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. And of course these 5 geographic places that he mentions are all referring to the same general area. They're all within the modern day country of Turkey. So he is writing to people in a specific locale, western Turkey, and he is writing to the Galatians in this epistle, every bit as much as the apostle Paul is writing to the Galatians in the epistle of Paul to the Galatians. A lot of people will try to make it out, oh well Paul is going to the Gentiles and Peter and John and James and Andrew, everybody else is going to the Jews. Folks, that makes no sense to task 11 apostles with reaching this tiny group of people, the Jews, and then one guy, Paul, is supposed to reach everybody else. That's the exact opposite of what Christ said when he brought them on the Mount of Olives and said to the 11, Paul wasn't even there. He said, teach all nations, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. So Jesus told the 11 apostles to go to all nations. Now, there were times in the book of Acts where we see them in disobedience, staying in Jerusalem when they were supposed to go into all the world, they were supposed to go teach all nations. And at that time, when they are in disobedience by remaining in Jerusalem longer than he told them to, during that time, they tell Paul, all right, you go to the uncircumcision and we're going to go to the circumcision, but let me tell you something, they were wrong. Christ did not say, go ye into all the circumcision, and he didn't say, well, go all over the world and find Jews there and preach to them. He said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, go teach all nations. Now, Peter, when he is writing the books of 1 and 2 Peter, which are both addressed to this audience in western Turkey, he is not at that stage where he's in disobedience. Now he's actually actively reaching the Gentiles like he is supposed to. In fact, look at chapter 5, verse 13. Look at chapter 5, verse 13. I just want to show you how wrong it is to try to say that this book is written to the Jews and not written to Christians in Galatia, Christians in western Turkey, Christians in Asia Minor. Look where he's writing from. The Bible says in 1 Peter 5, 13, the church that is at Babylon elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth Marcus my son. So notice, he is writing from Babylon. Now this is one of two things. Either Peter is writing from literal Babylon, which is highly unlikely. It's possible that he is writing from literal Babylon in present-day Iraq. That's possible. That's option number 1, which is highly unlikely. Or number 2, he's writing from Rome, which is connected with Babylon in the books of Daniel and Revelation. In both Daniel and Revelation, Rome is viewed as the spiritual Babylon, okay? The city of seven hills, and it's in that sequence of Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, which is all one image in the book of Daniel. And I'm not going to go into all that for the sake of time, but he's probably writing from Rome, Italy. And if he's not writing from Rome, then he's writing from the literal city of Babylon, which like I said is also possible. But either way, he's not writing from Jewry. He's not in Jerusalem any longer. He's left and gone into the world like he's supposed to. And he's writing to Gentile believers, Christians that are living in these Gentile lands. Now let me prove it to you. He says in chapter 2, where we are this morning, in verse 9, but year, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Well here's the thing about that. The Jews were already God's people in the Old Testament, so it wouldn't make any sense to write to the Jews and say, hey, in time past you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. But it makes perfect sense to write that to save Gentiles, hey, in time past you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. And the Bible says the same thing in Romans chapter 9. If you would flip over there, keep your finger in 1 Peter 2 and go to Romans 9, and we'll compare scripture with scripture here. And by the way, these are different points than I made on Wednesday night. I preached this same idea on Wednesday night, but I'm using actually different scriptures just to reinforce that and show you from a different angle. Look at Romans chapter 9 verse 24, and look how clear the word of God is. Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, as he saith also in Ozy. Now that's just a different way of spelling Hosea. As he saith also in Hosea, or Ozy, I will call them my people, which were not my people. And what did he just say that that was at the end of verse 24? The Gentiles. So he says the Gentiles being called to Christ is fulfilled when he says, I will call them my people, which were not my people, and her beloved, which was not beloved, and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people, there shall they be called the children of the living God. Isn't that clear? So compare that with 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 10, which in time past were not a people, but now are the people of God. That's who he's writing to. So he's writing to Christians, whether they be Jew or Gentile, because in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, the Bible says, because you're all one in Christ Jesus. So in Christ there's neither Jew nor Gentile. 1 Peter is written to Christians living in Galatia, and that's exactly who the apostle Paul wrote to in the epistle to the Galatians. That's why you'll find a lot of the same teaching and same preaching in 1 Peter and Galatians. Why? Because they're both preaching to the same people. And so they have the same issues, the same problems, they need to hear some of the same things. Now an objection that people will raise to this is, if you look at verse 1 of chapter 1, they'll say, well, you know, it's to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, and they'll say, these people are foreign, not foreign to Peter or foreign to Jerusalem or foreign to Israel, these people are foreign to Galatia. So they're trying to say that he's writing just to the Jews in Galatia, you know, the ones that are strangers to Galatia. Folks, that is nonsense in light of what we just read in 1 Peter 2, 9, and 10. But now with that, let's let this book define the word stranger for us by looking at the word stranger in verse 11 of chapter 2. Look what the Bible says right after he finishes saying in verse 10, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. It says, 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 evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. You know what it means to be a stranger among the Gentiles? It doesn't mean to be a Jew living amongst them. What it means is that you are a stranger and a pilgrim on this earth. And if you study the Bible, that's what it means when it talks about how even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Old Testament saints, they confess that they were strangers and pilgrims in this earth. This world is not our home. We're just passing through. And that's why he said in chapter 1, past the time of your sojourning here with fear. Our citizenship is not on this earth as Christians. Predominantly we're Christians, not United States citizens predominantly. We're Christian first, American second. So we are strangers on this earth. We live amongst the nations. We live amongst the Gentiles. But we are different than the people of this world. But to sit there and say, oh, that's because they're Jews, folks, face it, the Jews rejected Jesus Christ by and large. The early church was not filled with Jews. It was mainly filled with Gentiles. It spread like wildfire, the Gospel among the Gentiles. Among the Greek-speaking world, it spread like wildfire. That's why you have all these churches in Corinth, Galatia. You have the church in Colossae, Philippi. It spread like wildfire. But when it comes to the Jews, what did it say? He came into his own. His own received him not. So it spread like wildfire. He's teaching to Christians in general, folks, in Western Turkey. And here's more proof. Look at Chapter 5. And then I'll get off this. But look at Chapter 5, verse 1. The elders which are among you I exhort who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God which is among you. So he has a specific section in 1 Peter, Chapter 5, that's geared toward pastors. He's saying, hey, I'm preaching to the elders among you, the bishops, the pastors, the elders. Because he's talking to churches. And do you think you have a separate church for Jews and a separate church for Gentiles? No folks. He's writing to all the believers. And to believe otherwise and to just insist that 1 Peter's written to the Jews is to just ignore what's as plain as the nose on your face, that this is written to a Gentile area. Here's Peter in a Gentile place, Babylon, writing to a Gentile place, from a Gentile place, saying you guys were not the people of God in the past, but now you are the people of God, which Romans 9 makes that clear what that's about. The Gentiles. Okay. So are there Jews mixed in? Sure. Peter himself was a Jew. But in Christ there's neither Jew nor Gentile. It's just the churches, the elders, the pastors. He's talking to all of them. And he's telling them, you're the elect. You're the people of God. You're a peculiar people. You're a chosen generation. All right. So let's dig into 1 Peter chapter 2 now that we understand a little bit about the book of 1 Peter in general, which is Peter sitting in Babylon, whether you want to believe that's the literal Babylon or the figurative Babylon, Rome, he's in one of those two places, writing to western Turkey to a multitude of Christians that are scattered throughout that whole region and to their pastors. And he's writing to these people. And he tells them in chapter 1 about how they're saved by faith. And he really hammers on salvation in chapter 1. He talks about being born again. He talks about being begotten again. He talks about calling upon the Father. He talks about also, what else did he say, being redeemed was another term that he used. He just hits it from so many different angles about being saved. And he keeps talking about faith, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls and talking about how they believed in God through Jesus. Okay. So in chapter 2, he picks up from that where he talks about how they're born again by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And he says in chapter 2 verse 1, wherefore, which means because of this, wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. So here's what he's saying. In chapter 1, he's talking about the fact that they're saved and that makes them elect and how they're born again and how even though they're suffering now, they have an inheritance waiting for them in heaven and isn't it exciting to be saved. So here's what chapter 1 focused on. But in chapter 2, he says, okay, because of that now, let's lay aside these wicked things and as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. So once you're saved and you know you're saved and you understand salvation, you don't want to just stay a baby. You don't want to just stay there exactly how you were before you were saved, living the same life, knowing the same things, having the same habits. You want to grow out of those things, don't you? When you get saved, you want to grow and become a better Christian. You want to grow in knowledge and you want to grow in grace and you want to grow as a believer. Now, how do you grow? The Bible tells us that the word of God is what gives us growth, okay. Have you ever heard somebody say, hey, eat up, you're a growing boy, right? What do they mean by that? They're saying, look, you're growing, you're at an age where you're in a growth spurt, you need to eat a lot of food. And if you don't eat a lot of food when you're growing, and I'm not talking to you that are in your 30s, 40s, and 50s, okay, I'm talking about, you know, kids, they hit that growth spurt and they're just so hungry, right? I remember my cousin who now is like, I don't know, he towers over me, I don't know how tall he is, but I have this cousin that's like 6'5 or 6'6 or however tall he is. I just remember he was at my house and he was just always so hungry when he was a kid. You know, he's like, man, I'm so hungry. And legend has it that he ate 12 bananas in one sitting. And I remember, and that was when he was like a toddler. But when he was over at our house, I just remember just feeding him and feeding him. He's just like, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. He wasn't overweight, he was just growing, you know, and then he ended up, of course, being a giant of a man. And so when you're growing, you need to eat a lot of additional food, right? And so the Bible is saying, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Look, if you're barely reading the Bible, if you're barely listening to Bible preaching, you're going to stunt your growth. People who are malnourished at key growing phases and don't eat enough, they don't get as tall. I guarantee you, if we would have just withheld food from that cousin, he wouldn't be the height that he is today. You have to eat and get nutrition and nourishment at those growing stages, amen? And when you're a newborn babe, boy, you desire the milk of the word, that's all you want. I mean, newborn babies, they don't really have a sophisticated, complicated palate. They don't say, well, you know, what else is on the menu? I mean, they want one thing. And not only that, they're not really interested in socializing as much as just getting fed. You know, that's kind of their main thing. Now, they want you to play with them. They want you to, but you know, you try to play with them when they're hungry, it doesn't go over very well. Don't try to distract me. I'm hungry. All right. So, for a newborn baby, food is the main thing. I mean, this is such a beautiful picture that he uses. I mean, if you want to use an illustration of how bad you want the word of God, a newborn baby, how bad they want milk, that's a pretty good illustration because they scream and cry and that's all they can think about. It's all they want. Why? Because they're in a growth spurt. Think about how they double in size. Just over the course of months, they literally double in size. In fact, the fastest you'll ever grow percentage-wise is from the time you're born to the time you're two years old. I mean, you look at a two-year-old, imagine giving birth to that, it's just huge, right? They've doubled and tripled in size by the time they're two years old. And so they eat and they eat and they eat and you're just constantly nursing them, nursing them, feeding them. God is saying, you know, if you're a new believer, if you're saved, or even if you've been saved a long time, you should desire the word of God like a newborn baby desires its milk. Just give me my Bible, right? That's how we should feel. We should crave and want God's word, right? And especially if you're a new believer, man, you need to eat up. And you need more preaching, more Bible reading, so that you may grow thereby. Be like a newborn babe that desires the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Verse three, if so be that you've tasted that the Lord is gracious, to whom coming is unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. So we see that Jesus Christ is the chosen. He is the elect. And that's what makes us elect. If we're in Christ, then we're elect because Christ is the elect. Christ is the chosen. And it says here that he's disallowed indeed of men. So he's rejected by the world. Other people reject the Bible. They reject the Lord Jesus Christ, but we have come to him. We that are saved, we've tasted that the Lord's gracious. So we shouldn't have the same appetite of the world that turns up their nose at the sincere milk of the word. But if we're saved, we've tasted that the Lord's gracious. We want more. We want more Bible. We want more preaching, right? And so we see here that they don't want it. The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But unto us which are saved, it's the power of God. We love it. We thrive on it. We don't get enough of it. He says in verse five, ye also are lively stones, as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, behold, I lay in Zion, a chief cornerstone elect. What does elect mean? Chosen. Of course, Christ is the elect again, precious. And he that believeth on him shall not be confounded unto you therefore, which believe he's 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 would stumble at the word being disobedient where onto also they were appointed. Now let's stop. There's, there's so much great stuff here. So I want to slow down and hit these points here that he makes, because these are some great points. First of all, at the end of verse six, he says unto you that, excuse me, at the end of verse six, he says, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Now this is elsewhere stated as whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Here it says he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Now the image here is when an army goes to battle, you know, and they lose, okay, they, they get defeated, right? They are hoping that they're going to win. They're hoping maybe that God's going to go with them. You know, when you think of the old Testament armies and they, and they go out and they pray for the Lord to give them victory, right? Well, if they're confounded, that's something that the Bible talks about for the enemies of God. You know, let them be confounded. Let them be ashamed. What it means to be ashamed in the Bible can be one of two things. It can either be what we think of as being ashamed, which is I'm embarrassed, right? Like when Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. What's he mean there? You know, I'm not embarrassed of the Gospel of Christ, but there's another meaning of ashamed and so you know, you don't want to always apply that meaning or you'll misunderstand a lot of scripture. If you study the word ashamed all throughout the Bible, you'll see that many times the word ashamed isn't talking about being embarrassed. It's actually talking about being let down or left in the lurch and being defeated, okay? So when the Bible says, if you believe on him, you'll not be ashamed. What it's saying is he's not going to leave you hanging. He's not going to let you down. You're not going to put all your faith in him and then he drops the ball and doesn't get you to heaven. Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed because he's rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not might be saved. Not like, okay, I'm putting all my trust in Jesus and then he lets you down. That would be being ashamed and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. What does being confounded mean? If we stop and think about the word confounded, it's similar to the word confused. You know, if you're confounded, you're just like, what's going on here? What happened? It's similar of being let down and you're relying on someone and they let you down. What in the world? You're confounded. Okay. The Bible is saying here that if we put our faith and trust in Christ, he is not going to let us down. He that believeth on him shall not be confounded. We're not going to be ashamed. Let me give it to you this way. In Psalms it says, oh my God, I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed. Let not mine enemies triumph over me. He's saying, look, I'm trusting in you. Don't let me be ashamed and let my enemies triumph over me and I lose the battle when I trusted in you. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So that's what it means to be ashamed or confounded in this context. It means to be basically let down by God and he's saying God is not going to let you down. If your faith and trust is in Christ, it's well placed. You shall be saved. And if you put your trust in Christ in other areas of life, he's going to come through for you in those areas as well. And so that's what the Bible is teaching here. So unto you therefore which believe, because of the fact that he's never going to let you down, because of the fact that you're saved and secure in him and your faith is on the rock, because of that, unto you which believe, he is precious, right? He's valuable to you because he's the rock of your salvation. But unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner. So to us, we see Christ as the rock of our salvation, a costly, precious stone that we will use for the foundation of our salvation and of our whole life and he's not going to let us down. The world looks at that stone and says, oh, that's a reject. That stone's no good. We can't use that stone. We can't build anything with that. God says I'm going to take that stone and make it the head of the corner. It's the cornerstone. It's the most important stone in the whole building, right? Verse 7, 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 watch this. And a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, this is so important, even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient, where unto also they were appointed. Now think about this. Often when we preach the word of God, when we preach exactly what the Bible says, people get offended, don't they? And when they get offended, weak, liberal, watered down Christians or Christians who don't know the Bible, you know what they say, oh, you're being a stumbling block by preaching that. You're being a stumbling block by saying those things. You know that hard preaching, you're making people stumble. Well, you better know I am. Yeah. Yeah, I am being a stumbling block. I am making people stumble. You know why? Because the word of God makes wicked people stumble. The word of God is a rock of offense, the Bible says. This book is called, you can put it right on the card, The Rock of Offense. This book is a book that offends people. That's what the Bible says. It says that Christ offends. To the unsaved, Jesus Christ, verse 8, is a stone of stumbling. He's a stone that they're going to trip over. To us, he's the stone that we build our whole life on. He's the cornerstone. He's the most important stone that we build around. But to the unsaved, it's a stumbling stone. It's something that they trip on. It trips them up. He's a stone of stumbling. He's a rock of offense. And then he makes it so clear, you can't misunderstand it, even to them which stumble at the word. What are they stumbling at? The word. Jesus is the word. So Jesus is the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense. Why do they stumble at Jesus? Because they stumble at the word of God. Jesus and his word are inseparable. And so therefore, the Jesus of the Bible is a stumbling stone and a rock of offense. And people get offended when you preach the Bible and you say, well, how dare you cast a stumbling block? Well, every time I preach the word of God, I'm casting a stumbling block. To bad people, to the wicked, to the rebellious, to the disobedient. But when I preach the word of God to people who want to hear the truth, who want to do what's right. You know what? It's a blessing to them. It tastes good to them. They can't get enough of it and they want to build their whole life on that foundation. See the difference there? So the Bible says at the end of verse 9, where unto also they were appointed. What does it mean to be appointed? It means something's planned in advance, right? If I make an appointment, I'm planning on doing something in the future. So these people are appointed to wrath. These people are appointed to stumble. They are appointed to trip and fall, okay? The Bible talks about us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 when he says God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. But guess what? There are other people who are appointed to wrath. There are other people who are appointed to fall. They're appointed to be destroyed. Now it's not that God is saying, oh, I'm just picking you as a damned person. No, no, no. What he's doing is he's appointing those who don't believe to fall. He's appointing those who reject Christ to be shredded by the stone of Jesus Christ, to be shattered and smashed and obliterated by Christ. Because this stone is either a stone that you build on or it's a stone that will crush you, is what the Bible teaches, right? Jesus Christ, the Word of God, will destroy you, shred you, crush you. I mean, look, Jesus Christ is either your savior or he's your judge that condemns you. Jesus Christ is a judge that will condemn people. And he's either going to be your savior or he's going to be your worst nightmare. And you're tormented in the lake of fire, in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. So Christ is either your best friend or he's your destruction, right? And so that's what this stone is. The stone Jesus Christ, he's either rejected by the world and a stumbling stone and a rock of offense and he's going to come down on them and crush them or he is the foundation that is their savior. He gets them to heaven and so forth. Another verse that I think would help with this, the Bible says in Jude, verse four, you don't have to turn there, but it says, for there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ordained and appointed are similar words, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. What the Bible is saying here is that God's Word has been designed. It's been designed. This is not just a byproduct or a side effect. It's been designed to save some and destroy others, but the choice is up to you which crowd you want to be in. God doesn't make that choice for you. You decide whether you're going to believe on Jesus Christ or not. If you believe on Jesus Christ, then you'll be on the good side. If you reject Jesus Christ, if you don't believe on Jesus Christ, you're doomed and damned. The Bible says that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that the world might go to heaven. No. He said God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Notice you have two different groups in that verse, John 3.16. You got the world, which is everybody, and then you got whosoever believeth, which is a smaller group within the world, isn't it? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. But you can't sit there and say, well, God just gave his Son for certain people so that certain people could be saved. He gave himself for the world. He died not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. So it's the world that God loved, everybody. God loved the whole world, gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth, which is a smaller group within that, would not perish but have everlasting life. So it's a whosoever will may come, whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely, but you, if you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, have a foreordained, foreappointed appointment with hell, appointment with destruction, and appointment with being confounded even while you're on this earth and being crushed and shredded even on this earth. First Peter chapter two, of course, we already went over the famous verses in verse nine and 10, the most important verses in the whole chapter, in my opinion, about how we are the peculiar people. And it says in verse nine, you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. What does peculiar mean? You're different. We shouldn't be exactly like this world. We shouldn't be conformed to this world. We're different. That we should show forth the praises of him which called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which in time past were not a people, but now are 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. So let me tile this together here. You start out the chapter by saying, look, you need to desire the milk of the word so that you can grow thereby, right? You're saved in chapter one. He hammers that. And then in chapter two, he says, okay, now it's time for Christian growth. Lay aside the malice. Lay aside the guile. Lay aside the hypocrisy. Be sincere. Drink the sincere milk of the word. Grow thereby. Don't be like the world that hates Christ, that stumbles at Christ, that's offended by Christ. Be peculiar. Be different. Be God's people. God's called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light. And now, he says, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. So think about it this way. The word of God is the milk that's helping you grow, okay? You're a young child and you're eating all this nutritious food during your growth spurt. That's the word of God, okay? Now, over here, the fleshly lusts that war against the soul, that's drinking coffee. Now, I'm not against drinking coffee, okay? Don't misunderstand. I'm not Joseph Smith up here telling you you can't drink coffee. Don't misunderstand me. But have you ever heard this? When you're a kid, if you drink coffee, it's gonna stunt your growth. Who believes that? Who believes that coffee will stunt your growth? Hey, I believe it, all right? Now, I don't know if it's true or not. I haven't done any research on it. But you know what? My parents told me that if I drank coffee as a kid, it would stunt my growth. And so, until I'm proven wrong, I'm sticking with that, okay? But if you don't believe that, since most people don't believe that apparently, if you don't believe that, just pretend for a minute that coffee stunts your growth when you're a kid, okay? Can you just pretend with me? The fleshly... and this isn't coffee, this is water, but fleshly lusts are stunting your growth. Does everybody understand that? So, on one side, you got the sincere milk of the word that you may grow there by, and then you got coffee over here stunting your growth as a kid, right? Those of you that are fully grown, drink up, but I, you know, I don't want my kids drinking coffee because I don't want it to stunt their growth, all right? I'm sure I'm gonna get a lot of angry emails and scientific articles or something. I don't know. I don't know the science on that. But anyway, for illustration purposes, it's the coffee of childhood that stunts your growth, fleshly lusts. So, the Bible's helping you grow, fleshly lusts are keeping you from growing, right? Fleshly lusts, the Bible says, war against the soul, okay? They're battling against the soul that's trying to do the right thing. So, here you are, you're trying to do the right thing, you're trying to read your Bible, you're trying to go to church, you're trying to go soul winning, and fleshly lusts come in and they say, hey, you know, eat a bunch of junk food, watch a bunch of junk on TV, which is the junk food for your brain, right? Watch all this junk on TV, look at all this dirty stuff, right? Go out and drink the alcohol, smoke the cigarettes, take the drugs, go gamble and party and revel and riot and do all these things, right? Or even to the extremes of go commit fornication and adultery, get drunk, okay. Look, these are fleshly lusts that war against, these are the things that are going to stop you from growing. You're not growing if you're out drinking and partying. If you go home every day and watch a bunch of smut on TV, you think you're growing? You're not growing, that stuff stunts your growth. You go home and read your Bible, you're growing. You go home and sing some hymns, pray some prayers, you're growing, right? Go to church, you're growing, go out and party and rot your brain and destroy your body and you're stunning your spiritual growth. Fleshly lusts war against the soul. He says in verse 12, 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. So he says there, you're living right, you have your conversation. Conversation doesn't just mean what you say, although that's part of it, but in the Bible the word conversation also means the way that you live your life in general. Like you'll see the word conversant in the Bible meaning, you know, that they're living amongst them. So your conversation is living, the way that you're living. We might use the word lifestyle today, right? So you're having your conversation or your manner of life honest among the Gentiles that whereas they may speak against you as evil doers, he says they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. So what he's saying is, you know, people who look at you that are worldly people, they should look at you and have to admit that you're a good guy or that you're a good woman, right? They have to look at you and say, you know what, I want to talk bad about them because I don't like Christ, I don't like Christians, I don't like the Bible, but I have to admit he's a great worker. You know, I have to admit she's a great woman, you know, she's a great wife, she's a great mother. I mean, they just, they have to look at you and see your conversation that it's honest and say, you know what, these are good people, these are nice people. So we don't want to have a bad reputation as Christians, right? So he goes on to explain part of how we need to do that, he says in verse 13, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well, for so is the will of God that with well-doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. And so the Bible's telling us that we should, and it says this elsewhere, but we should try to live peaceably with all men. We should be a good person in our neighborhood, we should be a good person in our community, a good person in our state and in our country. Now this doesn't mean to compromise and to be worldly or sinful just to try to fit in with everybody else. Obviously we're a peculiar people, right? Obviously we're going to be different, people are going to see us as Christians and see us as being different, separate, distinct from the culture that we live in, but we should strive to be a blessing, not a pain in the rear end to the people around us. You see what I'm saying? So we should be a good neighbor, we should be a good citizen, we should be a good person. And look, there are a lot of ordinances of man. There are a lot of laws that are stupid and annoying, right? That we don't like. You know, I look at some of the stupid and annoying laws that we have and the taxes that we pay that are just ridiculous. You know, we pay this huge amount of taxes and we don't like paying it, do we? I mean, I don't like paying, you know, I just paid my taxes and you know, I just sent thousands and thousands of dollars to Uncle Sam to go use for things that I don't believe in and I'm constantly paying taxes for things that I don't use, like I'm paying for the public school system that I don't use and then I'm paying for a bunch of foreign wars that I don't believe in, right? I'm paying for a bunch of ungodly things and a bunch of waste and really just lining the pockets of a bunch of congressmen that are multi-millionaires, right? I don't like that stuff. I don't believe in that stuff. I think it's stupid, you know, I wish I didn't have to follow this law and that law and the other law and pay taxes and all these different things but here's the thing about that though is that it's not our calling to be a tax protester and to just fight against the system and you know, take down the system or something like that. That's not what God wants us to do. God would rather that for the Lord's sake, we just submit ourselves to it. He says, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. So not because the government deserves your hard-earned money but because of the fact that we want to serve the Lord, we want to just live peacefully in Arizona, we want to just be a part of the world here in the world but not of the world but we do want to be a part of society. We're not withdrawing from society onto some cult compound or living as a hermit in the wilderness, are we? No. We believe that the Bible strongly tells us to live in society, to be a part of this city, this state, this nation and not to withdraw from society into a compound. This is one of the biggest differences, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago. I don't want to give you a history lesson here but this is one of the biggest differences between the Anabaptists and the Baptists. The Anabaptists said, well, no, we're not going to submit to the king and submit to all these different things. We want to have our own separate community, we're not going to be a part of the society that's here. We're going to have our own separate community, okay? And the Anabaptists later became the Quakers, the Mennonites and the Amish, okay? And they want to do their own separate thing. That's why the Amish today, they live in their own separate thing, don't they? They're not part of the rest of society, they have their own town, their own government, their own rules and everything like that. Whereas the Baptists believed in separation of church and state and basically just co-existing in society with the others. And obviously I'm oversimplifying here but I'm basically explaining to you the fact that Baptists have always believed that, you know, Christ's kingdom is not of this world. And so we are here to be an influence in this world. We're here to influence our city, we're here to influence our town, influence our state and preach what they should be doing. You know, we can preach to leaders like John the Baptist preached against Herod. We can preach to the leaders, preach against wickedness. We can preach what's right and how the government should be run but we're not going to go form our own Baptist state, our own Baptist city-state and put up a fence around it and machine guns and barbed wire and say, we're doing our own thing, this is our, you know, we're not doing that. We're supposed to just basically submit to the king, submit to the governor, pay the taxes, live our lives and focus on winning souls to Christ and being salt and light in our community. Okay. And that's why for the last 13 years that I've been the pastor here, okay, our church has always complied with all of the laws as far as, you know, financially and legally. We followed, we filed all the paperwork and done what we're supposed to do financially and I personally have filed my taxes every single year and, you know, sent off my taxes to them every single year. You know, I pay, and our church pays taxes, you know, our church every single month sends money to the IRS every single month and that's what we've always done. We've always followed those rules. Why? Because even Jesus Christ paid taxes. He said, give unto Caesar the things that be Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. Now, he did tell Peter that he shouldn't have to pay. He said, well, of whom do the kings of the earth take tribute? Of their own children or of strangers? Peter said of strangers. He says, then are the children free, but nevertheless, lest we offend them, pay it. So he basically said, pay it to keep them off your back. Pay them so that they'll leave you alone. Pay them because our job is not to be here to do a political revolution. Our job is to bring a spiritual revolution. And so that's why he said, pay the taxes. Not because the government deserves our money, not because it's right, but because of the fact that God said, just do it for the Lord's sake because God wants you to live in Arizona. He wants you to live in the United States or, you know, whatever state people live in if you're visiting today. But he wants us to live in our communities, not to go with, you know, well, I can't pay these taxes. I'm going to go. Just do it for the Lord's sake. You know, and if there's some stupid rule in your neighborhood, just follow it the best you can. If the government starts making laws that contradict God's commandments, we ought to obey God rather than men. So I'm not giving the government a carte blanche here, folks. I'm saying that if we can both obey God and the government, it's better just to go along to get along. But if the government starts telling me, hey, you can't preach that, I'm going to tell the government to go jump in a lake, right? And if the government sits there and tells me, hey, you guys have to do this unbiblical thing, I'm going to say, well, no, I'm not interested in that. So I'm going to do what God says no matter what. Also, you have to understand that in our country, there is a system of checks and balances. So in our country, we have a federal government, a state government, a local government. We have the Constitution. We have various laws that are on the books. We have various court decisions. So here's the thing. If some local government makes an unconstitutional law and our government has stated that any law that is repugnant to the Constitution is null and void, I do believe that it is okay to do a civil disobedience because you're actually following the law by doing civil disobedience. I mean, if the Constitution says, hey, we're free from searches and seizures and somebody wants to do an unconstitutional search and seizure and you assert your rights and say, no, you're not going to do an unconstitutional search and seizure, you're breaking the law right now because I'm protected by the law from search and seizure, then you know what? That's perfectly fine because what are you doing? Number one, you're following the Supreme law, the higher power, which is the Constitution, and you're standing up for freedom because let me tell you something, if you don't stand up for freedom, if you don't at least push for freedom, strive for liberty, boy, the government's going to take as much power as you give it. Okay, and this is part of why we do a lot of civil disobedience when it comes to soul winning because both things apply. Number one, we have to obey God rather than men. Number one, when they make laws against soul winning, that conflicts with the word of God, so we need to fight that, number one. But number two, making a law against soul winning is unconstitutional. And so we have to stand up and say, no, we have the right to practice our religion. We have the right to preach the gospel. We have the right to share the gospel and people, but see people who go overboard on this submitting to the law thing will say, oh, you just need to follow that law and knock a different door. Yeah, it's easy for you to say because you locked, knocked less than 1% of the doors in the city. Look, we actually are knocking the whole thing. So if we're actually knocking the whole thing, we don't want to run out of doors and we would have already run out of doors a long time ago if we obeyed the rule not to go knocking in apartment complexes and HOA's. So we're going to keep on knocking in apartment complexes and HOA's because number one, God's the higher power and number two, the constitution is the higher power, okay? So I'm not against jury nullification. I think jury nullification is an important safeguard of our freedom. But here's the thing, jury nullification is legal. And I think reading an unlawful search and seizure is legal, okay? So people try to say, oh, Pastor Erickson, you broke the law, you know, when you didn't let him search you that one time 11 years ago or 10 years ago. And I say, you know what, really? I broke the law? That's funny because I went to court and I was found not guilty on all charges. I did not break the law. I was standing up for freedom and constitutional rights, trying to educate people about our rights because we shouldn't just give up all our rights and let Alexandria, whatever her name is, turn us into a Soviet-styled republic, right? I mean, somebody's got to stand up and preach liberty and preach freedom. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to spend my life fighting a political battle. I'm going to spend my life fighting a spiritual battle. You know, so hey, I went to court in that situation. I was declared not guilty on all charges because I didn't do anything illegal, okay? And the jury felt that way. And then not only that, I sued them for violating my rights and I was ruled against because guess what? I had no jury. And it's very rare to get any justice without a jury because the judges work for them, okay? So of course the judge just threw out my lawsuit and then I could have appealed it. But guess what? I don't want to spend the rest of my life appealing and appealing and fighting and going to court because you know what, I'd rather be out preaching the Bible, soul winning. I'm not just going to spend the rest of my life talking about an incident that happened in 2009 when it's 2019. You know, you got to move on folks, okay? But there are Christians who guess what? They actually get distracted by these things and they spend their whole life working with the Republican party, you know, trying to find a political solution or they spend their whole life campaigning for this candidate or they spend their whole life fighting the tax code or fighting against this rule and that rule. You know what folks? I believe that the spiritual battle is paramount. I'm for standing for our rights, I'm for the truth movement, I'm for the freedom movement, the liberty movement and I do my part to preach, you know, against the unconstitutional wars. You know, I preached a whole sermon last Sunday morning called War is a Racquet and I do my part to stand up for freedom and I serve my rights when I get a chance to do so. But at the end of the day though, most of the laws that are coming at us, we need to just obey because it's not our place to just try to fight that battle all the time, okay? So if, you know, if there's a dumb law or taxes or whatever, just, you know, typically you're just going to go along with it because of the fact that God says just do it for the Lord's sake. Send him the money. Because look, if I, let's say I hadn't paid my taxes for the last 13 years or let's say our church had not been in compliance, then that just gives the government an excuse to come in and throw me in prison and shut down our ministry and you know, is that, and look, I'm willing to go to jail for preaching the gospel. I'm not willing to go to jail for not paying taxes when Christ specifically said to pay taxes because people have literally attacked us and criticized us for paying taxes. You know, like, like we're bad because we're paying that well really because that's what Christ told us to do. Okay. So I'm trying to give you this morning a balanced view of this and saying, look, yeah, I understand that there are abuses of power and we should stand up to tyranny and stand up to the government when they get out of control and we should fight to keep the commie liberals from taking over our country. I get that. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to spend my life on that. I'm going to spend my life on the things of God. That's a side issue for me. Okay. That's not the main thing for me. And in many cases I end up paying taxes, going along with dumb rules, following dumb laws for the Lord's sake because that's just part of the cost you pay to live in Arizona. Everybody understand? I mean, look, I have to have a driver's license. I have to have insurance on my car. I have to do it. You say, well, you know, you should, you should protest all that stuff. But here's the thing. I want to drive places and go soul winning and preach. And so I'm not trying to be Amish here. So I got to fit in. Right. Be peculiar amongst the world. Not peculiar because I'm out in some compound in Guyana, you know, 400 miles from civilization. So let's keep going. I got to hurry up and finish here with the little time I have left. So he says, for so is the will of God, verse 15, that with well-doing you 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 froward. For this is thank worthy if a man for conscience toward God, endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. Now this is such an important scripture. So I want to make sure I cover this and this might be all we have time for here. But this is so critical that we understand this. The Bible teaches us to obey the authorities in our life even when we think that they're wrong. And if they wrong us, then that's something that God will reward us for if we endure it wrongfully. What am I talking about? Well, some of the main authorities in our life are our parents, when we're children or teenagers growing up, right, or young adults, if you're still living at home. Okay, our parents. The Bible teaches that the husband is the head of the wife and that the wife is to obey her husband. It's a mitt to her husband. That's not very popular anymore, but that's what the Bible says. Children that obey their parents, wives that obey their husbands, okay, and when you go to work, you have a boss at work, a supervisor, the owner of the company, manager, whatever. These are some primary authorities in your life that you deal with every day, right? Your boss at work, your parents, or your husband. Virtually everybody here has that authority in their life. Or I guess if you're a school kid, then you have the teacher at school or whatever is your authority figure. That's like your boss at work. The Bible is saying here, do not be subject only to the good and gentle. Well, I'd obey my husband if he were good and gentle. Is that what the Bible says? The Bible says to obey your husband, period. Well, I'd obey my parents if my parents were reasonable. Is that what the Bible says? To obey your parents when they're reasonable? No. He says obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. And when you go to work, you might have a boss that's not gentle. He yells at you, cusses you out, treats you poorly, but you know what? If you work there, you need to treat him respectfully and obey him because he's the boss. Even if you don't like him, even if he's a jerk, you say, my husband's a jerk. Well, you know what? What does that make you for marrying him? Number one, it makes you an idiot, okay? And you made your bed, so lay in it. All right? Oh, my parents are jerks. Well, you know what? If they brought you to Faithful Word Baptist Church, just be thankful for that because I'd rather have jerk parents that brought me to Faithful Word than a bunch of heathen parents out snorting cocaine and drinking and partying and not even bringing me to church raising me to be a gathiest or a phagnostic and die and go to hell. Folks, just be thankful for the good things about your parents, right? I guarantee you there are good things. You say, well, my parents aren't even safe. I guarantee you there's probably still some good things about them that you could look to and be thankful for. Hey, even if you have bad parents, you'll obey your parents, kids, and not when they tell you to disobey God, okay? Just like we have a bad government, but we still pay the taxes even though we don't want to, okay? If you have a husband that is not a good guy, obey anyway, okay? You have a boss at work that treats you bad, you obey anyway. Now, look, a lot of people right now are probably bristling at this. They're probably thinking to themselves, like, I don't want to obey him or my parents or you don't understand what my boss is like. But, you know, that's why you need to grow because you're a baby if you think that. Because the babe at the beginning of the chapter needs to get the sincere milk of the word so that he can grow into the point where he's ready when somebody slaps him on the cheek to turn the other cheek. That's growth, right? Getting to that point where when your husband tells you something and you don't like it, your husband corrects you and you don't think you're wrong, your parents get on your case and punish you and you don't think you did anything wrong, I didn't do anything, you know. You need to grow and be a good Christian. Now what does a Christian mean? Christian means you're like Christ, right? So what does he say next? He says at the end of verse 20, but if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were you called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you 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 bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed, for ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. The Bible here is saying that Christ suffered the just for the unjust. Did Christ do anything wrong? But yet he allowed himself to be punished for something that he didn't do. And the Bible is saying we need to sometimes do the same thing. So you're a wife and you, well my husband is on my case and I didn't even do anything wrong. Okay, well this is a great opportunity for you to be Christlike. Oh man, my parents are on my case. My parents gave me a spanking and I didn't even do anything wrong. Perfect example to be like Christ and endure those thirty-nines, no, don't spank your kids thirty-nine times, I'm joking. But you know what, if Christ could be beaten with a whip thirty-nine times, right, can you endure a spanking, right, that doesn't even injure you? Can you endure a spanking? Oh child, well I didn't do anything wrong. People did Christ do anything wrong when he was beaten mercilessly with a whip thirty-nine times? Folks, Christ suffered wrongfully. And as a Christian, sometimes you have to suffer wrongfully, you let people do you wrong and you just go on and say, Father forgive them, they know not what they do. And you say, you know what, my parents, maybe they're being a jerk right now, in my mind usually you're wrong about that anyway. But you say, oh man, my parents are being a jerk right now, okay, well then you know what, do it for the Lord's sake. Is the Lord a jerk? Well, my boss is a jerk. Is Christ a jerk? Oh, my husband's a jerk, is Jesus a jerk? Because you know what, you do it as unto the Lord. You do it for the Lord's sake, you do it as unto Christ, okay. And Christ suffered wrongly and if you're a Christian, you're going to suffer wrongly. That means sometimes having somebody cuss you out and you just say, hey, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're right, it's my fault. That means at work, getting chewed out and blamed for something and saying, sorry, sir, I'll fix this, let me take care of this, let me get it done right, you know, just go with it. And you know what you think, well, I don't want the boss to think I'm a bad worker. You know what, the boss would rather you take responsibility for something that you didn't even do, he'll think more of you than if you're constantly trying to prove to him that you didn't do anything wrong. Because there's nothing worse than an employee who won't take correction. And a wife who won't take correction, a child who won't take correction, a worker who won't take correction, you know, all of these people are a pain to authority. And so we need to grow, folks, we need to be, hey, you're saved, great, okay, well, let's start obeying the Bible, let's start with 1 Peter chapter 2, start obeying the authorities in your life and sometimes that includes suffering wrongfully, being punished for things that you didn't do wrong, just going with it, just go along with it, why? Because you're just doing it for Christ and Christ will reward you for that, for your obedience, right? So when you go through life, try to always keep Christ in view. Think about Christ. Think about your life and your decisions in terms of Christ. So when you look at your husband, see Christ. When you look at your parents, see Christ. When you look at your boss at work, see Christ. And think about like, what does Christ want me, what am I doing for Christ here, okay? Not just going through life of, well, I gotta fight for what's mine and I'm gonna get what's coming to me. You know what? Let God lift you up. Humble yourself and God will exalt you in due time, okay? Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this great chapter, Lord, and Lord, help us to desire the sincere milk of the word that we may grow thereby and help us to abstain from fleshly lust, the war against the soul. Help us to live in the world but not to be of the world. Help us to be a peculiar people within the world but, Lord, help us to be a part of our neighborhood, our state, our city, our community, Lord, shining the light of the glorious gospel and not go hide from the world that we live in, Lord, and help us to obey and be the best worker on the job so that when they wanna criticize us for being a Christian, they have to admit that we're the best worker on the job and they have to admit that we're the best student in the class and they have to admit that we're a great husband or a great wife or a great son or a great daughter or a great parent, Lord. Help us to do right, help us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and it's in his name we pray, amen.