Affection, Election, and Dominion

[0:00] Last week I intended to examine 1 Peter 2, verses 6-9.

[0:21] ! However, I only got to verse 6 of that passage. So tonight, with the grace of the Lord, we'll look at the next three verses. And at the conclusion, when we turn off the lights, we will be on our annual Christmas break-in here.

[0:40] And we'll pick it back up on January the 6th, 2025, which you may not know is Three Kings Day in the Spanish world. In this portion of Scripture, we are examining the great spiritual privileges we have as followers of Christ.

[1:03] And last time, we looked at the great spiritual privilege of being secure in Christ. Tonight, we will look at the next three spiritual privileges.

[1:14] Our affection for Christ, our election by Christ, and our dominion with Christ. So we'll begin with our affection for Christ.

[1:29] And this is what it says in 1 Peter 2, verses 7 and 8. So the honor is for you who believe.

[1:41] But for those who do not believe, the stone that builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

[1:55] They stumbled because they disobeyed the Word as they were destined to do. One way of identifying true believers is their affection for Christ.

[2:11] The fact is that such genuine affection is referred to as the honor. In other translations, it is referred to as the precious value.

[2:27] This honor or precious value is reserved for believers only. The Holy Spirit makes it quite clear that those things are not reserved for those who disbelieve.

[2:47] We can even say that honoring Christ is another spiritual privilege. So how do we honor Him? By placing genuine affection for Him and that achieves for us the status of spiritual privilege.

[3:13] Those who disbelieve do not honor Christ and do not share in that spiritual privilege. Now there's a great benefit, there's very great benefit in honoring the Lord and perhaps the greatest benefit is in loving Christ Jesus.

[3:34] How interesting in our timeline of study, this lesson on honoring Christ should fall just days before Christmas. During this time of year, we honor Christ as the baby that was born into the world, placed in a food trough near Bethlehem.

[3:57] As we gaze upon the scene, there is so much that brings us joy. For me personally, I am drawn to the fact that the first people whom God revealed the birth of His Son and our Savior were the lowest of the low, the shepherds.

[4:19] These guys were very low in Jewish society. They were not allowed inside the temple. They were not even allowed in the local synagogue to worship.

[4:36] Why were they kept out? Well, if you read guys like Josephus or Edersheim, they will say that they were disheveled, unkept, they smelled like a wet sheep.

[4:56] And by the way, that's pretty bad. those attending services did not want to be associated with such a low class of people.

[5:09] And this low class were the very ones that God appeared to, and through His angel, to announce the birth of the Savior of the universe.

[5:25] That sounds like something God would do. And that's quite a privilege. So there is great joy in loving Jesus.

[5:40] The Word of God frequently and eloquently speaks about loving Christ. Jesus Himself.

[5:51] Christ spoke of this. He had this to say in the Gospel of John. Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love Me.

[6:05] The Lord Jesus had this to say during the Upper Room Discourse. John 14, verses 21-24. Whoever has My commandments and keep them, he it is who loves Me.

[6:23] And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. Judas, not Iscariot, there were two Judases among the disciples, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?

[6:41] Jesus answered him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word. And My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

[6:57] Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words, and the word that you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.

[7:07] And later during the discourse, the Lord had this to say in John 16, verse 27, For the Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God.

[7:27] Believing in Christ and loving Him are inseparable spiritual privileges. But we have to remember they are reserved only for those who truly believe.

[7:45] They are the ones who display a surpassing love for Christ, but those who do not believe will put on this display as well.

[7:58] This was certainly true of the leaders of Israel who rejected Christ and then plotted to kill Him. They did not and would not love Christ.

[8:11] Wanted nothing to do with Him. Peter, in this volume that we're studying, even cited the Psalms to this unlove.

[8:23] We read about this in Psalm 118, just one chapter before the longest chapter in the Bible. But in 118, verse 22, it says, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

[8:40] And we'll hear that frequently. Old and New Testament. Peter knew something. The Jews were the builders, but they had rejected Christ.

[8:55] The very cornerstone of the faith. The Jews viewed Jesus as a worthless cornerstone.

[9:08] Why would they reject Him? Primarily because Jesus did not fit their preconceived notions of what the Messiah would be like and how He would perform when He got here to the earth.

[9:27] I heard some guys over there talk about Prime Minister Netanyahu. He said just the other day, the Messiah will soon be here. Now, he didn't say the Messiah was coming back.

[9:39] He's looking for the first advent. We're looking for the second advent of Christ. So he's not there yet. Peter knew by inspiration that this was going to happen.

[9:55] That they were going to reject the Messiah. He even quoted the passage in Isaiah where it said concerning the Messiah this, Isaiah 8, 14, and 15, and He will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

[10:29] And many will stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken. They shall be snared and taken. Now, a stone of stumbling was something that people could trip on when they're walking down the road.

[10:50] They just walk, they trip. I've been doing a lot of that in the last three years. A rock of stumbling or of offense was the possibility that they could be seriously injured if they fell on it.

[11:07] I've done that too. I had to go get x-rays. Peter saw this clearly. The Jewish leaders had rejected the chief cornerstone.

[11:19] And later, they were crushed by the same cornerstone. Literally crushed. So in the context of our lesson, those who stumble spiritually are those who do so because of their rejection of Jesus as Lord and Savior.

[11:41] Now, we've already read this verse. The reason they stumble is because they were disobedient to the words of the Holy Spirit. And in fact, He appointed them to stumble.

[11:55] Another way of saying that is they were destined to stumble. people, they do not believe. They do not obey the gospel. What do they expect from God?

[12:09] What was He going to do with them? Reward them? I don't think so. We could be sure of this. God does not actively lead people to be disobedient.

[12:22] But He already knows those who will not believe. He knows exactly who they are. And they are appointed to judgment. The New American Standard, which I like, refers to this as their doom or the doom of every unbeliever.

[12:41] This is confirmed in John's Gospel. It comes right after the world famous passage John 3.16, which everybody knows. But you know, we ought to go on and read John 3.18.

[12:56] That's important. Listen to John 3.18. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned. That's good news, isn't it? But whoever does not believe is condemned already.

[13:13] Because He has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. So that's very important that we study and we review that stumbling and that we are to have an affection for Christ.

[13:34] And then we're going to talk briefly about our election by Christ. In 1 Peter 2.9, the first few words of that verse, we say 9a.

[13:47] The Bible doesn't say that. There's not an a in your Bible, but that's what it means. But He's talking about us. You are a chosen race.

[14:02] Six words. But you are a chosen race. Peter begins verse 9 with the word but. As used here, that is an adversative.

[14:15] I wanted to get in one big word for the night and I just did it. It means to express a contrary view. There are people who do not believe.

[14:30] I dare say, in a church our size, there are people in our church who don't believe yet. Maybe they will someday. But there are also people who are a chosen race.

[14:42] These are people who are the elect of God. And Peter would have been very familiar with this passage by reading the Old Testament in the book of Deuteronomy.

[14:55] Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 6 to 9. Verse 7, Verse 7, For you are a people holy to the Lord, your God, Lord your God.

[15:07] The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

[15:20] It was not because you were more in number than those other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you. For you are the fewest of all peoples.

[15:31] But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery.

[15:49] Now what's that talk about? Well, this clears it up. From the very hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. I mean, you saw the Ten Commandments on TV, didn't you?

[16:03] I saw it in the movie house. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations.

[16:27] God is a God who chooses. And those who believe in Christ do so because they've been chosen. Paul, writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, captures this beautifully in the third chapter of Romans.

[16:43] There's none righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside.

[16:54] Together they've become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. Listen to how Jesus expressed the same truth.

[17:05] John 15, 16. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you.

[17:31] Now as we read 1 Peter and many other books, it is vitally important that we understand that salvation is based upon the sovereign electing purpose of God.

[17:47] There are five lessons we can learn from God's sovereign choice of individuals. Election is based upon the solitary decision of God.

[18:01] He didn't meet us halfway. He sure didn't meet me halfway. Aren't you glad, Tom? Yeah, I am. Election is based solely upon divine grace that God puts on display and it is therefore God's most exalting doctrine.

[18:25] Election is the most holiness-promoting doctrine because God set His love on us before the world began. Election is eternal and unchangeable and as such grants us peace no matter the circumstances.

[18:43] And election is the most joy-producing spiritual privilege because it is our surest hope in a sinful, dying world.

[18:54] And if we don't believe the world is sinful or dying, just look around. See it every day. Now we come now to the final spiritual privilege that we would touch on until next year.

[19:09] And we'll pick this study up in 2025 and it's our dominion with Christ. 1 Peter 2, verse 9b and there's going to be a C and a D and an E before we're through.

[19:22] Our dominion with Christ. And here's what he says. Three words. A royal priesthood. A royal priesthood.

[19:35] In Peter's day, people knew what royal meant. They also knew what priesthood meant. Peter, writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, combined the two terms into royal priesthood.

[19:51] The concept originated with Moses when he wrote, again by inspiration, the book of Exodus. In Exodus 19.6, he said this, You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

[20:08] Now we must treat this with care. Israel is our great example. They forfeited their privilege of priestly dominion because they became apostate and rejected their Messiah.

[20:25] This is the very thing that has happened in the last couple of years, for instance, with the United Methodist Church. They really have. And you'll notice driving around town even, a lot of Methodist churches don't have United Methodists up there anymore.

[20:39] It just says Methodist Church. But all those who believe in the true Messiah, Jesus, and trust in the finished work of Christ receive the privilege of becoming royal priests.

[20:56] Now priests in the Old Testament had two primary privileges. privileges. First, they served the king by having access to his holy presence. They could come into his presence offering spiritual sacrifices to him.

[21:11] The second privilege was to rule with the king in his kingdom. Rule with the king.

[21:24] Christ Jesus had a unique royal priesthood. The writer of Hebrews really captures this. Hebrews 7, 14-17. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah.

[21:40] And in connection with the tribe, Moses said nothing about priests. This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.

[22:04] For it is witnessed of him, talking about Melchizedek, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus was born into the tribe of Judah.

[22:18] There are no priests in the tribe of Judah. That was reserved for Levi in which we get the Levitical priesthood. But Jesus was able to establish a royal house because he is both king and priest.

[22:36] So he has a unique royal priesthood. And the writer of the book of Hebrews confirms this. And we have a model in the Old Testament.

[22:49] It is a man I'm often drawn to and I wish I knew more about him but his name was Melchizedek. And he was the Old Testament model for the royal priest.

[23:01] He foreshadowed Christ who was the ultimate and perfect priest. Some try to argue that he was actually pre-incarnate Christ but some very good men that I trust say that they don't believe that he was.

[23:14] He was a man. The main thing we learn though about Melchizedek is that he did not inherit the priesthood through the priestly line and neither did Christ.

[23:29] That inheritance could only come from one born into the tribe of Levi. And then there were automatically priests. God the Father appointed Christ as priest and he transcended the entire Levitical system.

[23:49] He was in every sense a royal priest and so was Melchizedek as a type of Christ. Those in him inherit that and become royal priests as well.

[24:00] Guys that's all of us that believe. We're royal priests. And that places all believers on a level of spiritual privilege that is unparalleled in Scripture.

[24:17] Thank you.