Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, January 14, 2025. 1 Peter and being the Cornerstone.
Good Morning, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to Tuesday January 14, 2025.
Today, we go back into 1 Peter and talk about what it means that Jesus is the Cornerstone and through faith in Him, we become cornerstones.
Along the way, we talk about HOW we go about studying the Bible so that we can always be fair to the TEXT and not our FEELINGS.
May God bless you and keep you always and in all ways. We will talk again soon.
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, January 14, 2025. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, January 14, 2025. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Good morning. Good morning, my brothers and my sisters and welcome to the Church Town Church of God. Isn’t that a pretty view? I mean, you got a poll there to the right hand side. And yes, these are garage doors. I was just talking to a group on Saturday as we undecorated the church from Christmas. And we have a person who has been attending now for several weeks. And we always get to see the people who are here. And we always get that moment for all new attendees. It happens. It might take a couple of weeks. It might take a year and they go, are those garage doors? Look how pretty that is. Right. You just don’t find this kind of stained glass. And we were so lucky. I mean, I’ve been here 13 years and look at that sun. Look at the eastern sun coming in. Oh, you know what I’m saying? And nothing. The same glass was in great shape. We have since had two and a half windows refurbished. Actually, one is brand new. No, not brand new. No, two and a half have been refurbished and two that have been rededicated. That’s why we did it. Look at this sanctuary. This is where we were Sunday morning. Such a wonderful, wonderful time together. We’re looking at holiness. Oh, I guess I better turn on some lights. Oh, that’s the name of the live stream. I want to say good morning or maybe good evening, as the case may be to all of my friends at Round Knob. What an honor and a privilege it is to be teaching Bible here and for you to want to actually use it. That is exactly why it is here. Good morning, Mary. You’re about to turn around and see my ugly mug. I’m ready for you. Are you ready for me? There we go. So in January, and we may end up going through February. Just stuck on first Peter. And that’s where we are. And like I said, we’ll teach first Peter specifically on Tuesday. And more specifically, that is the passage that I will be really expositing and exploring for Sunday. Thursday, I want to do like a parallel scripture because. There are a few things that we operate here and turning on the lights, a few fundamental questions, a hermeneutic, if you will. There’s your 50 cent theological word of the day. It is the lens through which you view. I did not it not at that length, not at that length. People know you and I shared what it means to you and what the Bible means to you and how far you have come and all of those things. Yes. Rosie, it’s it’s a wonderful story. It is the reason why we do this as well. So I hope that you are finding who you are as you are reflected as an image bearer of the most high God. But I didn’t read it word for word. But that’s why we turn off the cameras. We turn off the cameras for our prayer service. That and then we talk and we talk and we talk and we talk and we had a person in the congregation just needed to talk. The person doesn’t have many other people and they just needed to talk. And so we we just spend time talking and sharing testimony, sharing burdens, spiritual care, we say it’s not just a corporate prayer. Like I said, we turn off the live stream. You can stay as long or as little as you would like, whatever the case may be. But we’re going to talk. We’re going to pray all of those different things during the prayer service of our time together. So that’s pretty cool. But getting back to what we were talking about here, I want you to every few months we go through a little refresher because you need to know how I view scripture and a few fundamental things that I believe. First of all, I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired, infallible word of God. I don’t get into the weeds with inane arguments about inerrancy, and I don’t use the word inerrancy and infallible in the same way. They are not synonymous in my mind. Inerrancy leads to questions of the exact wording of scripture going back and you’ve got to get back into the real weeds of the original languages and was. So I believe that God’s Holy Spirit guided the translation from Aramaic and Hebrew into Greek. And I believe that God’s Holy Spirit led and has been leading faithful translations of the Greek and folks who go back then to the Hebrew and the Aramaic into English. If we don’t have that fundamental cornerstone, which is what we’re talking about today, then all bets are off. So I don’t use the word inerrancy. You can look at some theological websites and theological stuff about. And man, they just go on and on and on and on. And it doesn’t really matter. Infallible means that God’s word never fails in its purpose. It is the divinely inspired, infallible word of God. Faithful translations never fail in their purpose. God’s word never fails in its purpose. So that leads to the second fundamental question that we are able to ask of any piece of scripture. Lord, why is this here? Some is very obvious, some not so obvious and some downright what? And you can always ask, Lord, why is this here? Because I believe that it’s there for a reason and for many reasons at sometimes. And it will never fail in its purpose. So you ask, what is the purpose of this? Which leads to the next set of questions, or I should say statements, when we understand scripture, we must remove the ice of Jesus from it. What is that? It means when I place myself into the Bible, remember these two tenants. The Bible is written about God, not about you. And the Bible is written for you, not to you. So we understand that what we see in scripture is the description of our triune God, his character, his behavior, his, his, his facets, right, his traits, of which we are a reflection. So you’ll see it. It’s one of the most common traps to fall into when you’re teaching Bible, and that is to immediately interject yourself into the text. And you’ll even the most faithful Bible teachers will read a verse or two and then begin life application, begin life application. I know that you have felt like Peter during this time. I know that you felt like David and you have your Goliath. That’s okay. Let’s save that for later after we really dig out who is God and what is God doing in this scripture? Now, how am I reflected in those character traits? Cart before the horse. And so this is what we do. And sometimes when people come to church town and it’s like. You just open the Bible and you read it and you preach. I’m like, yeah. And again, this is one of the things I say, I’m I’m where I’m actually lucky. Good morning, Dale. Morning, Taylor. Good morning, everybody. People have been popping up. I haven’t been saying good morning because I’ve just been. Well, I’m locked in. I’m locked in. I know, Dale, it’s hard for you to believe that my mind can be this focused. But I am sort of. I forget what I was saying. Oh, yeah. And they’re like, where’s the slide show? Where are the notes? Where are like, where’s all this stuff? I’m like, you got your Bible? Follow along with me. And I am almost probably 98 percent expository preacher. What does that mean? You read from scripture and through the week I have studied, I have compared, contrasted. I have looked at individual words. It’s whatever needs to be done. I do. And then we talk and we preach. I preach what’s there in the text. Now, what you’re going to take from that, because it is written for you, but not to you. That’s going to be you and God’s Holy Spirit. And it will be as individual as you are in your relationship with God’s Holy Spirit. I hope that that makes sense. OK, so that’s who we are here at church. That’s who I am. Good morning, Brit. Turning on the lights and this is what we do. There are some fundamental things, right? Because here’s another tenant that we follow here and I teach this on Sunday mornings as well. When when we want to find out why is this here? What is this saying? How does this reflect God? Right. In the text. Remember this. The first place we go. Scripture informs scripture. Where is it elsewhere in the Bible? Old Testament, New Testament. We were talking about something that Peter said about commit no evil acts. On Sunday. And we’re talking about how. What do you mean no evil acts? He goes on to say a few specific things. But if and I said, I know you guys know this because you’re not biblically illiterate. And I know you folks at Round Knob are not biblically illiterate. But let’s look at this tie in. You know what an evil act is. It’s anything that goes against the will of God. We have the Ten Commandments, the very fundamental law of God. And the first four honor God, the last six honor his creation. So we can go all the way back in this arc when we talk this meta narrative. We go all the way back in this arc and say, what is evil? It’s it’s something that does not honor God, does not honor his creation. So is what I am about to do or think or say, does it honor God and his creation? If not. Right. Red flag. You’re about to say something wicked. You’re about to say something, do something, believe something not of God’s will. So you see, scripture informs scripture. It is one unified story. And that’s the first place we go. And then we can go on from there. But we want to know how God is reflected in this particular concept, whatever it may be. You want to talk about healthy human sexuality. You want to talk about women’s roles in ministry. You want to talk about the salvation and Jesus Christ as king, Jesus Christ as priest, Jesus Christ as prophet. Then let’s see where all of that is and how it is reflected and brought out from the prophecies of old and from the law of old through the Gospels and into the epistles. And let’s flesh that out of scripture first. Once again, it’s all I really knew, like I went to seminary and I didn’t I didn’t know like these big books. And I was like, there are a few classes. In seminary where we never even brought our Bibles or reference the Bible, maybe referenced the Bible, but it was all about this author or all about this concept or all about the Bible. I’m like, let’s get into the Bible. What does the Bible have to say about the Bible? Wouldn’t that be the best source? Went to seminary with classes and had classes and I shared this with the congregation where a fellow student said, professor, could we please pray before we get started? And the professor said, why? Tell you all you need to know. So here we are in First Peter. Father God, we pray that your word will go out as we know. Your word will go out wherever you would like to send it to whomever you would like to send it. We pray that hearts and minds would be softened and changed by the power of your holy living word in Jesus name. Amen. Part of the problem with Bible teaching. Whether it be the teachings directly of Jesus, for example, the Sermon on the Mount. Or the epistles, the letters is that one, our Bibles are broken down into chapter and verse. So thus we have a tendency to teach everything chapter and verse. When. The letters were not written that way, they were written as one long letter, one continuous flow of thought idea that builds upon idea that builds upon idea that then reflects back to this idea in a different way, etc. They have structure, they have purpose, of course, they have a point. But we have a tendency to take chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk. So here’s my challenge to you, and I’m going to challenge Churchtown this Sunday with this. Take a look at first Peter and its overall structure. When we opened up with first Peter, he was talking about who you are in Christ. Don’t forget who you are in Christ. You are now being persecuted for who you are in Christ. Don’t forget your salvation. Don’t forget the joy of your salvation. This leads right into what that looks like, holy living, which we talked about last week. And it talks about general behaviors that let nothing evil come from you. Demonstrate to this wicked world a different way of being. And it is the way of being that is provided by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. And that leads right into today’s teaching, which is because of this, right? You know who you are in Christ. You’re living according to Christ. You are a cornerstone in this world, a cornerstone of good, a cornerstone of faith for the church, for your family, for this world. You are a living cornerstone. And that leads right into the next section, which says, “Thus, you should submit to your authorities that are over you.” Spiritual authorities, secular authorities, show them the way. Show them the way. All secular authority is inherently evil. Show them the way. Now, we can get into, and we will, talking about when is it proper for self-defense or defense of the innocent, etc., etc. It’s not what I’m talking about. We’re talking about when is it proper to defy authority because that’s in Scripture as well. But the general concept, one leads to the other. So you are this person in Christ. You are behaving this way in this wicked world. The wicked world is examining you and this church as a reflection of Christ. And we know something that Peter didn’t. We know that something the early Christians didn’t. God is going to use this wicked persecution for good. This wicked persecution is going to serve to put pressure on the bride of Christ. And the bride of Christ is going to be purified in her faith, if you will, and going to spread out to the four corners of the world. So again, I don’t, I am not, God can do as he wishes. He is sovereign. But whether you believe God created this persecution for this purpose or God sees this persecution and uses it for his purposes, you can debate that. Debate it all you want. Have fun. But the fact of the matter is, like I said, God knows something. Peter and the early church don’t. So when we look at the church today, we’ve got to remember there are, we are an image and reflection of the early church, yes, but we’re not in that context until maybe we are in that context. Right now, we’re not. OK, so keep all of that in mind. But remember, the letters have, they’re written as one. And I tell people, you know, it’s not blasphemy and not sacrilegious to take a sharpie and mark out your chapter headings and even the subheadings. Jesus, teach us about adultery, you know, whatever, and read it as it was written. There are other Bibles out there usually called Reader’s Bibles. The one that I have is in the English Standard Version and it is just whoosh. There’s the letter. Whoosh. There is all of Isaiah. Not chapter and verse, no chapters and verses. Just the heading like here is Gospel According to John. Whoosh. It’s interesting to read. So we we finished with the opening of two, and I want to read that again because you can see how it flows. If you don’t read the subheadings, you see how it flows right into the next concept. So get rid of all evil behavior. We just talked about that. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy and all unkind speech. Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into the full experience of salvation. Perfect sense. Cry out for this nourishment. Now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness, you are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests, though that through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. Right. Live a life worthy of your calling. It comes to mind. Make your life a living sacrifice unto the Lord. Right. The old way is done. The new way is that you give yourself, you sacrifice the carnal life for to be indwelled by God’s Holy Spirit, to be a slave to God, not a slave to sin. Right. You are going to submit to the Lord. You are not going to submit to your carnal desires, temptation and wickedness. When you do this, you become a living cornerstone of his church, which is his new people, which is the kingdom of God on Earth. A living cornerstone is everything we talk about. Peter, we talk about John spiritual, spiritual, spiritual. We just don’t press into that deeply enough in the church today, whether you’re talking about small church finances. Or whether you’re talking about waging war, spiritual war against the demonic realm and everything in between. We are spiritual beings in a physical body. Not the other way around. So he says, understand this when your spirit is reconciled unto God, you become something different. And part of what you are is this living cornerstone of his church. You become your own rock. You become steadfast in your faith. You become an example to other Christians, other people who are believers and an example to those who are unbelievers. And when you are a cornerstone and remember, he’s speaking into people who are embedded in Babylon and being persecuted. The American church today, to be sure, is embedded in Babylon, in bed with the great whore. There is no doubt about that. When Revelation speaks about that, we look at the Christian church and we must be very intentional not to be sleeping with the great whore Babylon. That’s biblical language. We must be very intentional and we must repent. But a great deal of the church is and won’t. Peter is saying you are definitely embedded in Babylon. You are being persecuted. I understand that like death, blood persecution. But you are a cornerstone. You are a living cornerstone. This is who you are in Christ. This is the way you are living, holy living. And you are doing that because you are a cornerstone of his church here on Earth. You are a cornerstone of the kingdom of God. Hold fast. Right. I mean, that’s you see. And again, from from the first chapter on down and then it’s going to go into this submission to authorities. And again, that is for that context at this time, at that time to show the world a different way of behaving. You do not have to be wicked. You do not have to just murder the innocent or what have you. But it’s also lessons for our time in submitting to our spiritual authority, the head of which is Christ, and to being good citizens. As we also demonstrate being that cornerstone, there will be nothing that the secular world will offer me, nothing that any politician will ever promise me that will move me off of being cornerstone. That makes sense. Being where I am, who I am in Christ. And I will follow Dale Gloria. You offer spiritual sacrifices that please God, as the scriptures say, I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem chosen for great honor and anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. Never means never. Trust means trust. Anyone means anyone. So those words are very simple. They are extremely powerful. And this is the simplicity, yet the power of our faith. This is the simplicity, yet the power of the spirit of the Lord. Let me read it again. I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem. And again, you want to talk about the end of the book? We talk about the new heaven and new earth, the new city, the new Jerusalem, placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem, chosen for great honor and anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. Your faith in Christ is that. And when you trust in him as the cornerstone, you become your own cornerstone. You become your own pillar of faith. If you prefer that imagery, you become your own rock upon which the gates of hell will not prevail. First Peter, Chapter two, First Peter, Chapter two, just finished verse six. Yes, you who trust him recognize the honor God has given him. But for those who reject him, the stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. Right. Christ came and his people rejected him. He became the first spiritual sacrifice and the last physical sacrifice. Oh, interesting way to look at it. He submits to God’s will. Not my will, but dying, oh, Lord. He becomes the first spiritual sacrifice. And as a result of the crucifixion and the death of his flesh. He becomes the last physical sacrifice. And now he is the first resurrected, the first of the reborn, the first of the resurrected. He is the cornerstone. And faith in him becomes the rock that supports our lives. Upon which any of this secular garbage can crash and let it crash. Because the victory is won. They stumble because they do not obey God’s word. And so they meet the fate that was planned for them. But you are not like that. For you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession, powerful words. You say all chosen people. Yes, God knows he is omniscient. Let us not get into the weeds about predestination and all of those things. Again, scripture informs scripture. Both are true. God knows all as he is in all of history at all time. Many references in the scriptures of old, the prophecies and the law about what is happening in the future. God knows. But we are commanded. How beautiful are the feet of those who go and share his good news so that all who will be can be saved will be saved. You are God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. I always love that imagery. Once you had no identity as a people is what we’re always talking about. We are the image and the likeness of Yahweh, the most high. Once you had no identity as a people, now you are God’s people. Once you receive no mercy, now you have received God’s mercy. Dear friends, I warn you as temporary residents and foreigners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. It’s spiritual. Even the persecution that is taking their flesh is spiritual persecution. It is Satan saying, deny your faith. Give up. Even at the last minute, look at what’s happening to those who believe you then deny your faith. It is spiritual warfare. Satan says, I will not allow the kingdom of God to grow. God says, watch this. And it is a very persecution that is designed to keep the church, the kingdom of God from growing. That God uses to grow the church. Praise God. And it is, of course, the power of Jesus Christ. And it is the power of God’s Holy Spirit through your faith in Jesus Christ. Last few words here. It says, you know, worldly desires that wage war against your souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. This is huge. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. This is the be careful to live as a godly people among your ungodly neighbors. It is the ministry of presence. It is what we say all the time. You may be the only Bible some people ever read. It is you demonstrating in your family sometimes because you believe there’s nobody in your family. Maybe in your church, in your community and to the world at large, that there is a better way of being than being wrapped up in the carnal. You are living by the very power that raised Christ from the dead. That looks, that sounds, that behaves differently than those who are not. And it is by the power of God alone inside you and you being his submitted vessel that others will see that and go, what’s up with you? Why are you different? Why are you joyful in the midst of this tragedy? Why do you find joy? Why are you so hopeful in the midst of this disaster? Let me tell you, brother, let me tell you. For it is I, not I that lives, but Christ who lives through me. That’s why. So there’s your challenges. Understand the way that we approach scripture and what we’ve talked about here in first Peter is just long enough to realize that you can read the whole thing in one sitting. So knock off the chapter headings, knock off the subheading and just read the letter and you’ll say, oh, it makes actually makes more sense than breaking it down segment by segment. But of course, we can’t every time we sit down, read an entire letter like it was when it was given to the church. Originally, people would gather and all of Romans would be read. And read again and read again and read again and discussed and discussed and discussed. And people would learn and grow and become the disciples that Jesus knew they could be. That is our job today to learn to grow, to become the disciples that Jesus knows we can be. Father God, thank you for your word. Thank you for the time. Thank you for this medium that gets your word out. We pray that it will stretch throughout the entirety of the world, wherever you would like it to go, touching every heart that you would like it to touch, making people curious and wanting to go into scripture and experience, not just read experience. You’re living word in Jesus name. Amen. Oh, brothers and sisters, it’s Tuesday. Good Lord willing in the river, don’t rise right, Mama D. We’ll see you Thursday for turning on the lights.
0 Comments