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February 23, 2003
Listening Sunday
1 Peter 2:4-10
Pastor Ben Berger

Declare God's Praises

What are we doing here? I asked basically that same question when I began the first sermon I preached at Mount Olive. That day I was asking more why we bother to belong to or to come to a church. The answer was to learn about God's kingdom and to teach about God's kingdom. I want to take the question one step further today. Why do we want to learn or teach about God's kingdom? Why are we alive? What is the purpose of our lives and therefore the purpose of our church? Peter gives us the answer. You are here to Declare God's Praises. That is the purpose of your life. God created you and God saved you so that you could declare his praises. You can do that in two areas. Declare God's Praises 1) in your personal life and 2) in your church life.

Let me start with the last two verses of our text. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Did you hear the problem? We used to live in darkness. We were not a people; we were all doing our own thing. We were all sinning. Oh, we had a master; he was the devil. He found a way to make us think that we each knew what was best for ourselves. We all, like sheep, had gone astray; each of us had turned to his own way. We decided what was right and wrong. We decided what was allowed and what was forbidden. We decided what to do and when to do it. We were good enough to take care of ourselves.

As a result, we were not shown mercy. We spit in God's face and told him to leave us alone, so he did. What else was he supposed to do? We didn't want his help; we didn't want anything to do with him. The devil convinced us that he was the enemy, that he didn't love us, and that he was only holding out on us. We need to be in control of our own lives.

Being in control of our own lives meant and still means only one thing - living in the darkness. C'mon, let's admit that we don't know how to take care of ourselves. Every time we think we can handle it, our world comes crashing down. We don't know where we're going; we don't know how to get there. Without God we are walking around in the darkness.

That was then; this is now. Now we are the people of God and we have received mercy. Now God has called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. God showed his mercy by sending his Son Jesus to show us the way back to him. Jesus came as the light of this world. He removed the darkness of sin by offering himself on the cross. He removed the sins of each and every one of us to remove our own personal darkness. Then, by his perfect life, he led us right to God. He grabs each of you by the hand and says, "Come with me. I have reserved a place for you in heaven. It's right next to my Father. He really wants to see you."

Now you are a chosen people. Even before God created this world, he chose you to live with him in his light. Even before he formed you in your mother's womb, he made plans for you - plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then God carried out his plans for you and gave you an eternal future through his Son, Jesus Christ.

You are a royal priesthood. God's plans for your future included making you a king. Once you were a slave, under the power of the devil. Now you are a co-ruler with Christ. He defeated sin and the devil. They no longer have any control over you. Rather, you control them. You now have the power to resist the devil and to flee from sin. Soon you will use the power granted you by Christ to help him rule over everything.

You are a holy nation. God created Adam and Eve holy in every way. When they sinned, they forfeited your holiness. You were born in sin and because of your sinful condition, you often commit sin. But, Jesus has purified you from all your sins with his holy, precious blood. He has removed the stain of your sins and covered you with the robe of his righteousness, his perfection. You are clean, as white as snow. You are a saint, part of God's holy nation.

Because Jesus paid the price to set you free from sin, you are also a people belonging to God. Jesus redeemed you; he bought you back from your slave masters with his blood and innocent suffering and death. Now you belong to him. But he does not hold you captive. Rather, he protects you. He continues to fight your battles for you until the day when you live in the fortress of heaven. He continues to rule all things, even and especially the bad things, for your eternal good.

Why? So that you may Declare God's Praises. Declare God's praises in your personal life because that's why God saved you. That's why he created you in the first place. We seem to think that our goal is to get to heaven. Yes, but we want to get to heaven so that we can share in God's blessings and then praise him for it.

You don't have to wait for heaven to praise God either. Praise him right now. Praise him at work or school. Honestly carry out the work of your daily life as a way of giving glory to him. Praise God while having fun and in your social life. Let others know that you are who you are and do what you do because of God. Then be and act like the person God made you. Praise him!

Declaring God's praises has to start in your personal life. Once you realize what God has done for you, then you can join others in praising God. Then you can declare God's praises in your church life.

Let me read the first two verses of our text. As you come to him, the living Stone - rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him - you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. God wants to make each of you individual living stones into a spiritual house.

One problem: first he needs LIVING stones. At one time - and you really need to admit and understand this - at one time we were all DEAD stones. We rejected THE LIVING STONE. As I said before, we did not want Jesus as our Savior. We wanted to do everything on our own. And, following our own human wisdom and logic, we disobeyed his message. Jesus was a stone that made us stumble and fall because his love didn't make sense to us. If you don't think that's you, think again. Every time you doubt God's love for you, or wonder if he can forgive you, or just think you know better than God, that's what is left over from you days as a dead stone.

Declare God's Praises! You are no longer a dead stone, but you are a living stone. Through his constant and repeated word the Holy Spirit finally broke through your rock-hard heart, and gave you the ability to believe in Jesus as your chosen and precious chief cornerstone. You stopped building your own house on your own shaky and faulty wisdom. Finally, you gave up and started building God's house with his wisdom on his cornerstone.

In fact, God is the one building the spiritual house and he has given you the privilege of being a part of it. He began by laying his Son down as the foundation. He first laid down Jesus' life to cover up the dirty sin and soot beneath. In fact, he just cleared all that sin away. Then he laid down Jesus perfect life. On that foundation God has continued to build his house with the living stones of his people, those who believe and trust in him.

Again I ask why? And Peter tells us, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood (here's the big part) offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Why? To offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. To declare God's praises!

So, stop being dead stones and start being living stones. Last week Pastor Zank told us about sin's great cover up. He ended his sermon by telling us that sin's great cover up is joyfully acclaimed by saints. He then explained that to acclaim means to acknowledge with applause. When is the last time you applauded God? (Clap). You see? Dead stones.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not promoting clapping in worship or yipping and yapping or anything else. The point I am trying to make is this: we are very good at hearing and even understanding God's word and what he's done for us. I'm not so sure we're very good at reacting to it. We sit here in the pews, and in our chairs at home, and in our desks at school and in our cars and everywhere like dead stones. Like I said, I am not promoting frantic outbursts at church or anywhere else. But, aren't there ways we could applaud God more, like living stones?

Here at church: couldn't we sing with a little more enthusiasm, pray with our hearts as well as our mouths, in fact, just do everything like it means something rather than something we just do. Couldn't we take the risk and time of getting to know someone else so we can encourage, admonish, and help each other out.

Finally, couldn't we then take the final step and declare God's praises as living stones out in the world, among unbelievers? Couldn't we live such a different life that we would stick out so much that people would just have to ask us why? And then, couldn't we muster up the courage to tell them about Jesus, their Savior. Why? So that they may join us in declaring God's praises.

The purpose of the church is more than spreading the Gospel and leading people to Jesus. It's spreading the Gospel and leading people to Jesus so that all may declare God's praises. The purpose is for us to declare God's praises. May God give us all we need to do so! Amen.