Chapel of the Lake
What's In A Name
Welcome to Chapel of the Lake in Lake St. Louis, Missouri. The chapel family is a multi-generational community of believers who gather weekly to worship and explore God's Word as we grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ. Good morning. As was mentioned, Pastor Aaron and Pastor Keith are out there, a horse being and leading worship at Children's Camp or Youth Camp. They've been going through the letters in 1 John. As Aaron has been preaching through that message, one of the key things that he's been talking about in the series is titled that is Proclaim. Proclaim the matchless name of Jesus. That's the title of my message this morning is, what's in a name? As Aaron's been talking about that, he told us that John is writing in 1 John to believers and he's writing to us to encourage us. He's writing to us to encourage us in our living. He's writing to us to encourage us in our faith. He's writing to us to encourage us that we can know who we are in Christ. And my text today is from 1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 9 and 10, but I want to start out in 1 John. So 1 John, chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, we read. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Most gracious heavenly Father, we thank you Lord for being our God. We thank you for this opportunity to gather together, to worship you in song, to worship you in combined fellowship and to worship you through your word. And we just pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit will work through your word and will penetrate our hearts and our minds and our ears and our eyes so that we won't leave here the same as we've come, but we will be renewed for your kingdom and for your glory. We pray this in your name. Amen. Okay, so if you turn with me to our text in 1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 9 and 10. We read, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim," there's that word again, "proclaim, "the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." Back in the 70s, I had a pastor who had a favorite saying, well, he said it a lot. I don't know of his favorite saying, but he said it a lot. And he said, "If Christians are so joyous, if we have been saved from all of our sins, if we have eternity in heaven to look forward to, why is it it seems like so many of us have been sitting on tax and weaned on dill pickles all of our life?" And a few weeks ago, Pastor Aaron's message brought that to mind because he was talking about balance and he was talking about how we're children of the light, we're to walk in the light. But he also said that if we say we have no sin, we're a liar. And you know, I thought about that and I thought about being in balance. And I realized that that's really what this pastor was talking about. Because as I thought back, there was a lot of times in my life where I wasn't walking in balance. I wasn't thinking about what Christ had done for me, about what his broken body and his shed blood had accomplished in me. Instead, I was walking around saying, "You know what? I am just a sinner. I am a sinner. I'm a sinner who saved by grace and I'm going to get into heaven, but it's just by that much. It's just by the skin of my chinny chin chin that I'm going to make it. But as a sinner, how can God use me? How can I tell somebody that they need to come to know Jesus Christ of the Lord and Savior when I'm still struggling with sin? How can he use me to proclaim his word when I'm still struggling in sin? I'm nothing but a dirty rotten sinner. I don't have the right to say anything like that. And as I was looking and thinking more about this, I got thinking about the early church. And in the early church, the people were known, they were called a lot of different things. They were called people of the way or the way. They were called believers. They were called the church. They were called the brethren. They were also called saints. And eventually, the moniker of Christian was labeled to them. Now, that didn't start out to be a positive phrase. People who were labeling them Christians or little Christ were doing so because they were saying, "Hey, look, you know, you're following this guy." He was a traitor to Rome. He was a blasphemer to the Jews. He was executed on a cross. He was crucified and he was buried. And, you know, so that's the fate that you all are going to have. For you are little Christ Christians. And so, within that, we now have a name, Christians. And we go by that name today. Now, Ecclesiastes, chapter 7, verse 1 tells us, "A good name is better than choice perfume or precious ointment." Now, if you think back in the time where Ezekiel was written, perfume was very expensive. It had a lot of importance. They didn't have the same hygienic standards we do today. So, one of the things that perfume was used was to mask the work that one had gone through. Royalty used it a lot. It was used a lot in anointments for funerals. So, it was very precious. But here in Ecclesiastes, it says, "A good name is better than precious ointments." Proverbs 22.1 says, "A good name is to be chosen rather than riches." You know, we put a lot of effort into naming our kids. We want the name to be something. And, you know, as I'm thinking about a good name, Pastor Aaron's series caused me to remember that I used to carry around the title of sinner. I was a sinner. That's what I was. But that's not my title anymore. So, now my title is Christian or saint. I want to unpack that, because as I thought back to Aaron's message, I realized that for so long I had been out of balance. So, first of all, what were we? We were sinners. And we have to understand where we came from. And not just we were sinners, as now believers, having once been sinners, but that's where the whole world starts out. Romans 3.10 says, "There is none righteous, no not one." Romans 3.23 tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In Psalms 51, verse 5, David tells us, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." So, everybody starts out as a sinner. Now, there are a lot of people today that don't buy that. They say, "Oh, well, people are basically good. People are basically decent people." And that isn't really true. And if you just look at the evidences, I mean, Scripture tells us, and Scripture is true. But if you just look at the evidences, look at a baby. Now, a lot of people say, "Oh, isn't that a cute little angel?" John MacArthur once said that, "No, that isn't an angel. That's a little demon." And I think my mom would have agreed with him on that note. But if you think about it, you don't have to teach a child to take things. You don't have to teach a child to lie. You don't have to teach a child to be selfish. You don't have to teach a child to want everything for themselves. They all come by that naturally, and that's one of the deals about being a parent is we've got to teach them the right things to do. We have to mold them into what is right behavior. And in keeping with that, in the Gospel of John, John chapter 8, 34, Jesus tells us truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. Now, in that sense of practices, he means that's our lifestyle. That's our habit. And prior to salvation, that's where we all were. We had a habit of sinning. Now, Paul echoes this in Romans chapter 6. Now, I'm going to get back to my text, but I'd like you to turn over to Romans chapter 6. We're going to spend a bit of time there. So in Romans chapter 6, I'd like you to read with me in verse 16. We read, "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" And then look down a little bit further in verse 20 and 21. The text tells us, "For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death." So that's where we were. We were slaves to sin. And we were headed to death. But fortunately, the story doesn't end there, right? What happened to us? So that's what we were, but something happened to us. Every one of us who claimed Jesus as a person to learn in Savior, we had a change. And if you look down at verse 23 here of Romans, we read again, "The wages of sin is death when we were slaves to sin, but the free gift of God is eternal life, and Jesus Christ our Lord." Now back up to verse 17 and 18, we read, "But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness." So we were on the slave block, if you will, of this world. We were slaves to sin. But it didn't stop there because Christ saw us. And even though we were dead in our trespasses and sins, and even though we were slaves to sin, God being rich in mercy with the great love with which He loved us made us alive together in Christ Jesus. And that's what we were celebrating here with the communion, that He came and He died on a cross. He shed His blood as an atonement for our sins. Second Corinthians 5, 21, and if he'll turn there, just flip over a little bit to 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 21, tells us, "For our sake, He, God, made Him Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." So I'm not a sinner that's just barely going to get into heaven. What Scripture says is that Christ took on my sin on the cross. And why did He do that? He did that so that I can be claimed righteous before God. So what does that mean? Well, it means we're living under new management. Once we were slaves to sin, now we are slaves to righteousness. Once we were dead in our trespasses, now we are made alive with Christ. And so that sort of means we have a dual reality. We have a heavenly reality and we have a temporal reality. In heavenly reality, Jesus said in Ephesians chapter 2 that we have already been seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 5, He says that we are a new creation. Old things have passed away and behold, all things have become new. Flip over to Titus chapter 3 a little bit further. In Titus chapter 3, looking down at verses 5 and 7, we read, "He, Jesus, saved us, not because of the works done in us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration of the renewal of His Holy Spirit, whom He poured on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. So not only were we once slaves to sin, and He purchased us with His blood, and we became slaves to righteousness, but this tells us that more than slaves, we have become heirs to the heavenly kingdom. So because of what He did, nothing of us, nothing of our power, but because of what He did, we have become fully justified. We have been made right. We have been made holy. We have been made all that by Christ so that we can stand before a holy judge and be declared holy as we sung today. Now in John chapter 1, it tells us that those who believe are called the children of God. In Ephesians chapter 1, the Bible tells us that we have been predestined for adoption to Himself as sons in Jesus Christ. In Galatians chapter 4, it says that we have been adopted as sons. So to understand that language, if you look back at what that meant in Roman law, which is what Paul was referring to, in Roman law, if one has a natural child because you didn't really have a say in who came along, if you had that person and something happened, you became estranged or whatever, you could disown your own children, right? You could say this person's no longer a part, they're not going to carry my name or anything like that. But it was different if a person was adopted. If I went out and I chose to bring somebody into my family, I could not again disown that person because I chose them to bring him in. I chose to give him that name. So when I adopted somebody, that was a permanent thing, which is why because of the work that Jesus had done, we have already been seated in the heavenly places under Christ Jesus. Philippians 3.20 tells us that our citizenship is in heaven. Positionally, we are in heaven. Positionally, our reality is in heaven. Okay, so that's our heavenly reality, but we also have a temporal reality. And here is where I think, you know, as we look at the Lord's prayer in Matthew, it starts out, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, right? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, as this, as the Lord was teaching his disciples how to pray, it starts out our Father. Well, that talks about we have a relationship. This isn't just a religious rote. When we are saved, we have a relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And we acknowledge where that relationship is seated at. It's in heaven. But in Ephesians, we've been told we have already been seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Then we see hallowed be thy name. Even though we have a relationship with God the Father, and even though we can cry out to him, "Daddy," we still need to remember that he is God. And part of that is he is sovereign. He is creator. He is author and finisher of our faith. He holds all things together in his hands. Then we see thy kingdom come. Well, that is a prayer that we're praying continuously, that Christ's kingdom comes. If this second coming happened right now and I wasn't able to finish this message, none of us would be disappointed because we would be with him, right? But, and there are some false religions that claim that we're living in that millennial kingdom now. We're living in Christ's kingdom now. I don't think so. When you see the way the world is, that's something future. That is something that we hope for. We're praying for. But then it says, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." But if we're not living in his kingdom right now, if his kingdom isn't here right now, how can his will be done on earth as it is in heaven? And this is where I think the transition happens between our heavenly reality that we've already been seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus and where we're at now. Because if I'm already been seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus, and if my citizenship is in heaven right now, shouldn't I be living here today, something that reflects where my home really is? This is why we're told we're ambassadors of Jesus Christ. Here, where we're at, we're supposed to be living something that's different. If you'll turn over in Romans, if you're still in chapter 6, flip over a couple of pages to chapter 7. And I think this is where Paul is talking about looking at starting at verse 15. So Romans 7, verse 15, the word tells us, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law. That is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want to do is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." So we have this conflict now, but yet we've already been seated in the heavenly places. Our citizenship is of heaven. Romans 6, 14, if you want to just flip back a page, Romans 6, 14 tells us, "For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law, but under grace." In Colossians chapter 1, verses 13 through 14, he says, "We have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption." So sin no longer has dominion, no longer has control, no longer has jurisdiction over us, but yet I can relate to what Paul was saying there in Romans 7 that I still struggle with this. So how can I, now I'm back to this idea, how can I be a saint? I'm just a sinner. And when I was in Iraq, this sort of became a little clearer because I realized that in Iraq there was this tyrannical government that had this root hold over all the people and was abusive to the people and was doing all these things and that government had been replaced. We replaced that government with the new government and the people were actually very positive about that. And the new government wanted to do things, but what happened? The old government just didn't go away. It went underground and it created this insurgency and this old nature kept trying to rear its ugly head in the form of attacking the new government in trying to attack what the new government was trying to accomplish and trying to attack what the people wanted with the new government. And there was this thing coming up. So the Iraqi people had to have this outside force come in on behalf of the new government, try to smack down these incursions or this insertion from the old government. Now we sort of have the same thing. We were under an old government. We were slaves to sin. Now we've been slaves to righteousness, but more than slaves we've become heirs, but we still have this battle going on inside, but we have the Holy Spirit to come and help us to help us do battle. And so therein is this conflict. We are still in a new government. We have a new position, but we're struggling here. And the first Corinthians 10, 13 tells us that no temptation has overtaken us that isn't common to man, but God being faithful will not let us be tempted beyond what we're able to handle, but will provide for us a way of escape so that we may be able to endure it, endure it meaning endure the temptation. So we're going to have these things. We're going to have temptations, but that's one of the reasons why we have three resources. The first resource we have is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is working in us to convict us and to convince us of what is right and what is wrong. And he's going to help that process through his word. As we're studying his word, if God is going to reveal himself to us and reveal what we need to change. And the third thing that God has given us to help is one another. If you're around me long enough and you get to know me well enough, I will probably end up offending you or wronging you. And I may not even know that I do it. And I hope that you'll come and tell me so that I can ask for forgiveness and I can confess that wrong and so we can have a restored fellowship. But that's one of the benefits of having this fellowship is we're supposed to encourage one another and love one another and pray for one or another. We're also supposed to admonish one another and encouraging one another as we see the days growing more and more evil. So we have a heavenly reality and we have a temporal reality. But how do we know which reality is real? How do I know that you're really saved? I can't. How do you know that I'm really saved? You can't other than my testimony. But we each need to look inside ourselves. Second Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5 tells us that we are to test ourselves continuously to see if we're of the faith. See in Matthew chapter 7 verses 21 through 23, Jesus talks about a group of people and they say, "Lord, Lord, we've done many great wonders in your name. We've taught in your name. We've cast out demons in your name." And in that day, Jesus will say to them, "Depart for me, you workers of lawlessness." They didn't have a relationship with Jesus. It's not about a religion. It's not about the things that we do. It's not about the things that we say. It's, "Do we have a relationship with Jesus? Why is that important?" Well, because he paid the price. He's the one who purchased us off of the slave blocks of sin to become slaves to righteousness and heirs to his kingdom. Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll obey me." In John 14, 15, in John 15, 14, he said, "You are my friends if you keep my commandments." But he didn't just give us a list of do's and don'ts. That's not what he did because as he has changed our heart, he has written in our heart to come to this book and to change ourselves. So which reality we live in? Well, if we're saved, we live in both. But we need to test ourselves to make sure which one. And how do we know? Well, we should bear fruit. And in Galatians 5, 22, and 23, he tells us what the fruit of the Spirit is. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness. Jesus said, "The greatest commandment of all is to love your Lord thy God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." And the second greatest commandment is likening to it, "Love your neighbor as yourself." So as I'm looking back on my life, am I changed? Has Christ done a work in me? That's how I can know. Am I what I was or have I changed? And as I examine my life and see my change and see how God has moved me along, I can have confidence that, yes, I have been made an heir by what he has done. I am no longer a slave to sin. I am now a slave to righteousness. Then you know our life is going to have still have its ups and downs. Satan's still going to be on the attack. We're still going to be fighting that insurgency. He's still going to raise its ugly heads. Some days may be better. Some days may be like our third battle of Fallujah. But he has won already the victory. And our life may look like the stock market. You know, it's going to be up and down and up and down and up and down and sometimes really up and sometimes really down. But as we look back over our life, my lows today are going to be higher than my highs yesterday were. Now if we're looking back at our life and we see it looking sort of like an oscilloscope with a pretty even tempo up and down, if we were to average that out, what would it look like? If it's a straight line and you saw that on an EKG machine, that would probably tell you you're dead. Well, that may give an indication as to where you're at. And so we need to examine ourselves continuously to see if we're of the faith. So what we were was a sinner. What happened to us is we were bought with a price because of what Jesus did. What that meant was we have a dual reality. We're already living in heaven. In the heavenly places, we've been seated with Christ Jesus and our citizenship was there, but we still have to deal with living here. And so what are we then? Well, Romans 837 says that we are more than conquerors. We've already read where we are now slaves to righteousness and also heirs. We're no longer under Satan's dominion. We're no longer under his control. So why does he still attack us? Well, because he wants to rob us of the joy of our salvation. He wants us to walk around defeated. He wants us to walk around like we don't have anything to say or any right to say it. He doesn't want us to spread the good news. He doesn't want us to live this day here under the will of God. So with that, we are no longer sinners. If you know Jesus Christ, is your personal Lord and Savior, you're no longer a sinner. You're a saint who still sins. Now Paul, at several occasions said, "I am a sinner. I'm a chief of sinners." And he was trying to make a point that we can't rely on our own righteousness because our own righteousness is filthy rags. But because of what Christ has done for us, Paul also said in 1 Corinthians 11, he said, "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." In 2 Thessalonians 3-7, he says, "For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us." And what would it be like if we said, "Hey, imitate me to those around us?" We would have to have a responsibility that we are first imitating Christ. And he's paved the way so that we can do that. Titus 2, 7-8, we read, "Show yourselves in all respects to be a model of good works. And in your teachings, show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us." And that brings us back to our text for today. I told you we'd get there. So if you look back at 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 9 and 10, we read, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." So what's in a name? You know, in the Marine Corps, when people look at a Marine, hear somebody say, "Well, I'm joining the Marine Corps," or, "I used to be a Marine," there's a certain preconception that comes about what being a Marine is, a certain idea of how they fight, you know, this idea of concept of duty, of honor, of loyalty, of integrity, of selfless service. You know, that expectation also holds true about what we are as Christians. What's in a name? Well, we're a name of Christian. When I was little, I didn't grow up in a Christian -- well, I didn't grow up in a home that attended church. I was saved at a backyard to Bible Club when I was six years old that was led by Patty Broadbent. And my parents never inhibited me from going to church, as long as Patty and Mel and Barry and Brian Belinda took me to church, I could go with them. But then they moved up from grants past to Portland. Well, then I just sort of tagged along wherever I could get a ride to church. When I was 10, we moved to Portland, and I was begging my parents to start going to church, and they said, "Well, once things settle down, once we get settled in, we'll start going to church." That was when I was 10. When I got my driver's license at 16, I now had wheels, and so I decided I was going to go to church. And fast forward a few years later, my dad and I were having a Thanksgiving weekend. This was going to be his last weekend alive. He and I, neither here, I knew it at the time. But we were talking about it, and he told me that he knew Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. And I said, "Well, Dad, all this time I've asked you, why didn't you tell me?" He said, "Well, son, I couldn't make that decision for you. It's something that you had to make for yourself." And I said, "Well, yeah, but a little nudge wouldn't have hurt." And I said, "Well, why didn't you go to church?" He said, "Well, a long time ago, when I was a young believer, I got really, really hurt by a church." And I decided I didn't need that. I had the Bible, and I could worship God out in the woods, and on the lake, and these types of things. You know, Aaron, in a message a few weeks ago, talked about how the world, my dad, will look at us and errantly ascribe to us the name of hypocrite. You know, this side of heaven, we are not going to be perfect, but we need to realize who we are, not let the world define us, because that could inhibit us from reaching somebody for Christ. Without let's pray. Most gracious, Heavenly Father, we just thank you for your word. We thank you that you have made us something other than what we were, and that it's by your grace and by your mercy that we can claim the title of Christian. We just pray, Lord, that as we leave here today, you'll help us to reflect who you are in us so that we can say the imitators of me as I imitate Christ. Lord, we thank you for your grace and your mercy. Amen. May God bless you as you grow in your walk with Him this week. [BLANK_AUDIO]