Essentials #4: GOD'S PLAN (1 Peter 2:4-10) | 10/3/2021
1 Peter 2:4-10 | 10/3/21 | Will DuVal
Have you ever BROKEN something SO bad, that you had absolutely NO plan for how to FIX it?
It’s fitting that my FATHER is in town this morning, because for all the examples that immediately jumped into my head this week from my childhood involved him.
There was the time I broke our outdoor patio glass tabletop while testing my accuracy throwing rocks from the balcony. My plan? LIE! My mom heard it from inside (I think the neighbors 10 houses DOWN heard it!) but she came running out and caught me - probably red-rock-handed; I think I was so scared I forgot to get rid of the rest of evidence - but she asked “What happened?” and I replied, “I have no IDEA; I was just standing out here... uhh, admiring this gravel... when all of a sudden the table down there just SHATTERED out of nowhere.” She said: “We’ll deal with this when your father gets home.” I can’t remember HOW many licks that one earned me… Dad?
Then there was the time my buddy Will Woods and I were playing indoor soccer in our garage, and knocked loose one of those long, hanging fluorescent light bulbs. Imagine that falling from 15 ft. onto sheer concrete - glass EVERYWHERE. Our plan THAT time was: we’d sweep it up and replace the light. Fortunately, Dad came home before we could get his ladder out and kill ourselves trying to fix it; I can still remember watching that garage door slowly open, and there we were: brooms in hand, pants soiled. I think Dad actually showed me GRACE that time.
Somehow, I only ever broke one BONE growing up. Same concrete basement floor, but it was just after we’d moved in, so it was super slick. And I invented a game called “Slippery basketball” that you could only play in SOCKS - mind you, this was back in the days before parents wrapped their kids in bubble wrap - but I was going up to DUNK on my kindergarten girlfriend Stephanie Dunivan, who, in my defense, was just as athletic as any BOY in our class, but speaking of defense, she went up to BLOCK me (I still say she FOULED me), but in any case, I came down with a broken ankle. My plan? Tell Mom: “I need to go to the hospital.” HER plan? “We’ll deal with this when your father gets home.” She wanted a second opinion from her physician husband before shelling out $20 for the ER copay! Til then: “Rub some dirt on it!” Thanks for saving my leg, Dad!
-
Well, that’s sort of the situation where we pick up the story of Scripture for this morning. We’re in week #4 of our fall sermon series, “The Essentials”, examining the 11 most foundational truths of the Christian faith, as articulated in our church statement of faith. And I’m not sure if you’ve noticed yet or not, but there’s a progression to these truths that essentially re-tells the story of the BIBLE. So we started in week 1, with THE BIBLE. Our belief that the Bible is God’s inspired, inerrant word is the first axiomatic truth of the Christian faith. But from there, we pondered GOD in week 2, because that’s how the BIBLE begins: “In the beginning, GOD…”. And last week, we continued the story with core doctrine #3 on HUMANITY, because shortly after meeting God in Genesis 1:1, we meet humans, in Genesis 1:26, who are made in God’s “very good” image, but by ch.3, humankind has already violated that image, by disobeying our Creator, rejecting his ways, and inviting sin into the world, BREAKING the shalom - the wholeness and beauty and peace - that God intended to characterize humanity and all of Creation. Now the world, and people are broken. And it’s up to GOD to fix it. That’s where we pick up the story this morning.
With essential truth #4: “God’s Plan”. And I know some of you are wondering, but: NO, we will NOT be singing any Drake today as our closing hymn... (If you’re too Christian to get that joke, Drake is a secular artist - you won’t hear him on JoyFM - but his song “God’s Plan” has over 1.8 Billion plays on Spotify…)
Let me just ask YOU this morning: what would YOU do? If YOU were God… and you had created this wonderful, “wholly good” world, you created people in your own wholly good IMAGE, and you gave them EVERYTHING they needed to thrive, and only ONE RULE to follow, and they broke it? Would you…
Shrug it off? “Ehh, it was just a silly piece of FRUIT; I guess it’s not that big o’ deal…” No, God loves us too much for that; He hates sin too much, He wants so much BETTER for us than that, than lives filled with darkness. So would you…
Just SCRAP humans and go with ROBOTS instead? Pre-program some robots to give you the glory you deserve, and circumvent that whole “free will” thing altogether, and all the RISKS you run with it, of SINFUL defiance?
But… free will is a pretty important part of what MEANS to be created in God’s image, AND God gets more glory when we willingly CHOOSE Him than when a robot simply follows its code… and moreover: God LOVES us! He wants a RELATIONSHIP with humans. And relationships kinda necessitate that vulnerability, that risk-taking that comes with LOVE. With opening yourself UP to someone with free will, who can choose to reject you.
So what does God DO? Well, we’re gonna see this morning that God does something really interesting, really BRILLIANT (predictably, I guess… he is GOD after all), but also really unexpected. It’s not a plan that you or I EVER would have - or COULD have - come up with. And yet, it’s a beautiful plan. And I want to do 3 things:
1) First, we’ll read our Scripture passage for the day together, 1 Peter ch2, vv4-10, and I’ll invite those of you who so desire to respond by affirming your BELIEF in God’s plan as revealed in His word, and as articulated in our church statement of faith. If you’re just visiting today, if you’re an unbeliever, please don’t feel PRESSURED at all to respond; we’re just glad you’re here, exploring the Christian worldview for yourself. 2) Then, second, I’m gonna try and SUMMARIZE God’s plan - and the rest of the BIBLE for you, really, in just one sentence. No big deal. And then we’ll spend most of our remaining time tracing and surveying God’s plan, at a 30,000-ft. view, as it unfolds throughout the pages of Scripture.
3) But thirdly, in closing, I want to leave you with just a few reflections on what MAKES God’s plan so brilliant and so beautiful. Why we ought to MARVEL at this plan, this strategy for SAVING, for fixing, rescuing, restoring humanity and all the world - why we ought to MARVEL at the GOD behind it all.
So would you stand with me… 1 Peter 2:4-10:
“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”[a]
8 and “A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
9 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 who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 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.”
Church: how do you RESPOND to that good news? We believe that: “From before the beginning of time, God determined to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe, language, people, and nation to become a people for his own possession. In his grace, God justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies all who repent and believe in Jesus, trusting in him as their Redeemer, Savior, and Lord.” (WHC STATEMENT #5) Amen. Let’s pray…
One of the things I DON’T love about our church’s statement of faith, and most churches’ statements of faith, is that in re-telling the story of Scripture, we essentially skip over 99% of the OT. Genesis ch.4 - Malachi 4 mostly gets left out. We sometimes refer to the “4 Acts” of the biblical story - Creation, Fall, Redemption, and (Final) Restoration. As the story gets summarized, God created (in Genesis 1-2), humanity sinned and fell from grace (in Genesis 3), but God sent Jesus to REDEEM the world (in the NT) and one day, Jesus is returning to make “all things new” (as foretold in the Book of Revelation). But we’re not really sure what to do with the REST of the OT. So… a lot of Christians just IGNORE it. And there are even PASTORS out there, evangelical pastors, encouraging it! Andy Stanley, pastor of the 4th largest church in America, says that Christians need to “unhitch” ourselves from the OT. But the Bible ITSELF says that “ALL Scripture is God-breathed and useful...”
So here’s my humble suggestion for what we ought to do with the OT: the “Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration” outline is fine. But we need to understand the rest of the OT AS “Redemption”. Let’s call it, “Redemption, pt.1.” And then the NT is “Redemption, pt.2”. That’s why I’ve got TWO bullet points for my sermon outline in your bulletins there. And I wanna go ahead and fill in those blanks for you right up front and give you the summary I promised. HERE is God’s plan for fixing the world:
“God CALLS and CONSECRATES a people for Himself, in order to BLESS all peoples through them.”
Formerly, in the OT, God CALLED and CONSECRATED a people - ISRAEL - for Himself, in order to BLESS all peoples through them.
And Today, God CALLS and CONSECRATES a people - THE CHURCH - for Himself, in order to BLESS all peoples through them.
In our passage for this morning, Peter is focused primarily on TODAY, on God’s NEW covenant people: the CHURCH. But if we look closer, Peter offers us just a TON of hints here that he views the church as the modern-day fulfillment of God’s plan of redemption that started LONG before us, in the OLD Testament, with ISRAEL.
For one thing, Peter directly quotes from the OT here - and three separate passages at that! Isa 28:16, Ps 118:22, and Isa 8:14, in vv6, 7, & 8, resp. - because he wants us to see the continuity in God’s plan, between the Old and New Testaments. ust consider all the OT language and imagery found in these 7 short verses:
*Peter identifies Jesus as the “living stone” in v4, referring to a prophecy from Daniel ch2,vv31-45; Jesus is the stone who will “break into pieces” all earthly kingdoms, and usher in God’s messianic kingdom.
*He’s called “chosen and precious” in v4; that’s the exact language God uses of ISRAEL in Deuteronomy 7:6 - “The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured (precious) possession”.
*Peter says in v5 that the church has now become “a spiritual house”, a direct allusion to the OT TEMPLE; God’s house, where His spirit resided with His people.
*They’re also a “holy priesthood… [offering] spiritual sacrifices”, v5; that was God’s appointed MEANS of “consecrating” his people in the OT. By the way: to “consecrate” is “to make or declare sacred; to set apart or dedicate for God’s service”. Here’s an easy, mnemonic way to put it: to consecrate is to “purify for a purpose”. That’s exactly what the priests did for the people of Israel in the OT, by offering sacrifices on their behalf. The entire book of Leviticus is devoted to it: when a person sinned, or became ritually UNCLEAN in any way, for any reason, they had to be cleansed, PURIFIED, through the blood of an animal sacrifice. It simultaneously reminded that person that because of their sin, THEY deserved to be the one on the altar - that the penalty for sin against a perfectly holy God is DEATH - but it also absolved that person of their guilt, because God allowed the death-price to be paid in their PLACE, by the animal instead. It’s just ONE of the ways that God “consecrated” his people in the OT.
*But another crucial way was through circumcision. Peter calls the church the new “chosen RACE”. Being a Jew wasn’t and isn’t just a religion; it’s also an ethnicity. And the SIGN God gave his people of their having been CHOSEN, consecrated, set apart, unto him, AS a race, was circumcision: Genesis 17.
*Peter also calls them a “royal priesthood” and “holy nation”; those are direct references to Exodus 19:6, where God renews his covenant with Israel: “you shall be to me a kingdom of priests [royal priesthood] and a holy nation.”
*They’re “a people for God’s own possession”, direct quote again from Deuteronomy 7:6.
*And then Peter clarifies that the church was “called out of darkness into his marvelous light”, and “Once not a people, but now God’s people”; those are references to messianic prophecies from Isaiah 9 - “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” and Hosea 2:23 - “On that day, Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,”
So over and over again, Peter is INVITING us, perhaps REQUIRING us to take a look BACK, in the OT, in order to fully appreciate all the claims he’s making here of the CHURCH, as God’s NEW covenant people. And if you were with us LAST year for our sermon series through GENESIS, you should know that the most important OT passage about God’s calling and consecrating a people to BLESS all peoples is Genesis 12.
In the wake of the Fall of Genesis 3, God in his loving patience, continues to endure humanity’s downward spiral of sin for another NINE generations, over 1,000 years (with their lengthy lifespans), until finally God couldn’t BEAR to watch us keep hurting ourselves and dishonoring HIM so egregiously, so He sent the Flood, in Genesis chs6-9. To mitigate the spread of the VIRUS of sin. Then Chs 10 and 11 are mostly genealogy.
But in Genesis 12, we see God initiate His new plan - well, new for US; Scripture makes it clear that God had this plan in mind before the foundation of the world: Isa 46:10 “I am God… declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times (like, eternity past!) things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose”, my PLAN; when we get to the NEW Testament iteration of the plan, Redemption version 2.0, Ephesians 1:4 will even declare that “[God] chose us (the CHURCH) in [CHRIST] before the foundation of the world”. That means before we even BROKE things, God already knew how He was gonna fix them! - And we begin to see His great rescue operation take shape, with a man named Abram. Who will become “Father Abraham”, the father of the nation of Israel, God’s OT chosen people. Abram is critical to God’s plan, NOT because Abram was righteous; he was actually a polytheistic pagan when God called him. Not even because Abram was particularly FAITHFUL; we discovered in our walk through Genesis that Abram was actually pretty faith-LESS for most of his life, from chs12 - 21. He finally got it right - at age 125 or so! - when it mattered most, with his son Isaac on the altar, Abraham proved faithful. But the REASON God chose Abram, some 50 years prior, and the reason he’s so crucial to God’s plan, is simply this: Because God is GRACIOUS. Grace means “undeserved favor”. It means God chooses - and uses! - even disbelieving pagans for his own good purposes.
And what IS God’s purpose? His plan, as revealed TO Abram in Genesis 12 is this: “Now the Lord said[a] to Abram, “Go from your country[b] and [from] your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you ALL the families of the earth shall be blessed.””
Do you see all 3 steps in God’s plan there? First, God CALLS him. Literally: “the Lord SAID to Abram…”. Next, God CONSECRATES him; he “sets him apart” for service to the Lord”: “Go FROM your country, and FROM your kindred…”, Abram - I’m gonna separate you from, you’re gonna be different from your polytheistic ancestors…” “Purified for a purpose; I will make OF you a GREAT nation, I will BLESS you…”
And lastly, WHY does God do it? So that everyone will think that ABRAHAM is so awesome? NO! It’s so the nations will know that YAHWEH, Abraham’s GOD, is awesome! And that THROUGH Abraham, and his descendants, others might come to know Yahweh, and WORSHIP him, for themselves. And thereby, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Abram, and the nation of Israel, is blessed in order to BE a blessing, to ALL the nations.
That’s the plan. And it really is a beautiful plan, and if we had a few extra HOURS, I’d take you through the entire OT and show you how God works His plan on every page of the OT, constantly reminding Israel of their gracious calling, their distinguishing consecration, and their commissioned blessing of others.
But here’s the problem with the plan - and let’s get this straight: it’s not GOD’S problem, any more than when I coach Ellery’s kindergarten girls’ soccer team, and THEY fail to execute the plan; we’ve got a plan! And it’s a GOOD plan: run as fast as you can to the ball, kick it as hard as you can toward the opponent’s goal, and if the OTHER team steals it away, run them down and STEAL it back by whatever means necessary - it’s a GREAT plan. The problem’s not with the plan, OR with the coach who designed it! (Well, maybe a LITTLE in my case; I may let them have a little too much FUN in practice, instead of working the plan, practicing the plan, ad nauseum). But NOT GOD! There’s really not a lot of FUN in the OT. God is pretty much all business! He’s just constantly working the plan: Sanctifying his people, so that they can serve as a blessing and a WITNESS to the nations.
But the PROBLEM is, ISRAEL’s problem is: they have a really hard time staying sanctified. Staying “purified”, consecrated. See, the most important way that God consecrated His people in the OT was through His LAW. 613 laws in the first 5 books of the Bible, the Torah, which MEANS “law”. A good Christian might have the top 10 memorized. But a good Israelite would have had all 613 memorized. But the issue was that NO Israelite could seem to manage to KEEP all 613. They COULD have, theoretically - God didn’t make His Law IMPOSSIBLE to keep - the Israelites just DIDN’T keep it. Jesus summarized the whole law, and not only that - he said, “all the law AND PROPHETS”; in other words, the entire Old TESTAMENT - in just 2 commandments: Love God, and Love Others. That’s it. And it’s a GOOD law; “his commandments are NOT burdensome”. It’s in our OWN best interest, to KEEP the law, to love God and love others. That makes life work BEST.
But time and time again, for 1,300 pages, 39 books, 2,000 years, from Abraham to Jesus, Israel FAILED to love God and love people. In fact, those were God’s 2 most frequently recurring indictments against them: idolatry and injustice; failing to love God with all their hearts - loving lesser things MORE than him, idolatry; and injustice: failing to love others - treating one another as LESS than made-in-the-image of God.
So after 2,000 years of even more loving PATIENCE, bearing WITH Israel, in her sin, and graciously devising and delivering all MANNERS of sub-plans, within the plan, in order to try and help accomplish Israel’s continued consecration -
* God gave them his covenant promises, but they failed to TRUST him.
* So God allowed his people to be chastened in Egypt, that they might GLORY in His deliverance, but instead they begged to return to slavery.
*God gave them His LAW, they broke it.
*He gave them bread from heaven, they complained.
*He gave them a land flowing with milk and honey, they fell in love with the milk and the honey and forgot all about God.
*God gave them HIMSELF, He offered to himself serve as their good and loving KING; but they asked for a king like all the OTHER nations.
*So he sent them the prophets, to call them back to purity and holiness; but they ignored God’s messengers, sometimes even KILLED them.
So after 2,000 years, God finally decided on a NEW plan.
Except that it WASN’T a new plan at all. Because “God is not a man, that He should… change His mind.” (Num 23:19) No, it was the SAME plan all along: God’s STILL gonna call a people. He’s STILL gonna consecrate a people. So that through them He might still BLESS all peoples.
But the difference is: HOW He calls us, HOW He consecrates us, HOW He blesses others through us; friends: the difference is JESUS!
Long ago, God’s call was EXTERNAL. Because GOD was external. Abram was [here], and God was [here], and God said, “Abram: come over here, to ME.” In the wilderness, God traveled via cloud by day and fire by night, to guide his people, externally, “Come on, y’all, keep up.” Later, God’s presence would reside in the ark of the covenant, and then even later, in the Temple. And God commanded His people: “Come to me, three times a year, during these set pilgrimages, you need to journey over here, to Jerusalem, to the Temple, to me.”
But friends, in Jesus, GOD came to US! Jesus is IMMANUEL - God with us. And because of Jesus, God’s call is now even more INTERNAL than that, even more personal: because now, Jesus’ own SPIRIT, the HOLY spirit, lives INSIDE us:
Ephesians 3:17 “Christ dwell[s] in your hearts through faith”
2 Corinthians 13:5 “Jesus Christ is in you”
Galatians 2:20 “ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
And THAT means, that while long ago, God consecrated us, set His people apart, using external means - circumcision, the Law, sacrifices, the Temple - TODAY, God purifies us for His purposes INTERNALLY, by changing our hearts! This is the day that Israel had always longed for, foretold by the prophet Ezekiel: God said, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and CAUSE you to walk in my statutes [not just CALL you to walk; long ago, I CALLED you to walk in my statutes, and you failed; but on THAT day, the day of your SALVATION, I, God, will actually CAUSE your obedience; NOT by turning you into robots, and MAKING you obey orders, but by imputing the righteousness of CHRIST TO you! By performing open heart surgery - taking OUT your sin-filled hearts of stone, and transplanting IN new hearts, pure hearts, filled with God’s OWN spirit, filled with JESUS!
On THAT day, God says…] ...you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29 And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses… and cleanse you from all your iniquities”, your SIN (36:26-33).
That’s exactly what Jesus DOES!
1 John 1:7 “the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.”
Titus 3:5-7 “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified [being declared righteous; not by BEING righteous, but by being DEEMED righteous, by virtue of Jesus’ imputed righteousness] ...by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
And WHY does God cleanse us, save us, justify us, WASH, regenerate, renew us? He does it, he purifies us for a PURPOSE: to SERVE HIM by BLESSING OTHERS.
Heb 9:13-14 “For if the blood of goats and bulls [in the OT] ...sanctify[f] for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who… offered himself without blemish to God, purify our[g] conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” In other words, if even the OT animal sacrifices could purify our FLESH, could atone for our sins - cover OVER our sin in order to allow us back once again into God’s presence - then how much MORE will JESUS’ sacrifice, his perfect blood, that’s now actually purified our CONSCIENCE - our sins aren’t just covered OVER anymore; they’re actually REMOVED now! So you don’t have to even THINK about them anymore - as far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed your sin FROM you, in Christ!
Why? So that you can “serve the living God”, with a CLEAN conscience.
Friends: this is why we were CREATED. We ALL love Ephesians 2:8-9, and we SHOULD: “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” But sometimes we fail to read on to v10 and remember WHY God saved us, why he CREATED us in the first place:
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand [before the foundation of the WORLD!] that we should walk in them.”
God CREATED us, and he CONSECRATES us, FOR good works! To be a BLESSING to all peoples.
And do you know the very BEST work, you can do? The GREATEST blessing, you can be, to others? It’s to TELL them about this amazing God who called and consecrated you in Christ, so that they TOO might have the opportunity to KNOW him, to be CALLED by him, to be CHANGED by him, and be SAVED.
Christian: God wants to use you - He’s WILLING to use you! - to SAVE others. What an honor! And what a JOY! Have any of you ever been BLESSED to be able to lead someone else to Christ? There’s no greater joy in the world, is there?! Than knowing that God used you, in SPITE of you, to call a sinner to salvation. What a blessing!
Quickly, in closing, let me tell you why God’s plan is so beautiful:
*It’s beautiful that God CALLS us, because it means that GOD gets (all) the glory & that God’s got you. If you chose GOD, then you’d get the glory; “aren’t you so wise and pious, for choosing God?” No. Since GOD chooses YOU, then HE gets all the glory. And friends: God DESERVES all the glory. We should WANT Him to get the glory. Moreover, God’s sovereign election means that God will also KEEP you. God keeps those whom He calls. If you chose God, you could just as easily walk AWAY from him at some point down the road. And in your sin, you WOULD. You’d STOP choosing Him. Because you and I change our minds and choices all the time. But God is not LIKE man, that He should change his mind. Jesus said, “I give [my sheep] eternal life… and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (Jn 10:28) That’s good news.
*Secondly, it’s beautiful that God CONSECRATES us, because it means God forgave us & God restores us. He “purified us for a purpose”. He purified, forgave, washed us. “Sin had left a crimson stain, Jesus WASHED it, white as snow.” Thrown into a sea without BOTTOM or shore - our sin has been FORGIVEN, once and for all, decisively, on the cross, in Christ! But not only that, he’s now restoring us back to the purpose for which we were CREATED. Listen: my Dad could have helped me sweep up that light bulb, even FORGIVEN my offense, but the garage would’ve still been left in the darkness; but Jesus replaced the light bulb. He FIXED us. And gives us a NEW heart, a heart after his OWN heart, a selfless heart of service to God and others.
*And lastly, he then UNLEASHES that new heart on the world, to LOVE people, and BLESS them. And that’s so beautiful because it both HUMBLES us, even as it EXALTS us. It humbles us because it means this life isn’t all about ME. Even my own SALVATION isn’t all about me; God has SAVED me, for SERVICE to the world. Contrary to what my SIN and our SOCIETY tries to convince me of every single day, I am NOT the center of the universe. But that’s such a wonderful thing. Because friends, no offense, but wouldn’t that be such a sad, small universe? I mean, really, if YOU are at the center of it? If ALL of this revolved around YOU?! And wouldn’t that be so much PRESSURE on you, too! No friends, God’s being at the center of it all means that you don’t HAVE to be. It humbles us, in the best way possible. Because it paradoxically EXALTS us at the same time. God uses NOBODIES, to tell EVERYBODY, all about somebody who SAVED us. God wants to USE you as an indispensable PART of his beautiful, overarching, history-encompassing, creation-redeeming, humanity-restoring plan of salvation for the world. How amazing, that God would use even a SINNER like me, like you, to save sinners.
And it’s ALL because of JESUS. Do you KNOW Him? Has he CALLED you? Maybe he’s calling you this morning? Will you answer His call, and be purified by him, cleansed of ALL your sin, for the purpose of serving the living God?