Effects of Gospel Feasting

, we're gonna continue talking about the gospel, this morning., we as a church have been on a journey over the last decade and with regard to understanding and, appreciating the role that the gospel plays in our lives as believers and, and so, over the years, we've, at times from the pulpit just use language that, makes sense to those that have been a part of our church body over that length of time, but we've had people coming in recent months and years that they're like, what, what's all this about the gospel and, and, and, and so what I wanna do just in this block of time last week as well as today and maybe even beyond this, to just gather our thoughts around the gospel and to, to make it explicitly clear what we mean when we speak of the gospel, what it is, and the role that it is to play in our lives as believers, and today we'll get into this, the effects that will be manifested in the lives of those that are living in the good of the gospel each day.

Now, last week, we essentially addressed the question, now that I'm saved, what do I do with the gospel? And we're trying to combat the notion that the gospel is just for nonbelievers and that once I get saved, OK, thank you Lord, for the gospel, and I set it aside and I move on to bigger and better things. We learned last week that that's absolutely the opposite of what the Lord wants us to do.

We never move on from the gospel. In fact, from Peter's example and from his reader's example, we learn. 5 things that we are to do with the gospel. Number 1, we are to worship God with the gospel.

We observe this in verses 3 through 5. Just take gospel truth, study it, and then go into the presence of God and bless His name and worship God for the things that He has done for us revealed in the Gospel. And then in verses 6 through 12 we learn that we need to rejoice in the gospel as well as our position in it. Our historical position, just in the timeline of history.

We are very blessed to be living today on this side of the cross and the resurrection of Christ. And then even our cosmic position in it, angelic beings look upon us and our position In the midst of God's redemptive plan, and they fold their wings in envy, as it were, just looking at our position saying, man, it must be great to be in the position that we are in as believers in Jesus living in the good of the gospel. We also learned last week throughout chapter one that we need to be motivated by the gospel, motivated by the gospel and our acts of obedience.

We learned last week, and I'll repeat this, God doesn't want your obedience.

He wants your gospel motivated obedience. That's what he's after. And we saw last week just some of the circuitry, just the wiring of First Peter chapter 1. It's like anytime you see a command, they're all connected and wired back to the gospel.

It's very evident Peter doesn't want us to just obey God, but he wants us to obey God in a way that is motivated, fueled, and empowered by gospel truth. And then fourthly, we learned that we need to cherish the gospel's role in our rebirth. We saw this in verse 22 and following in chapter 1. Peter is talking to genuine believers and he points them back to the day of their conversion, saying, Remember, remember this, and remember the role that the gospel played in your rebirth.

We sang about that this morning, right? I, I still remember the day you saved me. The day I heard you call out my name. You said you loved me.

And would never leave me, and I've never been the same. God, you communicated something to me on that day just in that verse of the song we're celebrating our rebirth, the day of our conversion, and the role of the message of God, the role of the gospel in that. Don't ever forget that. And then at the end of the message last week we learned that we need to gorge ourselves on the gospel the way a baby does his mother's milk.

So far from setting the gospel aside once we're saved and moving on to other things, no, God says, I offer the gospel to you every day. I commend it to you every day. Gorge yourself upon this, the way a newborn baby partakes of milk. And what is it that we gorge on?

It's the gospel. Let me pick up in verse 22 of chapter 1 and reestablish this. Peter says, For you have been born again. Not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable.

That is through the living and enduring word of God. Now, what word is that? Well, it's the word that Isaiah, or that the Spirit of God was thinking about when he inspired Isaiah to say, all flesh is like grass and all its glory like Flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

Well, what word is that? He makes it very clear at the end of chapter one. He says, and this is the word literally that was gospeled to you. This is the word.

Of the gospel, basically, this is the word of God that I'm talking about in this context by which you were born again, is the gospel word. When you were evangelized, gospelized, this is the word that was preached to you. That is the seed by which you were born again. Now, regarding this gospel word and what we do with it, look what he says in verse 1 of chapter 2.

Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word. What word is that? The gospel word. I want you to be craving with a life dominating desire, the pure milk of the gospel word, he says.

By the way, the word crave. Doesn't just speak of simply desire, like, oh yeah, it'd be nice to have that. It's a life dominating desire. It's the desire that you have wherein you're saying, I can't live without this.

I will die if I can't have this. And that's what he's commanding us to do in terms of our relationship with the gospel. I want you continuously to be craving with a life dominating desire to partake of the pure milk of this gospel word by which you were saved. So guys, never move on from the gospel.

I, I want to hit you all with the fact that the gospel is big. It's really big. Some of you may be thinking, man, I got to partake of the gospel all the time. What does that mean?

Just Christ died. He was buried, he was raised. I just keep saying that to myself all the time. Is there enough nourishment in that to keep me occupied?

If, if that's your thinking, your, your understanding of the gospel is less than what is depicted in the New Testament. The gospel is big and it's bigger than you will ever fully comprehend. In this life, I love what CJ Mahaney says in his book The Cross Centered Life. He says, never be content with your current grasp of the gospel.

The gospel is life permeating, world altering, universe changing truth. It has more facets than a diamond. Its depths man will never exhaust. You will never come to the outer edges of fully understanding the gospel.

Also, listen to what else he says. This is great wisdom here. He says the gospel isn't one class among many that you'll attend during your life as a Christian. Like, OK, I'm taking the gospel.

OK, now I understand that. Now I move on to something else and then I'll move on to something else and we leave the gospel behind. Look what he says. The gospel isn't one class among many that you'll attend during your life as a Christian.

The gospel is the whole building that all the classes take place in. Rightly approached, all the topics you'll study and focus on as a believer will be offered to you within the walls of the glorious gospel. It's not just a class you attend. It's the whole university, it's the whole campus, and anything you ever learn, whether you're trying to have a good marriage or glorify God in the workplace or to have a godly home or to raise your children, all of those rightly approached are understood and learned inside the walls of the glorious gospel.

The gospel is big. None of us should say, yeah, I get the gospel. I know that, I know that. Yeah, we know the gospel to a degree, but there's so much that we don't fully know.

It's that big. What is the gospel in a nutshell? We're going to go in a nutshell here and then broaden out. If you want to put it succinctly, it's the good news of salvation.

Our English word gospel means good news. It's the good news of salvation for hell deserving sinners through the person of Jesus Christ and the work of Jesus Christ. The gospel. Copper is composed of some historical events, some historical facts centered in the person and the work of Jesus, and that is that Christ came into this world, that God the Father sent Him.

He lived a completely perfect life in our place, never sinned, and then he died on the cross for our sins. After that, he was buried. After that, on the 3rd day, he was raised from the dead by the power of God. And then after that, 40 days later, God ascended Jesus Christ to his own right hand, where Jesus is now.

reigning at the right hand of God. He's in the highest position of honor and glory and lordship in all of the universe, and from that position of absolute authority and absolute lordship where he could do anything he wants, what Jesus is doing with his lordship. He's giving forgiveness and salvation to anyone and everyone who sees their bankruptcy, who's broken by their sin, and who comes to him placing their faith in Him for forgiveness and salvation. And, after, after being crucified on earth, and then he has absolute lordship.

he had every right to just wipe us out. But with that lordship now, he's like, I want to grant forgiveness. I want, I want, I want to love and forgive and grant blessing and salvation upon all who are poor in spirit, who are broken by their sin, and they bring their sinful selves to me and put their trust in me to be their Lord and Savior. I will give them forgiveness.

And bring them into relationship with me. Britt and I rehearsed that, by the way. Thanks, Britt. The gospel though goes beyond that to where now once a person's saved, you have people like Peter and Paul in the New Testament who then come to save people and say this is probably bigger than what you imagined.

There's so much more to this than I think you could even comprehend. And so there's so much gospel preaching in Ephesians 12 and 3, Romans 567 and 8, Colossians 1 and 2, and Romans. 1 through 12, just laying all of these things out, things that are true of us because we believed in Jesus. And so the gospel, we broaden it out.

It's, it's the Lord coming to us now that we are saved and have believed in Jesus and says you are forgiven. You have been forgiven. You say, Well, I know that. I know that.

Do that? Do you believe that? Do you really believe that you are washed and cleansed and forgiven of all of your sins? A number of years ago, I approached a guy in our church and I said, Have you been enjoying intimacy with Jesus?

And his reply was he had known the Lord for 9 years, and he said, Oh, Pastor Milton. You have no idea what I did before I was saved. And I realized this guy, he's, he's OK being saved, but he, he doesn't feel entitled to intimacy with Jesus because of what he did before he was saved. Just a distant relationship is probably all Jesus would want with me.

He wasn't walking in a belief that he was fully forgiven. When you fail and you're thinking I should ask God to forgive, go into his presence to receive his forgiveness and the devil says, don't you dare, don't you dare. God is angry. Do, do you really believe that you're forgiven?

Justified? You're, as a believer in Jesus, you've been justified, you've been wrapped in the righteousness of Jesus. God now, thinks of you always as forgiven and as Righteous, and he always favors you as a result of that all day, every day, day and night, good days and bad days, whether you are waking or sleeping, you are always under God's favor because of what Jesus did and what he does in an ongoing way as your advocate before the Father. You're always under God's favor.

Always. Even when you sin, you're under God's favor. In fact, he favors you so much when you sin that he'll bring discipline into your life, so that he can wean you away from that sin and bring you into the experience of His holiness. You're always under his favor.

As a believer in Jesus, you've been made a child of God. You can call him Father. As a believer in Jesus, you're freed from sin's power. You're like, I know that.

Do that? Romans 6. you, you, you've been freed from sin and from sin's power. That's a gospel truth.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that you're freed from that besetting sin that has dogged your steps for years and even decades? Do you, do you believe that? To the degree that we still sin, evidences the degree to which we don't believe that.

See, there's so much of the gospel. That we understand and we believe, but, but there's dimensions that go beyond what we're presently thinking and really believing and experiencing in our practice. The gospel's bigger than what our beliefs are right now in our practice. We've received the Holy Spirit who gives us power and mediates the blessings of God.

He searches out the deep things of in the heart of God towards us and then comes to us and the Spirit pours out the love of God inside our hearts. He communicates with our spirit that we're children of God and heirs of eternal glory in heaven. We've received the Holy Spirit. We, as believers, another gospel truth is by virtue of the shed blood of Jesus, through his torn flesh, we can now enter into the presence of God and talk to him anytime we want.

That's good news that's given to us by virtue of the death of Jesus. Also, we You are loved by Jesus daily. You are being loved by the most amazing being, by the most amazing lover, 24/7, loved by Jesus all day, every day. You say, Well, I know that.

Do that? Do that in the midst of trials and hardships, do that Jesus is loving you even and providentially allowing those things? Because he's doing something good. In you, to develop you, to show his love for you.

In Ephesians chapter 3, Paul says, I, I'm praying for you, Ephesian believers that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend the height and the width and the breadth and the length and to know the love of Christ. I'm praying that you guys who are already believers will know the love of Christ. And then he says, which surpasses knowledge. No matter how much it, Jesus will always say there's more, there's more.

You like what, you like what you're getting? Yes, I love this Lord. There's more, there's more. And it will take all eternity.

One of the reasons we will live forever is that's how long it will take to fully comprehend. The wideness and the depth and the heights of His love, exceeding power. God has, Paul says in Ephesians 1, I pray that you will know the surpassing greatness of His power, which is streaming into you who believe. You have unbelievable power that God has placed inside of you.

You say, well, I know that. Do that? Do that? I don't think any of us in this room fully know that to the degree that it is available to be known.

Ephesians 3:20-21, Paul says, Now unto him who's able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. Paul's saying, he says, I, I'm gonna say something here that I know will always be true. However far you go in your thinking in terms of what that power is and what God can do in and through you, whatever, however far you go in maturity in your prayer life to even think to ask God to do according to that power, I am telling you that God is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that you might ask or think.

According to the power that works in you and in me.

Are you guys getting a feeling for how big the gospel is? It's big and fellow saints. God, God takes what you need and measures it all out, what you need now in Christ, and He gives a lot of that to you directly and then he takes large portions of what you need to experience the fullness of His love and of the gospel, and he deposits sizable portions of that inside your brothers and sisters in Christ. And then he says, if you want to walk in the fullness of all I've given you in Jesus, you've got to go to your brothers and sisters, live in relationship with them, because there's grace and giftedness and wisdom, insight and gospel stuff, salvation stuff I put inside of them.

My spirit inside of them, and it is only in relationship with them that you experience the fullness of what I've given to you in Christ. that, that's all amazing. That's all amazing. But then on top of that, there's an inheritance in heaven.

Paul says, that our hearts cannot even imagine. Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him. As great as the gospel may be in this life, we're going to be utterly blown away when we get into eternity. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, if there are mirrors in heaven, we're going to be blown away by what we see.

CS Lewis in his book The Weight of Glory, I don't have the exact quote with me, but he said something to this effect. He says, take, take the average believer that. And he says, if you right now, in this life, in your present state could see that believer the way they will appear in glory, you would be sorely tempted to bow down and worship them. That's how glorious they will be.

You cannot right now handle The glorious sight of just your brothers and sisters when they're fully glorified by Jesus Christ and you're going to be an amazing sight when you look at yourself in the mirror now, just go, I'm a mess now, but When I get their glory and I'm fully glorified and all this sin stuff is removed, man, this is, this is going to be great, and then all the place that Christ is preparing for us and he's thinking about us as he's doing so, he's like, oh this is going to be great when they see this, and he's preparing all of these pleasures and delights and And, and the good news will never end.

It will never end. We will spend all of eternity rejoicing in celebrating, cherishing, and studying the depths and the heights and the length and the breadth of this good news. Through all eternity.

So the gospel is big. And so when we talk about feasting on the gospel, and craving the gospel, that's what we're talking about. We're, we're talking about being a student of these things and celebrating these things and nourishing yourself, partaking of gorging yourself upon these realities. Just like Peter commands us, verse 2, this all is milk.

Imagine it is milk. And now that you are safe, just, just gorge on this. Now if you do this, there's certain effects, and this is we're going to now begin the sermon for today. The effects of gospel feasting.

If you live your life this way and you're like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go crazy with this, then that's my encouragement. Just go crazy with this stuff. I'm going to worship God with the gospel, rejoice in the gospel in my position and I'm going to be motivated by the gospel and my acts of obedience. I'm going to I'm going to cherish the gospel's role in my conversion and in my day to day life, and I'm just going to gorge on this.

That's what my life will be all about. It will be one big gospel fest. If you do this, there are at least 4 effects that are evident and will be evident in your life. I love what Solomon says in Proverbs 15:30.

Good news puts fat on the bones. good news, it, it affects you and really powerful. ways. And as you feast on the gospel, it's going to have a profound effect.

And the first of those effects is this progressive growth into salvation. Progressive growth into salvation. Look at what he says in verse 2. He says like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the gospel word.

Or the gospel message so that by it, you may grow literally into salvation. And so let me read this again, so that by it, by it, by the gospel that you're nourishing yourself with, by means of it, you may continuously, progressively be growing into salvation. Let's talk about the word grow. Like if you want to grow spiritually into what God wants you to be, gorge yourself on the gospel and you will catch yourself growing.

You don't need to say, I resolved today to grow. You don't even need to decide that, just gorge on the gospel, and you will grow. Feast on the goodness of God in Christ and growth happens. This word that is translated grow, literally means increase.

And let's use that word so that you may increase into salvation, so that you may increase. In every, in every way so that you may increase in size. increase in stature, so that you may increase in strength, so that you may increase in ability and agility. So that you may increase in wisdom, guys, if you want to experience this progressive increasing of your person day by day, it happens by it, by it, by the gospel, by feasting on the gospel each day, and you will increase.

In stature, you will grow larger spiritually, you will grow stronger. And by the way, speaking of growing stronger, what that means is you will become a force to be reckoned with by the evil one when he shows up. We are often pushovers to the devil. hardly giving him, a challenge.

the devil comes to us and says, you're not free from sin, and we're like, oh, I guess I must not be. I, I think sometimes the devil laughs at us. just, we're so easy and maybe, we start the day, we're taking a few weak steps of really believing the truth about who we are in Christ and our freedom from sin in Christ, and the devil jumps in front of us and says, boom, and we just collapse to the ground in this mess. We're just a mess and And I think the devil laughs at us.

We're just hardly a challenge for him. But if we feast on the gospel, we will grow in size and in strength. And he's gonna think twice before messing with us. I, on Tuesday, Carlos Limpiaco showed up at the office with a a makeshift cast around two of his fingers that were bound together, and I didn't ask his permission to share this actually, but, oh well.

but we asked him, what, what happened, what happened to your fingers? He said, well, I was wrestling Andrew, the other day. And I think Andrew's 11 years old and growing, getting bigger and stronger each day. And what had happened was Andrew did like a karate kick and ended up messing up his dad's hand.

And, and then Carlos said something that I identified with as a dad. He said, The bigger my son gets, the less frequently we wrestle. Because of the potential for injury. And that's interesting to me because what he means by that is the greater the potential for injury to dad.

he wasn't worried about that a couple of years ago, but now Dad's getting a little worried as Andrew gets bigger and increases in size and strength. Daddy ain't quite so excited to wrestle with him anymore. And that resonated with me as a dad because it's the same with my boys. Brendan.

I wrestled with him up to a certain point, and then there was a point where I just withdrew that aspect of my fathering of my son as he got bigger, and I can say to this day that he has never beat me in a wrestling match. And And it's not And it's not because he's not capable, it's just Daddy knew when to quit. We need to be that way with the devil. one of the most amazing, statements in the New Testament is, is Peter says resist the devil and he'll flee.

That's interesting language, just resist him and he'll run. Meaning the devil's a coward. He, he preys upon people who just collapse when he blusters and bluffs. But when he shows up and says boo and starts speaking lies, a Christian that stands up to him to their full height, who's grown strong in the gospel, and they're like, I am not intimidated by you, and I'm not going to believe your lies.

When someone stands up to the devil in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the power of the gospel, with gospel truth inside their hearts, the devil runs from a person like that. We become a force, a stronger person and a force to be reckoned with. We all want that, don't we? Don't you want to reach a point where when temptation comes, that now maybe enslaves you on many instances and that temptation comes and, and you're like, no, I will not do this.

Instead, I'm going to do what's right. Don't you want the strength to do that? How do you get that? By it?

By it, by nourishing yourself upon the gospel and through the gospel, verse 3, tasting the deliciousness of the Lord. Feast on the gospel. He says, let's go back to the end of verse two, so that by it, by nourishing yourself on it, the gospel, you may grow into salvation, depicting salvation as a realm that we are brought into deeper and deeper inside this realm to the fullness of all that God has for us in Christ. I want you guys to do an exercise.

if you're taking notes, draw a circle, on your notes. And if you don't, just draw it on the back of the person in front of you, let that circle represent just the fullness of all that is yours in Christ and in the gospel, all the promises, all the truths, all the blessings, the intimacy, the privileges, just, it represents all that God has for you to experience in Christ through the gospel. All right? Now, I want you to carve out The portion of that circle that you believe, up to this point in your life, you have personally entered into the experience of, carve that out.

I'll give you 2 seconds, carve that out. I'll be transparent and tell you what I carved out. that's maybe about the depth to which I've experienced all the fullness that is mine in Christ. And I'm probably being a little bold there, but if I did the actual size, you would not be able to see it on the screen, so I wanted it to be visible.

So that's how much I put. Let's just say that I have experienced that much of the fullness. Let's say all of us in this room, that's about the degree to which we have entered into salvation. The question is how do we get further.

Into salvation and into the experience of all the other things and the riches and the depths that belong to us. They're in our name in Christ. How do we get there? Peter says, buy it, buy it, crave the milk of the gospel word.

Be daily gorging yourself upon the gospel so that by it you may Increase into salvation. That's what gets you there, deeper into the experience of all the saving blessings and realities that are yours in Christ. And so if you do the things that we learned last week and you're just making your life a gospel fest, you will progressively grow into salvation. There's another Effect of gospel feasting, and that is continuous transformation, continuous transformation.

Peter's going to switch metaphors on us here, and that causes many to think he's changing topics, but it's really not. He's saying the same thing just with a different imagery. Look at what he says in verse 2. like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the Word, the gospel word, so that by it you may grow into salvation.

Verse 3, if you've tasted the kindness or the deliciousness of the Lord. So it's as if the Lord draws us close and we partake of the gospel that flows from Him, and in doing that we're actually experiencing Him. Jesus is the ultimate prize of the gospel. We're experiencing His heart.

We're tasting the deliciousness of Jesus as we gorge ourselves upon the gospel each day. So ultimately it's a person here that we are experiencing now verse 4, and coming to him. And the verb coming is a present tense, meaning not just we came to Him on our day of conversion, it's literally and continuously coming to Him. Alright, and in the context he's talking about feasting on the gospel and experiencing the Lord thereby continuously coming to Him in this way as to a living stone that's the metaphor that he's using now, which has been rejected by men but is choice and precious in the sight of God.

Jesus is now being depicted as a living stone, as the cornerstone of a building. And when he uses the word stone, he's speaking, speaking of a prepared stone that has been shaped and fitted to serve a particular purpose. It's a living stone. Jesus is a living stone, meaning he was crucified, but now he's raised.

And not only that, not only is he living, but he's vibrant, he's full of life and he's overflowing. The imagery in my mind as I read this is, what comes to mind is, it's an illusion back to the Old Testament. Jesus is the rock from which water flows. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul said the rock that followed the Israelites that they were nourished by, that they drank from, was Jesus.

And so he's a living stone, not only alive, but from him is flowing these streams of refreshing, nourishing water. So his point is essentially the same as what he said in verse 2. It's just the metaphor is different. And so as we continuously come to him in this way, as to a living stone from which these springs of nourishment, nourishment and life are coming, and we're partaking of that and thereby tasting the deliciousness of the Lord, this stone.

was rejected by men but is choice and precious in the sight of God the Father. Think about it. God looks at His Son and he's like, My Son is so choice. He's precious.

God adores His Son. God is amazed by His Son, and he's like, Come, come, you will love this. You will love Him. Come and, and see what I know to be true about my choice and precious Son.

And so we come and we, not just on our day of conversion, but day by day, God's like, come to my son and drink from these springs that issue forth from Him. Gorge yourself on the fullness that issues forth from Him in the gospel. Now look at this. And coming to him continuously as to a living stone which has been rejected by men but is choice and precious in the sight of God.

Verse 5, you also as living stones are being built up. That word expression being built up is the Greek word for edify. You are being edified as you partake of him, daily, progressively, you get edified and built up. Reminds me of what we read last week, Acts 20:32.

Paul says to the Ephesians elders, I commend you to God, to the word of His grace, which is gospel, which is continuously able to edify you. If you, if you just come to the gospel each day and keep it in front of your face and partake of it, it will edify you. And Peter is saying here in chapter two, as we continuously come to Jesus, partake of him, we are getting edified. Now, unfortunately, our word edify is not that exciting of a word to many people.

we use it to speak of being encouraged or we may say, hey, thanks for your fellowship, brother. I, I feel edified. And what we mean is we feel a little bit lifted up, a little bit built up than we were before. And definitely, the word edify includes that.

That's actually a very legitimate and good use of the word edify. All I want to convey is that edify is even bigger than that, OK? And think about it. This word edify literally means to build a house, and when a house is built like from nothing, there's a vacant property, and then one year later the property looks totally different.

So we've gone from nothingness to somethingness. Edification has occurred and then also you look at this house that has been built, all of the raw materials that were necessary for the building of that house, you think about what it was in its original state. The Iron for the nails or whatever may have been in the earth somewhere and it had to be mined and all the wood came from trees. What, what did all of those raw materials look like in their natural wild state?

But all of those have been transformed into this structure that you now see in front of you. So edification involves going from nothingness to somethingness, and it's a transformation from something natural and wild to something fitted, prepared, and useful. When I see the word edify. In the New Testament, I think of transformation.

It's a big enough word to include the idea of absolute and total transformation into something radically different than what one started with. And so he says, as you continually come to Jesus partaking of Him, you are getting edified. In other words, you're getting transformed. In fact, the very first occasion in all of the Bible where the Greek word oika demeo for edify occurs is in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in Genesis chapter 2 verse 22.

And you guys know where God put Adam into a deep sleep, opened up his side, pulled a rib out of Adam's side, and, and then it says in Genesis 2:22, and the Lord edified into a woman, the rib he had taken from the man. God started with the rib, and he edified that rib into a beautiful, drop dead gorgeous woman. That's serious edification. in fact, I used this at the men's retreat a year ago, and I've used it in various places when I've spoken elsewhere other than Cornerstone, but I've never broken this puppy out, in a morning service, so hang on.

I have here a human rib, OK? I bought this over a year ago from Skulls Incorporated that's based in Oklahoma City. And it's an actual human rib that someone was obviously kind enough to donate. But I had this in my office for the sole purpose that it reminds me of this gospel lesson.

All right, now think about Eve's birthday. We're going to do a before and after picture scenario. On Eve's birthday, this is what her before picture looked like. OK, you got that?

Not very pretty, not a lot to work with. That's the before picture. And then the after picture, after God edified this into a woman, I'm gonna let you use your imagination, regarding what the finished product looked like. This is before, and then imagine what she looked like when God was done edifying.

It's an amazing transformation. it's a transformative edification. And I guarantee you, when Adam first saw Eve, he, he wasn't like, Did you get that from my rib, Lord? Cause I, I can see, yeah, I can see that you got that from my rib.

You got it from my rib, didn't you? Do you think Adam said that? The truth is no one would have ever dreamed that Eve came from this unless God told us so. Amen.

And what it, what it encourages me with is a lot of times I look in the mirror at myself and this is what I see. Not very pretty and not a lot to work with. But what gives me hope? What gives me hope is that when God decides to edify something, he means business, and the means by which he edifies me day by day is through the agency of the gospel as I nourish myself on it each day.

So there's hope for me. There's hope for you. And God basically says, here's the deal. Here's how it's going to work.

You be you and I'll be God. You just come to Jesus day by day and feast on Him, and the fullness that is flowing from him in the gospel. You, you come to him continuously, perpetually, and you feast, and I will edify you. You don't have to resolve, I'm going to edify myself, I'm going to make this and this and this happen.

No, God says you just feast, and you're going to catch yourself being transformatively edified. Edified into what we would ask. This is the 3rd effect of gospel feasting, and that is likeness to Christ. God edifies us day by day, and we began to look more and more like the one we're partaking of.

Look what he says in verse 4, coming to him as to a living stone. Keep in mind, Jesus is a stone cut, fit, prepared to serve God's purpose. And he's a living stone. He's been raised from the dead.

He's not dead anymore. He's been raised from the dead. And not only is he living, but he's living in the sense that life is flowing from him. It's overflowing from him for all to come and partake of, coming to him who is a living stone rejected by men, choice and precious in the sight of God.

Verse 5, you also have living stones are being edified. In other words, we become living stones, just like him. We become fitted, prepared and shaped to serve God's purposes on this earth. And not only that, but we enter more fully into the experience of the life of Jesus.

And yes, we're made alive at our moment of conversion, but in terms of the experience and the enriching of this life, The more we partake of Jesus, we become living stones in the sense of not only experiencing his life, but then that life begins to flow out of us towards others. People start coming to us because they want to partake of what's flowing out of us and thereby taste of Jesus. He's the source of even what issues forth from us. Jesus, in the gospel, he's like, I'm not in the business of just filling you up.

I want out of your bellies to be flowing rivers of living water that others can be blessed by. I'm not just going to fill your cup. I want your cup to overflow. God loves to make a mess, and you hold your little cup out and say, fill me up, Lord, and he with laughter in a sense, he'll just pour his fullness into that cup and it gets full and you're like, Is he going to stop?

And he just keeps pouring and it just spills over everywhere. That's, that's the way God is. He's got so much he wants to give us. And as we come to Jesus and we're partaking of Him, He's not interested in just satisfying a little appetite here and there.

He's not even just interested in filling us up to the full. He's interested in filling us up to where there are springs of life that are issuing forth from us, bringing nourishment and blessing to others. So he's the living stone, and we become like Him. We become living overflowing stones.

Then there's a 4th and final effect of gospel feasting, and that is radical community with like-minded lovers of Jesus. Radical community with like-minded lovers of Jesus. Look at what he says, verse 5, you also as living stones are being continuously edified as a spiritual house. You also, plural as Living stones, plural, are being built up as a spiritual house singular.

As we come to Jesus individually and partake of Him day by day, we begin to notice that, man, there's other people showing up here, partaking of Him and And then we notice the hand of God working in us and shaping us, and He's shaping them and He's fitting us together, and then we suddenly realize, whoa, there's a lot more at work than just God is filling me up. God's actually in the business of building a community, and he's putting our lives together into a single house, a single entity, a single family, a single structure.

So community is a natural result of partaking of Jesus. those that are truly partaking of the gospel because they're involved in community in the local church with like-minded lovers and treasurers of Jesus.

Now this is no, there's a lot of communities that are out there, even radical communities that are out there, but what's, but this community based on Jesus and built upon him is different. Look what he says, it's a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. It's a community that's characterized by the Spirit, where the Spirit is housed. And the Spirit blows and moves in whatever direction he wants, and the Spirit gets his way.

And keep in mind the Spirit's all about glorifying Jesus. So it's, it's, it's a house, it's a structure, it's a community that's all about glorifying Jesus and serving the purposes of God's spirit that is alive in us, seeking to glorify Him at every opportunity. It's also a house that is characterized or a community characterized by holiness. It's a holy priesthood.

The word holiness has the idea of just being different. Being sacred, being utterly devoted to God, being unique, uniquely set apart to God. We should be a community as we partake of Jesus, that we don't look to the world and get our cues from the world for the fashions of what we wear and And for the lyrics that we allow ourselves musically to be entertained and occupied by, we don't look to the entertainments of this world. We're not consulting the world to get our cues from there.

We get our cues from the Holy One who called us. Amen. He has called us into this salvation. And, and our, our interest is, what do you have to say, God?

Tell me how to live my life. And God says, I want you to be holy the way I am holy. So we learned last week, and we're like, OK, and, and we get our cues from him to where as a community, we more and more reflect Him and his image than the image of the world. It's also a community characterized by service.

My service, a holy priesthood. Priest served God's purposes and essentially priests conveyed or operated with two functions. They represented men before God. So imagine I'm a priest.

I would represent all of you in the presence of God, and I would pray in God's presence and plead on your behalf for favors for you from God. That's one of the functions of a priest, to represent men before God. And then another function of the priest is to turn from God, as it were, towards God's people and to represent God to people. You see the difference, representing people before God and representing God to people.

And so that's how we live our lives as we gorge on Jesus Christ and taste his deliciousness, and we're, we grow and we're edified. not only are we controlled by the Spirit, not only are we a holy people, but we live our lives, like, what, I'm going to serve you by going into God's presence and praying for you and seeking favors on your behalf in Jesus' name. I serve you in that way. And then also, I'm going to serve you by coming to you and representing God to you.

I'll speak truth to you. And also, I would like to relate to you in a way that I can be a living embodiment of the heart of God towards you. And all the things we do, even practical things, bringing a meal to somebody, going through a crisis, we, we are representing God to those we serve, representing his heart of love, And then the last thing that characterizes this radical community is worship. He says to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.

We're a worshiping community. We don't just worship in song, but even in our acts of ministry and service, what we're doing is, is we're offering even our acts of service as sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Will you make your life a gospel fest? Going into the days of this week, will you live this way?

If you do, Here's what you can expect to see. You're going to increase into salvation. You will be step by step, continuously undergoing a process of transformation. You will catch yourself becoming more like Jesus.

And you will find yourself loving and becoming a vital part of and cherishing this radical community of other lovers of Jesus. Now you can walk out of here and say, I wanna grow, Lord, I'm, I, I'm gonna grow. Oh, I'm going to be edified. I'm going to be like you, and I'm going to be, a vital, meaningful part of this community of faith.

You can go out of here and resolve to do that, and that's fine. Or you can say, I'm going to, I'm just going to feast on the gospel and the power of the Spirit this week. And if you just make that your ambition, you, you will catch yourself. Step by step doing these other things, and may God help us to feast and eat freely of what He has provided for us in Jesus.

Let's pray together. We're going to take up an offering in just a moment. I encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give. I know that the money you give goes to support the work of the gospel in this community and around the world.

There's resources, that we're gonna have Sunday school teachers standing in front of children and adults. In the coming weeks, and those resources are purchased with the funds that you give, and then we've got faithful missionaries around the world in the trenches, speaking the truth of the gospel to people. Souls are getting saved and we all get to participate in that. So give as the Lord leads you to give.

Comments, prayer requests, praise items, put those on the back of the comment card and put that in the offering bag as it goes by. Let's pray together. Lord, when you created Adam and Eve, you, you also created a garden. You put Adam and Eve in that garden, and the very first command out of your mouth was the command, eat freely.

Eat, really eat, gorge yourself on this provision that I have provided for you. And once you save us, Lord, it's as if your very first command to us as you put us in this gospel garden is eat freely, eat, drink. Crave this. This will satisfy like nothing the world offers can.

I pray, Lord, if there's anyone in this room that has never feasted on Jesus, that has never believed in him, that even right now where they're seated that they would call upon your name. and turn their eyes upon you and believe in you and that they would go home believing in Jesus, and experience the rebirth. God, I pray that your spirit would would be kind and merciful to accomplish rebirth in the lives of some sitting in this room. And for those of us that have been reborn, Lord, we need to be better feasters.

So teach us, may we see the delight in your countenance as you eagerly beckon us to gorge ourselves on what you have so freely provided. And we thank you now for all of the effects that will follow. In our lives as we feast upon you. We worship you, Lord, you are great, and your salvation is great.

And how great you are. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.