Teshuvah Journey
We're turning to first Peter chapter two, which is one of the best texts on the journey of Yeshua, the apostle Paul.
Esther:By my holy name will humble themselves and seek my face.
Wes:My
Esther:If they pray, if they pray, if they pray and seek my face, I will eat And we're gonna
Wes:go to verses one through 10.
Esther:Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile
Wes:All what?
Esther:All malice and all guile
Wes:Okay.
Esther:And hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings.
Wes:This is very difficult, Peter. Laying aside all malice, that means bad things. In Hebrew or in Spanish, mal means some something that's bad. Any bad thing or guile means a sneaky thing. Hypocrisy means you're you're you're acting out something that you're not really and envies and all evil speakings.
Wes:So he puts everything in there that out of our mouth should come nothing evil at all. That's a very difficult thing. We shouldn't be gossiping about other people. We shouldn't be gossiping about a pastor. We shouldn't be judging people and putting people down.
Wes:We see this in the world today of attack mode. If you don't believe what I believe, then I'm gonna hate you. So he's saying that this is one of the biggest things of our journey with God is what comes out of our mouth. Yes. And this is for pastors and preachers especially.
Wes:You shouldn't be gossiping. You shouldn't be putting people down. And you shouldn't be envying somebody else because they have a bigger church. Let judgment begin at first at the house of God, the Bible says. Okay.
Wes:Continue on.
Esther:As newborn babes.
Wes:As newborn babes. We have to go back to being babes in Christ because we can't obey. We can't control our tongue.
Esther:Desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby.
Wes:God help us that we grow beyond this evil stuff, especially in the church of the living God. We gotta go back to just being babes in Christ, just a sincere milk of the word because we can't obey the meat of the word because we haven't got by the the basic essentials.
Esther:If so, be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
Wes:Oh, we know that the Lord is gracious. He His grace and mercy picked us up. He healed us and helped us. And then what do we do is we we look down on those that are lost when we were we were in that pit as well. By the grace of God, mercy of God, we have a a new life.
Wes:Praise God. Okay. Verse four.
Esther:To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious.
Wes:So he he is a living stone. Bible says he's the cornerstone. That means when they put a big cornerstone down in in ancient days that everything had to level off. Everything had to be squared away with that particular stone. And our lives have to be squared away with Jesus and and His law, His His words, the beatitudes, the sermon on the mount, all of His His parables and metaphors and all of His teachings.
Wes:And, He was rejected. And, likewise, when we follow Him, we're gonna be rejected as well. God says, we will be precious. Precious in his sight are the people of God that that choose to go on this journey. Okay?
Wes:Verse five.
Esther:Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
Wes:Okay. It isn't just the preacher or the teacher or the pastor that offers up spiritual sacrifices. We, as people of faith, are lively stones, Peter says. We're built up into a spiritual house. We're we're part of that house.
Wes:We're part of the team of God. We're a holy priesthood. That means we should live holy. We should talk holy. Our our lives should be holy as unto God, and we offer up spiritual sacrifices.
Wes:If we go into the jail and minister to somebody in the jail, that's a spiritual sacrifice. If we go visit a nursing home Jesus said, if you even just give a glass of cold water to somebody, that's a spiritual sacrifice, and we get a reward for all of these things.
Esther:Wherefore, also, it is contained in the scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
Wes:Okay. The people in the world today are confounded. They don't know which way to go. They're they're worried about their stock portfolio. They're worried about their job.
Wes:I just called somebody today that was a long term of employee for a big corporation, and he said the bad news is he was laid off. People don't know what is the security and warfares and everything that are going on. People are confounded, but the Bible says that when we make Jesus the chief cornerstone of our life, then we believe on Him, then we're not gonna be confounded. He's gonna give us words of wisdom and direction and He's gonna give us a way of life. He said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
Wes:And that way is Teshuvah. That's the journey of repentance that Peter's talking about here. Okay. Verse seven now.
Esther:Unto you therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner.
Wes:Okay. Many people don't believe in him, don't believe in Christ, don't believe in God. They think it's hocus pocus. They they turn their heads. They disallow him.
Wes:But to us that have faith in him, he's precious. He's precious. His blood is precious. His words are precious. The builders, the original builders, the Jewish people rejected him.
Wes:Not all of them. It's a many comp there's a whole company of priests that did believe in him. That means hundreds of priests did believe in him. And the early church was all Jewish. But as time went on, he needed to grow his church.
Wes:And so he went out into the highways and byways, and he got people like us to build his church. The people that were not a people are now a people of God. And so you have a great position when you when you get on a journey with God and repent and turn to him. Okay. Verse eight.
Esther:And a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed.
Wes:Okay. To me, the word is precious and the word is challenging just like he challenged Peter as an oracle of God, challenges in that first verse. We have a hard time getting past that first verse. And some people are offended by that, and they don't wanna have anything to do with the Bible because they're disobedient. But he will have a people.
Wes:Those people that he has that will come on the journey with him will be a blessed people. Okay. Go ahead.
Esther:But ye are a chosen generation.
Wes:A chosen generation. A royal priesthood. A royal priesthood. And a holy nation. A holy nation.
Wes:A peculiar people. A peculiar people. These are the people of the way, the way of Teshuvah, the way of repentance. We we are different than the normal people. They live in their hatred.
Wes:They embrace their hatred and and we assure it. We kick it out and we are happy people. Okay. Go ahead.
Esther:That ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into the marvelous light.
Wes:Okay. This journey, you may think it's it's repentance is a bad thing. People look down on it, but it's a beautiful thing. It's a thing that illuminates. It shines the light on those things in our life, and we're able to take them and kick them out, overcome them.
Wes:When we do that, he gives us freedom. Jesus said, I come to set the captives free. When we get that freedom, we can worship him. We can sing praises to the most high God who's taken us out of the miry clay and put us on a rock. And that rock is the rock Jesus.
Wes:Praise God. Okay. Verse 10.
Esther:Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Wes:Okay. You see, before coming to Christ, I was not part of the people of God. I was living my own thing. I was doing it my way. I had great materialism, success in a lot of different areas, but I wasn't happy.
Wes:But when I came to Christ and and humbled myself before him and began on the journey, then he brought peace and he brought happiness and contentment. The biggest thing of all is the mercy of God. He brought mercy to my life. I needed the mercy of God. I had hurt some people during my life, and I I needed forgiveness.
Wes:The Bible says that his mercy endureth forever. It never quits. It was part of the foundation of the world. The Bible says that from the foundation of the world, he had a plan of grace and mercy. He wanted every individual to have the opportunity to come on a journey with him.
Wes:So that that opportunity is out there for you, and he wants to apply a mercy to your life. Believe me, it's a beautiful thing to have a mercy of God and to know that we are no longer guilty of sins, and we can forgive and we can apply the mercy to those that have done evil unto us. And, hate treated us with hateful ways, And we we obtain the freedom from that. We receive the mercy for us and we give mercy to others. Believe me, it's it's a beautiful thing and we receive the blessing of God.
Wes:Okay. Now, we're gonna return to verse nineteen and twenty.
Esther:For this is thankworthy. If a man for conscience conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it? If when ye be buffeted for your faith faults, ye shall take it patiently. But if ye, when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently.
Esther:This is acceptable with God.
Wes:Okay. So, as we go on the journey, this Teshuvah journey with God, not everybody's gonna be happy about it and we're gonna get buffeted. People are gonna criticize. Some people told me, who do you think you are? You're you're goody two shoes.
Wes:You know? I said, no. I'm I'm not goody two shoes. I'm not judging you. I'm just trying to take these shoes and walk in the narrow path that Jesus has given for me.
Wes:And as I walk that path, I get blessed. And maybe you're mad about it, but we can't when people criticize us and put us down for a life of faith, we can't get mad about it. We accept it and we're patient about it. And Jesus said, not only that, we need to bless those that curse us and pray for those that despitefully use us. And when we do that, we impact a spiritual world and and we impact the lives of others and we can help them with our lifestyle, this journey that we're walking on.
Wes:Okay. We got two more verses that Peter wrote in the end, verses twenty four and twenty five.
Esther:Who his own self bear our sins in his own body.
Wes:Whose sins?
Esther:Our sins.
Wes:He bore the sins of us on his body. Whoever would come to him, we can, he said, cast your cares upon me. Take up my yoke for my yoke is easy. Okay. Go ahead.
Esther:His own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed.
Wes:Okay. Stripes are where when he took a whipping with a cat of 9,000 and they drew blood on his back and they beat him almost to death and and he suffered immensely. He said, because of the beating I took with this, I proclaim healing over your body. That's a great promise. We can enter into that and we can believe that and have faith in that and we can see miracles that come from that.
Wes:I'm not talking like a a name it and claim it preacher per se that we can just name. I I want a airplane or I want a Mercedes. No. We're claiming the work of God on us and our soul and our body. He said, through his stripes, we are healed both mentally and physically.
Wes:Let's go to verse 25.
Esther:Or ye were as sheep going astray.
Wes:We were as sheep going astray. I was going astray for forty odd years. And when I became sick and tired of being sick and tired and I sought out God, I returned. I returned. The is a return.
Wes:A return to Christ. Go ahead here.
Esther:I now returned unto the shepherd and bishop
Wes:Unto the who?
Esther:Shepherd and bishop. Of your soul.
Wes:Jesus is the shepherd and bishop of every soul that he has created in the world. Now, most of those souls do not recognize him as shepherd and bishop. When we do, miraculous things happen. Even the thief on the cross only had a minutes left in his life. Well, one thief criticized Jesus saying, well, if you're really the son of God, you could get us down off of here.
Wes:And the other thief on the cross said, shame on you. You shouldn't be talking to the man of God that way. We deserve to be up here, but he is pure. He doesn't deserve to be up here. They were both they were sinners.
Wes:That means they were thieves. They they were constantly stealing. Wherever they went, they they stole. They were they were by habit. And people that developed that habit, oftentimes, they stay that way their entire life.
Wes:And so the Romans to teach people not to steal, they put these two thieves up on the cross where everybody could see them. But Jesus was in the middle, and he was up there. And the thief on the cross said, Lord, when you go to your your home, when you go to heaven, think upon me. Think upon me. And Jesus said, Son, tomorrow, you're gonna be with me in paradise.
Wes:He did teshuvah right up on the cross. What the guy that he had done it earlier in life that he could done work that gave glory to God. And then that's what God wants to do with every soul. He he's the bishop. He's the shepherd and bishop of every soul, and he's waiting for for every soul to come.
Wes:And once the book of Luke says, one soul comes in repentance, all heaven rejoices. It's there's a rejoicing because that's when people when God can send his angels to be surrounded, he said he puts angels around those that love him and serve him. And and not only that, he puts himself aside of us to help lead us and guide us and he's waiting for you to come to him in repentance. Do it and all heaven is gonna rejoice over your soul. God bless you today.