"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

The beautiful buildings in Seoul amaze me. Last week, I visited Yon Hee center and saw their beautiful new center.Previously, I visited Kwan Ak, Kyung Sung, Nam San and Han Yang Centers. The UBF Center buildings are well-built and functional and most memorable. God who created heaven and earth is also building a house. His house is a spiritual house. In his house, spiritual sacrifices are made by holy priests. Peter talks about the Spiritual house which God is building in 1Peter 2:4,5. "As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him--you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

God's spiritual house is made of living stones. These living stones are very precious. We are these living stones. We are living stones chosen by God to build his spiritual house. Jesus is the cornerstone and capstone of God's house. God lives in his house. So it is full of love and righteousness. There is peace and joy there.

God's purpose in building his house is to bring people living in darkness and misery into his wonderful light. He wants to bring his lost world back to himself. He speaks to the living stones in verse 9: "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." These words are given to us, the living stones.

First, a Royal Priesthood.

The duty of a priest is to bring people to God, and to bring God's word and will to the people. In the Old Testament, the duty of the priest was to pray and to offer sacrifices to God. He was the mediator between God and God's people. Jesus is our great high priest. Jesus offered his own precious blood as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. By his blood we receive forgiveness and cleansing from sin. Jesus rose from the dead. He is our great high priest who intercedes for us at the right hand of God.

Why is Jesus called a royal priest or a kingly priest?

According to the law, Jesus is not qualified to be a priest. Jesus is not of the line of Levi, the priestly line. Jesus is a priest and king after the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was the king who met Abraham after the battle of the kings. He received tithes from Abraham. So Jesus' priesthood is a royal priesthood. Because we belong to King Jesus, we are royal priests. It is our priestly duty to proclaim the love and forgiveness of God which he has revealed in Jesus to people who do not know God. Our priestly duty is to declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. Shepherds and missionaries and Bible teachers who teach the word of God one to one are all royal priests.

We must live a sacrificial life in order to fulfil this priestly duty. Read Peter 2:20b,21 "...but if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps." God sent the incarnate Jesus as the first missionary. He came and lived in a dark and sinful world. To be with us, he laid aside the glory of heaven and came to this world to live with us. We who are missionaries must follow the incarnate Jesus.

M. Peter and Monica Park of Nigeria lived in a comfortable Embassy house. They moved from the compound to the village so that they could be friends with the students. God blessed their ministry and made it fruitful. They still suffer.

Last year I visited India. I met three beautiful women missionaries. They were graduates of top universities in Korea. They gave their marriages to God and went to India to marry Indian Shepherds and establish missionary homes. The Indian shepherds gave their families to God and they work together to bring the gospel to Indian students. UBF Lay missionaries are scattered all over the world. They all left good jobs, families, friends and their homeland to accept God's calling and participate in world mission. They are all royal priests.

Second, A Holy Nation People

Holy nation people love God. They love others and they love each other. They are different from the people of the world. Holy nation people can't follow the world. They must obey Jesus. What did Jesus command? Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations. Jesus commanded his disciples to love each other. When we try to love each other, The Satan uses every means to stop us. We are not naturally holy. In our hearts are hidden anger, jealousy, hatred. We can't love some people. And if someone doesn't repent, we can't forgive him. But Jesus commanded us to love one another and to forgive one another. He did not mention any excuses or conditions for not doing so.

We must love God and not the world, so we struggle to defeat these sinful desires in our hearts. Sometimes we fail. It is easy to become discouraged, to give in--and give up. If we are determined to struggle in our own strength, we will surely fail. This failure is the fruit of pride--"I want to do it myself." But we cannot struggle with our own strength and win. We must struggle by faith. We must have Jesus' help. So we must pray. We must read the Bible, study the Bible, think about the passage so that we may fight our spiritual battle with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. Jesus took our burden of sin. He died to make us holy. By his mercy, he clothes us in his holiness and forgives our sins. He pulls out of our hearts the roots of anger and hatred. He makes it possible for us to forgive.

We should forgive others even if they don't repent. We should love others even if they hate us. This is what Jesus did. By God's grace alone we became a holy nation people. We can love God and love one another. We can know God's heart for the world. We do not live for our own happiness. We live for the glory of God. Then, real happiness follows. We become Holy Nation People.

It is absolutely necessary that we become a Holy Nation People. After visiting Kazakastan, I was curious about the Ugar people. So I asked M. Grace Kang about them. I was surprised by her answer. The Ugar people were once all Nestorian Christians. The word, "Ugar" means "Christian." But they all became Muslims.

When I thought about why this had happened, I realized that the Christians of the 6th and 7th Centuries did not love each other. They were busy hating each other, looking for heresy, playing politics, burning heretics at the stake. They did not obey Jesus command to love one another.

This past January I visited Jerusalem. From the 4th Century to the 12th century Jerusalem was a Christian city. But in the 12th century the Muslim General, Saladin, conquered Jerusalem. He did so easily because the various Christian factions were fighting one another.

We must not only obey Jesus' command to make disciples of all nations. We must also obey his command to love our enemies, to love our neighbors and, most of all, to love one another.

God chose his people to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation so that they could penetrate the darkest places of men's hearts and the darkest places of the world, with the wonderful, life-giving light and life of God. Let us hear God's call. Let us be a holy nation people. Let us pray for our missionaries, living stones and a royal priesthood. May God call all of us to join them in the task of world mission. May God continue work in the hearts of Muslim people through our missionaries. May he open the heart of General Kim Joung Il of North Korea so that he will open the doors of Kim Il Sung University to allow the gospel to be preached there. This is the 100 year anniversary of the great revival in Korea. May God again pour out his Spirit on the church of Korea. May God bless the Korean church to send out many missionaries. May UBF around the world send out 100,000 missionaries by the year 2041. May God make us a kingdom of priests.

May He help us be a holy nation people.

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."