1 Peter 2:4-10
Built on the Living Stone

Peter's doing at least two things here:

1) He's moving from the individual to the corporate. Previously he has emphasized who you (singular) are in Jesus Christ. Now he will emphasize who you (plural) are. This he does by switching images from the individualistic picture of a newborn babe yammering for milk to the corporate picture of a single house built of all who believe in Christ.

2) He's also closing up the first part of his letter, the description of your new identity in Christ and is preparing for the second part, an answer to the question of how Christians should live in society. In preparation for that, Peter begins to draw a sharp contrast between the identity of the believer and that of other members of society.

And these two things go together to encourage you to a sanctified but genuine Us vs. Them mentality.

A. You have come to a rejected stone

  1. Coming to Him
    1. Peter introduces an almost ceremonial element to the language
      1. This word "coming" is used frequently to speak of approaching God.
      2. The people "drew near" to celebrate the passover (Ex 12.48)
      3. And Moses "approached" God on the mountain (Dt. 5.23)
    2. And he introduces a repetitive element as well
      1. "As you keep coming to him"
      2. He has already told you what happened when you first came — you were born again.
      3. And he has begun you on a journey to growth, urging you to desire the milk of the word as newborn babes
      4. This reestablishes his point that you grow by going back to the same source that begot you again.
    3. Taken together, we've moved from baptism to the Lord's Supper
      1. Baptism is like a rebirth, an initial cleansing act of God (referred to in 1.22)
      2. The Lord's Supper is a continued feeding on Christ.
    4. Peter wants those of you who have tasted that the Lord is good to keep coming back to that inexhaustible source.
    5. You come to him as to a living stone
      1. a paradox since Scripture constantly refers to stones as dead
        • The OT refers to gods of wood and stone in contrast to the living God
        • And Peter himself has referred to the fact that we weren't redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold (1.18)
      2. But Jesus is the opposite of a natural stone
        • He has life
        • and he gives life
        • So keep coming to him for that life
    6. This is all you need to know for now; but this thought will come into play again in point C.
    7. But Peter wants you to know a second thing about this living stone with whom you identify
  2. Who has been rejected by men
    1. When Paul speaks of this fact, he specifically targets the Jews as those who rejected Christ.
    2. Peter's purpose is broader. He wishes to implicate all men (with the notable exception of the church) as rejecters of Christ.
    3. He wants to draw a stark contrast between the people of this world on the one hand and God and those whom God has chosen in Christ on the other hand.
    4. Here he also begins to hint at what his letter is leading up to—that if the world has rejected Christ it must necessarily reject us. Thus the church is to be characterized by patient endurance in all kinds of suffering. But we won't get to that until the third portion of 1 Peter.

B. But this Stone is chosen by God and precious

  1. Notice the contrast between the way the world views Christ and the way God does
    1. They reject him, but God loves him
    2. you cannot be both a friend of Christ and a friend of the world
  2. The only thing that really matters is what God thinks, and in God's eyes he is choice and precious.
  3. Therefore, if you wish to be chosen and precious, you can do so only through Christ Jesus. (We'll come back to this point both negatively and positively.)

C. You are being built on Him into a spiritual house

  1. You also are living stones
    1. Because of your relationship to the one living stone
    2. You draw your life from him
  2. Thus you are not being made into a dead building but a spiritual house.
    1. When the people of God were discouraged that the 2nd temple wasn't as glorious as the first, God replied "The glory of this house will be greater at the last than at the first."
    2. YOU are that house.
    3. And Solomon never saw anything so glorious.
    4. God didn't plan just a bigger, better, more costly rendition of a dead temple. What good is a temple to the Lord of heaven and earth?
    5. But he planned a house of living stones who will worship him in spirit and in truth
    6. So you are at once the building materials of that house and...
  3. A holy priesthood
    1. Just as God said (and Peter will quote in v. 9) his people are to be a royal priesthood
      1. That is, they are all to be engaged in offering up worship and sacrifice to God.
      2. Yet that was never realized in the OT.
        • Many lived far from the temple and got to it once a year if that
        • And when they got there, they sent the High Priest into the most holy place to make sacrifice for them and to worship God on their behalf.
        • But God has provided something better for you who no longer have a physical temple in a far off land.
      3. It is not merely the minister who serves God on your behalf in this temple
      4. But YOU are invited each Lord's Day to come and serve and worship the Lord as well.
  4. And if the house is spiritual, so are your sacrifices
    1. Peter reuses the word so there will be no mistake
    2. Just as physical stones are of no value to God (but you are precious)
    3. Here is the center of the text—your purpose in life. All these glorious truths about Christ and about you are being told to you so you will know this—why God made you what he made you.
    4. So the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin and thank offerings of grain are of no value to the one who owns all.
    5. But the sacrifices of God are
      1. a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Ps 51)
      2. Your lives and bodies as living sacrifices to God that he may use you as he will (Rom 12.1)
      3. the praise of his people (Hebrews 13.15)
      4. Doing good to others and sharing with those in need (Heb 13.16)
      5. In this context, the gifts of the people which Paul called "a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. (Php 4.18)
      6. Your faith "the sacrifice and offering of your faith" (Php 2.17)
    6. But how can we hope to offer to God what is pleasing to him? Our righteousness is as filthy rags. An offering is nothing if God does not accept it (as Cain discovered to his dismay when Abel offered a sacrifice in faith and he in pride.)
    7. All these things are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ
      1. Even the things we offer to God come to us from him in his gift of Jesus Christ
      2. And we are glad for that. For God has caused us to love him and to desire to give him pleasing gifts.
      3. Do not fear but come and worship; Christ has made you acceptable!
    8. So the only acceptable offering is made in a temple that is founded upon Christ alone.

C'. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of that house

  1. And this, of course, is a spiritual Zion, not the earthly mountain but a heavenly Jerusalem
  2. God has laid the foundation of that house—Jesus Christ
  3. Remember the ancient saying "Get the cornerstone right and the rest of the building will be right."
    1. God has laid down the only possible right cornerstone
    2. And our temple worship will be right only as it's founded on him
  4. And we ourselves will be acceptable to God if only we don't try to build on our own but rather are built upon Christ.

B'. And He is chosen by and precious to God

  1. Again, the statement of God's love for Christ comes that you should know the only way to obtain that love is by attaching yourself to the one who is choice and precious to God.
  2. This is how Paul can say you are chosen "in Christ" in Ephesians 1
    1. God in a sense only chose one man in all of history
    2. For only one man was pleasing in his sight
    3. Only one man could in justice receive the invitation, "Come up to me and enter my rest."
    4. So our relation to Christ is of fundamental importance.
      1. If God chose him and only him
      2. Then we must be built upon him, get in on his ticket or not at all.
  3. Our sacrifices are acceptable because Christ is precious
  4. And therefore you will never be put to shame
    1. To be "put to shame" in Biblical language = being shown publicly to have trusted in that which cannot save.
    2. This is why the psalmists constantly cry out that if their enemies triumph over them they'll be put to shame. (Because God promised deliverance from enemies)
    3. This is how Paul can assert in Php 1 that even death won't put him to shame
    4. What it means to you is that their isn't the remotest chance that your enemies (the world, the flesh, and the devil) will prove more powerful than God.
      1. They will not overcome you in this life as you trust in Christ
      2. They will have nothing to accuse you of at his judgment seat
      3. Even if you constantly suffer for Christ in this life, this is not a sign that God has rejected you.
    5. Because God has chosen and loved Christ, you cannot be put to shame.
      1. If you trust in Christ
      2. God cannot reject Christ without rejecting you
      3. And Christ is chosen and precious.
    6. Therefore honor, the opposite of shame will come to you
      1. bad translation of v.7 as He is precious (note italics)
      2. It's actually saying "to you who believe, there will be honor, but to the disobedient....[the opposite]" THEY will be put to shame.

A'. But he has been rejected by men to their destruction

  1. The world rejects Christ because they are "disobedient"
    1. word may also be translated "unbelieving."
      1. Rahab by faith didn't perish with "disobedient" (Heb 11.31)
      2. Peter speaks of those who don't "obey" the gospel (4.17)
    2. They would rather believe in false gods who leave them with a shred of dignity, something THEY can do.
  2. So they reject Christ, but he's the only cornerstone. They only show in town. There is no other way of offering acceptable worship to God.
  3. Yet they stumble at the nature of the gospel
    1. It is the "offense" (same word as in rock of offence) of the cross (Ga 5.11) which Paul identifies as the idea that we should live by faith in Christ rather than by our own efforts (If I preach circumcision why am I still persecuted)
    2. Rom 9.32 "but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 32Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone." And then he quotes the same passage from Isaiah
  4. Evangelical appeal to those who stumble
  5. Encouragement to those who don't
    1. Beware of how your flesh stumbles at this
    2. Come again and again to Christ and feed upon him
    3. Don't be fooled by what the world does; you can't be a friend of those who reject Christ and of God as well.

The past sermons encouraged you to go around looking at the world thinking "these things are passing away, but I will remain."

This sermon encourages you not to look at things but people. And you are constantly to remind yourself this person is either a believer or not. That is the fundamental, really the only, thing.

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