"You are a Living Stone!"

   (Excerpt) Sunday, January 22, 2012

Key:  To grow together and be built up into the "spiritual house" as GOD intended. 

Introduction:

Last time, we talked about 1 Peter chapter 1 and we learned about the "living hope" we have in Christ!  Today's Word will be from 1 Peter chapter 2. 

For a quick background, the New Testament uses a number of different descriptive images about the Church:

a)   As a Family - into which we are born again with GOD as our Father and many brothers and sisters in the faith.

b)   As a Kingdom - wherein we are citizens, with Jesus Christ ruling as our King, to whom we have an obligation to be completely submissive.

c)   As a Body - emphasizing both unity and diversity, each of us performing different roles with Jesus Christ as our Head.

Now, I want to share with you about the church as a 'Building.'  Not the physical building that surrounds us here which is composed of wood and stone, but the building of GOD ... the church of our LORD that is composed of “living stones.”

Main Message

Please open  your Bible and turn to:

1 Peter 2

⁴ As you come to Him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him— ⁵ 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.

Let us start looking into these verses in detail ... here's the first point:

I. We Are GOD’s building (‘spiritual house’)

We are viewed by GOD as "living stones... being built up into a spiritual house"

This phrase is very important -- “As you come to Him,”   It means ‘drawing near’ to Him by faith continually, present tense and not just having come once for all at conversion.  As mentioned in: 

Hebrews 10:22 “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

We come to the “Living Stone” with a sincere heart who is no other than Jesus Christ having life in Himself from the beginning, and as raised from the dead to live forevermore:

Revelation 1:18 “I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

He’s the same Stone mentioned during the time of Moses in 

Exodus 17:6 “I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.”

And confirmed to us by Apostle Paul:

1 Corinthians 10:1-4 “¹ For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. ² They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. ³ They all ate the same spiritual food ⁴ and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.”

So, that's why we come to Him – not only because we love Him but to also quench our spiritual thirst and hunger ... for He is our living Bread and living Water!

Even if Jesus was rejected by many yet He is “Precious to Him” (our Father in heaven).  So precious that He gave Him to this world (John 3:16)!

And through Christ “you also, become like living stones.”  How can you become a “living stone”?   Answer:  by the “Blood of the Lamb”

Ephesians 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”

Story:  There’s a story about a king of Sparta in ancient Greece who boasted to a visiting monarch about the mighty walls of Sparta. But the guest looked around and didn’t see any walls, and finally he said to his host, "I’d like to see those walls. Show them to me!" The Spartan ruler pointed with great satisfaction to some disciplined and well-trained troops, part of Sparta’s mighty army, and exclaimed, "There they are! Those are the walls of Sparta!"

Just as each Spartan soldier was viewed by the king as a brick in his mighty wall, so we are viewed by God as "living stones... are being built into spiritual house."

This brings us to our next point:

II. God’s building is continually being built.  (never complete!).

We “are being built into a spiritual house.” He’s been building it for almost 2,000 years now! Every time someone becomes a Christian, every time someone is added to the body of Christ, another stone is set into place!  And together we form His spiritual building.

Each one of us is being built into a spiritual house.  Jesus Christ takes every part, every stone, and knocks off the rough edges, chiseling a piece here, sanding a piece there, smoothing it out, getting it ready, building it in, fitting it into place in his building as he cuts it precisely to fit beautifully with every other part.

Philippians 1:6  “Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

What kind of work?   Answer,  “to be a holy priesthood.”  Holy as in consecrated (set apart) for GOD! 

To be holy also means (reading from the beginning of this chapter):

1 Peter 2:1-3 “¹ Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. ² Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, ³ now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

Now, let's talk more about on priesthood—Christians are both the spiritual temple and the priests of the temple. There are two Greek words for “temple”; hieron (the sacred place), the whole building, including the courts wherein the sacrifice was killed; and naos (the dwelling of God), the inner shrine wherein God peculiarly manifested Himself, and where, in the holiest place, the blood of the slain sacrifice was presented before Him. All believers alike are now the dwelling of God (and are called the “naos,” Greek, not the hieron) and priests unto God.

As His holy priesthood, our main job is “offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.”

There is no better offering to GOD until we have offered ourselves in sacrifice to Him:

Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

Hosea 14:2 Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to Him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.”

There follow afterwards prayers, giving of thanks, in serving and in giving!

Philippians 4:18b “… the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.”

This is very important to remember that our offering of spiritual sacrifices is ONLY “through Jesus Christ.”  No other way BUT through Jesus Christ!  Why?  Because He is now our high priest:

Hebrews 4:14 “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.”

And as a high priest:

Hebrews 2:17 “For this reason He had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people.”

Continuing on the 1 Peter 2 ...

⁶ For in Scripture it says:

   “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.”  ⁷ Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” ⁸ and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.”They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.”

III.  GOD’s building has the precious Cornerstone.

Any wise builder will always have blueprint before building. ‘I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone’

In the Old Testament, when the Jews built the tabernacle in the wilderness, God gave them very explicit instructions. The book of Exodus tells in great detail about how the tabernacle was to be so long and so wide and so high. It was to have a certain number of wooden poles laid out in a particular way. It was to have a certain number of curtains made out of a certain type of material. Everything was very detailed, and the Jews knew that they were to build that place of worship just the way God told them to.

The foundation is the most important part of any building. Christ is the chief cornerstone!  The chief cornerstone is the most important Stone in any building.

1 Corinthians 3:10-11 “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

“Now to you who believe, this stone is precious.”

How precious is Christ to you?  Beware of anything that competes with your devotion to Jesus Christ. Here in US I feel that the greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is ‘comfort.’ It is always easier to relax than to pour out our lives completely for Him. The goal of the call of God is for His glory, not simply that we should do something for ourselves.

Galatians 6:7-8 “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

“A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” 

Peter quoted this from …

Isaiah 8:14 “He will be a holy place; for both Israel and Judah He will be a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem He will be a trap and a snare.”

One author said, “Not merely they stumbled, but their stumbling implies the judicial punishment for their rejection of the Messiah;"  they hurt themselves in stumbling over the cornerstone, as “stumble” means in …

Jeremiah 13:16 “Give glory to the LORD your God before He brings the darkness,
before your feet stumble on the darkening hills. You hope for light, but He will turn it to utter darkness and change it to deep gloom.”

Let me conclude on the next verses of 1 Peter 2 ...

 ⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

IV.  GOD’s building has this important purpose.

It’s important that we don’t forget the purpose for which we’ve been built for!

Story:  The Taj Mahal is regarded as one of the most beautiful buildings in all the world. What you may not know is how the building of that structure came about. It was begun after the death of the wife of emperor Shah Jahan. He was devastated at her death and resolved to honor her by constructing a temple that would serve as her tomb. Her coffin was placed in the center of a large parcel of land, and construction of the temple began around it. No expense would be spared to make her final resting place magnificent.

But as the weeks turned into months, the Shah’s grief over his wife’s death turned into a passion for the building project. He no longer mourned her absence. The construction consumed him. One day, while walking from one side of the construction site to the other, his leg bumped against a wooden box. The prince brushed the dust off his leg and ordered the worker to throw the box out.  What Shah Jahan didn’t know is that he had ordered the disposal of the wooden coffin of his late wife. And so the one the temple was intended to honor was no longer there …

There is the same danger with the “living stones”. If we’re not careful, we can forget the purpose for which we are being built. We can become so consumed with the building process, that we forget the One in whose honor the building is intended.  Through Christ we are “living stones” … (else may turn into dying stones)!

That important purpose is “that you may declare the praises of Him.”  The apostle Peter calls us back to our purpose, to proclaim the praises of Him who called us. The verb translated “declare” means “to tell, to proclaim, to show forth, to advertise.” We live in a world of darkness, a world that doesn’t want GOD! It is our responsibility to “proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

• We don’t exist so that people can say, “What a great building this is.”

• We don’t even exist so that people can say, “What a great bunch of people this is.”

• We exist so that people can look at us and say, “What a great GOD we serve!”

Let this video clip remind us again of our goal ...