post update

Due to the passing of Pastor Mark's Dad there will be no new message posted this week. The next post will be during the week of July 19, 2020.

Thank You

1 Peter 2:6-8 The Precious but Often Rejected Cornerstone

Introduction:

An old saying goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” The fact of that can be seen in the many antique stores, flea markets, and yard sales so popular in the US; at least they were popular, not sure how they are doing on this side of covid19. Back in March and April the only treasure people were hunting for was toilet paper. Funny how things can change and change quickly. In years past I have shopped in those stores and in the yards of perfect strangers to see what “treasure” I might find at their junk sales. I found a few books of interest and some tools, nothing that I can specifically remember right now. I guess that says something about how much of a treasure it was.

As we build upon last week’s post, moving through 1 Peter 2, we come to the one real Treasure, Jesus Christ, who is the precious Cornerstone and who is rejected by many.

The Precious but Often Rejected Cornerstone

Please begin by reading 1 Peter 2:1-8.

“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.’ Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.”

The Cornerstone: Those who put their trust in Jesus Christ come to Him as the Living Stone. Forgiveness of sin and salvation from the due penalty of death and eternal judgment are only possible through faith in the sacrificial death and burial of Jesus Christ and in His glorious resurrection. Those who believe are then being built together as the Temple of God, giving the spiritual sacrifices of dying to self and living for Christ (see also Romans 12:1-2).

The Spirit then led Peter to quote Isaiah 28:16. In that passage God was rebuking the leaders in Israel for forsaking Him. The priests and prophets were drunk with wine and told lies to the people, tickling their ears so that they believed they were safe and blessed while doing any evil and wickedness their hearts devised. The same verse from Isaiah is also quoted in Romans 9:33 and in that passage the Spirit though Paul says Israel needs salvation thru faith in Jesus Christ alone. Salvation does not come through the Old Testament Law. The Gentiles (that is the rest of us) only find salvation in Jesus also, not in our merit or achievement or anything else. Salvation only comes through God the Son and His name is Jesus. I would encourage you to read Isaiah 26 and Romans 9-10 right now.

Jesus Christ is the Cornerstone of the Temple being built to the Father. Without Jesus, we have nothing! With Him, we have everything! No believer will be disappointed; our faith is not in vain. I’ve been studying Jeremiah lately because God seems to be compelling me to do so. It is fascinating and I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about it in the days ahead, not only from me but from others as well. Jeremiah was only about twenty years old when God called him to begin the ministry of prophecy to the nation of Judah, a job God chose for him before Jeremiah was born. Jeremiah 1:4 says, “Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.’” Because of his faithfulness to God, Jeremiah had a hard life, suffering greatly at the hands of his countrymen whom he cared about very much. Jeremiah was hated and his message from the Lord rejected by those to whom he was sent. Still, Jeremiah was never put to shame; God was faithful to him. When we read that believers will not be put to shame in 1 Peter it doesn’t mean we won’t face hardship or even suffer as a Christian; it means that as His faithful followers we will never be forgotten, forsaken, or abandoned by God. He will give us what we need when we need it according to His perfect will and our future inheritance is reserved in Heaven for us and cannot be diminished in any way.

Therefore, Christ is precious to us, as 1 Peter 2:7 says. In Jesus we are blessed beyond measure. Our men’s small group on Sunday mornings is being amazed once again by Ephesians 1. If you haven’t read it lately, and even if you have, you should read Ephesians 1-2 right now.

God’s blessings are lavished upon us as Ephesians 1 and 2 explain. Don’t miss what it says in Paul’s prayer for believers in Ephesians 1:15-23:

“Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power ²⁰which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

I mention it specifically because of what is then said in Ephesians 2. So look again at Ephesians 1:20 (I left the superscript verse number in the quote above) and compare it with Ephesians 2:4-6,

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Spiritually speaking, believers are now seated in the heavenly places with Christ because we are in Christ. That is your home. We’re physically still here on Earth going through the ups and downs, the good and the bad, but in another sense we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places and we are given the Holy Spirit as guarantee that when we leave here, we will be there.

Because of all this (salvation and eternal security) Christ is priceless to us. But is He really? Is Jesus not just first place in your life, but everyplace in your life? Is Jesus who you live for, or is He nothing more than an afterthought, a Sunday morning duty? In our Sunday morning worship services we are going through Jesus’ messages to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3. In the process, we are doing a Spirit-led church spiritual examination like Jesus did with those seven churches. Five of the seven were rebuked by King Jesus because, while they were busy doing His work, their hearts did not fully belong to Him and as a result they compromised with sin. That is a huge problem in the Church in America. In many ways we have been busy, but our hearts are not His and compromise with sin is clearly evident. “He who has an ear, let him hear!” I would encourage you to read Revelation 1-3 right now.

So, back in 1 Peter 2, the Holy Spirit tells us that for those who believe, Jesus is precious; He is the only One through whom we have forgiveness, reconciliation, peace with God, and eternal unity with God. For those who do not believe, however, the Good News of Jesus Christ is rejected and they not only stumble over this Cornerstone, but they are offended by Him. Again, 1 Peter 2:8 says Jesus is, “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.”

We are surrounded by unbelievers who will reject the Truth and thus reject us. Now if we hide our faith, if we never open our mouths with the loving truth of the Gospel, then we probably don’t know if the people in our families and circle of friends and acquaintances are offended by Jesus or if they know He is priceless. Look, the message of the Gospel is considered offensive to many because it says we are all sinners who have made ourselves enemies of God with our wickedness and sin. We don’t like to hear that; we prefer to believe we are good and that God will accept us on the basis of our goodness. But that is a lie, we are not good. God says, we have all sinned and that no one is righteous (good). Romans 3:10-12 spell it out clearly,

“As it is written: ‘there is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.”

If a person never accepts the forgiveness and reconciliation available through Jesus Christ and Him alone, they will die in their sins and face eternal judgment. Hebrews 9:27-28 says,

“And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”

Thus, the most loving thing we can do is speak the life-giving Gospel of Jesus Christ with those around us. None of us deserve His salvation, but Jesus made it possible through His sacrificial death on our behalf. In Him we have new life now and eternal life in the future. We are His ambassadors who have the duty to speak the message to reconciliation to others (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). If you have come to faith in Christ, you recognize that He is precious. For those who have not come to faith, Jesus is a stumbling block and rock of offence because the Gospel means I’m not good enough to be acceptable to God on my own; that is correct. But in Christ we are accepted because His righteousness is granted to us. Do what you’ve been called to do: tell others about forgiveness and salvation through Jesus. Many will be offended, even as you tell them with love and grace. Some, however, will understand and believe; a few will confess and repent of their sin and give their lives to Christ and that makes any suffering we may endure worthwhile.

Conclusion:

By coming to Christ, you are being built up as a spiritual Temple and a holy priesthood, for the purpose of offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God thru Jesus Christ. You know that you need Christ for the forgiveness of sin through His death for you, but do you know God’s will for your life right now? It is for you to draw ever nearer to Christ who is The Living Stone and to spread word of Truth: that salvation is in Jesus alone.

1 Peter 2:4-5 Living Stones

Introduction:

What great salvation has come to us who trust in Jesus, the Son of God. We can do nothing to earn that salvation. It makes absolutely no difference how “good” we are, no one is perfect, everyone sins, and therefore we all deserve eternal punishment. But God in His great mercy offers salvation from our sin and it’s punishment through the Blood of His Son Jesus Christ. 

But that is not the end, is it? No, that is just the beginning. Once we are saved we are then responsible to God for how we live. As we saw a few verses ago we need to live the remainder of this life in the fear of God. God loves us, and He loves us enough to make sure we don’t go on living the same sinful and destructive ways we did before we came to faith in Christ.

We are also supposed to love the brethren with a sacrificial kind of love like Christ has for His church. We are to put away the sinful habits and ways that cause us to hurt or neglect one another. We are to desire the Word of God like a baby desires milk. Today we will see some things about our position and function as part of His Church, the Body of Christ.

Living Stones

Please begin by reading 1 Peter 1:22 – 2:5.

The Living Stone: Having just told his readers, who were Christians, to put away all worldliness and to desire the Word of God, Peter now indicates that doing those things contributes “to our coming to Christ” who is The Living Stone (2:4). Again, The Spirit through Peter is talking to Christians here; we established that in 1:1-2 and throughout this letter. So as a believer in Christ putting away malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking, and desiring the Word of God so that you can mature in your faith are all part of the post-salvation process of “coming to Him” or “drawing near to Him.”

Let’s consider God telling His people to draw near in the Old Testament. Let’s begin with some context. God brings Israel out of Egypt under Moses. Israel enters into a covenant with God at Mount Sinai “I will be your God and you will be My people” (Exodus 24). Israel breaks that covenant by worshiping a golden calf that they made (Exodus 32). The covenant is renewed after they were disciplined (Exodus 34). They were then given instructions on how to approach their Holy and Almighty God who dwelt among them at the Tabernacle (Leviticus). They approached God through priests (Leviticus 8-10). The assembly (nation) lived all around the Tabernacle where God uniquely dwelt (Leviticus 9:5). Aaron, the High Priest, went to the alter (Leviticus 9:8). “Coming to or drawing near to” the Tabernacle in Leviticus 9:5 and 8 is the same Greek word translated as “coming to” Christ in 1 Peter 2:4; that is the Greek work in the Septuagint (LXX) which is the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament that Jesus often quoted. Israel in the Old Testament entered into the covenant at Mt Sinai, but that did not guarantee their “coming near” to Him. Christians in New Testament are saved by grace through faith in Christ, but that doesn’t guarantee “coming near;” it’s a huge step, the first and a vital step, but it’s just the beginning.

The Spirit refers to Jesus as The Living Stone. It is taken from Psalm 118:22-23, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.” It is also from Isaiah 28:16, “Therefore, thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not act hastily.’” Jesus is the first stone laid in the Spiritual Temple that is the Church, the Body of Christ. The entire “building” is centered upon and built upon Him. He is the Living Cornerstone. Christ the Living Stone was examined and refused by men (1 Peter 2:4b). The word “rejected” here means “an examination and declaration of unworthiness.” Those who reject Christ consider Him unfit, unworthy of their trust. They are either indifferent or defiant; either way they reject Him. As a believer in Christ, you can expect to be rejected by those same people as well. The reality is that Christ was chosen by God and of immeasurable value (1 Peter 2:4c). This shows the vast chasm between God’s view of Christ and man’s. Man rejects Christ, but God honors and glorifies Christ. That God had “chosen” Christ is an interesting way of saying it since Jesus has always existed with the Father. This “chosen” is the same word used in 1 Peter 1:2 concerning our being chosen by God. It simply means that Jesus Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world to be the Saviour of the world. This is reflected in the high Christological passages of Colossians 1:19-23, Philippians 2:5-11, and Hebrews 1:1-4, 3:1-6. I encourage you to read those passages often.

Now let’s move onto the other living stones.

The Living Stones: The Spirit continues His statement in 1 Peter 2:5 to believers about “coming to Christ.” That like Christ, we too are living stones being built together into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God thru Jesus. Look at the Temple imagery in this verse including stones, spiritual house, priesthood, and sacrifices. All who trust in Christ for salvation become part of that Temple, being built into a spiritual house and priesthood. God is building this spiritual Temple, starting with Christ and including all who believe. The Old Testament Tabernacle/Temple is where God dwelt among His people. The New Testament Temple is the Body of Christ made up of us and it is where God dwells among us. He is building a holy priesthood; we are all priests, we all have access and we all need to take those priestly responsibilities seriously.  We, the Temple of God, are His dwelling place and we have access to Him for the purpose of offering spiritual sacrifices.

“Coming to” or “drawing near to” Jesus Christ, the Living Stone continues beyond salvation. In Leviticus God told Israel how to draw near; through bringing sacrifices to the Tabernacle and later the Temple. The sacrifices we offer include our very lives (Romans 12:1-2), loving each other (Ephesians 5:2), ministering to each other (Philippians 2:17 and 4:18), and praising God with the fruit of our lips (Hebrews 13:15) for example.

Conclusion:

Ok, so put these verses together…

By coming to Christ, you are being built up as a spiritual Temple and a holy priesthood, for the purpose of offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God thru Jesus Christ. Coming near to Christ begins with putting off all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, evil speaking (2:1), desiring the Word as a baby desires milk so that you can mature (2:2), and coming to Him so that we are built up together as the Temple, as priests, for the purpose of offering spiritual sacrifices thru Jesus Christ to God the Father. If you do not put off the old sins, if you do not feast on the Word of God, you will not mature or positively contribute to the church. I hear many preachers tell people, “you need to be in church anytime the doors are open, you need to get involved in the church, you need to give more money.” The real issue, however, the reason believers struggle is because they do not put off sin, do not desire the Word, and do not draw near to Christ to be His Temple and royal priesthood.

You know that you need Christ for the forgiveness of sin through His death for you, but do you know God’s will for your life right now? It is for you to draw ever nearer to Christ who is The Living Stone.

Grace & Peace,

Pastor Mark