God’s Construction Project, Part 2

Peter, if you prefer the passages there
in its entirety, even beyond what would be considering this
morning and place there in your bulletin for notes. I’m going to do just the briefest
of review in order to kind of jump into the flow of the stream
of this passage. As if you were with us last week,
you will recall that we were looking at the great building
project of God. It’s God’s building project,
and it is the church, none other than the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is his ongoing building
project, and it will not be culminated until Christ’s return. If you will, I want to go back
and look at this passage in its entirety, and then we’ll come
back in and pick up just a few notes and then press on to new
territory. Look at verse four with me, if
you would. Where Peter writes and coming to him as to a living
stone rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of
God, you also as living stones are being built up. as a spiritual
house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained
in Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a choice
stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in him shall
not be disappointed. This precious value, then, is
for you who believe, but for those who disbelieve, The stone
which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone
and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. For they stumble
because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom
they were also appointed. But you are a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. that you may proclaim the excellencies
of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous
light. For you were once not a people,
but now you are the people of God. You had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy. Chapter one was all about salvation,
remember? At the end of chapter one, Peter
begins to exhort those saints who have received salvation to
a proper response. And at the end of chapter one,
we basically see that we are derelict of duties. We’re not able to fulfill all
of those obligations, certainly not on our own power, but even
with God’s grace, we stumble. And so, Peter there in chapter
2, beginning in verse 1 through 3, he tells us the source of
our growth. He acknowledges that we need
to grow. He knows that we need to grow. And he points us to
God’s Word. That’s the means of growth. Go
to God’s Word. Let it inform you. Let it nourish
you. Let it encourage you. Let it
strengthen you for growth and grace. And speaking of that,
Peter, by way of great encouragement, takes them to this passage and
he takes them to this great analogy from old, from the Old Testament
even, that there is this great building project going on. Only
Peter takes it beyond that and he tells us that we are part
of it. It’s a great, great passage. First of all, we saw the foundation
of the structure, which is none other than Jesus Christ. And
we will see this again and again and again in this section, all
the way through verse 10. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone. Jesus Christ is the foundation.
Look at verse four, coming to him as to a living stone. He is the living stone. This
idea, as we saw last week, coming, is not just a one-time coming.
It’s not talking about that moment of repentance when you first
closed with Christ. When you first heard the Gospel
and heard of Christ, it’s not talking about that coming. This
is a perpetual coming. It’s a lifelong coming. It is
a coming that does not go away. It is a drawing near to Christ.
that will not let go. And it is a coming to one who
is called the living stone. The life-giving stone. The one who has life in himself
and by virtue of the fact that we come to him, he gives us life. This life-giving stone, as Peter
refers to him, was not universally received.
It’s an amazing thing that this rock of our salvation, the one
who has our best interest at heart, who loves our souls even
more than we love them ourselves, was not well received, not universally
anyway. Peter points out that he was
rejected of men, not all men, not all people, but he was rejected. Certainly at the hands of the
nation, which was at the apple of God’s eye. He came to them and they did
not receive him, remember? John Rogers, the great Puritan,
said of him, disallowed he was indeed of men. They called him
the carpenter’s son, a Samaritan, a winebibber, a deceiver. They
would have no other king but Caesar, which was hypocrisy,
wasn’t it? They didn’t want Caesar as the
king. But they certainly didn’t want Christ. With them, Barabbas
was more welcome to live than he. And what was the cause? They
looked for one that should come as an earthly prince. They wanted
a bold, well-built, strong, handsome king. One that was going to come
in and take over politically. Isaiah 53 says that wasn’t Christ. It wasn’t Christ. And so they
rejected Him. His kingdom was not of this world,
John Rogers says, and they looked for one that would have upheld
their customs and tolerated their little laws and their little
traditions. But they rejected him because
he wouldn’t. First of all, it was out of ignorance,
but ultimately it was against the light that they rejected
him and they rejected him outright. And so there are those that come
to Christ The living stone, there are those that have rejected
Christ, the living stone. And what does God think of him?
Peter tells us choice and precious in the sight of God, handpicked,
precious as one being the very one that God sent. Many people are turned off, aren’t
they, by the fact that Christianity isn’t more popular, not God. God wasn’t turned aside because
Christ wasn’t universally received by people. God wasn’t running
a popularity contest. God didn’t care that the poll
numbers didn’t show strong for Christ. He was choice and precious
in the eyes of God, nothing more precious to God than Christ.
We looked at the foundation of the structure, Jesus Christ,
we look at the materials of the structure, other living stones. Just like Christ, but not quite.
Christ is superlative in that sense, but he calls us to living
stones. You also as living stones are
being built up. And the image that he has is
this brick structure. Christ being a cornerstone upon
which lie all the other stones, you and I and all the saints
of history. He calls us living stones. The
word inherently is different than the word for a rock that
just lies in the field. This was a stone that was a carved
stone, a precious and well-hewn stone. And he says that God’s
mark is upon each one of us in saying that. That we are carved
stones for the purpose of fitting into this great wall of God,
this great building project that God has undertaken in the church.
You’re part of it. You’re part of that great building
project that God has begun. We looked at Ephesians four last
week. We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head,
even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together
by that which every joint supplies. Every single one of us is intricate. And intricately related to the
building project of God, this church, and not when I say that,
not this church being Providence Bible Church, I’m talking about
the church of God, the worldwide invisible project that God has
undertaken to build in our day. The foundation of the structure,
Jesus Christ, the materials for the structure, living stones,
you and I, believers in Christ, the purpose of the structure,
a spiritual house. This has no common use. It isn’t
a home for God to dwell in necessarily. It is a religious one. It is
the church. In the Old Testament economy,
we often saw God’s temple as representing his presence and
God did dwell there. And oftentimes it was called
God’s house, his house. This house is a house not made
with hands, and again, we go outside of Scripture to Paul.
Paul had the same illustration. Listen to Ephesians 2. So then
you are no longer aliens and strangers, but you are fellow
citizens with the saints and are of God’s household. You’re not guests in it. You
are of God’s household. You are part and parcel with
God’s building. Having been built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together
is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are
also being built together from a dwelling of God in the spirit.
It is a spiritual building. God is doing the building and
he’s using you and I as part of that project. Now, and this
is if you want to get really literal and sticky about this
whole illustration, this is where it begins, if you will, to break
down. It’s not that the illustration
is imperfect, but there are a multitude of images here, because not only
are we the spiritual house being built by God, but we are also
the occupants of it. We are the servants of this building
so that somehow in God’s mind, we function not only as part
of the structure itself, But we are the priestly occupants
of it. Look at verse five again, you
also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house
for a holy priesthood. He doesn’t have anybody else
in mind. It’s not like we as living stones are going to be
built as blocks into this wall and he’s going to invite a superior
people A more gifted race, a more special
crowd to come in and to perform these high, holy functions. It’s
not at all what he says. It’s a dual illustration. And
in that sense, if you press it too literally, you’re going to
get yourself confused. Keep it simple. It’s a spiritual
house. And in that spiritual house,
we function as a holy priesthood. Now, let’s pause. Because last
week we didn’t go in. This is all new from this point
forward. We just skirted across the idea of the priesthood last
week. So let’s take some time and let’s
look at what this priesthood business is about. The idea of
the priesthood was predicated upon the law and upon the fact
that we are sinners. The priest was a mediator between
God and man. Fallen man who is sinful had
no right to approach a holy God. No real desire in his heart and
no ability to go before a holy God. In fact, his tendency was
to flee from God, to avoid God because he was at war with God,
so says the Scriptures. And he needed a representative. The representative was the priest.
It was the universal sinfulness of humanity that necessitated
the priesthood and it came about and it they both both of these
things grew up together. The law and the priesthood. The sacrificing the priesthood
that sacrificed essentially affected or symbolized better the means
of affecting the reconciliation between sinful man and a holy
God. The priest would go in, they
would make this offering and it was symbolically accepted.
It was temporary as we saw. But the function of the priesthood
essentially was a mediatorial function. He went in on behalf
of the people before God and he went out to the people on
behalf of God. The giving of the law through
Moses and the institution of the Aaronic and Levitical priesthood
were joined together. They were one. One necessitated
the other. The God given law, as Paul says
in Romans, is holy and just and good. It marks out the way of
life. And if all we could do is keep
that way, we would live if we could keep it perfectly. The
problem is, And it’s a severe problem is that man is a sinner.
We’re unable to keep the law. The law shows us what we are,
we are sinners, we are law breakers, and that’s what leads Paul to
say in Romans three that the wages of sin is death. We deserve
death, and that’s why the necessity of a mediatorial office, someone
to go in before this holy God for us to plead with God on our
behalf. And so God concurrently with
the giving of the law instituted the priesthood. So that the priest could go in
and offer up redemption price before God or to God for the
sinners. Who had broken his law and who
needed restoration, and that’s us. We needed the priesthood. And except for Christ, except
for what God had done, we would still need that kind of mediatorial
office. And let me say up front before
anything that I, as a pastor, the elders of the church do not
function as priests for you. We can pray for you, but we don’t
mediate on your behalf. That part has been taken care
of by Christ. This Old Testament priesthood,
think back in your mind’s eye, was from the very start imperfect.
It was meant to point to Christ, not be a substitute for Him.
If they had followed it perfectly, it would have been imperfect. It wasn’t good enough. It couldn’t truly bring about
reconciliation with a holy God, not permanently. The whole character
of it was a preparation for something better to come, as we’ll see.
Think of these imperfections. In the very midst of the activity
of this priesthood, there is a priesthood mentioned in Psalm
110 of the order of Melchizedek, which was spoken of as a better
priesthood. If the existing priesthood was
so great and so grand and so perfect, why then would God’s
word mention a better priesthood? It’s exactly the argument of
Hebrews. The promise of a new covenant
was given. The beginning of that would be the means of placing
God’s law into the hearts of the people and the removal of
their sin forever, so says Jeremiah 31. Secondly, Or thirdly, rather, the multiplicity
of the priests, the sheer number of the priests who year after
year had to cultivate a new high priest and a new priest, a new
priest after that, to where they had this pipeline of little priests
all growing up to one time make the sacrifice once a year. That
pointed to the need for a priest whose priesthood was permanent,
everlasting, perpetual. One who was a priest forever.
Psalm 110. Not only were the priests mortal,
they died year in and year out and constantly needed replacing.
They were sinful. I mean, that’s an imperfection,
isn’t it? On the old priesthood, they were sinful. They themselves
needed a sacrifice before they could even go into the Holy of
Holies. Before they ever went in to offer
sacrifices for the people, they had to offer sacrifices for their
own sins. That called for a better priesthood. The endless repetition of sacrifices,
Hebrews says, called for a better priesthood. Constantly. It was almost like this endless
succession of sacrifices. Because they weren’t once and
for all. They weren’t permanent. They
weren’t perfect sacrifice. One said it this way, had the
perfect sacrifice for all time and all eternity be offered,
they would have ceased to be offered. The very fact that they
continue to offer sins says that those sacrifices weren’t perfect.
They needed something better. Sixthly, the very nature of the
sacrifices, animal sacrifices for people’s sins. The animals that were offered
up continually could never take the place of the image of God
in man. It was an insufficient sacrifice. And so enters the very perfect
sacrifice that God has provided in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he solved every one of those imperfections of the old priesthood.
Jesus Christ is our high priest. The very purpose of the old priesthood
was to teach the people the necessity of atonement for sins requires
the provision of an innocent sacrifice. And in Christ, we
had that a perfect, innocent, spotless sacrifice who took our
place. The perfection of his priesthood
is outlined there in the book of Hebrews. What a great and
glorious testimony of Christ. That he is confirmed by the fact
that he is a priest forever. That the sacrifice that he offered
was once for all, Hebrews 7.27, that the work of the atonement
was finished, it was completed, it was accepted by God by the
very fact that, as in the Ephesians, it says that he sat down. He sat down next to God. God
accepted that sacrifice. It was perfect. The perfection
of his priesthood is mentioned by the establishment of his sinlessness
of his earthly life. Even Herod said, I find no fault
in him. Rather, Pilate, sorry. In going
to the Christ cross, he who was without sin took our sins upon
himself and he suffered the rejection and the death that was really
due for us, as we saw even in our preparation for the Lord’s
table, the just for the unjust. Christ was perfect. And he wasn’t
just our sacrificing priest, it wasn’t that he went in as
the servant to sacrifice and to mediate for the people. He
went in and offered himself. He was not only the sacrificer,
he was the sacrifice. He offered up himself for us. And so when you hear this priesthood,
it’s probably only natural that we recoil because not only are
we not equipped to be as those priests of the Old Testament,
probably not one of us is a Levite by bloodline. None of us have been prepared
in that regard to go before God. None of us is as Christ, the
high priest, the perfect priest. And yet, in what sense are we
called to be priests? We know that there have been
many in Scripture that were rebuked for this very activity. Think
of Saul rather than Samuel. Remember, Saul’s waiting for
Samuel, waiting and tapping his foot and drumming his fingers,
waiting for Samuel to arrive. He waited seven days according
to the appointed time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come
to Gilgal, and the people were People were scattering from him.
Saul’s losing his kingdom. Right. So Saul said, bring the
burnt offering to me and the peace offerings. And he offered
the burnt offering. And as soon as he finished and
that just like God, as soon as he finished right in walks Samuel. Samuel said, what have you done?
And Saul said, because I saw that the people were scattering
for me and you did not come within the appointed days and the Philistines
were assembling at Michmash. Therefore, I said, so he offers
up this lame excuse. It was unacceptable and he lost
his kingdom over it. So how can you and I? How can
you and I think to approach God, a holy God as priests? It didn’t
work for Uzziah, who was a king in 2 Chronicles. 26, it’s one
of my most favorite transitions in all of scripture. Just listen. Moreover, and it talks about
the great things Uzziah did, and you would think that, man,
this guy is just a superb individual, great guy. Moreover, Uzziah prepared
for all the army shields and spears and helmets and body armor
and bows and sling stones in Jerusalem. He made engines of
war invented by skillful men to be on the towers and on the
corners for the purpose of shooting arrows and great stones, these
catapult like features. Hence, his name spread afar and
he was marvelously helped. Until. I mean, you get this. It’s like slamming on the brakes
at 75 miles an hour. His fame spread afar for he was
marvelously helped until he was strong. What happened? The transition, verse 16, but
when he became strong and that is our most frightening moments,
isn’t it, people? It should be. Take heed. Lest you fall. At your strongest
moment, That’s when you should be the most fearful. Because
your heart becomes proud. You become trustful of self.
And you become naive to the temptations that are all around you all the
time. Your best moment, isn’t it? It’s
when you’ve just gotten up off your knees. You know what a wayward
sheep that you are. You know how desperately you
need God’s grace. You know because you’ve just
succumbed to attack. But not Uzziah. When his heart
became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly. And he was unfaithful to the
Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn
incense on the altar of incense. Then Azariah the priest entered
in after him and with him 80 priests of the Lord, valiant
men. They opposed Uzziah the king and said to him, it is not
for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. You’re not a priest. How then
does Peter tell us? And in what sense are we priests?
Because Christ alone now is our high priest. He’s the one and
only priest. He’s already fulfilled that office. He’s already paid
the sacrifice. He’s already satisfied divine
justice. Who are we? Who are we? We are living stones,
Peter says, and we are being built up for a spiritual house,
for a holy priesthood. We come to God as priests because
God tells us to. The statement itself, in a sense,
reminds you of the statement in Exodus when the priesthood
was first laid out. where God declared that Israel
was to be a kingdom of priests. And now, in a very real sense,
He says the church is to be a church of priests, all of whom have
access to God and all of whom come to God and bring Him offerings. Christians have access to God
through Christ. The church is one high priest. We have access to God. Israel,
on the other hand, They could only approach God through the
Levitical priests. Christians can approach God boldly
at any time. God’s word says, isn’t that a
glorious thought? A reminder to us that we’re not
second class citizens in God’s sight. We have the privileged
access to God himself. And we are bidden, commanded
to come and to come boldly to the throne where we can get the
grace that we need to live the lives that God has called us
to live. We’re priests. We’re priests in a very real
way, but it’s new and it’s different. Israel could only approach God
during the different particular offerings. One person outlined, one pastor
outlined six basic characteristics of the Old Testament priesthood
that have a relationship, if you will, a relevance to believers
today, our own priesthood. Number one, God sovereignly chose
the priests, just like he sovereignly chose you and I for salvation.
God cleansed the Old Testament priest before they embarked on
their duties, Leviticus chapter eight. God cleanses you by process
of regeneration, purging you from sin, bestowing upon you
the righteousness of Christ before you ever do anything noble for
God. You don’t come to him with some
list of having been completed deeds and commend yourself to
God at all. You bring nothing. And God takes
nothing. Thirdly, God clothed the priests
for service, a very specific outfit. And in a sense, believers
today are priests that God has clothed with righteousness. Fourth,
it’s a great list. Number four, God, through Moses,
anointed the Levitical priests for service and in a very real
fashion, New Testament or rather New Covenant believers are priests
who have received the divine anointing. God, by virtue of
the fact that you receive the Holy Spirit, has equipped you
and sent you, dispatched you into ministry. You say, well,
I’m not in the ministry. Oh, yes, you are. It may be a
ministry with a small end. Perhaps you’re not paid for it.
Perhaps you don’t have an official title, but every believer who’s
ever come to Christ receives the Holy Spirit and is commissioned
out, anointed for ministry. God prepared the Old Testament
priests for service, God has given you not only his word,
but his spirit, he’s given you other godly examples, he’s given
you two thousand years of church history to build on and he’s
given you a perfect example in Christ. I mean, if you’re not
prepared, man. Sixthly, God called the Old Testament
priest to obedience. We’ll touch more upon that one
in a moment. And the purpose of these priests. It’s not altogether
different. Peter says that it’s akin to
the Old Testament priesthood. There is a different function.
We’re not like them. We don’t have to offer up these animal
sacrifices anymore for sins. We don’t have to come before
God with a rope tied around our ankle, cowering in dread. But
we do offer up sacrifices, but the sacrifices are spiritual.
The primary function of the Old Testament priest was to offer
up animal sacrifices. And because this whole building
is a spiritual building, the whole effort, the priesthood
here is a spiritual priesthood. The sacrifices that we bring
also are spiritual. They’re spiritual. They’re not
literal animal sacrifices. One said that there is no priesthood
without sacrifice, and offering sacrifices was the chief employment
in the Old Testament priests. Now, because the priesthood here
is spoken of as spiritual, therefore, the sacrifices must also be spiritual. All sacrifice is not taken away,
but is changed from the offering of those things formerly used
in spiritual sacrifices. What he says It’s that, look,
we have a priesthood. We come and we offer up ourselves
and we offer up these sacrifices to God as priests of a new and
different order. The sacrifices that we offer
aren’t for sin, because that sacrifice has already been paid
in full. The sacrifices that we bring
are termed spiritual because they relate to worship and praise,
thanks and praise. The gifts that we bring, our
substance, ourselves, our bodies, all of those things. You say, well, what kind of sacrifices
do we bring? For that, you’ll have to come
back. You’re going to have to sit and
fret for a whole week, wondering what it is you bring. I’ll give
you a couple of hints. You know that the sacrifices
are spiritual. It begins with yourself. It begins with all of you, just
as Christ said, heart, soul, mind, strength. It’s everything in you. Jonathan
Edwards said it this way. Christians offer up their own
hearts to God in sacrifice. They dedicate themselves to God. Is that what you could say about
your own life? If your neighbor came and was asked to offer up
a description of you, would he affirm that you are dedicated
to Christ? Dedicated to the Kingdom of Christ? The Christian, Edwards, goes
on and says, the Christian gives himself to God freely as mere
choice. He does it heartily. He desires
to be God’s and to belong to no other. He gives all the faculties
of his soul to God. He gives his heart to God and
it is offered to God as a sacrifice when the heart is broken for
sin. The sacrifice before it can be offered
must be wounded and slain. The heart of a true Christian
is first wounded by a sense of sin, the great evil and danger
of it, and is slain with a godly sorrow and true repentance. Before
you bring anything to God, you must bring that. Before you offer
up any other sacrifice, you must have self first yielded to Christ. Let’s examine our hearts in prayer
and we’ll look with anticipation to next Lord’s Day and we’ll
examine what it is we bring as priests to a holy God. Let’s pray. O Lord God, we’re humbled to
be in your presence. We see that in times past in
the Old Testament economy, those who often usurped this holy role
of coming before you were in some cases struck dead for treating
lightly holy things. Lord, in that sense, we do come
with some trepidation. And yet, Your Word urges us on.
It calls us priests. Lord, we’re humbled by that. We, in many ways, don’t know
what to make of it. We know that You’ve paid for
our sin as our High Priest. We know that You stand as our
mediator between the Holy God and ourselves. Yet, You urge
us on. This passage provokes us. You’ve called us a kingdom of
priests, a nation of priests who come before you and bring
an offering, a sacrifice. God, help us to examine our hearts.
Help us to see whether we’ve truly and fully offered ourselves
up first before we even consider what else we might bring. For an impure sacrifice here
would taint everything else that we bring. But a pure offering
here will bless all that we have to bring from here forward. Examine
our hearts, we pray. Be glorified in it. It’s in Jesus’
name that we ask. Amen. I love you.