God’s Construction Project, Partial Sermon

I don’t think we need it. 1 Peter 1, what was I thinking?
We are blazing through Peter’s epistle. We’re in chapter 2 already.
I can say that tongue in cheek. Trey mocked me this morning when
he saw my outline and said that there’s no way that I can get
through this outline. Well, we’re going to make a good
charging start at it. If you will, I don’t want to
go back to chapter one for review, but just in your mind’s eye,
you know where we’ve been. Chapter one was all about salvation. All of the doctrines of salvation
are in there. All of the great tenets of the
faith are woven in there to chapter one. And as he progresses through
chapter one, Peter essentially presses upon us a response What
is our expected response? How should we respond to the
great salvation that God has given us? At the end of chapter
one, he reminds us that we are the fruit of God’s Word, that
God’s Word being so precious and such a perfect seed planted
in us, we ought to be growing. We ought to be different kinds
of plants, essentially. And the sad lament in each of
our hearts is that we’re not. We’re not what we should be.
We haven’t arrived yet. We have much growing to do. And
in chapter 2, verse 1, Peter gave us the means of growth. He pointed us to the means of
grace, the thing that we most desperately need as new children
in the faith, a spiritual meal. And it’s that particular section
that I want to go back into. And then if I may lead us into
the section, we’ll be considering for the next couple of weeks.
We looked last week or two weeks ago at chapter two, beginning
in verse one, where Peter said, therefore, putting aside all
malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. All that, Peter said, in the
context of his exhortation to fervently love one another from
the heart. That was, if you remember, the
final response that God expects from the life of every Christian.
A fervent brotherly love that is so different, that is so powerful,
that the world can’t help but see it and be affected by it. And if we don’t first put aside
all malice and guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, we
will never feast upon God’s Word, which equips us toward the end
of brotherly love. Peter gave us that image in verse
two of that same chapter, like newborn babes long for the pure
milk of the Word. There is the preparation for
the meal and setting aside some things in our life. But he likens
this meal to a child’s meal, a quivering infant longing for
its mother. And what was the nature of the
meal? Like newborn babes long for the pure milk. It’s God’s
pure Word that we were pointed to. Only God’s Word is going
to equip us. Only God’s Word is going to change
us from the inside out, exhorting us, challenging us. Peter went on to say, like newborn
babes long for the pure milk of the Word that by it you may
grow in respect to salvation. He brings us home. He tells us
why He wants us to dine. He tells us what we’ve got to
do in order to dine. He tells us the purpose of the
food is to make us to grow. Peter is desperately concerned
with how we treat one another. He wants us to serve one another.
And he says the only way that we’re ever going to do that is
if we first grow, have a spiritual meal, nourish ourselves in the
things of God. And he’s not done with his subject
yet. You have this break and you have people who would say
that the break is so substantial here that Peter begins an entirely
new section. I don’t think the subject matter
is all that different. The illustration is different,
but the subject matter is the same, as you’ll see in a moment.
Let me take you to verse four of chapter two. I’m going to
read the entirety, and lest I set you into a panic, we are not
going to try to cover verses 4-10 just today. We’ll do what
we can. Verse 4. 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 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. The context is the same. I believe the exhortation is
even still rooted in fervently love one another from the heart.
Because if you will, and I will make my case as we go, the spiritual
sacrifices that we offer up are primarily the way that we treat
one another. in the way that we respond to
God. In other words, if we are not
righteous and just and fair and kind and loving in our dealings
with one another, no prayer, no worship service is pleasing
to God. The context is the same. And
I’ll make my case as we go. There have been a lot of building
projects throughout history. One of the ones that fascinates
me the most are the pyramids. They still don’t entirely know
exactly how they were constructed. Some of the things required feats
that just seemed to defy what the abilities were in that day
and age. Even the quality of the workmanship,
the cutting of the stones, the moving of the stones. If you
think, the pyramids were constructed about, they say, 7,000 years
ago, and they contain enough stone and mortar to construct
a wall 10 feet high, five feet wide, running from New York to
Los Angeles. The base of the Great Pyramid
is large enough to cover 10 football fields. It is estimated that it took
almost a half a million men 20 years to construct the pyramids,
I think. And as I recall, it’s just one
of the pyramids. But as fascinating as that project
is, I began to wonder what would a building project look like
if God was the superintendent, if God was the architect, if
God was the one managing the project and building the project,
if it was his building, What would that project look like? And I think that’s exactly what
you have laid out here before us. The project is the church
and it is an ongoing project and it is a project that God
himself is superintending. God has designed it. He’s overseeing
it. He’s watching it and he is building
it brick by brick. And as you’ll see in a moment,
you are the bricks. You are the bricks. Go back, if you would, to verse
four with this. You know where I’m headed, you
know what I’m going to do, I’m going to give you the simple
sentence, because Peter just wants us to know that God is
at work. First and foremost, he wants
us to know, don’t give up hope. You have not arrived yet. You
have the word at your disposal and God is at work. God is working. The simple sentence here is that
you also are being built up. God hasn’t gone to sleep. He
hasn’t taken leave of His sentences. He hasn’t given up on this project.
He is at work. He is building and He’s using
you. Which sends us even more zealously
back to God’s Word, doesn’t it? If you knew that you were going
to be a stone in the wall of God’s great building called the
church, doesn’t that drive you with a new enthusiasm back to
His Word in order to be thoroughly and fully prepared for that work,
that great work. That’s Peter’s transition here. He points us to the word, but
he says by way of encouragement, you are being built up. The work
is ongoing. Don’t expect to look about you
and to look for a finished project because it’s not done yet. God
is waiting on that last saint that is going to be, as it were,
placed into the wall and the wall is finished and the building
is done. And when that happens, it’s heaven. God has a building project going
on that is so far beyond anything that man has ever designed or
conceived of. It is the building called the
church. It is a spiritual structure, as we’ll see in a moment. And
what Peter does here is give us five key features of this
incredible structure, this building of God. God’s construction project,
if you will. And I want to look at these one
by one this morning. Five features of this spiritual structure that
we call the church. Look at verse four again, if
you would, and coming to him as to a living stone rejected
by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God. First of
all, the first feature is the foundation of this structure.
Look at the foundation of. The structure that God is building
and the structure is none other than Jesus Christ, he is the
living stone. Coming to Him and that little
word there, the form of the word means to come with the idea of
remaining. It is a continual coming. It
is a coming with no intent to depart. You have come and you’re
not going away. It denotes, if you will, a perpetual,
a lifelong drawing near and no matter how close you are now,
it’s not close enough. And that next year you’ll desire
to be that much closer to Christ and you’ll long for Christ and
grow in Christ. And ever more close you become,
you long for more. Compound verb here, as one said,
conveys more than a mere drawing close to Christ for salvation. We drew near for that first time.
Yes, that’s true. Jesus said, come to me and you
came. That’s true. But the preposition there, it
adds intensity. And what it points to is a drawing
near to Christ in an intimate, abiding, personal fellowship.
He points out that that’s what these believers own. That’s what
you have. You have come to Christ, and
as you’ve come, you find him exactly to be what God has proclaimed
him to be, the perfect, sinless, loving Savior. And you can’t
get enough. The more you have, the more you
taste like salt water, the more you long for Christ. You know
it. It says we come to Him as to a stone. Many times in Scripture, Christ
is spoken of as a stone. Psalm 118, which we’ll refer
to a number of times. The stone which the builders
rejected has become the chief corner stone. Isaiah, rather, 28, 16. Therefore,
thus says the Lord God, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation firmly placed. He who believes in it will not
be disturbed. That prophecy pointed to the
Messiah. It pointed to Christ. Isaiah
8, 14, he should become a sanctuary both to the houses of Israel,
a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over a snare and a
trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. We’ll look at that as well. Repeatedly,
Christ is referred to as the stone in Scripture, but the idea
that Jesus was the stone of Psalm 118 and Isaiah 28, 16 basically
rested on his own testimony. Jesus told them, Jesus told His
disciples, He was that stone. He was that cornerstone. And
here, Peter points to Christ as being the stone. And he uses
an interesting word, not petros, not the stone that Peter was
declared to be, which is as a rock lying in a field, but a lithos,
a cut stone. A perfectly hewn stone. Cut and
finished and perfect. That’s Christ. Years ago, I’ll
tell you the importance of a cornerstone. Years ago, when we first moved
here, I built a shed. It was one of my first construction
projects. And really, I mean, if you stand
back and look at it, it’s a pretty commendable project. Some people
called it the Taj Mahal of sheds. I spent a lot of time on it and
I sunk these posts and I hung a pressure treated floor and
I, because I had access to inexpensive lumber, I coated it with a cedar
siding and I mean it was a fancy looking shed. There was only
one problem, that if you got close, you could see that the
walls weren’t square. And if you know anything about
construction, when the walls aren’t square, everything in
the end ends up off, off kilter. Christ, Peter says, is a perfect
cornerstone, perfect angles, perfect bedrock foundation for
this work project that God is doing. Christ is the foundation. Deuteronomy 32 first proclaimed
of Christ I proclaim in the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness
to our God, the rock. His work is perfect for all his
ways are just a God of faithfulness without just without injustice,
righteous and upright as he the idea of rock or foundation and
and a perfect foundation is rooted in scripture as being ascribed
to God himself. God was Israel’s rock. But when you come to the New
Testament, there’s a there’s a new discovery,
a new lesson open to us about the rock. First Corinthians 10,
14, speaking of the children of Israel, says that they all
drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a
spiritual rock which followed them. And the rock was Christ.
Now, I like you. I go into the Old Testament.
Sometimes you see things that you wonder, is this is this a
type of Christ? Is this pointing to Christ? Is
this an image, a prefigured image of Christ? And I’m always leery
of those things until the New Testament points it out clearly
for us. The rock was Christ. Christ is the rock. Christ is
the cornerstone. And Peter goes on to characterize
him beyond just as that cornerstone, which he looks to that later
verse. But he points to him as the living
stone. It’s an interesting image for
a rock, isn’t it? A living stone as having life
in himself. He has been raised from the dead.
He is alive now, but it goes far beyond just that. What is
this living stone? The stone is living because it’s
personal. Christ is personal. He’s able
to enter into relations and he is a life giving rock. This is a rock unlike anything
ever seen in Scripture before. It’s an interesting word, too,
and interesting the way the New Testament uses it. In the majority
of the cases in the New Testament where the word living is used
as an adjective, it is often used to describe an attribute
of God. Go with me just in your mind’s
eye. John chapter four. Jesus told the woman at the well
about the living water, living water. In John 7, 38, he uses
that image again. He who believes in me, as the
scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living
water. John 6, 51, Jesus said, I am
the living bread which comes down from heaven. Romans 12. Paul there urges us by the mercies
of God, as we read earlier today, to present our bodies a living
and holy sacrifice. And so this life giving rock
affects you and I. And unless he does, we are dead. We have no life outside of Christ. When this word is applied to
people, it basically refers to all that we mean by human vitality. When we say that somebody is
living the power of will, the power of feeling and thought,
the ability to enter into relationships with one another and relationships
with God. But when you apply this to Christ, you have to add the idea of life,
that life giving quality that Christ brings. And that is the
sense that Peter says that Christ is the living stone. The Apostle
Paul has in mind here, not only the fact that he is a living
person, but the fact that he communicates life to you and
I. But if he doesn’t, we perish. Peter says more about this living
stone coming to him as to a living stone. We have come to him. He’s
given his life and we cannot let go. He is Christ our Savior. He is everything to us, but not
to everyone. Some rejected him. The history of Israel points
out that God was repeatedly rejected by his people. And as we open
into the New Testament, Christ just becomes a living illustration
of that rejection. prophesied in Isaiah, who has
believed our message, Isaiah 53, whom is the arm of the Lord
been revealed. He grew up before him like a
tender shoot, like a root out of parched ground. He had no
stately form or majesty that we should look upon him. That’s
what the world wanted. They wanted a beautiful king,
they wanted a handsome king, they wanted a strong, vibrant
king to come in and take over. And in Christ, that’s not what
they had. He had no stately form or majesty that we should look
upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
He was despised and forsaken of men. They rejected Him. No wonder Paul, having now ministered
for a number of years, when he wrote to the Corinthians, he
said that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing. They reject the whole Gospel,
Christ included. They reject it outright. When Jesus healed those, they
attributed His works to the devil. John, at the opening of his gospel,
said of Christ, He was in the world and the world was made
through Him. I mean, get that. This is the
Creator of the world taking on human flesh, coming in out of
His own love and mercy for His creation. The world was made through Him
and the world did not know Him. He came to his own, to his own
people, the Jews and those who were his own did not receive
him. And, you know, we could point
fingers and we know that that primarily refers to the Jews,
the Jewish elite, the leaders who rejected Christ, who had
him crucified and all of their followers. But you know what?
That is true even today of anyone who casts an unloving and unreceptive
eye to Christ. Right down to today. To your
neighbors, to your friends, to your co-workers, anyone who has
rejected Christ. John Rogers, that great Puritan,
penned these words. He said, “…disallowed was he
indeed of men. They called him the carpenter’s
son, a Samaritan, a wine-dibber, a deceiver. They would have no
other king but Caesar. With them, Barabbas was more
welcome to live than he. What was the cause? They looked
for one that should come as an earthly prince to deliver them
out of the hands of the Romans, but his kingdom was not of this
world. They looked for one that should
have upheld their customs and laws and traditions. And they
rejected him first out of ignorance and blindness and afterwards
out of malice. They hated Christ. They rejected
him. Not everyone embraced him as
lovingly as you and I by God’s grace. Peter goes on to expand on this
later and we’ll touch upon it later in the weeks to come. When
he quotes from Isaiah and the Psalms, look at verse seven and
eight, just briefly. This precious value is that it
then is for you who believe in what he points back to is this
whole truth that he unloads here, that we are being built up, he’s
taking us as little individual stones and he’s building us into
a spiritual superstructure for God’s glory. And that precious
value is for us who believe, but for those who disbelieve.
The stone which the builders rejected and the builders were
the Jewish elite, the Pharisees, the scribes, all of those who
in Christ’s day really represented the entire Jewish nation in rejecting