Cornerstone

he came to his own, but they did not receive him.

His own people, to destroy him. We heard earlier, James read from Luke 20, and that picture is the gospel. The father sent his son to his own people, thinking, surely they'll listen to him.

This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.

But they killed him. Acts 4 actually references that cornerstone passage. Jesus is referred to as that cornerstone that's rejected by men. Jesus, the one who came to give life to dead sinners, was rejected by the men he came to save. Now, the contrast of but in the sight of God chosen, we need to see these two things together. But the living stone, in the sight of God, chosen and precious. Now, this is not in any way saying that God looked down on Jesus and said, now that's a good guy. I think I'll make him the cornerstone. No, no, Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, is eternal with the Father. He has existed for all eternity as the perfect Son. The chosenness is that He is the beloved Son in whom we are chosen. You see, I call you elect exiles, that word elect is the same word for chosen here. Why our translators don't use the same English word? We'll take it up with them, I don't know, but it's the same word. He's chosen and you're chosen. He's the elect and you're the elected ones in Christ. It's important there that we see that he has been forever the beloved son of God and the chosen one. to bring salvation, he's precious in God's sight. And that contrast, but rejected. Church, it's important that we see Christ our cornerstone, our forerunner. We follow him. We're chosen and elected in him. There's an assurance. And there's also an assurance that just as he was rejected by men, we'll be rejected by men. that there should be a surprise there, that the cornerstone precious and chosen, we have been beloved, we are loved and elect only in Christ, he is the living stone on which we're being built upon and we're coming to, well, if we're coming to him to live with him and to be like him, we're gonna be rejected like him as well. Jesus, the living stone, chosen and precious. Now it's quite amazing to think about what the gospel means here. The God who created all things with goodness and order. He created us with a righteousness and a wisdom that he gave to us and yet then we rejected and we refused to obey his simple commands, his good commands. And what we've done after rejecting his good commands is we brought our own chaos and disorder. This world is not the way it's supposed to be. Right? We all feel that. Even if you're not a believer this morning, you can feel this world is not the way it's supposed to be. The chaos, the danger, the fear, the suffering. Christian, we need to understand the assurance we have is that we're chosen in Christ. And as we suffer, we suffer for Christ. As he was rejected, we're rejected. So it shouldn't be a surprise. There's actually a great comfort in participating in that. We come to Jesus by faith and build our lives upon him. Now, I want you to see how this is gonna play out for the rest of what we see later in Peter. Christ's example and leadership is supposed to give us a great comfort. In chapter two, verse 21, when masters are cruel and cause suffering, We're supposed to know Christ is our example. In chapter three, verse 18, when you suffer for righteousness sake, as Christ did, you're to rejoice. Chapter four, verse one, Christ suffered, and so arm yourselves in the same way of thinking. Chapter four, verse 13, rejoice if you share in the suffering of Christ. His rejection. is in a strange way, a comfort for those who feel the full pressures of all the rejection as exiles. Now, again, if you're with us and you're a Christian, we're so thankful you're here. If you don't believe in him, I want you to see the wonderful invitation of verse four. You can come to Jesus. Jesus invites all sinners. He came to seek and to save sinners. It is as clear as simply seeing, I see the world around me in the chaos. It's what we call sin and disorder as Christians from God's word. We even can look inside and see that same kind of sin that frustrates us out there is in here. I think every testimony, so hopefully capture that, that as much as we try to change ourselves, we actually can't fix this thing inside. That's when we call out to God, who says, I've come to become like you in every way. I've come to die on the cross so that you can be forgiven for the sin that weighs so heavily on you, the conviction of what you've done against God and to others. I've come so that you can be healed inside, not sin removed, but healing so that we can now have an understanding of what it means to know God and His peace. This is the beauty of coming to Jesus. There's no labyrinth, there's no maze, there's no riddle. There's not some great effort or obstacle course. You see your sin and how helpless you are with that sin. And you see Christ who died to heal you of that sin. And you believe in him. There is no preparation of making yourself better to come to Jesus. The only reason you come to Jesus is that you realize you can't. You can't heal your own heart, but he can forgive you, heal you, and restore you. Believer, you've tasted the Lord is good, so you come to him. The living stone, the new source of life, the new source of renewal, of regeneration. The beauty of the gospel is you come to Jesus, filthy in sin, so that you can put that sin off. Again, you don't come to Jesus after you've cleaned yourself up. No, you come to Jesus so he cleanses you, he washes you. We come to Jesus with the hope that we're learning how to deny ourselves of those sinful temptations. We're learning how to carry our cross, the suffering of being in exile, of suffering, of feeling the rejection. So I follow him. Notice it's, we come to him to be built up, to be changed, to be formed. That's what we just celebrated in baptism. She's come as a sinner to be washed. Just as Jesus risen again, she has a new life now and there's a commitment to walk anew in the way of Christ. We come out of sin to be built up. Christ the living stone is who we believe and we come to him to be built up. This is our second point. Come to Jesus to be built up. Verse five assumes a number of things. One, you've tasted that the Lord is good. Two, chapter two, verse two, You long for that spiritual milk, that spiritual word, that word of the Lord that remains forever, that brings healing and help and forgiveness. It assumes that in chapter one, verse 22, that you're purifying your souls by obedience to the word. It assumes, chapter one, verse 19, that you've been bought by the precious blood of Christ. It assumes you're elect exiles. Elect to exile, strangers in this world, that doesn't mean you're alone. Being an elect to exile is a reference to the church gathered. We'll get into this more next week, but elect to exile, that's God's little heavenly embassies all over this creation. That's God's united believers gathering to be built up together as embassies all over this creation to help other believers be built up in the faith. To invite those who don't know Jesus yet to come to him to be built up in the faith. Verse five. we are to be like living stones who are being built up. The language here is very significant, you yourselves. There's a significant focus on the plural. So it could be y'all fellers or youse guys, right? So however you want to add on to how that would be understood, there's a you altogether. are like living stones. You have no life in yourself. You're like a living stone because the living stone has given you his life. You're being built upon him and his life. You're not a living stone as if you're a rock or an island. You're only a living stone if you're being built up on Christ, dependent upon him, and with other believers, depending on them and being dependable. The word built up is the same word we get edification from. To strengthen, to establish, to train, to teach. We grow up in salvation, that's from chapter two, verse three. Again, that's kind of an organic human picture, but here it's the stones are being built up together to be a spiritual house. Now, this is not gonna build each other up in confidence in yourselves. This is not some kind of David Groggins or Tony Robbins speech, like, just believe in yourself, dig down deeper and do it. No, this is, Jesus is risen. This is an assurance. God's own son purchased you with his blood. This is being built up in confidence that he who promised salvation has accomplished it. The living stone you can trust. The living stone has the power to give life and to heal. Now the funny thing about the word though is it's passive. Who's doing the building? We know if the Lord doesn't build the house, the builder's plot in vain. Or Jesus says,

I will build my church

, Matthew 16. The spirit builds up the spiritual house, very similar language in Ephesians chapter two. Believers are told to build each other up. But it's kind of interesting, that passive, it's God, the God who foreknew you. the Holy Spirit who's sanctified you, the Son who's ransomed you with his own blood. Specifically, I believe that the primary focus of who's doing the building is Jesus, the living stone. It's his power of the resurrection of life that helps us be built up, and that is for us ourselves in maturity and as a church in unity and maturity. The power here is that, well, it's a spiritual house. The Holy Spirit is bringing us together and strengthen us. It's on the living stone alone the Holy Spirit will build us up and strengthen us. Notice it's you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up, being edified, being trained and molded and formed and strengthened. We're being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood. Now, that's just straightforward New Temple language. Old Testament Israel, the temple was a physical building, dead stones, if you will. There was a building where the whole community was built around this religious center where people would bring sacrifices and then priests would go in and present those sacrifices. This was the center of all of what Israel was meant to be as a nation and as a priesthood and as a people. Here, it's a new kind of temple because it doesn't have a building. It's the people who are the temple. It's the people who are in the, who represent the very presence of God and who God is present with. You see, there's the priest and the sacrifice language. You see, the old temple is obsolete because Christ said it is finished and the curtain was torn in two. Now there's a new kind of worship. Peter here is building upon what Christ has done on the cross and there's a new kind of worship and we're supposed to be a new kind of people. Every priest in the old covenant would come before God. And if you're a priest in the temple, there are very specific rules. God was very clear because it's a holy space. And what they'll be terrified of is doing something that will be unacceptable. There's something about that holy space coming before God that made them tremble with great reverence. Something I'm concerned about is in the new covenant with the new change that is not a physical structure, we're the temple, we have love and grace revealed in such a dynamic way. It's almost as if love and grace make us less reverent of the holy God, when it should have the exact opposite effect. Because love and grace bring us closer to see his glory and his holiness. This is supposed to be an incredible passage about how we can go before God, but it cannot lose the reverence. that we have no business before that God in our sin. Thanks be to God who forgave us. Thanks be to God who gave us new life. Thanks be to God who invites us back. Now, we're a church, supposed to be a temple built up to gather on the living stone, but notice we're called to be a holy priesthood. That's new, but not brand new. Right, the Old Testament had a priesthood. But this is a new kind of priesthood. See, the Old Testament Israel, well, there was 12 tribes. Only one of those tribes served as priest. And not everybody in that tribe got to serve as a priest. Only the men, and only some of the men, got to serve as a priest. Notice, who serves as a priest in the New Covenant? Anyone who comes to him. In the old covenant, we would all come and we would have to give our sacrifices over to who was a priest, and that priest would then take them forward. If you're a priest. If you believe in Jesus, you are a holy priest. You've been set aside to function as a priest, someone who now represents God to others and others to God. We're praying for each other, we're caring for each other. There's a high, reverent act of worship assumed here by being called a priest. So one of the many things that's new about the New Covenant, No one is more distant in worship because of a position. All are called to be holy priests because we all get to go to God in the same name of the son who's the right hand of the father. There's something beautiful about this picture that we're priests being built up as a spiritual house. So far, we've seen Jesus as the living stone. We're a spiritual house, a new temple made up of all the living stones, that's other believers. We're a holy priest, that is all of us. And as priests, we come to all draw nearer to God, closer to God. Now, so far, everything we've said is something that happens to us, but now we get to talk about what we do. Look at the end of verse five.

You're being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

A priest serves. A priest isn't some position that you just sit and twiddle your thumbs. A priest is someone who's active. Two key words really define a priest in the Old Testament. They work and they keep. They protect the holy things of God. They go on behalf of others. They teach others. We're all priests. We're supposed to be fully committed to this kind of work. It's a spiritual sacrifice. There's a reasonable way in which we're coming to give to God who has given us his own son. I'm gonna really linger there on that word acceptable. Because as priests, we should all want to make sure we're aware of what's unacceptable and what is acceptable. Just for a moment, let's just praise God that we no longer have to worship with a lot of blood everywhere. Right? There's been a once-for-all sacrifice because Christ died once and for all to take away sin. It's a different kind of worship now because Christ came as the perfect Lamb of God who took away sin from all who believe in him. What is acceptable and what's not acceptable? You could go to Genesis four and see the very first sacrifice. Abel brought first fruits. Cain just bought some. God did not accept Cain's offering. It seems Cain did not think God was worthy of his first fruits. It seemed Cain just kinda came casually, as if this was something to do without reverence. That was unacceptable. We can just go right back to 1 Peter, and we can see really clearly something I think Peter says is unacceptable. Look at chapter two, verse one.

Put away all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander.

On Wednesday night, there's a new series on sins of the tongue, sins of speech. Consider how important our words are. Consider the positive in chapter two. In verse nine, perhaps we'll look at it next week.

But you are a chosen race, a holy priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

this is an acceptable sacrifice,

that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Our words are one of the most significant ways in which we give spiritual sacrifices. How are we using our words? Is it to build up or to tear down? Is it to confess our sin or is it to confess somebody else's sin? AKA slander. Is it to declare a word of forgiveness or to make sure somebody feels how guilty they should be? Church, our words matter. Our words are how we declare the excellencies of he who is glorious and full of grace. Our words are how we make him known to the world, to the heavens, to each other. great His salvation is. It's a real privilege to be able to preach and teach to you, church. I want you to understand what I always hope is happening in this moment, that you be built up edification. Because what I hope you see is a right way to posture yourselves under the Word of God, a reverence for His words. I hope what happens is there's a pace set for the kinds of things we should be saying to one another. God has spoken and I'm hoping to simply help you learn how to better speak the words of God. It isn't just become a sponge, it's to be squeezed out. So the words of God that we all receive together, that we are all under together, that we're setting a pace so that we're all speaking these words together. Let me just say, The words before and after the service, that's some of the most important spiritual offerings you can give. The words where we sang to one another, that was an acceptable spiritual sacrifice. I just want to focus it, there's so many ways we can think about the sacrifice, but the words we use, are we building up? Are we making the excellencies of Christ known? We really, really want to make sure everyone understands our opinions are so important. Here it's, what is an acceptable sacrifice? Notice something else in this passage, in the five.

To offer spiritual sacrifice is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

The only way you can come to God is through Jesus Christ. There is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ. The only way you can be saved is by believing in Jesus, who alone brings salvation. The Father gives you new life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Father grants forgiveness through the death on the cross of Christ. And now we go back to God, because Christ is at the right hand of the Father. And in his name, we can come to God, we can come into the very presence of God and we can worship him as living stones built upon that living stone, him, Jesus Christ, the living stone, giving sacrifices in his name that are acceptable according to him. I really want us to think about this priest language. We are a new kind of temple. If we have believed in Jesus, that's the main focus there of the quote from Isaiah. Those who believe in that stone, that chosen and precious stone, that's where Peter got the language from in verse four. You don't put a shame. There's a way in which we've got to be warned by the Old Testament prophets. There's a way in which we should learn from some serious errors, because some of the priests in the Old Testament were condemned because they robbed God of his glory by rejecting God's instruction. You see this specifically in a number of places, but you can go later and look at Ezekiel 34, where God sees the priest take the sacrifices that the people of Israel were giving to them, trusting them to then give to God in worship. And what those priests were doing was taking it for themselves. And God says, I will demand this of you priests. I will demand this of you. You will suffer a judgment for not taking seriously the holy things of God. Holy priest, that's a warning for all of us. Are we taking all of God's good things, all of things that God has expected of us? Are we robbing God of His glory by being selfish rather than being Christ-honoring? Part of that judgment, Ezekiel 34, is one of the sweetest things. God says, I'm gonna come and I'm gonna demand those priests give an answer and they will be judged. And then he says, I, I will come and I will be your shepherd. I will come and I will lead my people into worship. Well, friends, when Jesus says

I am the good shepherd

, he is saying I have come to lead you into true worship by giving you all that you need. Again, the challenge I want to think about, grace does not take away the holiness of God, and it should not lessen our reverence of God. Grace should help us see all the more how worthy the holy God is of our worship, because he has bought us with the precious blood of Christ. This is the high-calling holy priest of God. Well, the third point begins there halfway through verse seven. Notice from verse 28, Peter says,

so honor is for you who believe.

If you believe in Jesus, you're chosen, and yes, you're rejected by the world, but you are not gonna be put to shame. You will have an honor received from Christ in that final day, but halfway through verse seven, he makes another contrast. He makes a significant turn that then leads through verse eight.

But for those who do not believe, The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.

He's clearly applying verse seven from Isaiah 28. The whole goal is he wants to lift up the weary. Those who feel the full weight of being in exile, maybe there's temptation going on, there's persecution going on, they feel the pressure outside and they need to hear that promise, church. Don't grow weary. You will not be put to shame in the sight of God. You will be honored by Christ with the honor of Christ. It's important that we see here that there's only two ways to live, and it's presented pretty clearly in verse seven. There's either a belief in Jesus, or you don't believe in Jesus. Now, there's different ways you can live out your life after you don't believe in Jesus, but in the word of God, as God has declared, there's only two ways to live. You're either living in Christ, being built upon the living stone, or you're living against Christ, rejecting him, and disbelief. The two Old Testament quotes here are important, and I want to be very clear. God's plan of salvation has been predetermined. We saw this in chapter 1, verse 11. The Holy Spirit was speaking through the Old Testament prophets as to who the Christ would be and when he would suffer. The suffering of Christ was planned. The suffering of Christ was the expectation of the Son of God when he came to be like us. I want us to hold that out there because there's something we're gonna have to wrestle with here. God is sovereign enough over sin that he brought about the suffering expected and planned for his Son without being the cause or responsible for that sin. All right, that's heady, but that's a significant thing. God is sovereign over the sin that brought about the suffering planned and promised for his son. But God cannot be the author of sin because the Lord is good. He's sovereign over it, but he cannot be the author of it because he is good. I give you that category because we gotta really wrestle with this last statement. They, that is those who do not believe and those who reject, they stumble because they disobey His word. So you see there the human responsibility. The stumbling is because they've rejected God's word, they've refused God's word. There is a clear human responsibility into why they are stumbling over the truth of Jesus Christ, who they could put their lives upon or they're gonna stumble and be judged for in destruction. as they were destined to do. That's where it gets a little difficult. We saw back in chapter one, verses one to two, that it's God who elects. There's an initiating, powerful way in which God calls his people to himself, and that's challenging us because we like to embrace this thing we call free will that makes us think we've got some control over our lives. This passage presents something More challenging than even that. But it's important to understand what's happening here. The God who promised his son would suffer, he's sovereign over that suffering, but he's not the author of that suffering. The church has to understand that the suffering and rejecting they are going to go through is under God's sovereignty while not being from God as if he's the author. We have to have a right understanding of evil, of suffering, of wrong. I'm gonna go through a few examples to hopefully give us some categories for this. Again, this is Hattie. Expect lots of fun conversations after the service. Amongst yourselves, not with me. I'm giving you everything I got. We can think of Pharaoh. God warned Pharaoh over and over again, let my people go. And the scripture's very clear. Pharaoh hardened his own heart, his heart was hardened, and the Lord hardened his heart. Pharaoh, the mighty king, the mighty ruler of Egypt, held God's people captive. And let me just tell you what's going on there. God's just toying with him. As a man who's abused his child, Israel, God is toying with him to show Israel, you fear no one but me. I'm the one God who's sovereign. That's the lesson from that. Pharaoh did not have his own choice to do whatever he wanted to do. God was sovereign. He hardened Pharaoh's heart. That at least means he pulled away the grace and gave him over to his own sin. Pharaoh is not some innocent guy here. Pharaoh's the one choosing to commit his own sin. But at the same level, we have to see in that episode, which is so powerful, God is showing the people of God, whoever's attacking you, they're in my hand. The suffering is not for me, if you're suffering for righteousness sake. The suffering is for me and for my glory and there's a reward, but that suffering, it's not something I'm distant from, it's not something I'm away from, it's not something I have no control over. I am with you and I am for you. Fast forward to Jesus himself on trial. Let's even go back one more. I think we're getting past noon, but stay with me. Judas, one of the 12, was with Jesus. Jesus, in his prayer, prayed. He's the son of destruction. It was prophesied. It was told in the Old Testament. He would forsake, he would betray the Messiah for silver coins. It was already planned, but yet Jesus isn't the cause of Judas' betrayal. Judas is responsible for it. But it happened just as God said. There's a wonderful mystery there to embrace by faith, but the comfort there is even those who betrayed his own son, God is sovereign over that kind of rejection to bring about his perfect plan. And then when Jesus goes before Pilate, the governor says, why aren't you talking to me? You know that I have the power to give you. And Jesus says, only because my father gave it to you. Nothing happens outside of God's sovereign power. But that doesn't mean that it all represents his goodness. Because there's evil people who will do evil things. God is sovereign over the things, and there's a wonderful comfort here that those who have stumbled, they're doing it out of their own disobedience, but it's also according to God's own plan. And I want to especially focus on the rulers who are doing this. God has stirred them up sometimes. to bring about his plan. He said the suffering of Christ wasn't plan B, C, D, or E. There's never been any other plan other than God would send his own son to die for us. That has always been the plan. And when we suffer, we have to understand we get to suffer with Christ and for Christ. And we just have to trust that is the plan. If you wanna wrestle more with this God's sovereignty and human responsibility, look no further than the very first Christian sermon ever preached, Acts 2.23.

This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

That's worthy of some meditation. Let's pull back. The question isn't am I elect or not. The question is this. Do I see my sin and do I see Jesus as my only savior? That's it. Do I see my sin and do I see Jesus as my only savior? If you're not a believer, that's what I want you to wrestle with this morning. You can go back, what is the will of God? What is the election? No, no, it's, is there another answer for your sin other than Christ dying to forgive you? Is there another answer for the death you will suffer other than Christ being raised to the dead? Let's keep the simplicity there. The focus of all the sovereignty of God is for those who are suffering wrong. The focus for the unbeliever today is, What will God do with your sin if you do not believe in Jesus? And the Bible's answer is very clear, it's wrath and judgment. Christian, we do need to meditate upon being elected exiles. and precious in Christ, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, set apart to be the holy priest, to be holy as God is holy, to go up and to worship, to follow Him the way, the truth, the life. Have you tasted that the Lord is good? Do you have an appetite for feasting, for beholding the glory and goodness of God? If it's so, the instruction, be built up to be the temple on Christ, the living stone. Be built up as a holy priest to know him, to make him known. And the beauty of it is you get to do so because it's through the blood of Christ you've been forgiven. And it's being built up on Christ that we get to go before the Father in worship. Praise God, we get to come to the Lord who is good. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that as we meditated upon 1 Peter previously, Lord, that the word of the Lord remains forever. Your truth is our foundation. Your ways are also higher than our ways, and we thank you that you help us to know you, your goodness, your power, your grace, your holiness, We pray that we would know how to be faithful as priests to build one another up, to make that gospel known, and that we get to do so by the very power of your Holy Spirit. Lord, may we leave wanting to make those spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable because we see how precious the gift you've given to us is in Jesus Christ, our living stone. In his name we pray, amen.