Building the Non-Building
1 Peter 2:4-8 August 16, 2009
Intro:
We are one week into our renovation project, and a lot has happened! I did a real rough calculation and am excited to report that we put in more than 250 volunteer hours in the last week, getting as much done as possible before the contractors came in to start on their various parts of the job. That’s not bad!! We moved hymnals, Bibles, pictures, and furniture out. We ripped out 40 year old carpet, and about a million underlay staples. Walls were demolished, doors recycled, sub-floor installed, and pails and pails and pails of debris removed. Oh yah, and the massive cedar walls at the front were sanded inch by inch – the ugly nicks and gouges removed and the wall prepped for refinishing.
I spent some time with a sander in my hands this week, and discovered that standing on scaffolding 15 feet above the ground with a power tool vibrating in my hands was a good place to pray. Sometimes the jobs that are a little bit physically monotonous are actually restorative for me, as my mind and heart are free to wander, to float around a little, and I found myself returning in prayer to a couple of themes. First was for some of the people in our community as they came to mind, and second that this recent outpouring of time and money that is part of the physical renewal would spur us on to a spiritual renewal as well. Our renovation is not extravagant, it is focused on essential maintenance and on functional changes, with some small aesthetic improvements, and my prayer is that our physical renovation would be accompanied by a spiritual renovation as well, that our lives and relationships together would also be renewed, and our love for others beyond our community restored to the same priority that it is for Jesus. As I reflect on the past week, and as I studied the passage of the week, I’m struck by the thought that as I was building the church physically with my hands and sledgehammer and screwdrivers and orbital sander, I was also building the church spiritually through prayer.
1 Peter 2:4-8
This idea of “building the church” spiritually is the focus of the next passage we find in our study of 1 Peter, and it returns to our exploration of our identity as Christians and the actions that should come out of that identity. Follow along with me:
“4As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— 5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For in Scripture it says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame." 7Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
"The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone," 8and,
"A stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
Jesus the “living stone”: vs. 4, 6-8
The passage begins with Jesus, whom Peter calls “the living stone”. That is an interesting description, don’t you think? Have you ever seen a “living stone”? How can a “stone” be “living”? Obviously it can’t, and for Peter this oxymoron is instructive to us, and should make us sit up and take notice: how is Jesus a “stone”, and why call Him a “living” stone? For elaboration, Peter goes to the Old Testament to elaborate on this “stone” idea, and he quotes three passages. First, Isaiah 28:16,
“16 So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who trusts will never be dismayed.”
Peter interprets this as a prophecy referring to Jesus, now fulfilled, as Jesus becomes the new corner-stone which establishes the new people of God. But not everyone accepted Jesus, so Peter quotes Psalm 118:22,
“22 The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;”
and carries the stone imagery one step further by revealing that those who reject Jesus will actually “stumble”, trip, and fall away, by quoting
So this idea of a “stone” was a common one in the Old Testament, but now Peter adds the unusual twist – when applied to Jesus, this “stone” is no inanimate object, but it is in fact alive. Jesus is not dead and lifeless, stuck immobile like a rock, Jesus is alive.
“As you come…” vs. 4
Verse 4 began with a very particular phrase, “as you come”. This is significant and meaningful, because the things that follow in verse 5 depend on this phrase. They only happen “as we come” to Jesus. I don’t want to rush over this, in fact I want to make a big deal about it. Verse 5 talks about us being built, which we’ll get to in a moment, but that only happens “as we come” to Jesus. Not “since we came once, along time ago”, but as we continually, regularly, habitually, “come” to Jesus, these other things happen.
Faith is a journey, not a destination. The cross is not a place we come to once, ask for forgiveness, then continue on along our own path. The Christian life is one of constantly coming to Jesus, always moving with and towards Jesus, continually walking in Jesus’ direction. We have never arrived, never finished, never completed the journey of discipleship as long as we are living and breathing in this life. We are not done, we continue to come to Jesus.
So this brings me to a question – which direction are you headed in at the moment? Are you drawing closer to Jesus, following Him, eyes fixed on Jesus, walking in step with the Holy Spirit? Or are you heading away, continuing in sinful habits, allowing distance to grow between you and Jesus? It really is one or the other – there really is no “standing still” when it comes to faith, because Jesus is not a dead stone sitting still, Jesus is moving and working and saving the world, and if we aren’t moving with Him and toward Him then in fact we are getting further away. If you are not growing closer to Jesus, I call you to repentance, which in its most basic form is turning around and heading the other direction. Turn to Jesus, “come to Jesus”, because as we do, some great things happen. Those are the substance of verse 5.
“you also, like living stones, are being built”: vs. 5
The description of Jesus as a “living stone” is now applied to us also. We are “like living stones”, we share the nature of Jesus, we are essential parts of what God is trying to build in this world. When people in Jesus’ day built, the “cornerstone” was the critical piece – all the others were built off of that one, it set the foundation and the true-ness of the walls both horizontally but also vertically, it is the most important stone of all. But one cornerstone does not equal a building – other stones are needed too. And in Peter’s description of the church, Jesus is the critical cornerstone but now all the other stones matter also. We, like Jesus, are now alive and critical parts of the church that God is building. So here is how it works: as we come, the Holy Spirit builds us as similar “living stones” like Jesus. The Holy Spirit is in charge, the Holy Spirit is the builder, and the result is something pretty amazing.
“being built into a spiritual house”
The result is a “spiritual house” – this is what God is building us, together and collectively, into – a “spiritual house”. There is something really significant here I want you to notice – Peter chooses the word “house” instead of “temple”. Keep this in context for Peter’s day, when the temple was still the most prominent religious building in the imagination of the people of God. They were used to the idea that God lives in the Temple, that the temple is the place of worship, it was the center of the nation for all the people of God. But Peter doesn’t say that Jesus is the “living stone” or the new “cornerstone” of a new or renewed temple, Peter uses the word “house” quite deliberately. Any thoughts on why that might be? (invite responses).
I also want us to reflect on how many of these “living stones” might be required to build a house. One? Just a family? I point that out because there is a tendency I’ve noticed for some Christians to decide that they don’t really need to be part of a community – they can be Christians on their own, worship God by themselves, give up on the “church” for a variety of reasons, some of which I understand and respect, but nonetheless they arrive at a point that it seems Peter would have a problem with. There is a strong aspect of community here, a strong affirmation of the church here, even if it is imperfect. Together, we are built into a “spiritual house” – there is no idea here of going it on our own.
“to be a holy priesthood”
This next clause also contains a really significant phrase that we might easily overlook – “priesthood”. To capture the significance, we again have to remember that when Peter is writing, the “priests” were a separate, special, chosen group. They were the only ones who were able to bring anything to God, and all the rest of the people had to go through the priests. So if you were an ordinary Israelite who was commanded to bring an offering of worship to God for whatever reason, you couldn’t actually bring it right to God. You had to go to a priest, and get them to do it for you. You always needed an intermediary, a go-between, a middle man. But now Peter says we are all being built, together, into a “spiritual house” to “be a holy priesthood”. We no longer need the go-between, we can now, together, bring our offering of worship directly to God ourselves.
This is a pretty amazing privilege, but let us not miss the responsibility as well. With a priest between the people and God, a person could not bring a bad offering – the priest would not allow it. There was no sloppiness, no haphazard or un-thought-out or casual offerings. Now, with direct access, we are responsible for ourselves and for each other to ensure that what we bring before God as acts of worship are acts of worship that will be pleasing to Him.
“offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”
Thankfully, the sacrifices we bring as a holy priesthood are brought and accepted through Jesus, not just on their or our own merit. Peter makes that clear in the last phrase we are going to notice – these are offered “through Jesus Christ”. And through Jesus, they are made perfect and acceptable to God.
But what, exactly, are these “spiritual sacrifices” which we, as holy priests, can now bring directly to God through Jesus as we are “being built into a spiritual house”? I mean, we can’t bring them if we don’t know what they are. Any suggestions??
Conclusion:
We’ve been studying 1 Peter to learn more about our identity as Christians, and what that identity means about how we should live. Today we’ve seen that we are, like Jesus, “living stones”, that God is building into a spiritual house. We’ve recognized that we no longer need human intermediaries between us and God, and that through Jesus we can bring a host of “spiritual sacrifices”.
One final thought to wrap up: one of the things that has given me most joy in our physical renovation of our building is that for all the people really involved, it isn’t about the building. The building is not the end, some magnificent structure is not the goal, the tangible is not the ultimate focus. The attitude and perspective I appreciate so much in this whole process is that the building is just a tool for the church. The building is not the church. We are the church, together a bunch of “stones” being built by the Holy Spirit into a “spiritual house”. Our facility is part of that – it gives us a freedom and location to gather to be the church, by “offering spiritual sacrifices” and by forming interdependent relationships that enrich our lives and enable us to live out the mission that God has invested us with. And it was time to be good stewards of the physical building through the project we agreed to, by making necessary repairs and maintenance. But all of us, myself included, who have been and will be here building the physical building have something more in mind – the physical building as a tool for God to use in building the non-building: the people of God, renewed and “renovated” in our hearts and relationships, equipped and motivated and sent, for the glory of God.
