Living Stones
1Pe 2:2-9
It’s been said that in order for people to be happy, or to find fulfillment in life, there are three things that are necessary: First, they need something to believe. Second, they need someone to love. And third, they need something worthwhile to do. Now, I believe this. There needs to be more to life than just being or existing. We do need something to believe in. Something more than just cold, hard facts because that doesn’t stretch our minds or our spirits. It doesn’t fulfill our souls. We need something to believe in, something to have faith in.
And we also need someone to love and to love us in return, because life is lonely when there’s no extra special someone to share it with. And then, we must have something to do that’s beyond us, something that is worthwhile and far more than just drawing breath each day or bringing in a salary. There is much more to life than such mundane things. It’s those things that challenge us, that stretch us, that make us better and more fulfilled people.
In 1 Peter, I believe that we will find something that meets all three of those needs. We’ll find something to believe, something to love, and something that is very worthwhile to do. What we find in our passage today is that Jesus meets all those requirements. So if you will turn in your Bibles to 1Peter, chapter 2, or you can just follow along on the screen. But let’s look at verses 2-9…
1Pe 2:2-9 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, (3) if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. (4) Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, (5) 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. (6) 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." (7) 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," (8) and "A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE." They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed. (9) But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
Now, I find it interesting that Peter makes reference to the church and building stones and such. I have no doubt that in his mind, when he wrote this, he was thinking of something the Lord said to him several years earlier. Mat 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Now many believe that the Lord is saying that He will build His church on Peter, but I don’t think so. When the Lord said this, Peter had just made his great confession that he believed Jesus was the Messiah. So, I believe it was that same faith that Peter had, that confession he made that Jesus was referring to, and this can be supported by the fact that Jesus called Peter “petros” which is a small rock, or a piece of a rock, while the rock that Jesus said He’d build His church on is “petra” which is a huge and massive rock, a boulder.
Two different types of rock, a small pebble and a huge boulder. Peter himself was the small pebble but the faith he displayed in that confession was the boulder that the church is built upon. The Church isn’t built on Peter because Peter died and is gone, but the Church continues because it is built on the faith He displayed when he confessed Mat 16:16 …"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." After all, as the Bible teaches Eph 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (9) not of works, lest anyone should boast.
But I’m sure that Peter still had what the Lord told him in mind when he wrote this epistle, and in it he talks about the Church and how it was built, and how it functions. He declares that Jesus is the Cornerstone of the Church (which is something for us to believe in), and then he moves on to the construction of the Church and how it’s built of living stones (which is something for us to love), and then finally he speaks of the character of the Church, that we are a holy nation, a royal priesthood who offer spiritual sacrifices to the Lord (which lastly, take care of our need to have something to do).
I. The Cornerstone (of the Church)
Jesus is the Cornerstone. The Church is built and established upon Jesus Christ and Peter calls Him a “living stone.” Now, what does that mean? Stones aren’t alive, they’re dead. Why else would people say things like “stone cold dead” or “dead as a rock”? But here Peter says that Jesus is a “living stone.”
This is actually a play on words because Jesus Himself said Joh 10:10 …I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. So, He is the one who gives life, supernatural life. He said Joh 5:21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.
He gives life to us, but He also gives living water and He is the living bread. You see, when speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, He said Joh 4:10 …"If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." And then after feeding the 5,000, He told the Jews in Capernaum, Joh 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever;
Now the term “living stone” I think is used only here and what it speaks of is Jesus being the living Cornerstone of the Church which isn’t made up of bricks or mortar but living material—people who have been redeemed and in whom God now resides! Once dead, they are now alive in Christ! And friend, do you want life? Real life? Would you like more out of this life than simply existing, day in and day out?
Well then, turn to Jesus. Give your life to Him and submit to His lordship over you. Because friend, there is no way anyone can know the Father without knowing the Son. There is no way you can ignore the Son without ignoring the Father. There is no way to worship the Father except through the Son, for Jesus said, Joh 14:6 …"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Jesus is the supernatural stone who holds us all together and upon which all the other stones are tied together. He was chosen by God and was so precious to Him that He heard His Father say, Mat 3:17 …"This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." He is precious to the Father, but He is not precious to all men. The One who is the living stone, chosen, and precious is also the stone that was rejected and slighted by men!
Now, some people think that Jesus can’t be the Messiah of the world simply because not everyone believes in Him. But friend, let me tell you, the fact that not everyone believes in Him is further proof that He is the Messiah. Remember? He told us Mat 7:13-14 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. (14) Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Beloved, if the whole world believed, then that would be evidence that we need to look elsewhere. But the fact that many, if not most do not believe is further evidence that He is who He said He was. Now, some have examined this chosen and precious stone but turned away from Him. They will sit and listen to the testimony of one of His people and tell them, “No thanks.” They will hear a preacher preaching his heart out about the abundant and free grace that’s available to all who believe, and they will walk out the door saying in their heart, “I don’t want Him.”
Oh friend, Jesus is the living Cornerstone. He is chosen and precious to God, but most turn away from Him. Most reject Him. Most stumble over Him. That’s what the Jews did. They believed that the Messiah would come one day, but because He didn’t come as a conquering King, but as a suffering Servant, they stumbled over Him. He didn’t measure up to what they thought, so they hung Him on a cross, which by the way, made even more stumble, because how could the Messiah die on a cross cursed of God? The Scripture plainly says Deu 21:23 …for he who is hanged is accursed of God.
So, to the Jews He was a stumbling block, 1Co 1:23-24 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, (24) but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Oh friend, you cannot get around Jesus Christ. Every man, woman, and child will somehow, someway, come into contact with Him and He will either be their stepping stone to eternal life, or stumbling stone into hell. There is no neutrality here. You are either for Him, or you are against Him. Either you rise on Him, or you’ll fall because of Him. You can’t avoid Him. You can’t walk around Him. Jesus is inescapable! Jesus is inevitable! And what you do with Jesus will determine what Jesus does with you. Will you believe and be saved? Or will you trip and fall?
Oh I thank God for the Cornerstone of the Church whom He uses in…
II. The Construction (of the Church)
Not only do we see Jesus as the Cornerstone of the Church, but we also see ourselves as individual building blocks of that Church! I want you to notice that after speaking of Jesus as the living stone in verse 4, in verse 5 Peter says 1Pe 2:5 …you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house. In other words, what is true of Jesus is also true of us. He is the living stone who is in us, and we are in Him. We are living stones—we are chips off the old block! Friends, He shares a nature with the Father, and in Him we are partakers in that nature as well.
Peter wrote in his 2nd letter, 2Pe 1:3-4 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, (4) by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature,
You know, Jesus may have given Peter the knickname “Rocky” but we could also be called “Chip!” We’re chips off the old block and we are being “build up” or “built together” into a spiritual house. Now think about that. You take a brick or a rock out in a field or along a path, no one really pays any attention to it. You could take that one stone and toss it around if you wanted. Or you could move it or make it do whatever you want. But take a lot of those bricks or rocks and put them all together, then there’s strength, and there’s form. All those rocks are becoming something spectacular. When we are built together, we have strength. I gain strength from you, and you gain strength from me.
Not only are we built together, but we are also bound together, and the mortar that holds us together is love. We are committed to one another. If you are a member of this body of Christ that meets in this church, then what I do will matter to you and what you do will matter to me. How you are doing matters to me, and how I am doing matters to you. Beloved, I can’t tell you how many times each of you have asked about my health issues and my well-being or how Terri’s doing, and especially since all of this cancer stuff started. Every week I get a card of encouragement in the mail from Shelly. Friends, all of this is a beautiful example of what I just said, that we are held together by the bonds of love. And as the Church of Jesus Christ, we are all in this together. I am standing on others, and others are standing on me. We are built together, and we are bound together.
Now, there are some who try to go it alone. I have always called them Lone Ranger Christians. But folks, you can’t say Jesus yes but Church no. If you love God, you will love Jesus; and if you love Jesus, then you will love what Jesus loves—and friends, Jesus loves the Church. Jesus gave Himself for the Church. I’ve had people tell me that they don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian, and in a sense that is true. You don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian. But I’ve got to say that the Christian who looks for every excuse to not join together with other believers in worship and song and hearing the word of God preached, well, his Christianity, his faith is suspect.
Can a bee be a bee without a hive? Can a sailor be a sailor without a ship? Can a person be a parent without a family? Friends, when a person claims to love Jesus and says he believes that He is the Cornerstone but doesn’t want to be built together with other brothers and sisters into a beautiful building, then that person’s devotion is highly suspect. And to the person who doesn’t want to go to church because of all the hypocrites there, well let me tell you something about building construction. Good architecture isn’t necessarily the arrangement of beautiful materials; it’s the beautiful arrangement of materials.
In other words, it’s not so much what’s used in the construction as it is how it’s used. God is the master builder. He will take all those who are damaged goods; all those who have stumbled if they come to Him. He will even take all those hypocrites that people use as an excuse, and He will even take all those who pass judgment on those hypocrites, and He will put them all together in such a way that the arrangement is beautiful. So, you can make excuses and be left out, or you can join with all the rest of us and be built together into something beautiful beyond your imagination.
Beloved, we are blessed together. We are a spiritual house inhabited by the Lord—a house of the Holy Spirit. We are built together. We are bound together, and Jesus is our Cornerstone. He is what holds us together and supports the whole structure.
So, we’ve looked at the Cornerstone and the construction, but now let’s quickly look at…
III. The Character (of the Church)
1Pe 2:5 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. Not only are we the living stones that are being built together into a spiritual house, but we are a priesthood, a holy priesthood! We are not only the temple, but we’re also the priests of the temple who minister in the temple.
All of us are priests of God. If you have believed in Jesus and have been born again, then you are part of a royal priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God!
Now, you may ask, what does this mean? Well in the OT, the temple had 3 courts. There was the outer court, the inner court, and the innermost court. That innermost court was also called the Inner Sanctum or the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies once a year and make atonement for the sins of the people. He would go inside and sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat. If anyone else ever entered the Holy of Holies, or if even the high priest went in without blood, then that would bring immediate death. So, everyone stayed outside, and the priest would go inside on their behalf.
But do you remember what happened when the Lord Jesus died on the cross? The Bible tells us that the veil of the temple, which partitioned off the Holy of Holies from the inner court, it was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now, that’s significant because it means that it was God who tore the veil, not man. We could not enter the Holy of Holies. No one was allowed inside except the high priest, once a year. But when Jesus died and Father tore that veil, access to God was open to anyone who came to Him under the blood of His Son!
Through the blood of Jesus Christ and faith in Him, we now have open access to the Father and we can come boldly before Him, not bold with arrogance, but bold as children of the King who want to talk to dad!
And when we go to Him, we bring with us our spiritual sacrifices. Now, we don’t have to worry about bringing animal blood like the ancients did, because we are covered by the blood of Christ. But like Paul said, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
What this means is we give ourselves totally and completely to God, nothing held back, for Him to do with as He wishes. Our love, our devotion, our lives are a sweet-smelling aroma to Him. And along with ourselves, we also bring with us a sacrifice of praise as the writer of Hebrews mentioned. Heb 13:15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
Oh friends, do you realize what a great privilege we’ve been given. To be able to come before the Throne of God at any time and with the full assurance that we will be heard. Can you imagine the enormity of that. We truly are 1Pe 2:9a …a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people
But are you one of His own special people? Have you believed and trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Have you repented of sin and turned to Him in faith? If not, then what is holding you back?
Turn to Jesus today and receive His salvation, and you too will be built together with us, a living stone and part of the beautiful spiritual building He is still building to this very day.
