If you really want to grow, it’s going to cost you. If you truly expect to be built up, there will be some pain involved. No growth ever takes place without pain. That’s a law of life. That’s not negotiable. No pain, no gain. No hurt, no growth. No rough edges, no building up. If you truly want to be built up, prepare to encounter pain.
When Peter speaks about spiritual growth, he uses a word picture. The word picture is about a building. He says we are to let ourselves be built into a building.
“Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house”.
That sounds good. It sounds good until you read a little further, and you find Peter speaking also about sacrifice, rejection, stumbling. Those things sound rather painful, don’t they? Sacrifice and rejection and stumbling – painful experiences.
But remember: no growth ever takes place without pain. If you truly want to be built up, prepare to encounter pain.
I like to watch buildings going up. The frustrated engineer in me is fascinated with new structures. Nearly every day I drive through Silver Spring and watch as just about the whole downtown is rebuilt. When I go through Fenton Street, the first thing I do is to see if I can detect what the latest changes are: new holes in the ground, new structural elements, new paint. I like to look for signs of growth. That’s the first thing I do; the second thing is to breathe a prayer of thanksgiving that it’s happening across the street from somebody else’s church and not across form ours! What a nightmare construction brings!
Now I’ve noticed that when buildings are going up, nothing says “construction” like hammers pounding on nails. There’s just something special about the whack, whack, whack of a good solid hammer hitting the nail right on the head. It feels like this is the real thing! Oh, skill saws whine, but saws cut things apart instead of putting them together. Concrete mixers growl, but concrete mixers lay down foundations instead of building things upward. High-rise cranes creak as they lift beams high in the air, but cranes just dangle those beams there until somebody joins them. For me, it’s the sound of the hammer, driving nails into wood, that really says, “building”! Hammers nail board to board; hammers nail the frame together, hammers nail the roof in place; hammers nail the wallboard on. Hammers, nails, that’s what building really is.
And so, today, in order to help Peter speak to us about being built into a spiritual house, we’re going to pound some nails. We’re going to demonstrate some spiritual principles. Up here, I’ve got a board, I’ve got nails, and, “if I had a hammer …” – oh, I do have a hammer. I’m ready to show you what Peter meant. But I need your help too.
[Nail packages passed down rows]
You have nails. You don’t have hammers or boards, but you do have nails. And as you handle your nails from time to time, you’ll be reminded of one important fact: nails hurt. Nails hurt. But again: no pain, no gain. No hurt, no growth. If you truly want to be built up, prepare to encounter pain.
I
First, if you want to be built up, you will have to endure some pounding. [Pound] Somebody will hit at you. And not just once, but repeatedly. Somebody will find your weak spots and pound away at them. Just as if I want to drive a nail into this board, I don’t look for the hard knots, because I won’t be able to get the nail through the knots, but I look for the soft fleshy part of the wood – in the same way, somebody is going to look at where you are not solid, where you are not secure, and is going to pound on that.
Is that a bad thing? Is it damaging for somebody to get on our case because we have flaws and failings? Is it bad for us to be told, repeatedly, where we are going wrong? No, it is not bad. It is good. It can be painful, but it is a good thing. Like the repeated pounding of the hammer on the nail, it can hurt to be told what you don’t want to hear. Nails hurt. But most of us have to be hit, over and over again, with the unpleasant truth about ourselves. We have to be hit, over and over again, in order to be built up. It’s painful. Nails hurt. But it is for our good.
Peter starts this second chapter of his letter in a very challenging way. He gets down to it. I guess you could say he “hits the nail on the head.”
Rid yourselves … of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.
Rid yourselves … If you want to be built up, there are some habits that you have to deal with. There are some things that get so deeply ingrained in us that it will take lots of work in order to get rid of them. But there is a way. There is a way. Malice – how will I know if I am acting maliciously? I will know it if you will tell me about it. Guile – the very nature of guile is that we are trying to fool ourselves as well as other people. How will I know that I am being deceitful unless every time I do this, somebody hits me with the truth? How will I know that I am speaking insincerely, how will I understand my envy, how will I get my slanderous words called, unless somebody stands up, in my face, and hits me with the truth? And since these negative habits die hard, hits me again and again and again. Pounds me! Repeatedly. Pounds me, like a hammer hitting a nail, until I learn the awful truth that there are things I must get rid of. If you want to be built up, you must endure the hammer pounding the nail, confronting you about yourself.
And remember, it is your true friends who will do this for you. Your sunshine friends will smile to your face and agree with you, but will then talk about you behind your back. Your true friends are the ones who will tell you, over and over and over again, what you need to get rid of. Your true friends are like hammers pounding nails into your weaknesses.
So would you take your nail? Hold it in one hand. Carefully now, we don’t want blood on the pew cushions – carefully but repeatedly, several times, just poke at your other hand or your arm. Gets to hurting a little after a while, doesn’t it? Even if you are gentle, you feel it. Nails hurt. But if that nail, probing you repeatedly, represents a friend, a teacher, a pastor, convicting you of something that’s wrong in your life, be thankful. Take joy in this. It means that somebody loves you enough to get at you for the stuff you need to remove. Nails hurt; pounding hurts. But remember: no growth ever takes place without pain. If you truly want to be built up, prepare to encounter pain.
II
Now something else about hammers and nails. They create holes. When you drive in that nail, it pushes aside the material, and it creates a hole. Let me try something here. I’ll just drive in a new nail [Pound], and then let me pull it out. There it is! There’s a hole in the wood. Can I get rid of that hole? Can I push the old material back in? No, I can’t move these wood fibers back where they came from. They won’t go back. The hole is still there. Driving nails causes holes.
If you want to be built up, you’re going to have to endure having holes punched in your comfort zone. If you want to grow, you’re going to have to face the fact that the world is unforgiving, the world is not polite, the world is caustic, the world is going to punch holes in your comfort zone. And once those holes are punched, they can never be put back the way they were. That’s painful, but it’s part of building up. It’s part of growth.
I’m thinking about our college students today. In just a few days, some will be going to college for the first time; others are returning. All are going to hear things in the classroom that will punch holes in their beliefs. They’re going to hear a professor scoff at God; they’re going to hear a graduate student tear down confidence in the Bible. They’re going to listen to those founts of all wisdom, the sophomores – did you know the word sophomore means “wise fool”? – they’re going to listen to other students who out of their vast experience will declare that respect for Mom and Dad is hopelessly passe. Students get holes punched in their thinking. And that’s good. We don’t go to school to get our old ideas confirmed; we go to get new ideas. During my 23 years as a college chaplain, I saw that bring a lot of anxiety. But I also saw it bring growth.
Peter says that something like this even happened to Jesus. Jesus is called "The stone that the builders rejected”. They rejected Jesus. When Jesus stood to teach, they punched holes in His theology. When Jesus went to heal, they punched holes in His compassion. When Jesus tried to love Jerusalem, they punched so many holes in His motives that He looked out over the city and wept! It is not easy when people punch holes in everything you stand for. It is not easy to deal with that office mate who belittles you because you are too honest to take home office supplies. It is not easy to endure that neighbor who laughs at you for reporting all your income to the taxman. It is no fun for a boy to be told he is a “sissy” because he doesn’t want to tease the girls. It is not pleasant for a teenager to be out with the crowd and to be told she ain’t cool because she won’t join them in the Colt Malt liquor. It hurts when they drive holes in your beliefs.
But give thanks when it happens! Give thanks. Because you will not know what you really believe until you have to defend it. You will not understand how precious your values are until you have to prove them to someone else. You will not know how right you are until you have to stand up for the truth. If you don’t have anybody trying to drive holes in your comfort zone, you’ll just sit here, fat and sassy, but you won’t grow. You won’t be built up. Somebody needs to punch holes in your comfort zone.
Take your nail – don’t get worried. I’m not going to ask you to drive holes in yourself. My liability insurance isn’t that good! (Can’t you just imagine somebody telling his personal injury lawyer, “My pastor made me drive a nail through myself!”?). But now take that nail – press its point into your hand or your arm, just enough that it stings a bit. Now hold it there a moment. Bring it out. Now look at the place where you held it. What do you see? Some kind of mark. A change in skin color, a little indentation, maybe a scratch. A hole, even if a very small one, punched in your comfort zone. And it hurts!
But we need to be grateful for hurting holes. Because Peter says about Jesus, and how Jesus was rejected,
"The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner".
Jesus was despised, rejected, questioned, criticized; but because of that, God was able to use Him in a tremendous way. Jesus is now the “head of the corner”, He is the cornerstone of the building, He is the foundation of everything.
When holes get punched in you, you get changed, but you grow. And God is able to fill you with something better. You are built up.
Nails hurt. Holes driven in your comfort zone hurt. But remember: no growth ever takes place without pain. If you truly want to be built up, prepare to encounter pain.
III
Now do you want the truly good news? The good news is that nails, used properly, join things together. Nails, hammered in by a skillful carpenter, join things firmly. Nails hold everything together so that the building will not fall. And that’s good news. It’s good news because in so apparently simple a thing as this nail, there is tremendous power to build.
Look at your nail. It’s about as simple as you can get. It has a point, a shank, some ridges to help it grip, and a head to hit. Nothing to it. And yet it has great building power. Let’s try it. I have another piece of wood. We’ll nail through both pieces [Pound]. Well, this creation won’t win any carpentry prizes; I hate for people like Raymond Herrin or Harvey James or Curtis Hopkins to see it – but I have built something. Now, can we take these pieces apart? What do you think? Let’s try.
Not easy. It can be done, of course, if enough force is used. But this nail will hold together these blocks of wood, and something has been built.
Oh, friends, how can I tell you how incredibly important it is that you and I, as members of the church, are built together! We belong to each other! We are built together by God as His spiritual house; we matter to one another! Our lives are joined. I can’t possibly say it better than Peter does:
like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood …
Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house. We share a common pain: the pain is that we all are sinners, all of us. But we also share a common joy: the joy is that we are forgiven. That joins us together.
Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house. We share many hurting places: job failures, anxieties, health worries, family life struggles. You may think that you are the only person in this room that’s going through whatever. “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” But I would guarantee you that someone here has seen it, someone here has suffered it, someone here has dealt with it, someone here has been delivered from it. We share many hurting places; but we also, by the grace of Christ, share salvation. We share experience, we share knowledge, we share a living, healing savior. And in the fellowship of those who have been nailed together, built up, into God’s spiritual house, the good news truly comes alive.
The hymn writer says, “Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love; the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above. We share our mutual woes; our mutual burdens bear; and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.” Church may bring you moments of pain; I won’t disagree with that. You may get hurt on occasion by being a part of the church. But I tell you, with Peter, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, and you will grow.
For, again, no growth ever takes place without pain. If you truly want to be built up, prepare to encounter pain.
Take your nail now, and give it to the person on your right. If you are at the end of the row, turn around and give it to the person at the end of the row behind you. If you’re at the end of the last row, give it to an usher. The point is, find somebody else to give your nail to. And accept somebody else’s nail. What do you feel when you get somebody else’s nail? What does it feel like? It feels very much like your own nail, doesn’t it? They’re all about the same! Your issue is like his issue; her problem is much like your problem. God gives us to each other to understand one another.
And do you feel the warmth of that other person’s hand? The metal of the nail is warm, having been handled by your brother or your sister. It is his warmth that you feel. It is her hand that has touched what you grasp. You are a part of one another. You belong to one another. You are a spiritual house, being built up. Praise God for giving us to each other in His church!
And yet, it remains true: no growth ever takes place without pain. Oh, one day they hurt my Jesus. One day they pounded on His hands, His strong carpenter’s hands. They pounded, they pounded, until they put raw, red holes in those hands. Nails that hurt. On that same day they took nails, huge nails, and a hammer, and they crossed His legs and joined foot to foot and feet to timber. Nails that hurt more deeply than you or I will ever imagine. Despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
But it was for us. Brothers and sisters, it was for us. It was for our forgiveness. It was for our growth. It was to join us together. Nails that hurt Him deeply! [Pound, pound, pound]. He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and by His stripes we are healed. We are healed!
No growth ever takes place without pain. If you truly want to be built up, prepare to encounter pain. But the pain of Jesus Christ will heal you. The blood of Jesus Christ will save you. And the heart of Jesus Christ keeps pounding, pounding, pounding with love for you. Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it?
