Thicker Than Blood - 1 Peter 2:5 Series

1 Peter 2:4 As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him-- 5 you 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. 6 For 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." 7 Now the honor is to you who believe, but to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, 8 and, "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. 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Introduction

100 Families

Imagine there were a machine that could measure joy – the overall amount of joy that exists throughout the whole country at any given moment. It would have two meters on it – one would show how much joy there is on the positive side, and another meter would show how much sorrow and sadness and depression and despair there is on the negative side. So if everyone is happy, the first meter is pegged, and the second meter registers nothing. If everyone is miserable, it’s the other way around. What would happen if you turned that thing on at Christmas time? Isn’t it true that both meters would register high levels? Christmas is a time of joy and celebration where families and loved ones get together and have a great time together. And that creates a lot of joy – mainly because of family. But it also creates a whole lot of sorrow and depression. My guess is that sorrow and depression meter would register its highest readings of the year around Christmas time. Why? Again – mainly because of family. For many people Christmas is nothing but a time that reminds them of all the family joys that they don’t have. Their family doesn’t get along. Or maybe they don’t have any family. Maybe they have been abandoned by their family. Maybe they are single and they desire nothing more than to be married, and when they see all the family get-togethers at Christmas, and then they go home to their lonely, empty, quiet house with their little Charlie Brown Christmas tree, it’s a degree of loneliness that pierces the soul. Or maybe someone in their family has died, and times like Christmas are when they feel the pain of that the most.

What does God have to say to those people? Is the message of God’s Word for them something like this: “Don’t despair – I realize you don’t have family, but you have Me. Find your joy and satisfaction in Me alone. You don’t need family because you have Me”? Is that the comfort God offers to people whose hearts peg the depression meter at Christmas and Thanksgiving?

Not really. Of course we are to look to God alone for our joy – family or no family we are to look to Him as our only joy source, otherwise we are guilty of idolatry. So in that sense it’s accurate. But when someone asked Jesus about the fact that they had lost family, Jesus did not respond by saying, “It’s OK – you don’t need family as long as you have Me.” Here’s what He said:

Mark 10:28 Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!" 29 "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.

The way that Jesus comforted those who had lost family was not by saying, “Don’t worry, you don’t need family.” He said that if you have lost family because of Him and because of the gospel – your commitment to Christianity caused them to turn against you, or maybe your commitment to Christ is the reason you aren’t married (because as a believer you can only marry a fellow believer, and that’s a much small pool of potential spouses to pick from) – if for whatever reason you don’t have a wife or husband or children or parents – you will receive 100 times as much. If you lost a mother you will be compensated for that by God with 100 mothers. Same goes for children or any other family members. “Is that talking about in heaven?” No – Jesus explicitly says, “You will receive 100 times as much in this life.” And that even applies to possessions. Lost your house? Jesus will give you 100 houses, or 100 cars or 100 retirement accounts or 100 times as much as whatever you lost, and He will do it in this life.