The stone builders reject becomes the cornerstone. God is building a temple — and you're not just a wall. You're a priest in it.

Click here to read the sermon

“A Spiritual House”

1 Peter 2:4–10

As we begin this morning, I want to thank you for hanging out with me for the past few Sundays. It has been a great time here at Yates. It is always a blessing to be with this corner of God's kingdom. A little heads-up on where we are headed in the next few weeks: I will not be here next week — Marty Childers from the Tri-West Association will be preaching that day — and then I will be back for two Sundays after that. I am excited to come back and spend a couple more weeks with you. Some of you already know — I am kind of like a bad penny. I keep coming back. So as we come to this morning, I want to continue a conversation that I have been having with you for the past few weeks. A couple of weeks ago, the point of the sermon was this: if you are a Christian, you are a saint. Sainthood is not a category reserved for an extraordinary group of Christians. Instead, it is a status bestowed by grace, and it is a calling that we pursue. To be a saint is to be a holy one of God. It means that you have been claimed by God and set aside by God for his purposes. So: you are a saint. Last week we continued that conversation to say this — and that is a good thing. Sainthood is not about being a goody two-shoes who never has fun. It is not about hypocrisy. It is not about being holier-than-thou. No — sainthood is about following Jesus into a vision of humanity. It is following Jesus into the people that God intends and calls us to be. You are a saint, and that is a good thing. Today we are going to move to this: we are saints together. If you are called to be a saint, that is not a lone wolf calling. Instead, you were called into a people. You were called into a community. And that communal piece is central to who we are. To talk about this communal dimension of sainthood this morning, I want to open the Bible with you to 1 Peter chapter two, verses four through ten. Let me give you a little backstory on what is going on in 1 Peter. Peter is writing to groups of people in places called Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. These are groups of Christians who are falling on hard times because of their devotion to Jesus. The surrounding communities are not being kind to them; they are suffering for the name of Jesus. Peter writes into this setting. Through much of chapter one, he reminds them who they are and what they are called to. He uses different language, but he hits some of the same beats we have been hitting in the past couple of Sundays. In chapter one, verse fifteen, he says: "But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy'" (1 Pet 1:15, NIV). Peter is reminding these people that they have been called to holiness. They are to follow God into that calling — to reflect God to the communities around them. Then you come to chapter two. Peter gives them a few ways this is supposed to happen. In verse one he writes: "Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind" (1 Pet 2:1, NIV). If you are going to be holy, there are certain ways of being that you need to put away — ways of living that do not match the kind of life God is calling you to. And notice: Peter is already intimating the communal character. He says rid yourselves of malice, of deceit, of hypocrisy, of envy, of slander. These are all ways of being that destroy community. Put them away. And instead, Peter writes: "like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good" (1 Pet 2:2–3, NIV). Put away the ways of life that are not what God intends for you, and realize that your life of faith is not static. You are meant to grow up in your salvation. You are meant to be nourished by Christ. Which brings us to chapter two, verse four: As you come to him, the living Stone — rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him — 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. 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." Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone," and, "A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message — which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 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. (1 Pet 2:4–10, NIV) It is a well-known and beautiful passage of Scripture. This morning I want to approach it not in order, but by taking up the middle first and then jumping back to the beginning to see how these pieces fit together. The middle — verses six through eight — is all about who Jesus is. To understand what is going on here, you need to understand that Christianity emerged in those first decades as an incredible surprise. Jesus came and fulfilled the role of Messiah, but he did it in a way that was unexpected. Come Good Friday, when Jesus dies on the cross, his followers believe the game is up. We had placed our hope in him, and yet he has died at the hands of the authorities. We must have misplaced our hope — until Resurrection Sunday, when we learn that even the grave could not keep Jesus down. He begins to appear to his followers. It turns out that Jesus really was the Messiah. The resurrection proves that. But he fulfilled that role in an unexpected way, which means we have to go back and reconsider everything that came before. It is kind of like one of those movies where a key piece of information is withheld until the very end. And then once that revelation is finally made, the light bulb goes off. You realize that everything has been leading to that point, and you have to go back and reconsider what came before. It is often such a gut punch that you have to watch the movie again, and as you watch it, you begin seeing clues all the way through. You wonder how you did not see it before. Imagine the disciples. Jesus has been raised from the dead. He really is the Messiah. But that means we have to go back and reconsider all of our preconceptions. As they return to the Scriptures, they start seeing those clues. They start saying: we can read this in light of Christ — in light of who he was, in light of who he is. In fact, Jesus himself had applied the Psalm that mentions a cornerstone to himself (cf. Matt 21:42, NIV). And so the disciples say: Jesus applied that to himself. There are other passages that have stones in them. Those seem to apply to Jesus too. What Peter does in this passage is stack all of these passages about stones and apply them to Christ. It goes like this. In verse six: "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" (cf. Isa 28:16, NIV). Then in verse seven: "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" (cf. Ps 118:22, NIV). And: "A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall" (cf. Isa 8:14, NIV). You can see how these come to be applied to Jesus. Here we have the Messiah who was rejected by the authorities, rejected by the world — and yet it turns out that he was indeed the chosen one of God. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Notice the imagery Peter is drawing on. You have people building a building. They find a cut stone and say: that stone is not appropriate for our building; we will discard it. But it turns out that God has chosen that very stone to be not just any stone in the building, not just an appropriate stone, but the cornerstone. The cornerstone is the first stone that is laid in a building. It has to be cut perfectly, because it determines which way the building faces. It determines the angle of the walls. It is the first stone that gives shape to everything else. The stone the builders rejected has become the most important stone in the building. That certainly sounds like Christ. And there is also the promise that the one who trusts in this cornerstone God has laid will never be put to shame. That is us. We put our faith in this cornerstone. We will not be put to shame. But then there is also a stone that causes people to stumble — and we keep seeing people in our communities tripping over this message about Jesus. It is a message about rejection that is actually a message about acceptance and chosenness. The world may be rejecting Christ, but in God's eyes, Christ is the cornerstone: rejected, but actually precious and chosen by God. Remember, these are people experiencing rejection as they are true to Christ in the world. The same thing is true of them. Peter will go on to say: you are a chosen nation. This passage is in part about those who feel rejected actually being those who were chosen. Here is what I want you to see this morning. Peter goes a step further. He really plays on this idea of Christ as the cornerstone. The cornerstone is the first stone in the building. And when you zoom out, you start to see that the cornerstone is part of a larger structure. Go back to verse four: "As you come to him, the living Stone — rejected by humans but ...