1 Peter 2:1-10 The Cornerstone

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church of Mattawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service. This message is by lead pastor Don Vilcek. It is a part of the series, Ready for the Storm, in First Peter.

If you would like more information on Recast Church, visit us at www .recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

Longing for Pure Spiritual Milk and Putting Off Sin

Hope you believe that, that better is one day in his courts than thousands elsewhere. That's kind of part of the message. I mean, it's this idea of us gathering together, so I really am grateful. I love it when the songs really match, and I know that's not accidental.

I send out to Josh my message every week, and then he reads it and comes up with these songs that fit, and it's awesome. I love it when that happens, so very grateful for the work that they put in. I encourage you to get comfortable during the next half an hour, 45 minutes or so, as we're going to dive into the text.

Remember, you can get up and get more coffee or juice, or you know, if that coffee and juice is starting to hit, the restrooms are out the hallway down to the end this way, if you need to use those to get more comfortable.

I mean, you can get up and stretch out in the back if you need to. I know the seats aren't the most comfortable in the world either, but keep your Bibles open to First Peter chapter 2, those first 10 verses, and you can just see that that is my outline every week.

The text is my outline. My goal, my prayer, is that we encounter God through his word, that the flow looks like this. God has written it in his word through his Holy Spirit. I read it. I study it. He communicates through me to you what it is, and then we go out and we live it.

So that's the flow. That's what I want to see, and it's not my message. It's not something I've come up with. My goodness, if I had to come up with a novel idea every week to share with you, something that was going to impact your life, I would be in trouble.

I'm so grateful for the Word of God. That's the foundation, the outline that I have to speak to you this morning. So Peter immediately ties our passage in with last week. That's another benefit of preaching through books of the Bibles.

We're getting the flow. I mentioned last week, if we just grab the end of this letter, say we just look at First Peter chapter 5, we miss the fact, we basically, it's like coming in in the middle of a love note.

Oh, it's like ignoring the first half of a love note that your spouse has written to you and coming in and just kind of missing the point. And so, I mean, as we dig in, this has context, and it's important how these passages connect together.

And so our first word in the English Standard Version that I preach from is the word so. I want to point out that that word is very related to the word therefore. So often you'll see in scripture the word therefore.

The interesting thing to note is that very rarely, if you think back to your last week and the words that you were to use, that would be kind of intriguing to me. I kind of like stats and stuff. It'd be interesting to see how many times you use each word.

Wouldn't that be interesting to be able to see a chart of how many words you used this past week and how often you used which ones? I would guess that in spoken speech, you rarely use the word therefore.

Would you agree with me on that? You are rarely using the word therefore, but I would suggest to you that you use the word so quite a bit. And that's the same word that we're using here. It's kind of like a less formal word for the word therefore, but it is a word that we are used to.

So in other words, I mean, I could say, I'm going to be preaching a while here, so get comfortable. Therefore, get comfortable because we're going to be digging into this. The reason I'm telling you to get comfy is the fact that I'm going to be preaching for a little bit up here.

But many times in scripture, we're told to put on Christ or to put on righteousness and he says, so put off something. If it says put away in English, it's an actual word picture for taking something off.

And that's going to be a main, that is not going to be a main point. And I want to point out that if you were to be able to look at this in Greek, and I recognize that you guys have to put some trust in me when I say this kind of stuff because you're looking at the text and you're going, well, it commands us to put these things away.

The main command in this first section, these first three verses, is not what you think it is. The primary command in these first three verses is long for spiritual milk. That's the main point. What he's going to start with is a problem in the church, an issue, and he's going to say how we're going to solve that.

So what he wants of us is the result that we put away malice and deceit and hypocrisy. But longing for spiritual milk is the solution to that, is the way that we go about putting away these things that we have clinged to our lives.

Things like malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. We are, as I said, we're often told to put on Christ or to put on righteousness or to put on good behavior. But we cannot put those things over the top of the crud and messes that we already have in our life.

We need, how many of you recognize that you need kind of some, you need to be clean, you need to take a shower before you put on new clean clothes, right? And there's a notion that something needs to be removed from me in order to be righteous before God.

So Peter says first get rid of malice. Let's talk through these words just briefly. How many of you know if there are things that you shouldn't be doing, if there are things that you should be taking off from your life, things that you should be putting away, it'd be good to know what they are.

So malice is a word of general evil will towards others. Now you go, well, I don't ever have that. Except when I'm cut off in traffic or, I mean, you can kind of think of maybe some instances where you've had ill will towards another person, the urge to run them off the road.

Anybody? Maybe just this past week. You don't have to raise your hand. But I'm guessing that you felt that you've had that experience at some point or you've observed it in your spouse. You know, you've seen them act that way.

Probably not you because you're better than that. But, malice, it's a horrible thing. I mean, we laugh and we joke, but it's a horrible thing even when you're cut off in traffic. It shows that there is in our hearts a desire that puts ourselves first before others.

Malice, a desire to get back at others. We are also to take off deceit, which is an interesting word in the Greek language here.

There are a couple of different words for deceit.

There's one that's just a bald-faced lie like, um, like coming up in front of the church and saying Jesus Christ is not Lord. He never lived. He never did anything like that. But, but Peter doesn't expect the church to get infiltrated quite with those types of direct lies.

How many of you know that that's not necessarily the way that deceit usually works? The word that's used in Greek is one for watering down. Watering down or flavoring something with just a little bit of difference there.

How many think that that could be a problem in a church? That's more likely than someone just getting up and saying, oh forget it all, none of it matters. That kind of blatant lie. He says, put off this watering down of things.

It's interesting that Peter identifies that as an issue in the church and something that he is concerned for his people. Flavoring the truth in subtle ways is indeed a problem that we could slide into as a church.

A little watering down here, a little watering down there, and eventually we don't even know what we stand for anymore. He says, cut that out. He says to take off hypocrisy. Now, in the Greek world when they read this sentence, it wasn't necessarily a slam dunk negative thing.

When you heard the word hypocrite, it wasn't like it is to you or me. How many of you, when you hear the word hypocrite, you're like, that sounds like something bad? Does it have a really negative overtone in your ears?

To them, the word hypocrite sounded like Hollywood. Well, okay, that might have a negative overtone to it. It sounded like an actor or an actress. That's what the word meant in their culture. It was an actor, just straightforward, and someone who was in theater, someone who was in movies.

They didn't really have movies at the time, but you get what I'm saying. So it was someone who was acting. He says, quit acting. Recast church, the A in the word recast is one of our core values. It's authenticity.

We desire real, genuine relationships. We desire to be a place where you don't have to wear a mask and play a part and act a role when you walk through the doors. And I think one of the most dangerous realities in life is the potential that some of us here, some of us here in this very room are acting like Christians.

Some of us may be good at watching others, and we're actually good actors and actresses, and we are capable of following suit. And we go, okay, I guess this is what it means to be a Christian. I'll just kind of jump on board and do what everybody else is around me.

I'll stand and sing when everybody else sings. And once in a while, I'll raise my hand, or I'll do this kind of thing, and I can just kind of get into the pattern. I'll just get into the habit of doing these things that other Christians do.

But I want you to seriously consider when he's saying put off hypocrisy, put off acting, stop acting. He's literally saying that. If the sum total of your relationship with God is trying to act like a Christian, if there is no heart in your devotion, he's going to talk in just a moment about a hunger and thirst for the word of God.

If you don't identify that in your life, if there's no enthusiasm within you for the things of God, then throw off hypocrisy, which I would suggest to you could entail coming to me or one of the other elders, and we would love to walk through your spiritual journey with you.

But what Peter desires for us is no acting. Consider, and I mean this takes, how many of you know, this takes some level of introspection of actually figuring out what is going on in my heart? What is here?

Am I playing a part, or am I really in love with Jesus? And do I really recognize what he has done for me on the cross? Throw off hypocrisy. Do not continue play acting. Your soul is in the balance on whether you are acting or whether you have a fervor for God in your heart, and only you really know that.

I can't, I can't figure that out for you. Envy, he goes on to talk about throwing off envy and slander. Envy, meaning that we harbor ill will towards others because of their possessions. I want to point out a difference to you.

There's a word, there's a word in English we use, greed. Greed is a thing word. It's about the accumulation of stuff, about the want of stuff. That's greed. You hear me? Envy is an interpersonal word.

Envy is about my relationship with another person because of their stuff. Are you getting me? So envy, envy actually attacks the person because they have something I want. Greed is just the want of more and more and more.

Are you getting the difference in those two words? He says throw off envy. The notion that, oh they have, and I mean envy comes in all shapes and sizes. It's not just about the size of the TV or the car that someone drives, right?

Envy comes in the form of envying someone's talents, envying someone's role, envying someone's position, envying your boss because they get to call the shots or whatever it might be. There's all different kinds and brands of envy and we recognize that in our heart.

The last thing he tells us to throw off is slander. Slander being a sin of our mouths, attempting to harm others. Okay, so he wants us to cast these things off of us considering the use of our mouth. Now I want to suggest to you that this is an extremely high standard for humanity.

This is a really high standard if you really start to get down to the heart of what it means because I can suggest, I can tell you this, that in my life the way that, for example, I'll just use envy. The way that envy manifests itself, I don't wake up in the morning and go, you know what, I think I'm going to plan on maybe two o 'clock through, somewhere between two and three I'm going to envy.

Are you getting what I'm saying? Envy is the kind of thing that shows up when you don't expect it, when the jag drives by, right? Or when the boss issues the command and you're like, why does he get to do this?

Why does he get to say, why does his plan always succeed? Why does he, are you getting what I'm saying? Envy is the kind of thing that crops up in your heart and it's like, okay, here I am. Right, do you have that same experience?

And so what does it mean to cast it off? It's a pretty high thing. As far as an employee handbook for the Christian life goes, this is a pretty high calling. Throw these things off. Most of them are just, they're internal, they're heart issues.

They're difficult to remove. They are intertwined with all different kinds of aspects of our hearts and the way that we roll in our past experiences and our journey and our story and all of this stuff.

Peter uses an analogy for removing these sins from our hearts. He says, here's my command to you. I want all of these things thrown off of you and here's what you're going to do to get that done. Like a newborn infant.

Now, he's not just talking to only new believers. He's using a newborn infant as far as its desire and thirst and hunger. That's the analogy. The analogy is just the newness. Isn't the, okay, all of us who have been in the church for longer can ignore this part.

All of us, every one of us, whether you have been a Christian for 40 years or you're just new to this thing and figuring it out to begin with. All of us are too long for the pure spiritual milk and that is the way we grow up into salvation.

It's like the idea of growing up into salvation is like we've been given big boy clothes but.

We're still little children.

The sleeves hang off of us. We trip over the pant legs. How are we going to grow up into this clothing of righteousness? This robe of righteousness, if you will, that God has given us. Most scholars believe that the pure spiritual milk is the word of God, which was already mentioned in context a few verses ago.

If you were to go back to talk about how we are saved through the imperishable, imperishable seed, which is the word of God, which is the gospel. So how does a person who is born again grow into their salvation?

By consuming the pure spiritual milk. Not by doing a bunch of stuff. Not by getting busy and getting it done, but by feeding on the pure spiritual milk. It couldn't be clearer to me that Peter believes that growing correctly into our salvation requires right belief.

It is not ever enough to just do stuff. One can do good stuff and not be in the kingdom of God. He's going to go on to clarify that for us in an illustration about building on a foundation that we're going to see here in a moment.

That you can be on the job site and not building the right building. Did you know that? You can be on the job site, the same job site as everybody else, and not building on the foundation, not building on the correct cornerstone.

You can do good stuff and not be in the kingdom. But equally, I want to caution us, this isn't what the text is saying, but other texts are clear about this. Equally, one can be in the word and not doing the right stuff.

You can think that just because you're involved in a Bible study, just because you come to church, that I'm doing all that's required of me, when there is indeed behavior that should follow the knowledge of the truth.

Would you agree with me on that? Is there some stuff we should be doing? Absolutely. But there are people who are in the word and not doing it, but at least that person, at least the person who is in the word and not doing it, has a chance to have their heart transformed by the truth.

You hear me?

At least the person who is engaging with the pure spiritual milk has access to the God of truth and the Holy Spirit who can transform us through the knowledge of the word of God. Are you getting me on that?

So that when I look at these two things, I believe, and this ties in with my personal experience, but also what I'm seeing in this text, is I believe that the hardest people to communicate the gospel to are religious people.

I've experienced that in my family. I've experienced that in my personal life. Some of the people who are doing good things, they're building nice walls on the job site. They're doing good things. They're kind.

They're giving. They're philanthropic. They're giving to good causes. Do you know what I'm talking about? And they're far from the kingdom because they have not built on the foundation. Religious people who do good things without the truth of Jesus Christ within them.

You getting what I'm saying? Coming to God through the pure spiritual milk and growing up and being built up and strengthened in this. But Peter says, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good through the grace that was given us at the cross of Jesus, if you've experienced, if you've tasted his mercy, if you've tasted his forgiveness, if you've received that pure spiritual milk, if you have been saved by the grace of God at the cross, then it will make sense that you will hunger for more.

There's going to be an aliveness. There's going to be a hunger. There's going to be a thirst for the word. So in this state of hunger, he says in verse 4, as you come to him, another way of saying that is, as you keep coming to him,.

As the Greek text would have,.

The Greek verb tense would have us state. So in this state of hunger, you keep coming back to Jesus. As you keep coming back to him for more, Peter assumes that you will return to Jesus time and time again.

Christ the Living Stone, the Chosen Cornerstone

And I love it because I get to say,.

Here you sit.

Here you are. I hope that you've come this morning to be strengthened by Jesus Christ, to have your thirst satiated by the living word of God, to have it satisfied by Jesus. He is the one who has been rejected by men, as the text goes on to tell us, but chosen and precious by God Almighty.

Remember that Peter is writing to a church that's been exiled and rejected by their communities. But he has emphasized the theme that despite their rejection by culture, they have been chosen by God, rejected by men, chosen by God.

And he's emphasized that multiple times in this text. And Jesus is like a living stone that was rejected as unfit for building, particularly by the Jews and is certainly rejected by many in our culture and many in our society today.

But we are like him, like living stones. We are being built up into, the text says, a spiritual house. We are being brought together as a living temple unto God. So that what has happened here in Recast over the last five years is something so much more than starting a new business.

I'm not an entrepreneur who had just enough business savvy to start a new congregation in Matawan. But we are being built up into a spiritual temple for God. And not just that, but the text goes on to say, we are being built up as a holy priesthood.

We are not just the building, but we are the ministers of God in this building. Now, we talk about building a building, we talk about building actual real bricks, laying a real foundation, putting real bricks and mortar and lights and bathrooms and classrooms and a sanctuary in and all that stuff.

But I wanna point out something that's glorious and something that I want us to never lose sight of. And that is that we are the building. We are the building right here, right now. It doesn't matter if we're meeting in a tent.

It doesn't matter if we even have a roof over our heads. It doesn't matter if we're meeting in a janky old elementary school or a storefront on Red Arrow. We are the building of God, the holy temple as we come together with our different skills and abilities and talents.

And God has knowingly sown us together, knowingly built us up on the foundation, the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. And he is bringing us together because we need each other. We need one another. And certainly, obviously, most importantly, we need the cornerstone.

We need the foundation that God has laid that we might continue to be built up and strengthened. So when we talk about that building project, I want you to always temper that desire that we have for a building, a place that is ours for the worship of God, for the furtherance of his message in this community, a building and facility that can be used to bless our community as well.

Remember and never lose sight that we are in our assembly. When we gather together, we are the building of God. Equally, we cannot assume that the pastors, the elders, the leaders can get everything done.

God is pulling us together to do the ministry of the church. All of us having a part to play in this holy priesthood, as Peter calls it. All of us, he goes on to say, have a spiritual sacrifice. We are priests in the sense that we all have a sacrifice to offer, each one of us.

And that sacrifice is made acceptable to God through who?

Jesus Christ.

We are many stones making up a spiritual house. Together, God's people make a unified whole. We together are a place of worship to God. We together are a priesthood towards our community out there. And our acts of love and service towards our community here, inside and out there in our community of Matawan and where we live are like sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus.

Notice that not all sacrifice, not all service is acceptable to God. Only the service and sacrifice rendered through the cornerstone, only what is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, only what is done through him in the service of others,.

Whether it's out there or in here,.

Is acceptable to God. It is important that our work is done through Jesus Christ. Because there is only one foundation. And Peter quotes from Isaiah to make his point. Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy that the cornerstone of a figurative building would be laid in Zion, Zion being Jerusalem.

He would be precious and chosen of God. And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Now, that last statement, whoever believes in him, we know we're talking about Jesus, right? Did you already know that?

The cornerstone laid in Zion. Of course, we're talking about Jesus Christ. But whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Might not seem so true in the short run.

Do you agree with me on that?

Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Well, some of us, maybe even in this room, could stand up and testify of shame we have faced because we have testified of the goodness of Jesus Christ.

Whether it's in our workplace or in our families or wherever, you may have gotten some grief, received some shame as a result of testifying. But I believe that the comfort that Peter is offering here is that in an ultimate sense, those who put their trust in the cornerstone will all be vindicated in the end.

Everyone who puts their trust in this one, all the shame will come to nothing. And in the end, all will behold, those who shamed you will behold the honor that is given to you in the end. He goes on to say so in verse 7, the honor goes to you who believe.

Well, of course, all honor goes to Jesus Christ, but there's some reality in which when you have built on the solid foundation of Christ and invested in him and invested through him in the lives of others, there will be a time of reckoning.

There will be a time of honor.

Given to those who invest in this way. Now he contrasts those. Moving on to verse 8, he contrasts those who reject the cornerstone. Those who do not believe are like those who have rejected the cornerstone.

And I want to point out that what Peter is doing is giving us a snapshot of all those who are currently in a state at a point in time of unbelief towards Jesus Christ, towards this cornerstone. They've rejected the cornerstone.

And God, like a contractor who has already laid a foundation, says to his workers who are under him, build on that foundation. I've already laid the foundation. When you show up to work, when you show up to figurative work on that job site to start building walls and start putting on siding and start roofing and start doing all the things that go into the construction of a house, a spiritual house, the contractor, God says, I've already laid the foundation.

We've already got that poured. Cement mixers have already been in.

It's already set.

Build on that. And if the workers reject the foundation that the contractor has laid, does that make the foundation go away?

It's still there.

And so the cornerstone is in the way for those who would choose to still build while ignoring the cornerstone, while ignoring the foundation. Jesus doesn't go away even if he's rejected. He becomes a stumbling block.

This has been mystifying to me until this week. I really studied it and I started to put some illustrations to it and started to think through what it means to build a building. Have any of you ever been part of a construction project?

Have you been part of,.

Or at least maybe somebody built a house for you or something like that, but you observed the process or even had like watched the house next door get built or something like that? Some of us have seen that.

My neighborhood has had a lot of houses built in it recently. And so those of you who have seen this, you know that there comes a point when there is a foundation just sticking out of the ground. Jesus becomes a stumbling block for those who want to go on building without that foundation.

And as humorous as this illustration can be, it's a very serious word picture. In my neighborhood, I mentioned that there's a lot of new home construction going on. Some of those houses are being built faster than makes me comfortable.

Have you ever seen that happen? But there is a stage in every home where there's just some concrete sticking out of the dirt. Right? You've seen that phase. You've seen that stage. It's just cement forms that have been poured.

The foundation is now deep into the ground. The backfilling has happened. And there's just this cement structure. And I imagine workers arriving at that job site and trying to completely ignore that foundation.

They're building different plans.

They're building a different footprint. They're building walls where there is no foundation. They're acting like that foundation doesn't exist. They aren't just trying to work around it, but they pretend or in the darkness don't even see that it exists.

How many of you in that work environment can imagine some injuries before 9 a .m.? Before the 9 a .m. break, okay? You're picturing a couple injuries happening. Somebody's going to walk away with a broken leg.

They're going to trip over that thing, skin shins. There's going to be some angst and some hurt. And they're going to not know why because they're acting like this foundation doesn't exist. It's a stumbling stone to them.

The foundation, the cornerstone is there and it's there to be built upon. And people are tripping left and right over because they act like it's not there. But it's not going away. It's there. And it's the only foundation upon which if we build our lives and build our behavior and build on, that is the only foundation that is acceptable to God.

Only what is built on the cornerstone matters. You build a wall over here and there's no foundation, what's going to happen to that wall? It's just going to crumble. It's like building on the rock versus building on the sand.

It sounds like a familiar illustration. There's some consistency in scripture. Jesus isn't going anywhere. Believe in Him or not, He keeps getting in the way. And let me suggest to you that those of you who are believers,.

Has Jesus ever gotten in your way?

I don't think it's unfair for me to say He gets in my way. Because there are times when I want to go off the blueprint. There are times when I'm like, man, this is a good place to build over here. God says, no, back here on the cornerstone, back here doing it His way.

Well, but if I build over here, I get a little bit of glory for myself. Like I've been creative here, God. I've done things my way. I've done it, but you know, it's unique to me. I mean, you've created me as a creative dude.

I can get some stuff done over here. Back to the cornerstone, back to the blueprint, back to my plan, back to my way. A people for His own, what?

Possession.

A people owned by Him, directed and guided by His plan. And His plan is all about the cornerstone. Even when we believe in Him, He gets in the way of our building plans. But think about those who don't believe in Him.

Why so much frustration in the world with Jesus? You mention God in your workplace, that's okay. You can get away with that. You start talking about Jesus, people are gonna start getting angry. You're gonna start getting some heat when you start talking about Jesus Christ.

Have any of you already identified that? Why so much angst when Jesus is mentioned to those who don't believe in Him? Because they keep hitting their shins.

And tripping over Him.

He is in their way. I wonder if that's why His name gets used as a curse so often. Because when they trip, they're tripping over Him. This points to something so obvious and yet so important that it's worth me stating.

It's obvious, but it's important. And that is simply this. It all revolves around Christ. All of it is about Jesus. The church is defined by what it has done with the cornerstone. The church is formed upon the cornerstone.

Every life is ultimately defined by its encounter with the cornerstone. Believe in Him or don't believe in Him. But the encounter with this one defines human destiny even if you ignore Him. Even if you ignore Him, that defines your destiny.

Human responsibility is clearly held up in this passage. Look in the middle of verse 8. They stumble because they disobey the Word. And to Peter, back in verse 125, the Word is defined as the gospel. When he's talking about the Word, he's talking about particularly, specifically the good news that Jesus came to die for sinners.

So these who have rejected the cornerstone are those who have disobeyed the gospel. They have not believed the one thing that can give them salvation. They have disbelieved in the cornerstone, the one who is the foundation.

Who is held responsible for their disobedience?

They are.

And yet some of you have read ahead. Peter could have left off the end of verse 8 and made a lot of us a little bit more comfortable.

With the text.

Read it with me in case you're not tracking this. And a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, that's Jesus Christ to those who are unbelievers, all unbelievers, to all who do not believe that the foundation is laid.

He is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And they stumble because they disobey the gospel, the Word, as what? Oh, as they were destined to do. Maybe you think that it could make sense without that.

Anybody with me on that?

Be okay.

But God put it there for a reason. I think what Peter is saying here in essence is, sinners are destined to sin. He is speaking about all who are currently in a state of unbelief, which is made clear back in verse 7.

So a snapshot of all unbelievers in the world today. What is their status? They don't believe the cornerstone. What is their destiny? Unbelief.

Disobedience.

That is their destiny at a current snapshot in history. Right now, if you are not trusting in the cornerstone, your destiny is unbelief and harm. But I do not believe for a minute that Peter is uttering a hopeless case for those who currently, right at this moment, are in a state of rejection of Jesus.

I don't believe for a moment that he's saying their destiny is to remain that way. Scripture is stating that the destiny of every single human is unbelief, in unbelief. Every single unbeliever is in enmity and war against God.

The default of the human heart is rejection of the cornerstone. The default of the human heart is to wander about the job site in darkness, unable to perceive or see the cornerstone that has been laid there.