1 Peter 2:4-10, Who Are You?

First Peter chapter 2 reading from verses 4 to 10 hear the word of the

Lord as You come to him a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious

You yourselves like living stones are being built as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices

Acceptable to God through Jesus Christ for it stands in Scripture Behold I am laying in Zion a stone a

Cornerstone chosen and precious and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame

So the honor is for you who believe but for those who do not believe the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a

Stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do

But you are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the

Excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and to his marvelous light Once you were not a people, but now you are

God's people once you had not received mercy But now you have received mercy

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word there's been a lot of talk about norms lately, you know our norms as Americans what it means to be an

American is to normally do these things Our identity is Americans mean these are norms norms arise from identity of who you are

If you're an American, how do you handle differences of opinion? You know a bookstore selling a book you don't like You go and chant demand that the the proprietors take it away.

How how do you handle results of an election? You don't like how do you express your suspicions about it and deal with others producing evidence to the contrary

To your conclusions. How do you protest what the government is doing or just protest generally?

What is your identity as an American have to do with how you behave? Just Tuesday before last someone commented online that there will probably be a big upset at Capitol Hill the next day and I said, but no that won't happen.

We don't do that kind of thing You know, who are we I thought the next day

I was totally wrong Of course now whether or not you're an American How does your identity whether you're a

Chinese or Singaporean or American or or other? How does that shape your behavior?

about all kinds of things maybe like sexuality You have sexual desires

How does your identity determine how you satisfy them or whether you will have to deny them for a time?

That is how does your culture direct you and maybe it doesn't not anymore

American culture used to frown on sex outside of marriage Even after it stopped being punished officially now in Puritan days if it became known that there had been sex outside of marriage

The culprits would be flogged Sometimes it became known because a newly married bride gave birth to a fully developed child six months six months

Mind you after the wedding and of course they figured out why? They would flog the man as soon as the pregnancy became known but wait until after the birth to flog the woman

But after that was done away There was still a lot of unofficial social disapproval for generations of sexual immorality living together before marriage was called living in sin a couple might have to prove that they are married to rent a hotel room or Have a sleeper cabin in a train

I've heard about that having to prove your marriage even as late as after World War two getting a sleeper cabin on the train You have to a couple would have to show that they're married.

Now. The only place where I've ever Experienced that was in Seoul, Korea Checking into a hotel with Mary and the man there in charge of the hotel asked me to prove that we were married

Now the only thing I could do is point to my ring I don't carry the marriage certificate around with me all the time. But now here in America, there's no such expectations

There's basically no connection Anymore between our identities as Americans and how we behave sexually or then our how we marry

The result is that many Americans now have no guidance. So they have no confidence About how to do basic things

Involving that like how to date be engaged get married. The culture doesn't tell them how to do it So they have no idea how to do it now in Singapore the founding prime minister

Lee Kuan Yew Wrote that the Chinese educated there that is Singaporeans who were educated in Mandarin and learned

Chinese history and culture that they were more they were more confident They knew who they were

They had a culture that told them how to live When they wanted to get married their

Chinese culture told them exactly how to do it You get permission from the parents to honor the ancestors at the very wedding at the wedding ceremony itself usually held at When the man's house they have a tea pouring ceremony at the wedding

They might even live with a man's parents after being married, but the English educated and he doesn't mean just Westerners He talked about the

English educated Singaporeans and often did Western influence. He said they had no guidance

He didn't say this part. They had very little culture. And so they had he said no confidence

They might mimic the Americans they saw on television or on the movies And so when it came to major events of life, like getting married, they didn't know what to do they suffered from what sociologists called a

Nomi a sense of normlessness that is a lack of identity of of not knowing who

I am of who we are and then and therefore

What are the norms for life? What should guide us how to behave that a no me that normlessness?

A sense of having no foundation. There's nothing solid in life to shape it to guide it that prevents me

Nothing solid in life that prevents me from just following whatever impulse that just takes me over whether sexually or rage or willfulness or greed that foundationlessness shows in our culture by norms breaking down Because we don't know why they exist.

We just think that's just the old way people used to do things We don't know why they did it. We don't know why we should why is marriage between a man and a woman?

Why do we not live together before marriage? Why did we not riot into the Capitol building? Why did we not ban people from social media just because we don't agree with them?

We don't know who we are and so we don't know how to live

Here we see first who we are And so that will then know

How to live and we see that in two major parts first stones and then status

Well first stones now if we spoke in red Greek, it would be immediately obvious to us when we got a letter from a man named

Peter rock Why he so likes themes Having to do with rocks with stones the man

Jesus named rock Likes talking about rocks Here he says in verse 4 continuing from before now that you long

He's continuing what we what we saw last week you now that you long for this pure spiritual milk

You crave God's Word you crave his presence and his people because you have tasted in them that the

Lord is good So you are coming to him and he is the living stone

It's kind of a strange analogy You know because stones aren't alive But stones are solid you build on stones if you don't if you build on sand

You set your life that is you set your life on your feelings your pleasures your cravings or maybe your ego the norms of a changing culture

Then your life will crash all of the ground as we just sang is sinking sand if you want to be solid

Build on the rock, but this rock unlike natural rocks is alive he's both solid and alive

He was also rejected by men Remember we saw just a few weeks ago in Luke chapter 20 where Jesus startles the crowd that had been hanging on his every word

With the eye with the idea Remember that the parable he told the beloved son who is being sent to get rent from the vineyard

It's going to be killed Standing for himself explaining what's happening to himself be killed by the tenants of the vineyard who also the builders of God's building at least the

X builders representing the religious leaders and those Former builders are going to be replaced in the crowd

Just shouted, you know, surely not. I cannot be that's against our norms But then Jesus answered but that's what saw 118 means when it says the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone

God is building his people on the rock and the religious leaders Have rejected him But that's the one that God has chosen to build on if we build our lives and church on the same rock

So don't be surprised if people even religious people Reject us too in the past.

They would have rejected us here in the South because if If we're building on the

Living Stone That will affect who we include That is we will include people of other races and so will be rejected by a racist culture

Today, I don't think that's so much anymore. I really don't but today we might be rejected for who we exclude because we'll follow scripture and Exclude people who will not repent of for example sexual immorality

So again, we'll be rejected if Christ was rejected by men. We shouldn't be surprised if we are too but he was chosen and precious

Rejected by people but chosen and precious to God chosen in verse 4 is

Elect is the same word the same word used for us in chapter 1 verse 1 the beginning of the letter We are the elect exiles.

He's elect. We're elect. He was also precious to God. We're elect because he's elect

We're precious to God Because he's precious to God not just because we're precious right because he was precious

God sees us in him He makes us precious and who exactly are you? You are in verse 5 like living stones

Same exact phrase just used for Jesus same exact phrase except now plural

We are each of us who are you who are elect and precious like Christ?

Living that is made alive by the resurrection of Jesus and the Holy Spirit who is living in us and solid like stones

Why would we be stones? Okay, we get that understand it's easy to understand that mr.

Rock Writing this letter. He loves to play on the rock themes

Okay, we get that and we get that Christ is the living stone and we should build on him But why are we stones?

You know, we don't build on us Christ doesn't build on us But he does build with us

We are being built he says together as stones to be a spiritual house.

We're stones because God is building a house and he wants it solid.

So we're not just building with boards and planks that could termites could rot He wants it solid. So he's building with stones and we are the stones now first notice that we are being built

Who was doing the building? Well, God is remember the divine passive we talked about and Jesus is teaching just a few weeks ago

You know like everyone who has or more be given Given by who will buy by God here.

We are being built passive built by who By God God is building his own house.

It's not a physical structure But a gathering of people he's put together and he is the master builder.

He doesn't need us to build for him It's not asking to build his church for for him. He calls us to be the stones in it

That's why every Christian should be a member of a church where they are They are fitted in where they are a stone when they're a part of a building

They're not customers who go from one religious services provider to another unstable unsolid unrock like We're supposed to be stones in the building that God is putting together

It's a spiritual house. I Mean, it's not just a physical house Made of living stones not a physical house made of cinder block and steel or even for some thing

You know grand architecture with stained glass and you know, gothic style, whatever This somehow is

God's house. No, we named this building the gym One purpose so that we would not confuse this house with God's house

God's house is the people that's you that God has fit together and filled with the

Spirit the temple in the Old Testament was a picture of it a symbol Solomon built the temple and Consecrated it and the

Spirit of God came and filled the place So that the priests weren't even able to stand so overwhelmed were they by the presence of God today?

It's not our buildings certainly not a gym that our spirit filled houses of God, but the church

The people that God has chosen and called precious because of Christ Well, who are we?

We are a spiritual house and that determines what we do Our identity creates our norms.

It guides our behavior What do spiritual houses do then? Well first notice how corporate this imagery is

We are not each of us kind of individually Spiritual houses all on our own single -family dwellings

Together, I guess maybe we make up a spiritual neighborhood. Is that how we work? We're neighbors, but not really living together in the same house.

No, that's not the imagery here. We together are one Spiritual house built by God to be connected

The church is not a spiritual services provider Like your favorite restaurant or theater and you go to whichever one is providing you with the specials or the shows

That you want right now, you're a stone or brick or a cinder block Built into a house with other stones.

Now if that doesn't describe your connection to the church There's something wrong

Where are you getting your norms from? Where are you? What are you assuming is your identity if you're an

American you might assume that you're basically an individual and that institutions From businesses to schools to churches

They exist to cater to your needs to provide you the products and the services that you consume your identity

So you've been taught by your culture. Is that of a customer? You might even be a regular good customer like I'm sure some of our

Chinese restaurant people They have I assume they have regular customers who come on you maybe almost every day or some maybe some

Reliably on a certain day of the week every Monday like clockwork. They're there having their dinner and Some people viewed the church just like that.

They might be very good customers always having their spiritual dinners every Sunday morning But deep down they still see themselves as customers who might go elsewhere

If another religious services provider offers them better services, or maybe doesn't step on their toes quite so much their identity as individual customers shapes how they live as detached individuals

Even if they are regular ones but if they see themselves as stones that is solid parts of Ability spiritual building attached to other stones

They'd be more than regular customers, but actual parts attached

The individualistic customer finds this idea shocking maybe revolutionary maybe

Repulsive because of their identity and their norms They might even be they might even be

Christians taught that they should regularly go to church Believe that they need you need to hear the preaching of the word, but they believe it like like I believe

I need to have lunch Okay It's my need I need to meet it and My connection to you or any else other customers there and whatever restaurant

I choose to go to it doesn't factor into it at all It's nothing to do with other people with whom I'm attached But this is really this theme that Peter is illustrating here is really all through the

Bible or the church Paul's favorite analogy, of course is the body bodies parts don't exist by themselves

They say oh not alive for very long by themselves Detached arms and legs our eyes and ears kind of walking down the street by themselves here.

Mr. Rock Prefers the the stones analogy. You're part of a building that God is raising up That's your identity

How does that shape your norms then? Well in the middle verse 5 you together living stones built together are a spiritual house to be

Function it's what you're to do a holy priesthood From the Old Testament analogy the priests were people who went into went into God's house to intercede for people to God here

Now with us the priesthood and the house here They're the same thing notice that Your house and you as a house are to be a priesthood now with the church

The house is the priesthood the gathering of people whom God lives in on earth. That's his house is the priesthood who intercede for people to God The priesthood is not just a few select men in the church like me who intercede for the rest of the church

The priesthood is the entire church we are all a priesthood that's our identity and that should determine

How we behave how we live? What do we do as a priesthood at the end of verse 5 we offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ now those spiritual sacrifices are

Our ourselves as Romans chapter 12 verse 1 says we present our bodies and our whole lives as living

Sacrifices our sacrifices are living and then he's not calling us You know just sacrifice our lives by some act of self -immolation

That is burning ourselves to death You don't pour a gallon of gasoline over your head and set yourself on fire and claim

I'm giving myself as a sacrifice to God but by living for him every day handling every penny we have as if it belonged to him since it does

Seeking to use our jobs our roles as wives or husbands or children or parents to serve him.

That's acceptable to God now It's only acceptable to God if it is through Jesus Christ That is it's a fruit of our identity as believers in Jesus Because we are disciples of Jesus.

That's our identity Then what we do is offer our lives to him as a living sacrifice

Now if it's something we do to try to earn Approval from God that is we see ourselves as earners

Somehow we think we can please God with enough of the right Sacrifices if we give enough money or we deprive ourselves of enough pleasures or we afflict ourselves

Like Francis of Assisi who threw himself bare -bodied into the snow to punish himself if he accidentally had touched some money

As horrible as that is we think we have to give ourselves to something that poverty chastity and obedience is a

Lifelong sacrifice to earn merit with God if that's what we do Then that's not through Jesus.

That's not having a faith and trust in him. And so that's not acceptable our living sacrifices and living stone should arise from our new identity as believers and the living stone

Now we know his identity and ours because in verse 6

Scripture says Behold that is look pay attention.

I God speaking. He's the master builder. I'm laying in Zion the place where God has chosen to dwell a stone that living stone a corner stone

It's the foundation stone is this place in the corner and they were laying foundations of a building

From which the angle of the rest of the walls and the level for the rest of the foundation would extend from that cornerstone

So the cornerstone Sets the norms for the rest of the entire building chosen again, the word elect and Precious is irreplaceable whoever believes in him so builds his or her identity on him and From that identity comes behavior

Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame That is you'll not finally be embarrassed

That that you believed in Jesus that you were you're a loser because you believed in him

You won't be shown to have been you know on the wrong side of history Even if people reject you now

Instead there is a verse 7 honor for you who believe There is honor for those who believe but for those who don't believe

He says there is stumbling Then mr. Rock he quotes another stone passage in Psalm 118.

It's the same one. He had heard Jesus Quote back to that crowd in the temple

Explaining why he would be crucified Jesus is the stone that the religious builders rejected

Building his spiritual house He had God is building his spiritual house of the church and he has made him that cornerstone in that house

Another verse mr. Rock has memorized from Isaiah chapter 8 explains why for for some

Jesus isn't their cornerstone But he is their stumbling stone a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense

Now for some Jesus is who they build their lives on for others

He offends them they can't get over the fact that their morality or their religion their their

Ancestry the family they were born into that it isn't good enough They can't stop trusting in their money like the rich young ruler

They can't sacrifice it and seek first the kingdom of God. And so they are they're offended at Jesus and they go away they stumble at the end of verse 8 because they disobey the word

Remember the word at the end of chapter 1 is the gospel. They don't obey the command to believe the gospel

So they stumble Now, why don't they believe and obey? It's what he says at the end of verse 8

It's what they were destined to do This is versus kind of controversial. Look what it says in the verse 8 they were destined

To do that to stumble they were that is they were appointed literally It's what it means appointed to disobey and to stumble just like an axe and on the flip side of Acts chapter 13 verse 48

Whereas we're Luke there says all who were appointed to eternal life all who were appointed To eternal life believed they believe

God because God made an appointment for them to do so And so here these people stumble over Christ because God made an appointment for them to stumble

Now this is one of the few verses in the Bible that talks about the predestination of the lost There's few of them because mostly the

Bible is concerned with the salvation of God's people is for God's people like like this letter to the elect exiles and It's not the

Bible is not mostly concerned with what happens to others, but here those who are offended at Jesus do that Because God destined them to They are not one of the elect exiles that this letter is written to they are non elect

That's their identity That's who they are Well, who are you

Who are you and what you're gonna do over stones? Now, what's our status?

They might stumble but in verse 9 you Plural as y 'all corporately again about the whole church.

You all are four things You're chosen chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation and God's people that's your fourfold identity a chosen race is again the word chosen elect same word as before race as a kind of People a kind of people here a kind of people not determined by race

Of course as Christians our racial identity is never the most important thing about us That's why the idea of having a church determined by racial identity for only our race our physically kind of people

That shouldn't be tolerated That should be just absolutely Inconceivable for a

Christian. No, we're a chosen race not just a white people's race or black or anything else our race is

Chosenness based on mercy we are a royal priesthood royal and that we are sons and daughters of the king and A priesthood like before and that we all have access to God through Jesus and we can all intercede

To God for others. We're a holy nation Holy in that we're set apart from the rest of the nations.

We're distinct from them The other nations are determined by ethnicity We're not we're determined by God's choice of us by grace

And so should be different from the rest of the world from the other Nations even different than the cultures that we grew up in who tried to try to tell us that we're individualistic

Consumers are there were most of all family members living to make the family better mostly make more money for the family

No, we're God's Nation literally the Greek word there were his ethnos where we get the word ethnic from we're his ethnicity

Our identity as God's people is far more important to us than our identity as Americans or Chinese or whatever

Finally, we are a people for his own possession We're God's people

We're not our own. We're not America's. We're not our families Not our political parties not anything else

We're God's all of these terms for us our Identity Peter is borrowed from Exodus chapter 19 verses 5 and 6 where God tells the

Israelites there He says to them if you will obey if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant

This is what you will be. This will be your identity. You'll be those four things

Some say but this verse first Peter chapter 2 verse 9 shows that God has now taken the identity

That belonged to Israel and he's transferred it now to the church that the church has replaced

Israel That's called Supercessionism the church has superseded

Israel, but in Exodus, he doesn't say You know to ethnic Israel. This is who you are

That you are is ethnic Israel. You are a chosen people a royal priest of the Holy Nation God's people but he says there if you if you keep my

Covenant if you obey my voice if you obey keep the covenant Then this is what you can be

You obey by believing the covenant is fulfilled by Christ if they had obeyed and kept the covenant.

They would have been believers believers in Jesus even before Jesus like Abraham Ethnic Israel in Exodus 19 is being called be invited to believe to be

The church It's not that the church replaced Israel. I know maybe I'm kind of quibbling.

This is an area of interest to me It's not that the church replaced Israel. It's that the true

Israel. That's the Israel that believes Was always the church the elect people the priesthood the

Holy Nation. We haven't replaced Israel We always were That's our status

What's your status Well today that sounds like relationship status people often ask that status.

They're referring to that Are you married you single? Whatever that determines some of how you behave if you're single you you can date and get to know people in a certain way if you're

Married you can if you're dating where you kind of somewhere in between status influences behavior Here our status is as the people

Who are what? Israel was always supposed to be We are

What Israel was always supposed to be what they were invited to be the chosen people related to the king that interceding for the world a holy nation

God's Possession. How does that status mean then that we should live?

Because that's who we are we are to now proclaim the excellencies That is how excellent he is his his virtues his blessings all the good things that he's done for us

Proclaim them. He says tell them out. Let them be known preach about them Whatever venues you have at your disposal share about them in conversation or on social media seeing about them

He has called you out of darkness. That was your status in the dark blind to the truth

To what was your identity and how you should behave about right norms?

You had to know me You didn't know who you were he called us out of that and into his

Marvelous. Look at these superlatives here. Notice them Marvelous, that is a light that makes you marvel

It just awes you so much that you go. Wow. What a light Into his marvelous light

Who are you? You are corporately again That's together a people we're not just individuals

You are a people like a nation and ethnicity a body a temple of living stones once you were not a people

No wonder you had to know me You had no identity. So it's understandable if you had to know me normlessness

Foundationlessness if you didn't know how to live you had no confidence in who you are, but now in verse 10

You're God's people Once you hadn't received mercy You had no mercy and here he's quoting from Hosea chapter 1 and 2 remember from last summer

The people who thought that they were God's people by birth were not God's people but here the people

Who were not a people? Have been caused to be born again And so the people who were not a people glad I know me who didn't know who they were who

I knew I didn't eat now They're God's people the difference is

Mercy mercy Makes you different if you've received it.

It makes you one of God's people It changes your identity and your identity

Changes how you live? So who are you? Are you someone?

Who has received mercy if so You've been changed by that.

You have a new identity if not yet Why not receive it now?