WWUTT 313 Like Living Stones?

The Bible says that you are a living stone being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, when we understand the text.

You are listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .tt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Born Again Through the Living Word and the Call to Love One Another

Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of 1 Peter today, and we are in 1 Peter 1, verse 22 through chapter 2, verse 10. Somehow we're getting done with that section today because we've only made it through chapter 2, verse 3 over the last couple of days.

Let's begin here in verse 22 of chapter 1. Peter says, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

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 up 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 into 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. So at the start of chapter two, we begin with the word, so. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

If we're beginning with that word, clearly it's continuing the thought that had been presented at the end of chapter one. So we are purified by our obedience to the truth, and since we've been purified, let us love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

Since we're born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable. So if we are born again in Christ, what will show it? What will be the evidence that others will see that we have truly been changed by the spirit of God and by our obedience to the word?

The way that we love one another, just as Christ commanded us to. This is my commandment that you love one another, he said to his disciples. So if we are followers of Christ and we are obeying his command, then we will do that and we will also grow in our affections for one another.

So our love for each other, when put into practice, will mature. We've been talking about maturity this week, maturing in our understanding of God, our knowledge of his word, our maturity in the faith.

Well, part of that maturity is also the way that we love our brothers and sisters in Christ. That maturity deepens also, that love deepens. You think about a relationship that you have with your spouse.

For those of you who are married, your love is matured, has it not? I hope, I hope it's not gotten more childish because that means that as a married couple you are bickering and arguing and fighting with one another, which should not be so.

But if this love between the two of you has matured, as it has been growing, then you have a deeper love for one another now than you did the day that you were married. Everybody thinks that the wedding day, that's the most romantic day, right?

Actually, that's when you're most like children is on that day. Your marriage began that day. Your pursuit of your spouse didn't end that day. That's when it began. That's when it really began because that's when you became husband and wife.

So as you continue to pursue your husband or your wife, your love for one another deepens. It matures. And so this should be that way within the church as well. If you have committed yourself to a single body of believers, and I hope that you have, not church hopping, not jumping around to whatever church you think feels most comfortable for you, but there is a group of believers that you are truly committed to and through thick and thin.

Let me add that as well. And let me also put it this way, through mature doctrine and through immature doctrine. There might be times when you're looking at your church going, hey, this is doctrinally sound stuff.

I love the challenging message, the theology that we're getting every single Sunday. The preacher is preaching the gospel. I am convicted every week. This is great stuff. Maybe you feel that way about the preaching in your church, but there might be some other times where you feel like it's just kind of light fare.

It's like, boy, the preacher just isn't preaching as hard as he used to, whatever it might be. Your numbers are growing, and so you're starting to get into lighter stuff thinking, hey, we need to do these things to appease the people that are here and keep our numbers up.

Maybe your church has gotten into that sort of fleshly appeal. Very easy for a church to do, but you stick with your church. Even when the theology is starting to get kind of light, you press upon your leaders, your elders, your pastors there at the church, that they would remain fixed on the sound gospel of Christ and continue to preach it.

Maybe you've been in a church that has been light fare for a long time, but you've been committed to that body. You've seen some progression, but it's really, really slow. I tell you, continue to press on.

Press those shepherds that have been raised up to guide you that they would commit themselves to the sound gospel of Christ and preach it without shame. I am not ashamed of the gospel, for in it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

May they continue to be reminded of these things and therefore your church mature. This is the love that you have for the saints. And as we have read previously in Romans 12, 3, as it also says in Romans 15, we who are mature have an obligation to bear with the failings of the week and not to please ourselves, but to please our brother for his good to build him up.

So part of our sticking with one another through thick and thin in the churches that we have been committed to is even through mature doctrine and not so mature doctrine. If you see a progression in that church that is more and more toward mature and deepening truth of God's word, stick with that.

Doesn't matter whether it's real slow. Maybe a pace will quicken as you go, but stick with that and continue to persuade your elders, your leaders in that church to be committed to the declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the more you declare the gospel, the more that you will mature in it, you will grow in that faith all the more growing up into salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good, amen. So we are even maturing in our love for one another.

Our love for each other is deepening. So if, as you have been committed to that church, that body of believers, and you have to be committed to a particular church in order for that love for your brothers and sisters in Christ to mature, what have you loved your brothers and sisters through?

Not much. If you haven't been there long and not much, if you've hopped from one church into another looking for that ideal church, which is idolatry, by the way, it's also adultery. It's like sleeping around with a bunch of different women until you find one that you like the best.

I mean, that is not the way that we treat the bride of Christ who is chosen and precious and is being purified. The true bride of Christ is being sanctified. There are going to be some churches that are more mature than others.

You cannot be looking for that church that is your ideal idea of a church. It has to be a church that is grounded in the gospel and is committed to declaring that gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, absolutely.

But if you find that church, no matter how mature or immature they are in their doctrine, you must remain there and continue to love your brothers and sisters, maturing all the more as you rejoice in the gospel together and love one another through thick and thin.

That's maturing through love. So as we mature together, as you come to him a living stone, you are being built up into a spiritual house. You as the as the body of Christ, the church together, growing in the knowledge of God and growing and deepening in love for one another, a love and a passion for the scriptures as well.

This is all part of being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So Jesus described here in verse four as a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up into a spiritual house.

Something that's being implied there is that we are also going to be rejected by men. So Jesus as a living stone was rejected by men. We as followers of Christ who are being built up in a spiritual house with Christ as the cornerstone, we are also going to be stones that are rejected by men.

This comes back to the calling to holiness, holiness that Peter had put in his letter early on. Holiness means to be set apart. We're not going to be like the rest of the world. We're not going to look like everyone else.

I remember Voti Bacchum saying, I heard Voti Bacchum say this once, the church should actually be the scariest place to be in in the world. He kind of paused for effect there, and he said, how uncomfortable would it be for a person to walk into a church where the people of God are worshiping the judge on his throne?

Their garments have been washed white by his righteousness, and there they stand in their filthy garments, knowing that they are not worthy to be addressing the judge of the universe. They would shrink away and hide from him.

How incredibly uncomfortable a situation that would be, and how obsessed are we, especially in the American church, of trying to create an atmosphere that is the friendliest to people as possible. We want people to feel comfortable in our church, so much so that the way that we advertise our church is, come dressed in whatever you want to wear.

You know, wear comfortable clothes. I have heard churches, that's the exact way that they advertise themselves from the get-go. They don't say anything about the gospel, worshiping or glorifying God in their first opening catchphrase.

It is, come dressed in whatever you want to dress in. Come dressed as you are, because we want people to feel comfortable. And you know, my church doesn't have a dress code, and I don't think any church should, but it's different when you are saying to people, come dressed as you are.

Come in comfortable clothes, because you're establishing right from the get-go, we're all about you being comfortable. Then what happens when you preach something that's uncomfortable? All of a sudden, they're going to feel like they've been ripped off.

Man, I was told that this was a place I could come and be comfortable. Suddenly, I'm very uncomfortable. That is not the way that we should be advertising our churches. The way that we should present the church is a church that is being purified by Christ, holy and spotless, blameless, righteous.

Not because of anything that we have done, certainly not our righteousness, but because of the righteousness of Christ that we have been clothed with as his people. As we read in Titus 2 .14, Christ gave himself up for us, to redeem us from all lawlessness, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works.

And it's that group of people that we are talking about here, living stones being built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And that holy house set apart is not going to look like every other building and structure in the world. We are going to look different, so much so that we will be rejected by men. And that's great. If we're being rejected by men, hallelujah, because we're actually fulfilling what the scriptures say should be happening for the people of God.

We are going to be ostracized. We are going to be outcast. We are going to be ridiculed by the world because we're different, because we're not of this world, because we are holy and set apart, not by anything that we have done, but by the precious cleansing blood of Jesus Christ that has cleansed us from all unrighteousness and clothed us in his righteousness.

Christ the Cornerstone and the Stone of Stumbling

So we continue on here in verse six, 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. And of course, this passage is cited from Isaiah 28, 16.

It's also something that Jesus quoted while he was teaching in the temple just a couple of days after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He said that Jesus said to his critics, have you never read the scriptures?

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Jesus goes on, therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces. And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. Peter says in verse seven, 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. So why is it that there are people who will be in our churches for a period of time and then when the gospel is declared, they're offended by it and they get up and leave because they stumble on this stone of stumbling and this rock of offense as they were destined to do.

But in the American church, we have tried to pave over that stone of stumbling and that rock of offense, a rock of offense with easy believism. We want to make it as easy as possible for a person to come to believe.

We want to make it as easy as possible for a person to be comfortable in our churches, not saying anything that would make them uncomfortable or make them squirm or make them get up out of their seat and heaven forbid, go find another church where they would be more comfortable.

We want to be able to provide all the comforts that they can find right here in this church. And we all like big numbers. Not just the pastor likes his church to be a big number, but the people in the church like to see big numbers too.

Why? Because it makes you feel like you're doing something right. And then if you look for that right thing, you want to do it over and over again so that it brings in more numbers. But the thing that you're doing is actually appeasing people, not being obedient to the word of God.

We need to look to God's word to know what it is that we should be preaching and how we should be behaving. It all comes from the word of God, not the effect that we're seeing in the people, but what we have been commanded in God's word by the Christ that we worship, what he said that we should do and obeying what he said to do, not following after passions of the flesh is we can all feel pretty comfortable whenever there's a lot of people in our church.

We can all feel like that there's something that we are doing that is right. But if it is not according to the word of God, then it is God who we are displeasing no matter how comfortable everybody is in the church.

The word of God is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And I have been convicted by this word over the course of the week as I am preparing the sermon that I'm going to preach on Sunday. It's been convicting me all week long.

Then I stand up before my congregation and I deliver the word to my congregation and then they get convicted by the very same thing that I was convicted about the week before. So it's not like I'm standing up there in front of everybody else more comfortable than they are.

And my desire is to therefore make them uncomfortable. It is to explain what the word of God says. It is to shepherd the believers as an under shepherd, which is what I've been called to. And we're going to talk about that when we get to first Peter chapter five, because that's where Peter talks about the role of a minister in that way, serving as an under shepherd faithfully.

And our reward is when the great shepherd appears. So anyway, so these are things that I've been convicted about over the course of the week before I come and I preach it to my congregation. We are supposed to feel uncomfortable in this flesh, longing all the more for the kingdom of God.

The more uncomfortable we are in the flesh, the more we will desire to be with our God no longer in this body and no longer in this world, but in the glorious kingdom that has been promised to us. An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

As we read about at the start of this letter, that's where our desire should be. So it is the word of God that is purifying us. It is perfecting us. It is growing us into a spiritual house. It is growing us in love for one another in the body of Christ.

Verse nine, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation of people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into 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. Before we came to Christ, we weren't a people. We were not even a people at all.

Coming back to something that I had read earlier in the week from Titus 3 .3, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

That's a person without a people. That's being described right there. When we are hated by others and hating one another, you don't have a people. And everybody is like that before they come to Christ, divided from everybody.

There is no unification that happens in people who are not in Christ. Everybody is every man for himself. Even when they do something nice for somebody else, they are doing that for their own self-glory and self-gratification.

There's something that they have to gain for doing something nice for somebody else. Or saying to God, I don't need you to be good, I can be good by myself, which is self-righteousness. So this is the way we were before we came to Christ.

But God, who is rich in mercy, saved us from that darkness into his marvelous light. We are a chosen race. We are a royal priesthood. We are a holy nation, a people for his own possession. A nation of priests, by the way, when you connect the dots there, a people for his own possession, zealous for good works, as we read about in Titus 2, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him.

That's the good work. Proclaiming the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, now you're God's people. Once we were orphans, now we are the children of God.

You could also read it that way, as John explains that in 1 John 3. Once you had not received mercy, once we were under the wrath of God because of our sinfulness and our rebellion against God, but God, who is faithful, has shown us mercy, and we have received his grace, and we have this promise that there is an imperishable kingdom waiting for us if we endure to the end.

And good news on that note as well, by God's power, we are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, 1 Peter 1 .5. Praise God. Lord, as we wrap up what we have studied here, we praise you and we thank you for calling us out of that darkness, not leaving us in that place where we were subject to the wrath of God, for our rebellion, for disobeying you, for going our own way.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every single one of us to his own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Christ took our penalty upon himself, absorbing the wrath of God every last drop so that in Christ Jesus, we can know that we are saved.

We have been given salvation. We have peace with God. And more than that, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. More than that, we are fellow heirs of this imperishable kingdom that is promised us.

All of the people of God, followers of Jesus Christ, help us to be faithful to the church as you have been faithful to the church. We have been ridiculously unfaithful. God is ridiculously faithful. And so Lord, as you have shown this commitment to the church, let us follow your lead and be committed to the body of believers, the saints who are growing together in love, a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And help us not to try to pave over the gospel with easy believism, but preaching it for all its worth. For we were offended in our flesh when we first heard it and repented and believed. So let us not hold back the power of the gospel to save those who hear it and believe.

And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Closing Announcements

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.