06-14-09 More On The Living Stone

We began a section of 1^st Peter last week

in which Peter borrows a word picture from the Psalms,

a word picture of Christ Himself.

It is a passage that begins with 1^st Peter 2:4

and then continues all the way through verse 10.

It is a passage filled with both contrasts and comparisons,

a passage that both begins and ends

with powerful words of encouragement for the people of God.

You may remember

that Peter began this second chapter

by completing his thoughts about the purpose and power of the Word of God in our lives.

He wanted us to know

both the strength and the security that God has given us

through the words He has spoken to us.

There is nothing more certain,

more reliable,

more absolute than the things our God has said.

And Peter went to considerable length

to communicate this truth to us.

And then, in an attempt to take that truth

and embed it into our minds through mental imagery

in verse 2:4 he says,

1PE 2:4 And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God...

And coming to Him as to a living stone...

That’s what he wants us to see, to know.

To come to the King

is to come to the only solid life foundation

that has the ability to remain strong under our feet

no matter what we may face.

And we spent our time together last week

looking both at Peter’s imagery of Jesus as the living stone,

and then also at the remarkable way in which he takes that same imagery

and applies it to each of us.

Just as Jesus is the living stone for the entire human race,

so we become living stones

for the people our Lord places near us.

1PE 2:5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And after more than 40 years of trying to figure this whole thing out,

let me just say that it’s nowhere near as difficult, or complicated as I once believed it was.

Do you know how we do that?

Do you know how we become living stones

in the lives of those God gives us?

It’s not by our trying to find some way of giving them the truth, you know.

There’s a place for that,

but that’s not where it begins.

It begins by our giving them ourselves...

by our figuring out how to love them,

and how to communicate that love to them.

If we attempt to give them the truth

before we have given them ourselves

it will only sound like one more religious system

in an endless sea of religious systems.

But if we begin by just allowing our God to love through us,

to really care about those people who make up our world,

if we take them right where they are,

just as they are,

and love them,

that love will give us access to their minds and hearts

as nothing else can ever do.

There are no guarantees, of course.

There will be times

when we will love

and yet the one we love

will never open up their life to us

in a way that allows us to give them the answers they so desperately need.

And because we love

it will cause us pain.

But there will be other times

when our love will give them hope

and the courage to let us into their fear, or pain, or confusion.

And in His endless grace

the Spirit of God will allow us to have a part

in bringing about literally life-altering changes within them.

1PE 2:5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

That’s as far as we got in the passage last week,

and I want us to pick up right were we left off

because Peter has a great deal more to say

both about our Lord and about us.

And let me begin by reading what comes next

and then we’ll dive into it and see what we can find.

1PE 2:6 For this is contained in Scripture: "Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed."

1PE 2:7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve, "The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,"

1PE 2:8 and, "A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense"; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

1PE 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

1PE 2:10 for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

OK, we have several things taking place in that 6^th verse

and I want to be sure we see what Peter is doing.

Keep in mind what he’s just said to us.

He’s gone to great lengths

to assure us that the one certain source for truth in life

is the written Word of God.

And then, by way of illustration

he quotes for us a statement made by the Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 28:16...

"Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed."

It is a powerful prophetic image of Christ,

the One who is the cornerstone of the entire human race,

the foundation of God’s entire relationship to this physical creation.

And within this quotation

is an incredible promise to us from God about this Cornerstone.

And he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed.

And the one thing I want to emphasize here

is that it’s always personal.

And I have to be careful how I say this

so that I’m not misunderstood.

But what God offers us

and what He calls us to believe in,

to trust in,

to cling to is Himself.

It’s not the Christian system,

it’s Him.

And right here is where I’m probably going to get myself in trouble,

but I’m going to go ahead and say this anyway

because I don’t know how else to make the distinction I want to make.

There is a concept, a phrase that has been a part of my Christian heritage for as long as I can remember.

It’s phrase “I’m going to claim the promise”.

It’s used when a person comes across a promise in Scripture

that seems to bear on some situation in their life

and they “claim the promise”,

sort of in the way a person who won a drawing

would claim their prize by presenting the winning ticket.

For the Christian

this is done by bringing, not the winning ticket

but rather the written promise to God

and pointing out to Him

that because we have found the promise in Scripture

we therefore have a right to claim its fulfillment in our life.

Folks, I have to tell you that I have real problems with that.

I have problems first of all

because not once in all of the Biblical record

do we ever have an example

of someone approaching the promises of God on that basis.

No one ever “claims” a promise.

And even more,

I have problems with it

because in a subtle but powerful way

it replaces God Himself

with our Christian system.

It’s like we can go through our system of beliefs

and find something that we can then use

as a sort of leverage with which to get God to do what we want Him to do.

God becomes the One who has to be tricked or coerced

into doing what we think He should do.

It’s a little bit like a really stupid Trinidadian joke

that one of my friends told me when I was on the Island years ago.

He came running up to me with a soda bottle in his hand

and asked me if it was true that God was everywhere.

I said yes, God was everywhere.

Then he said, “Is God inside this bottle?”,

and I told him that yes, God was inside the bottle,

to which he responded by quickly dropping his palm on the top of the bottle and saying, “Gotcha!”

That’s a little bit like what can happen when we proclaim to God that we’re going to claim the promise.

“I gotcha, God! Now you have to do this because I caught You with your promise.”

Do you know what the promises of God are?

They are not pieces in some kind of game we’re playing with God,

they are windows into the heart of our Creator.

They give us insight into who He is and how He feels about us.

And certainly they are given to us by Him

to provide us with hope and solid footing in our lives.

But they are not claim-tickets to be turned in for redemption,

or ammunition with which to force God into submission to our will.

They are hand-holds that allow us to draw closer to Him,

chords with which we can pull ourselves into a more and more accurate knowledge

of what this God of ours is really like.

But it all traces back to God Himself,

to His direct, personal, care-filled involvement in our lives.

Our security,

our hope,

our certainty is nothing more and nothing less than God Himself.

And when Isaiah and Peter tell us

that ... he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed,

they want us to know

that we will know we have finally found Him,

not just His system,

or His path,

or His leading,

or His forgiveness but HIM

when what we have found

fills our soul.

Just recently my phone rang at 10:15 in the evening.

That’s a little risky, especially when you’re calling a REALLY OLD person,

but as soon as I heard the person’s voice

I was so grateful he’d called.

It was a good friend of mine

who has been going through a lot of confusion and frustration in his life recently.

When I picked up the phone

he said, “He loves me! God really, truly loves me! For the first time in my life I get it!”

He went on to say

that he wanted to go running out and tell all of his friends

that it was all true and that God really, truly loved them.

I told him later

that all that had happened

was that his spirit had finally met God’s Spirit

and when the two met it was love at first sight.

But I mention this now

because it’s the best way I could think of

to illustrate what Peter means when he says And he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed.

It is not what God does for us, or what He gives us

that floods us with joy, and hope, and a true sense of security.

It’s just HIM

and when we finally find Him,

no matter what He chooses to give us or not give us,

we are never disappointed

most of all because no matter what, we have Him with us, in us, for us forever,

and because we know that His every choice is a choice driven by His unquenchable love for us.

We have been deceived by our culture and by our flesh

into believing that what we really want is The Good Life -

the easy life, the affluent life, the pain-free life.

And we even tend to pass judgement on our God

on the basis of how successfully He provides us with those goals.

But even if we do achieve a measure of that Good Life

we still find this deep ache and emptiness within our souls

because what our spirits truly hunger for is not The Good Life

but rather the One who is absolute GOODNESS.

Have you found yourself disappointed with your Christian experience?

Have you found yourself disappointed with your God?

If so, then one thing is certain -

the God you’ve been trying to relate to

is not the one who really exists.

He is one created in your own mind

from bits and pieces here and there.

He’s got a lot of your dad in him,

and a lot of your religious training,

and a lot of your culture all mixed in.

And it’s no wonder he disappoints

because he doesn’t even really exist.

If His presence doesn’t fill you with joy

and his love doesn’t flood your soul

then set him aside

and reach out to the One who really is,

the One who loves you so much

that He died for your sins

so that the two of you could be friends forever.

And he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed.

But let me see if we can make a little more progress in this passage

before our time together this morning is completely gone.

Peter goes on, then, to take us and our relationship with Christ

and set it in contrast to the relationship that exists

between Christ and those who have rejected His authority in their life.

He says,

1PE 2:7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve, "The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,"

1PE 2:8 and, "A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense"; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

In these two verses

Peter is stating with simple clarity

the central issue of life - Jesus Christ.

And even for those who reject Him,

He’s still there

and He still must be dealt with.

Funny how it is...

we can never know God’s love

until our spirit has first submitted to His authority,

and if we will not submit to His authority

we will never know His love.

And in its place there will be an inescapable tension between us and Him.

We will carefully arm ourselves

with our own “logical” reasons

for our rejection of Him -

“Christians are such hypocrites!”

“The Bible is full of errors.”

“Christianity just makes people judgmental and condemning.”

“There’s no way my needs could ever be met if I followed what the Bible said.”

“I just want to have some fun in life,

and then maybe I’ll look into the religious thing down the line.”

“If there really was a God of Love He would never allow all of this evil and suffering in the world.”

“My mom was the most religious person I’ve ever known

and she died from a horrible, prolonged battle with cancer. A lot of good her Jesus did her!”

And from there they build their hiding place from Him

behind their own little pile of good works

and logical reasons why the whole Jesus thing simply doesn’t matter or couldn’t be true.

But then Peter makes a fascinating statement.

In a single phrase he blows all the smoke away

and reveals the simplicity of the real underlying issue

in the lives of those who reject Christ’s lordship in their lives.

He says,

for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word...

There is something in their life

they simply will not let go of,

something they know this Jesus will want to remove,

something they refuse to put into His hands.

It could be anything -

anger or deep bitterness against another person - perhaps a parent or some other authority figure,

some physical or emotional addiction,

an approach to money,

or sex,

or power,

or pleasure that is simply non-negotiable.

And don’t misunderstand me here.

I’m certainly not suggesting

that Christ requires us to fix what’s broken in our lives

before He will bring us to Himself.

We can’t fix anything.

But He is very skilled in helping us to realize

that what He wants from us

begins with our submission to His authority in our life.

I think with all of us

there will be something that we know comes with Him,

something we really don’t want,

something we truly believe will royally mess up our life

and rob us of what we really want or need,

and to choose Him

will mean to let go,

or give up,

or accept whatever it is that comes with Him.

I’ve told you what it was with me

when His Spirit and my spirit first collided.

“Larry, will you be a preacher?”

It wasn’t that He needed one more preacher in the world.

It was simply that He wanted me to know

that the only way He was coming in

was as my God.

And unless I was willing to let Him utterly mess up my life

I couldn’t have Him.

And at that point

it didn’t look like love,

it looked like a very real, very direct, very personal call to submission -

my submission to His authority in my life.

And it wasn’t until after the submission

that I began to discover

that the One I’d submitted to

loves me as no one else ever has or ever could.

Then, just one additional comment to clarify that phrase were Peter says,

and to this doom they were also appointed...

Peter is not saying that certain individuals enter this life appointed by God to doom.

He’s simply saying

that all those who choose to reject Christ’s lordship in their life

have no other option available to them.

There are not hundreds of paths all leading to God

and if we reject Christ

we can find some other path more to our liking.

The King Himself said it best.

JOH 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

Well, we didn’t get to my favorite part in this whole section,

but it comes next

and we’ll start our study with it next week.