Amen. Good morning. Thank you, Steve, for leading us in worship. It's great to have him back after he'd been on vacation for the summer to lead us in worship. It's an honor to worship with all of you. As always, open God's Word with you. If you're a guest, my name is Jonathan. I serve here as the interim pastor. for just a few more weeks, and you all have the privilege and the honor of a new pastor starting in just two weeks' time. So super exciting season for the church. If you're a visitor, you're here at a good time. If you are not a visitor and you've been here, then you've been here and are still at a good time, and we're grateful for that. Super exciting time for the church and the season that we are in together. My wife and I were reflecting just driving here. I've been in New York. Now, since January 2018, so a year and eight months, and we started here as interim pastor, preaching consistently in interim pastor, the end of September last year. And we started thinking about and realizing that we've been, in our time in New York, we've been at First Baptist more than we've not been at First Baptist. And it has been an encouraging time, an exciting time, and just want you to know that we love you very much, and it is always an honor. So with that being said, though, the honor is being in God's word together. So let's jump into God's word together. And I want to read our text from last week, which was 1 Peter 2, beginning in verse 1. And I want to answer a question that I commonly got throughout the week as a way just to kind of follow up from last week's message before we jump into this week's message. So 1 Peter chapter 1, or excuse me, 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 1 reads this. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants long for pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Verse 2, this phrase, like newborn infants long for pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation. We talked about how that was alluding to the end of chapter 1 when talking about the Word of God and the good news of the gospel, that pure spiritual milk that we never grow past, meaning that we never grow past the gospel as Christians. It's not like the gospel's the front door of Christ's grace and mercy in our lives, but once we're in the front door, we can leave the gospel behind and we go on to other religious or other doctrines or whatever things. And the truth is, that's not the case. We never get past the gospel. The gospel is everything. Christ is everything. And so the text is challenging us to remain solid in God's word, and to remain solid in the gospel, whether it's our first day as followers of Christ, or we've been followers of Christ for 50 years. Doesn't matter, we never get past the gospel. And we talked about our challenge, the practical application to that, was to routinely be in God's word. Not because you're supposed to, but because you recognize that you need to. There's a big difference. There's a big difference in going, I'm doing something because nothing in me wants to do it, but I'm being forced to do it. And between that and doing something because you want to do it and you recognize you need to, like you personally need to. And we talked about that we come to God's word, not because your pastor told you to do so. Like I grew up that way, just hearing I was supposed to do it. But it wasn't until later that I understood why. And the why was I desperately needed the gospel every single day. I need to be in God's Word. So here's the question that I've gotten numerous times this week. Pastor, how do you do that? What does it look like to be in God's Word daily? And the questions were super practical. Like, do you just Open the Bible each day and just pick something to read like how do you how do you determine what you're going to do each day? Which is a great question because I being very OCD analytical black-and-white type thinker I've got to have a plan for everything and I have a backup plan to the backup plan That's just how my mind works So if I get up in the morning and I just decide day after day that I want to spend time in God's Word if I don't have a plan then I'm not going to do it. And so I discipline myself with a plan. And the plan that I use is the one-year reading. Every single year I do the one-year reading. Now let me say this, I have not yet successfully read 365 days in the one-year reading. I have missed days. I'm telling you that to give you permission because you're going to miss days also. One of the most common feedbacks I get from people who try to do the one you're reading, who have never done it before, is they get into this religious type mentality that I have to do it and if I miss a day and then the next day I have to now read two days. Well what happens if you go on vacation and you're out of your routine and you don't read for a week? Then you come back and you try to read a week all in a day's time and then you get frustrated then you just close your Bible and you stop doing it all together. That's what I did the first time I tried to do the one you're reading. And so I went to my mentor who encouraged me to do the one you're reading, and I said, what do I do about that? Like, what do I do when I miss days and I'm trying to catch them all up? He said, why do you feel like you got to catch them up? Well, because I'm supposed to. I'm doing the one you're reading. I got to read every single day. He said, that's not the point. The point of the one-year reading is not to legalistically read every single day. The point of the one-year reading is twofold. And you give other things to this, but let me give you two reasons to why I do the one-year reading. One, practically, it gives me a plan to read. I'm gonna wake up and it tells me what to do. It takes all the thinking out of it. I know what I'm supposed to read every day. And two, the point of the one you're reading is to be in God's word every single day. Today for me to commune with Christ. Today for me to commune with him. Tomorrow for me to commune with him. Yes, it is to recognize that I need every word of God's word, therefore I do the one you're reading and my goal is to read every word, but the goal is not to finish it. The goal is to commune with God while reading his word. If I miss yesterday, and I come to today, and I don't have time to read both days unless I rush through it, then guess what? I'm not gonna read yesterday. I'm just gonna read today. That way I can focus on what I'm reading today. So let me encourage you, if you wanna do the one you're reading, because it tells you what to read every single day, and you come to passages you wouldn't normally come to, and this is a good thing, because you get more and more of God's counsel, then be okay just if you miss a few days to not feel like you have to read them. The second thing as we think about this, and the one you're reading specifically, is that God's word has the ability to speak into my life in ways that are unimaginable. For example, I don't think I've ever really read or studied Habakkuk before. But I was reading Habakkuk in the one year reading, and this is not something I probably would have chosen to read, but the plan told me to read it, so I'm reading it. And I was going through a really, really difficult season. A mentor of mine, it was early in my ministry, a mentor of mine who I trusted and really looked up to had just recently resigned and left. And I felt kind of abandoned. I felt like I didn't understand what was going on. I was newly married, just a lot was going on. I felt really insecure. I looked around me, and I just didn't feel like things, it just looked like chaos. And I come to Habakkuk, and Habakkuk is a book, if you read it, it's all about chaos. It's about God bringing chaos into the world, God bringing destruction at times, God bringing war. And you read it, and you go like, what is going on? There's all this chaos. Well, Habakkuk says the same thing to God. What is going on? And God replies to him in Habakkuk 1.5, look among the nations, wonder and be astounded, for I'm doing a work in your day that you wouldn't believe even if I explained it to you. And in that moment, the Lord just used that verse to give me perspective, that in my perspective, it looks like chaos. But always from God's perspective, He's sovereign and in work in all things. That verse changed my perspective and changed my situation. Why? Because I was in God's word. And so let me encourage you, one year reading allows you to do that. If not the one year reading, have a plan. I discipline myself, not out of duty, but I discipline myself out of delight in God's word. And so let me encourage you, would you do that? Would you jump into it? And last thing, let me say about this before we jump into our passage from this morning. is sometimes I don't remember what I read the day before. Let me be honest. I read the one you're reading and sometimes it just gets a routine. I'm like, what did I read yesterday? So sometimes it's not mind blowing stuff like Habakkuk was for me that day. But let me ask you this question. What did you eat for breakfast three days ago? What did you eat for lunch five days ago? You start thinking about it, I don't really know. But I bet you could tell me about a Thanksgiving meal that was really impressive. Or a date, or an anniversary meal, or some type of meal that just like really rocked your life. Now imagine if your expectation of coming and spending time with God and his word was for him to give you this Thanksgiving type meal every single time, that would be an unhealthy diet of spending time with God's word. Why? Let me explain it this way. What if You only ate the meals that were memorable in your life. And all the ones you can't remember, what if you never ate them? Would that be a very healthy diet? Not at all. Because let me be honest, I haven't had a memorable meal really in the last few weeks. So what if I haven't eaten in the last few weeks? Not all that great. One of the misconceptions when people come to God's word is they expect to have this rockin' kinda emotional moment every single time that's memorable. But let me tell you something, that's not always how it is. What the best thing about consistently walking with Christ and His word is He's daily nourishing you in ways that may not even be noticeable to you in the moment. Just like the breakfast yesterday or the lunch five days ago, you don't really remember it, but I promise if you didn't have it, you would know it. Right? In the same way, when we don't spend time with God's Word on a daily, consistent basis, our life begins to notice. And this is why, let me encourage us of how we do it. So what do I do? I do the one you're reading because it gives me a plan, it tells me what to do, and I just like someone telling me what to do. And it has changed my life as a habit in my life. That was a long introduction. Forgive me. I promise you, I will decrease the rest of the sermon just a tad so we're not here all day. All right, 1 Peter 2, if you're with me in verse 4, would you just simply say amen? Let me read it to us again. 1 Peter 2, verse 4. 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. If you have a handout this morning, let me go ahead and give you the main point of the sermon. It is simply this. The church is being built up as a spiritual house. The church is being built up as a spiritual house. If you flip to the other side, as has been the custom throughout this series, I give you the text in paragraph form. And I give you the text in outline form. And this is just basic grammatical interpretation. As we walk through this, we can understand his argument. The furthest left aligned is the emphasis and is really the independent sentence by itself, which simply says this, as you come to him, you are being built up as a spiritual house. Do you see that? As you come to him, you are being built up as a spiritual house. This is where we get the main point from. The whole emphasis of this passage is what is left aligned that we, as we come to him, referring to what we just talked about of being constantly nourished in the pure spiritual milk that we tasted and seen that the Lord is good, as we come to him, we are being built up as a spiritual house. house. The church is being built up as a spiritual house. Two truths to explain that main point. First is this, we see Christ as cornerstone. Christ as cornerstone. If you're using the illustration of a house or a building, Especially before our modern day technologies, I look at Manhattan and I look at New York and I'm just personally amazed. I look and go, how in the world did they build this building? Like, how did they do that? I was in a building recently that just had the support column in the center. I'm like, well, how do you do that? Like, how do you get it from tipping over? I'm six feet, six inches, and sometimes I tip over. Like, what do you do with like a hundred floors? I don't understand. Like, and I'm just amazed by the technology. And so when we think about building a building, it is foundation is important. Foundation is important. And when it comes to this illustration, Peter's using an illustration that he uses in Acts chapter 4 also, is talking about Christ as the cornerstone. It is that first stone that is laid that lays the foundation and lays the trajectory for every other stone. without this cornerstone, then you don't know where everything else goes. It is this first piece. It is the most important piece. It is the foundational piece. It's what helps keep everything aligned. It's everything. And so Christ, when we say Christ is this cornerstone, as Peter begins to talk about that, you are being built up as a spiritual house, using the illustration of a building, he makes it clear that we are not a house if we're not on a right foundation. At least we're not Christ's house. At least we're not God's house. We're not the holy spiritual temple of God if we aren't on the foundation. And so he addresses that. As you come to him, a living stone. Anybody ever seen a living stone before? What does he mean by this? A living stone. Begin to think about, think of Acts chapter four, and I'm gonna read the reference to you where Peter uses this in another situation, talking to the leaders, the Jewish leaders of his time. He says this in Acts chapter four, verse 10. Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, By him, this man is standing before you. Well, this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Now, same author. Now, well, different. Peter didn't write Acts, but Peter's the one being quoted here in Acts, and Peter's the one writing 1 Peter. So it's the same person using this illustration. So how does he use it in the first hand? I want you to notice that at the end of verse 10, he talks about Christ as the one who was crucified by them, but then raised to life. So he's a living Crucifixion, like he was dead, but now he's alive. Then he goes and takes that idea of death to life. And in the very next verse, he says, this Jesus is a stone that was rejected by you. The rejection was the crucifixion. They were rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. So a living stone, he's using it in reference to the cornerstone, but to say that he's living, he's giving reference to the crucifixion and to the resurrection. So Jesus is alive, he is the living, resurrected, he was rejected by men, but in the sight of God was chosen and precious. See how in both instances he talks about rejection by men, but accepted and chosen by the Father. So Christ, when He says a living stone, He's referring to the resurrected King. That's what He means by alive. He is the cornerstone. He is that first foundation who is alive. He was crucified, but now is alive. But in the sight of God, He is chosen and precious. He goes on to explain even more so of what this looks like, and he brings it out in verse six. For it stands in Scripture, and he quotes, Peter uses this illustration for two reasons, which are the two reasons of our points of the sermon. But the first is to recognize that Christ is the cornerstone. that when we begin to think about building or having a life that is alive, that is faithful, that is made right with God, then we recognize that we are being built on the cornerstone. Meaning, as Peter would use in Acts chapter four, that there is no other name by which you and I can be saved, or anyone can be saved, except for Jesus, the cornerstone. So for him to be the cornerstone is exactly what it means when Jesus says in John 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. See, you gotta understand something. When we think about being made right with God, the problem is, is we are in sin prior to being made right with God. Meaning we're in, we're still, I still have struggle with sin, but I'm in a state of death in sin. And I recognize that God, in his holiness, in his supremeness and his omniscience, just any characteristic you wanna think of, but there in that moment, he determines what I have to do or don't have to do to be made right with Him. He determines salvation. We don't determine salvation. And so I know it's not a popular opinion in our culture today, but it's arrogant to think that you and I can determine and tell God what is necessary for us to be made right with Him. But this text is making it clear that God has made a way, and the way is not any way, the way is one way, and it's the cornerstone of Jesus Christ, that it is under no other name can one be saved. And now we're preaching this, not just to be different in our culture, but to be loving to our culture, to be loving to the world around us, of secularism and all those other things of plurality, to simply say that it is in Christ and Christ alone that we are made right with God the Father. It is in Christ and Christ alone. And Peter is making the argument here, and he's making it clear that Christ is a rock. He's the cornerstone, and he is going to be a rock to you in one of two ways. Either... He's going to be the rock in which your life is built upon, and you will find salvation in Him, or He's gonna be a rock you trip over. This past weekend, I went camping with a family, and Levi likes rocks. I don't really understand. He's a boy, I guess. He just likes rocks. So the first thing he does, we get there, we set up the tent, we get everything going. The first thing he does is he builds Mount Everest right in front of our tent full of rocks. And we went to a campground that has platforms, which I've never done this before, but it was actually really great. So it was like a wooden platform built up off the ground just to make it easier, I guess, if, I don't know. But it was great for us because it gave us just a place to kind of put some stuff off the ground. But the point is, is you had the tent, and let me do it this way. You had the tent. Then you had steps just like this, and then you had Levi's rocks right here. It was just a disaster waiting to happen in the middle of the night if you gotta use the bathroom. You walk out of the tent, you trip over rocks, and you fall and bust your face. It was just gonna be bad. I give that as an illustration because rocks can be something that serve as a great foundation for building on, or if we treat them in a way that they were not designed to be or to do, or if they get in the way or whatever, we'll trip over them, and it'll hurt. And Peter's using that clear example and illustration that Christ is either to you, he is the foundation that you've built everything on. And what I mean by built, I'm not saying you've done the work, I'm just saying you've simply, in faith, turned and believed in him. And he is building you up, or better yet, the church as a whole, upon Christ as a foundation, or he's going to be to you a stumbling block of a fence. You're gonna trip over him. And you're here this morning and you're hearing the word of God preached, and my encouragement to you is Christ is King. And he loves you so much that he stepped out of eternity, he became a living stone, rejected by men in the crucifixion, but chosen and precious by God, proved to be so in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that now, if you put your faith and trust in him, you will be saved. You're hearing that this morning, and I beseech you and I encourage you, would you not trip over Christ, but would you bow before Christ? See the difference? Scripture is calling you and recognizing that there is no neutrality when it comes to you and Christ in this moment. There is not neutrality. You can't just choose to just do nothing. but you are forced to a place of going, well, I bow before Christ and build my life upon him, or will the gospel in Christ be something I stumble over in a great destruction? So truth number one, Christ is the cornerstone to this truth that the church is being built up as a spiritual house. But two, truth number two, the church, we see the church as people. Church as people. Verse five, you yourselves, like living stones, being built up as a spiritual house. to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Now, I'm not gonna do justice to these two verses completely today, mainly because next week, we see in 1 Peter 2, beginning of verse nine, which is our text for next week, he began to expand and explain what we just read a little bit further. So I'm not gonna do it complete justice today because we got some more time next week, we're gonna focus on it. But I do want to just kind of spend some time and recognize the simple but very profound and important truth that we need to hear this morning. Church as people. Church as people. There's a great book by Dale Partridge called People Over Profit. It's a business book, it's a good business book. Dale is an entrepreneur and church planner. He's created some great businesses, very faithful man. But he writes this book to give this principle, and you've probably heard the principle before. He just happened to be the one I read it from. But it's a principle that we need to hear, especially in New York today. That profit or money is a means to an end, not the end itself. Money and profit is to serve people, not the other way around. Okay, this is an important distinction. That money and profit and business, we do not sacrifice people for profit, but instead we choose people over profit. That profit and money is a means to an end. Now, I say that as an illustration from the business world to bring into the challenge today. A challenge for us here at First Baptist that is very specific to us, and let me be honest. This is, in my time as I've just spent time with the Lord, I've been here almost a year now, just asking the Lord, is there anything that you just, that I need to share while I still have time to share? And I want to be honest and I want to be clear about something. And I think I've earned the right, and I think you know, that I love you immensely. But let me say something. One of the great dangers that this church, or the temptations that this church specifically, Church First Baptist in the city of New York, has, is you have a beautiful building. And the danger is that you love or value this building too much. I didn't say you do, I said it's the danger. It's the temptation. Now, let me be clear. When I first got married, I learned something. When I first got married, my wife would come to me and say, Jonathan, your clothes are on the floor. in the bedroom, and I would hear, your clothes are on the floor. And what I would think was, yeah, that's where I put them, thanks. I was well aware that's where they are. 10 years later, I hear, Jonathan, your clothes are on the floor. I now know that means you need to get off your rear end, stop doing whatever you're doing, and go pick those clothes up. Notice something? That context and time and relationship can completely change the meaning of words. She said the same thing, I heard them two different ways. Now, I say that to say this. I wanna be clear, just in case I'm overestimating my relationship and I want you to hear me say, when I say that you run the danger of valuing this building too much, I'm not saying you shouldn't value the building. See the difference? You should value this building, but my fear and the warning is that if we value the building too much, we will miss the truth of this text, which is that Christ died for you as a person and for us as the church as a whole, not for any brick or mortar that's on this corner. Now, many of you, have spent a lot of your life and energy taking care of this building. Thank you. Good. I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm not saying you shouldn't value this building. I'm not saying you shouldn't paint this building. I'm not saying you shouldn't do any of those things. It is a blessing to have a building, a beautiful building that for over a hundred years people have been taking care of. and people have been working, and people are building, and there's been a lot of energy into it, but let me just simply be clear. Because this building is so great, you run the danger of choosing profit over people instead of people over profit. You run the risk of choosing building over people instead of people over building. And the warning I simply and encouragement I give you as a pastor who loves you dearly is the encouragement of this text. is that Christ, as the cornerstone, is building us up as a body, the church body, spiritual body. He is building us up into a spiritual house for all eternity. That you and I will live with Him in eternity when this building is no longer here. You and I are who He has died for, and so for us, we recognize, and my most encouragement I can give you on this topic is recognize. You will be missed. I will miss you greatly. And I desire nothing more than to see this church have the favor of God and the blessings of God to continue to advance his kingdom and to continue to do incredible things in this community. And so it is with that idea and belief that I really believe, let me encourage you that in every conversation around this building, just simply ask the question, Will this decision help leverage this building to serve people or will this decision get in the way of serving people? That's the question I'm simply asking you to have. Does this make sense? Let me end just this honest challenge with let me rephrasing what I'm not saying. I'm not saying you shouldn't value this building. I'm not saying that this building isn't a blessing. I'm not saying that all the sweat and tears and blood even Is it important? It's super important, but it's all for a purpose. And the purpose is to let this community know how great Jesus is. It's the purpose of showing his glory. I do, one of the things I love about this building is the excellence in which it's built because it shows the excellencies of God's creation. It shows the gospel story in the windows. You all don't have the best view. I have the best view every week. You wonder why I keep looking up when I preach. Partly because I'm looking at Jesus, but partly I'm just looking at that beautiful stained glass window. Like it's beautiful, right? And it's showing the excellencies of God. It's showing all those things. But all that is for purpose of the truth here that the church is people. that the church is people. So therefore, let's unite as a people. Let's grow as a people. Let's love as a people. Let's sacrifice for people. Let's give our all to people. People in this room and people outside this building. And let's thank God for this building and let's continue to use it to love people and engage this city for his glory. Amen? Amen. With that being said, it is our custom the first Sunday of every month to take the Lord's Supper together where we eat as a people and we eat as a family. The Lord's Supper is one of two ordinances or two customs. If you're unfamiliar with Christianity, that there's two that he has given us, baptism and the Lord's Supper. And the Lord's Supper is to be a representation and a reminder of what Christ has done for us. The bread or the cracker represents Christ's body that was broken on the cross the night before he was betrayed at the Lord's Supper, the first Lord's Supper, as we know it anyways. he took the bread and he broke it, and he said, this is my body that is broken for you. Every time you eat of it, do this in remembrance of me. Then after the dinner, he took the cup of redemption, and the cup of wine, and we used juice, and he said, this is my blood that was shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so if you're in here and you're not a, if you're not a Christian, you're not a baptized Christian, we just want to encourage you to just kind of, if you would, just one, we're so grateful for you here. Would you continue to ask questions? But this is something that's just kind of a tradition for Christians that we have Christ as the cornerstone, if you will. And so we just want to encourage you to allow the elements to pass, no problem whatsoever. But we want to encourage you that maybe that you would today turn not to elements and focus on that, but maybe today you would turn and focus on Christ, the one whom the elements point to. Would you turn to Christ and maybe today would be the day of salvation where you say, you know what? I've been trying to live my life with me as the cornerstone and the trajectory has been off. It hasn't worked, I've continued to stumble, and so Jesus, I come to you and I surrender to you as the cornerstone. If that's your prayer today, I pray that you find Christ, and better yet, that Christ finds you. But for the rest of us, let me encourage you that as we pray over these elements and we prepare these elements, that you would have a heart that's retrospective, that you would look in and that you would evaluate, and if there's any sin or any confession that needs to be done, would you do so? prior to taking the elements.