1 Peter 2, verses 4-10. How should we listen to these words? Carefully. Because whose words are they? God's. That's right. 1 Peter 2, verses 4-10. Let us be careful of our hearts as we give attention to these words, for these are the words of God. Coming to Him, as to a living stone, projected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is also contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone elect, precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame. Therefore to you who believe he is precious, but to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble, being disobedient to the word to which they also were appointed. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, who once were not a people, but are now the people of God. Mercy, but now have obtained mercy. So far, the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. If you look at verse nine, you will see the purpose in verses. That, or so that, or in order that, that you may proclaim the praises of him. What is man's chief end? Beatrice what is your chief end? John well you want me to ask you to John what is your chief end? Okay, but that's not what I was asking what is John's chief end John's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Yes, it's very personal too. It's not just general out there like other people. Okay, so everything that it's talking about leading up to verse 9 is describing how that way of thinking, and it teaches us a way of thinking about the Lord Jesus and a way of thinking about ourselves. And that way of thinking about the Lord Jesus and that way of thinking about ourselves is so that we will do what we were made to do, which is to glorify God, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. It says, you were dead in your sins. You were separated from God. You were an enemy of God. But now you are the people of God. You were deserving wrath. You were under judgment. You were responsible for your guilt. The Lord delivered you from his wrath. And he gave his sacrifice for the forgiveness of your sins and his righteousness to get you a judgment of innocent, righteous, not guilty. And so you are those who had not obtained mercy before, but now verse 10 says, you are those who have obtained mercy. And if you are a person who used to be the enemy of God, used to be under the wrath of God, and now you are the people of God and you have obtained mercy from God, what should you want to do for the one who has called you out of that darkness and into this marvelous light? Verse nine, you want to proclaim his praises. Well, wants to be praised that he has commanded, ordained, instructed that he would be praised. And that is not just as individuals, but as a temple. as a building. He's giving us now some of the reason for the tabernacle and some of the reason for the temple. We heard about some of the reason for it when we heard about Jesus in the book of Hebrews. that he is the true and forever high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. And he leads the worship of God, not in that old tent that was a copy of the heavenly reality, but in the heavenly reality itself. Now in first Peter two, we're learning a little bit more information about it. The Lord teaches us a little bit in one part of scripture, a little bit of another in another part of scripture. And you take the two things together and scripture interprets scripture and you understand both passages better because of what you learn from each one. So that one was talking about Jesus the high priest in the true tabernacle in heaven of which the first one was a copy. That there was a reason the Lord commanded the Jews when they came to Sinai to construct that tent. And he gave them very specific instructions so that they would know that he is giving them a pattern because there is a reality that is being copied. Well, here's the reality. The temple of God. And that's why if we come back now to where our passage began this morning, verse four, it's talking about a new way of thinking about Jesus and a new way of thinking about ourselves. And you know what? It uses the same language for both of them. Teaches us a little bit different thing about each of us because we're not Jesus, right? We are not the chief cornerstone. We are not the foundation. We are not the ones, the one upon whom the house is built. But he uses the word living stone to teach us about one way that we should be thinking about Jesus. And he uses the word living stones to teach us an important way that we need to be thinking about ourselves. So verse four says, coming to him as a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious. Well, what is the stone in verse four being used for? It's kind of a strange thing to say. You need to come to Jesus as if he is a stone. He's not saying, you know, come to Jesus as if he is your weapon that you're gonna pick up and put in your sling and whip around and strike into the forehead of the Philistine. What kind of stone is being described here according to the rest of the passage? Right? For building and which specific stone for building? Yes, the chief cornerstone. He is the one upon whom the foundation is built upon whom the entire house is built. So you come to Jesus. Yes, you come to your king. Yes, you come to your savior, but you also come to him upon whom your life is to be built. Now, this is not just your life as an individual, because he goes on to say, in verse five, you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house. That means your walk with the Lord. If we had been going straight through, First Peter, we would have been remembering the instruction at the beginning of this chapter, laying aside all malice, all hatefulness, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, evil speaking, all of these sins of the heart and sins of the mouth. that divide up the church. He says one of the important reasons for you to grow in holiness is because the Lord didn't just save you to be alone as an individual, as a separated redeemed person all by yourself for the rest of forever. The Lord saved you to be part of his church, to be not just joined together with Jesus and heavily built upon Jesus. that your life would be connected to the lives of other believers. Big reason he saved you is so that you would love one another and that you would be used by him in his work in each of you, that he would use you in each other's lives. Part of the reason for the development of your heart and holiness is so that you wouldn't talk ugly to one another, so that you would be patient and humble and gentle and sweet-spirited and encouraging and cheerful. so that each of you encouraging the other, you actually come to be used by the Lord in building each other up. But it's not just that we are used in each other's lives, it's that we do something also together. That as we grow, we grow into what, is it saying? That you are being built up into a spiritual house. The word house is also the word for temple. in the Old Testament especially, uses the word house. It's the word that is most often used when it's talking about the temple. A holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. That the Lord and His plan to save us and get us ready for glory He was building the real thing of which the tabernacle, of which the temple was a copy. So that built upon Christ and with Christ as the priest, we would be a living temple, a living tabernacle. And we would bring praise to God. We would proclaim his praises forever and ever. So one important part of why each of us should want to walk with the Lord and grow in holiness is so that when we come together on the Lord's days, worship Him better and better. And one of the things that we are looking forward to most in glory is when every single stone that the Lord had saved and put together for this spiritual house, for this temple, every stone has been saved. Every stone has been perfected. The whole house has been completed. And at last, Jesus and all of those whom he has saved proclaim the praises of him who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Now, there's a reason why those who are appointed to disobedience stumbled over Christ. because they were not trying to be part of the people of God, the temple of God. They each wanted to build their own little kingdoms. So you and I need to be careful of our hearts that we don't want to build our own little kingdom, that we aren't selfish and self-seeking. You know, you can be selfish even in your walk with God. You can think, I want to get rid of this sin so that I feel better and don't feel so guilty about that sin. and I can be praised by others. Or I want to develop this grace and grow in that grace so that I can feel better about that part of my life and receive honor from others. You can be selfish in a way, even in the way that you try to grow in the Lord. But the builders didn't realize that they were not supposed to be building themselves. but that they had a job in God's building project to build his church. And so one of the things that this means is that we really need to do a better job of thinking about the other people in the congregation and the other congregations in the Presbytery and the other Presbyteries in the Synod and the other churches in the world and in history looking forward to Jesus having finished all of his work and built all of his church. Now we can trust in him because he will make this all work because he said that he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Now think about when he told Peter You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. Who is the rock upon whom the church is built? Yes, John? Jesus. Jesus, that's right, not Peter. There are lots of people who made that mistake. Peter just got done saying, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Jesus says, blessed are you, Peter, son of Jonah, for it is not man who has revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. He shall not be called Simon, but Peter, which means Rocky. And on this rock, I will build my church. And they say, ah, he says he's going to build his church. No, he says he's going to build his church on himself, which is what Peter had just confessed, right? Peter says, you are the Christ. Or if we take all scripture together, interpret scripture and scripture, you are the chief cornerstone. And then Jesus says, yes. And on this rock, I will build my church. And people say, Oh, look, he's going to build the church on Peter. What? No, he's building the church on himself. But there is something, there is something that people attribute to Peter there that actually belongs to us. According to the passages before us this morning, you all are living stones. God is building his temple out of you. And so your desire to know him more and to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is that the part of his temple that he has decided you are going to be. would be slowly, carefully, or maybe not slowly, sometimes quickly, but in God's time and God's way that he would finish shaping you the way he wants, chiseling off all of the remaining sin until you fit exactly. And until he has done that with the Emmett stone and the Beatrice stone and the Ezekiel stone and the John stone and all of the stones that he was saving. and that he was shaping and that he is fitting together and that he is building up on top of Jesus to make that living temple that proclaims his praises forever. It is a wonderful thing that the Lord is making when he has you falling on your face and realizing something terrible about your own heart and bringing you to repentance and growing you in Christ. Do not be discouraged, but look forward to the day that together we will proclaim His praises forever. Father, I thank You that You have saved me and Mommy and the others who have made an incredible profession of faith. Lord, we believe and hope the same also. about the children who have not yet professed, in whom we see your work being done and upon whom you have placed your sign and your seal in baptism, that they are members of your visible church on earth. O Lord, grant to them that through this family worship time, through all the times that they read your word or hear it, your Holy Spirit would be working, that they would be brought to Christ, not just in an outward and covenantal sense, but that their hearts would be transformed and they would believe in the Lord Jesus. We thank you for this work that you do in our lives, shaping us and building us upon Christ. and fitting us together. Lord, we know that when at last this temple is built out of us living stones, the stones will only fit together completely when the sin has all been chiseled away. And so we pray that you would help us in the putting of our sin to death. Lord, we would love to be as a family, those who live, in peace and joy and harmony and love with one another, that this part here of the temple that you are building would fit together more and more and that you and your praises would be proclaimed more and more as the one who has brought us out of darkness and into your light. We thank you for having called us to worship on the Lord's day from this passage. And we pray that your work in us by the word that we heard and prayed and confessed sin according to, that your work in us by this word would continue until at last you who have begun the work. would be faithful to bring it to completion, of which we are sure, in your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we ask it, in your children hearsay. Amen.