Welcome to the ministry of First Reformed Church of Aberdeen, South Dakota. Our worship services are at 9 o'clock every Sunday morning. Now we join Pastor Hank Bone as he brings us God's Word. Taking our Bibles, we turn to the book of 1 Peter, chapter 2. We entered last week upon looking at verses four and five where Peter turns to the metaphor, the picture of Jesus as the cornerstone of the building. And he's gonna continue on, we're gonna continue on with that picture this morning in our sermon. So for our Bible reading, we're going to read down through verse 12. 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 1 through 12. Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to him as to a living stone, rejected 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 the 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, whose own special people, 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, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which are war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles. And when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. Father, as we come to the hearing of your word, to the understanding of your word, we pray that you may give us an accurate understanding, that, Father, that word may come upon our hearts in such a way that not only are our minds fully equipped to understand, but our hearts are fully invested in that which we have heard, that our lives conform to the very image of Christ in such a way that it glorifies you. And so, Father, help us to grow in our understanding of who you are and who we are, of growing in the grace that you have poured out upon us. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, a love for God through your union with Christ builds within the Christian a desire to continually grow deeper in your relationship and service to God. Over the years, your spiritual life will take on new dimensions, much like your natural life as you mature and become more settled in who you are and what your calling is in the world shapes and forms who you are. Or you can take on more things. You have more abilities. But the one thing that serves as a measure of whether your faith is true and genuine is a desire you have to draw ever closer to the Lord. The road to heaven places you on a journey with many choices to make along the way. And these choices are designed to shape you in your identity in Christ as one who has been predestined and called to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And as Christians, we all sense that. We have that desire. With some, it's stronger than others. It grows. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it goes. But as Paul once said, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." In 1 Peter 2, the apostle is seeking to stir in you this desire by describing you as part of the house of God with our Lord Jesus anchoring the whole building as the chief cornerstone. That's the image that he wants you to place. It's not that you're one individual on the cornerstone, but that you're part of the body, the whole making up, anchored on Christ. That we're bound together and founded upon Christ. The cornerstone is that which everything that follows is built upon. Your understanding of the history of the church is not something you should overlook. You are part of it. They're part of the building. You are a part of the building, which is the church that began with Adam at the foundation. And the foundation was laid throughout the whole of the Old Testament, coming to its completion with the work of the Lord and the apostles in the apostolic age, when the Bible was completed. That's the foundation we build upon. It's the Word of God. The New Testament church is the culmination of the foundation that has been laid. We are the house of God nearing completion, the one house. Jesus declared, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. In Christ, you become a living stone. And that is part of the Lord's spiritual house. But you are more than just a piece of the house. Peter also said that you are part of a holy priesthood called to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Not only do you make up the house of God, but you are the ones who drive the service of the house of God. As a member of the church, the living body of Christ, you come to be that child of God, how? By leaving the world. In employing the metaphor of Jesus as the chief cornerstone, Peter points our focus to the Lord for the purpose of understanding that Jesus is the rock of distinction. How you respond to Jesus as the Lord and Savior sets your identity. You either come to him as a living stone, that is, as the resurrected and living Lord who has ascended into heaven and rules over all things for the sake of this spiritual house, the church, or you reject Jesus as the true Savior and you are left in darkness doing your own thing. It may include religiosity, but you're still doing your own thing. In verses 4 and 5, the Christian's identity and calling were set forth. In verses 6 through 10, the apostle then builds on this picture of Jesus as the chief cornerstone. So we come this morning to verses 6 through 10, and the theme for today is that Christ is the rock of distinction the Christian cherishes as precious. The three points are, first, a dividing factor, second, a designated family, and third, a destined favor. So first, a dividing factor. Look at verse six. It says, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame. How does Peter go about stressing his teaching about who Jesus is? and how you should respond to understanding that Jesus is the one who is chosen by God and precious. He goes to the Bible. In his day, that was primarily the Old Testament. So he begins quoting scripture, and in particular, those verses from the Old Testament that point to the rejection of the one who would come as the foundation stone for the people of God. He begins, and most of this is built upon, an appeal to Isaiah chapter 28, verse 16. When he quotes it, per se, pretty close. 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." Now, the context of Isaiah 28, and I would encourage you to go home and sometime today or during the week, read that whole of that chapter to get a flavor of, as Peter quotes this, how he views the Old Testament Israelites, those in Jerusalem at that time period that he quotes this from, in relationship to the time current that he now seeks to encourage those Jews who had been dispersed. Remember his audience is to those Jews who've been driven out of Jerusalem through persecution by the Jews. And so the context of Isaiah 28 is interesting because God brings an indictment against the rulers and religious leaders of Jerusalem for making pacts with God's enemies to preserve themselves at the expense of the people. This was what occasioned Judah to be taken away into captivity for 70 years in Babylon. But the point that Peter makes is that the Babylonian captivity was a type of shadowy picture of the ultimate fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, which resulted because the rulers and religious leaders rejected Jesus as the true Messiah. Zion refers to a hill in Jerusalem, but in biblical terms, it is a reference to Jerusalem as the city of God. This is where the temple made with hands and stones stood as a pattern of the spiritual and heavenly temple, the real temple. That stone edifice in Israel was a copy, a pattern, after the true which was in heaven. But so many in the world want to make that as the ultimate temple. It's not. It was a model. Peter identified Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah 28.16, the prophecy of the chief cornerstone being rejected by the religious and political elite. But there is also a distinction contained within the passage, and it is that those who believe in Jesus will be by no means put to shame. While in this life the world may mock your faith in Jesus, at the final judgment, the humiliation that may have come your way because you live by faith will be justified. You will be vindicated. and there will be no sense of shame in your identity as a follower of the Lord. In this life, those that surround you may mock you and bring derision upon you, and it may make you feel very uncomfortable. But that discomfort that you may feel now in this time period will disappear when you stand with the Lord and He says, enter, my well-beloved. And all of those who are your detractors, are condemned. And that's what he means here. There will be no sense of humiliation when you stand next to the Lord. But Peter goes on to prove that Jesus is the rock of distinction by quoting Psalm 118, verse 22, and then Isaiah chapter 8, verse 14, which describes how Jesus becomes to those in darkness a stone the builders rejected, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense." That's what our Lord is in particular to those who are outside of Christ and in darkness. And in the context of these passages, in particular to religious leaders, those who were appointed to be the recipients of the word of God, and yet it was of no effect to them. What is set before you is a challenge of how will you respond to Jesus as the chief cornerstone of the church or bringing it closer to home as the chief cornerstone of your life. Verse 7 states that those who are disobedient, that is unbelieving because all sin is bound up in unbelief, will reject Jesus as the foundation upon which they live. They may profess faith in Jesus as their savior, but they fail to build their actions and beliefs on serving Christ first. You know, true faith is always accompanied by radical change in how we view everything, how we view the world, how we make our choices, what things we desire, what things we embrace, what things are precious to us. If you drop down to verse nine, He speaks of the Christian as one called out of darkness into His marvelous light. Is that how you see your faith? The world is darkness, and I've been brought over here into this marvelous light. Now, I don't know about you, but I have this thing on my phone, this app on Aurora. appearances, right? And there's been a flare of the sun and they got all these maps thrown up on my Facebook constantly about the roars and it's coming down close to South Dakota where we might get to see it. And so there'll be herds of people driving out to the north to the darker areas of the country hoping to be able to catch a glimpse of the northern lights. Of course, what we discovered is we drive out there thinking we're going to see this beautiful, colorful sky, and you can't see anything. And then you take a picture with your camera, and it shows up in your camera. So you might as well just wait for Facebook pictures to come out. But I am still waiting for one of those days when you can't actually see it. I just missed it in Winnipeg when I was up there a year or so ago for the Canadian Reformed Church. And I was in the living room visiting. We found out the next morning that that night it was just vivid all over the sky. Unfortunately, there's no sirens or horns or any announcements. So we missed it, even though it was there. One of these days, one of these days. But that's nothing in comparison to the marvelous light of Jesus Christ. And there's nothing that keeps you from that light. That you can, at any time, wake up in the morning and open the word of God and begin to converse with God and see the marvelousness of his light and the grace of his glory through the love he sheds upon you in his mercy. It's an amazing thing. He calls us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Those who are not the people of God dwell in darkness, and they know no difference because they have always been in darkness." It may have been Plato. who tells the story of the individual who's born in the cave where there's no light. And he lives his life, his entire life in that cave. And somebody comes into the cave and speaks to him about light. And he has no comprehension of what the person's talking about, because he's never experienced it. And that's exactly where the people in the world are at. until the one who knows what the light is brings them out into the light. And God does that through His Word. He does that here now, bringing us into the light through His Word. The darkness is normal to the unbeliever. That is how they see everything. If you are outside of Christ, you are in darkness and unable to perceive what light looks like. You can be sitting here in church and still be in darkness. if you have not come to the Lord Jesus, and believe in Him as that One by whom you are reconciled to God." You know, Peter kind of opened this up with that, right? When he speaks about that you should desire the pure milk of the Word that you may grow thereby if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. If you've tasted. You may be sitting here listening, but you've never actually tasted the grace of God. And that's Peter's concern. That's the pastor's concern. The determining factor in the distinction of who you are is your response to Jesus as the chief cornerstone. Everyone who has come to Jesus as a living stone, elect, precious, does not stumble but becomes obedient to the word. That's the point of verse eight. Jesus is precious to the Christian. Even as Jesus is elect and precious to the Father, so He is precious to us. We embrace Him. We desire Him. Our end is to pursue Him. Those who are crushed by Jesus as the chief cornerstone were appointed to that end. That's kind of the surprising little element here He throws in, which leads us to our second point, the designated family. You know, verse 9 says, but you are a chosen generation. That's how it opens. And there's a juxtaposition going on here between the end of verse 8 and the beginning of verse 9, both associated with the determination of the will of God. It is the identity of the believer with the unbeliever, a juxtaposition. Here's the unbeliever, here's the believer. And here's how God's determination fits in. It is the identity of the unbeliever with the believer. Both of those identities are according to the designation of God, according to His will. The unbeliever stumbles and is disobedient to the Word as they have been appointed by God to this end. That's the whole point of Romans chapter 9, right? The Christian, however, is chosen by God to receive the blessing of eternal life according to the good pleasure of God's will. See Ephesians 1.5 for that. It's a little hint for coffee chat there. bound up in the idea of your faith in Christ is that work of God through the Holy Spirit bringing you into the family of God. Normally, the word generation, you are a chosen generation, refers to those who are biologically a family. But Peter employs the term chosen generation to emphasize your adoption into the family of God so that our being bound to one another is through union with Christ as his body. So he uses generation, which is normally associated with biological family, the family of Abraham, the Jews always boasted. And he says, no, but it's the chosen generation, those God brought into his family. different, spiritual. It was pointed out last week that Peter is not describing individuals as living stones, but all of us together as living stones that make up the one church of God. We've been adopted and brought together. One cannot say, I don't need to belong to the church to believe in Jesus. Maybe you've heard people say that. I've heard people say that all the time. I don't need to belong to a church to believe in Jesus. That is a great picture of one who is still in darkness and who is being disobedient to the Word. To be brought into union with God through Christ is to become part of the living body of Christ. Where you go to church is important. The believer must join himself to a church where the Word of God is faithfully preached, the sacraments are properly administered, and Christian discipline is faithfully observed. Those are the marks of the body of Christ. A love for the word of God, a love for the sacrament, the pictures, the seals of God's grace to us, and a careful exercise in how we live. The following characteristics to which we are called as Christians are that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people. The wording in verse 9 should draw your attention back to Moses and the people of Israel who were called out of Egypt. That's the paradigm of the spiritual church. In the same way that the temple in Jerusalem pointed to the spiritual temple that now we are. So also, we find here in this whole paradigm of Moses and the people being brought out of Egypt, a paradigm of what it is, spiritually speaking, that God does in leading the church, leading people out of the world into the church. Exodus 19. Listen to these. Exodus 19, verses 5 and 6. God is speaking to Moses on the mountain as he's brought them out of Egypt. And he says, now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. And in a sense, Peter, is becoming like Moses. He's speaking these same kind of words to us. The church is pictured as a people selected by God to come out of the world and be distinct from the world. As a holy nation, the church is not bound by geography. And as we saw last week, the reason is because the priests did not inherit any land. God was their possession. And so this holy nation that we are now is not bound to land. It's a spiritual nation. It's a spiritual kingdom. It's a kingdom of heaven. In John chapter 17, our Lord's high priestly prayer, He made intercession for the church. And in verses 13 through 17, Jesus says, but now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world. I come to you, Father. He's praying. It's a high priestly prayer. I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. Did you catch that? that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth." That word sanctify is that word. that we be set apart, that we then grow in what it is to be a Christian, being conformed to the image of Christ, and that happens through the truth. That's Jesus' prayer for us, his high priestly prayer shortly before he's arrested. The stress here on your identity in Christ is so important in shaping how you are to think of yourself. what should be your priorities in life, and how you should see yourself as radically separated from the world, even while living in this world as a Christian. Which brings us to our third point, a destined favor. God favors us. He has predestinated us to his favor and according to his favor. That's what grace is, unmerited favor. We read that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That's who we're to be, or I should say what we're to be about because of who we are. Again, the distinction that sets you apart from the world is who you worship. God has called you to proclaim his praises. Bound up in God's election is a change in your very nature. You are no longer who you once were as a child of Adam. In verse 10, where Peter speaks of those who were once not a people but now are the people of God, there are really kind of two levels of instruction here, two things you need to understand about these words. On one level, Peter is speaking to the Jews who have been dispersed through the persecution that they experienced in Jerusalem and driven out of Jerusalem. Remember, Saul was chasing them down, driving them out, drove them out in the Gentile nations where they established congregations. In the first sense, there is a reference here to their Jewish identity as the people of God and an implied transition that Israel, as those who rejected Jesus, are no longer to be viewed as that holy nation. The geographic holy nation Jewish church is no longer to be viewed as that in terms of God's favor. The church in the New Testament is no longer to be identified with a physical nation, but with a spiritual body throughout the world. In the second sense, Peter is pointing to the inclusion of the Gentiles into the church as those who prior had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. The Jews had obtained mercy, and they forfeited it. They had received the word of God, and they didn't believe it. But now those who had never received mercy now are to receive mercy. Those who had never heard the word now will hear the word. That's the picture. The people of God who make up the believing ranks of the church are called out of the world from every corner of the world. Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, educated and not, from every ethnic race and social position. You are not chosen by God because of who you are, but because of who God intends to make you. Think about that. We live in a political climate that seeks to divide everybody up into specialized groups. But Christ calls us to bring us all together and to obliterate all those distinctions. He doesn't call us based on who we were. but who we are to become. You are a chosen generation, not based on your past, but on your future in Christ. What is set forth here is the contrast between who you once were as polluted sinners without any hope in the world before a holy and just God, to who you are now as those chosen by God to become precious to Him in His Son, cleansed and purified by the blood of Christ, so that you are no longer under any condemnation. The amazing thing is that God chose us and called us when He could find nothing but sin and rebellion in us. And yet he makes us his own special people. God takes us from rags to riches, spiritually speaking, granting unto each of us the forgiveness of sins that we would come to know his mercy and goodness in us and to us. All of this is according to his own good pleasure. How then ought you to respond to this message of God's salvation through the Son as the chief cornerstone? And the answer is apparent. You must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Christ. There's the call. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him. But how do I do that, pastor, you may ask. Remember Jesus' prayer, that we would be sanctified, meaning set apart from the world, by God's truth, God's word is truth. You must be careful who you listen to. There are many voices out there that would lead you astray, so you should listen to the one voice, that of Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit and applying the word of God to your mind and heart. If you struggle, with one foot in the world and one foot in the church, or you're not sure you know Christ through the grace of God, then you will need to pray for the God of mercy to save you. Listen to what Paul says in Romans chapter 10, and you know how often I want to appeal to this, because that's the kernel of the gospel message. In Romans 10, 13, we have this promise, that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. You want to know how? Open his word, pray, call upon the Lord. Say, Lord, take my life. Take my life. Let it become a life for you, for your son, for your glory, your destiny. as one who believes on Jesus is to treasure the Savior as your most precious possession, and in so doing to offer your life as a sacrifice of praise to Him. Amen? Our Almighty God and Heavenly Father, Your Word is illuminating. That is, it is a light unto our path to show us where we must go. So Father, help us to come out of the darkness, to shed the darkness, to eschew the darkness, to resist the darkness wherever it comes and confronts us. That, Father, we may be beacons of light to warn others of the danger of destruction. That, Father, they may not stumble over Christ as the chief cornerstone. But that, Father, through our own lives, We may so commit ourselves through the sacrifice of praise that everything we say, everything we think, everything we do is done to bring glory to your name, to exalt the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, to call people to believe in him, the one name in heaven and earth wherein one may be saved. And so, Father, strengthen us. Forgive us where we have fallen. But Father, strengthen us because you have promised that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And so Father, we pray that we may see ourselves as those living stones that make up the one Church of Christ, the people of God. And Father, in that may it be the love of God that binds us together. For we ask these things through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.