The hope we have in Jesus should lead to us embracing our identity as part of God’s kingdom community...

At the church where I serve we have been spending our time together in a sermon series entitled the power of hope. During this series, we are addressing the reality that we live in a time where societal and cultural change occurs at a frequently increasing rate. And as followers of Jesus, we feel this exponential change in culture most acutely when it comes to how the culture views Christianity. It would seem that as culture and society continue to rapidly change, that Christianity is being left behind.

And in many quarters, Christianity is now mocked and criticized for clinging to a religious belief system that is viewed as being outdated and outrageous. So during this series we are asking and answering the questions “How are we as followers of Jesus to respond to such a rapidly changing culture? How are we as followers of Jesus to respond to our faith being minimized and marginalized? How are we as followers of Jesus to respond when our faith results in us being ridiculed, criticized, and slandered?

To answer these questions, we are looking at a letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of 1 Peter. This week I would like for us to pick up where we left off last week. And as we jump into the next section of this letter that the Apostle Peter wrote to early followers of Jesus, we will discover another timeless truth about how the power of the hope we have as followers of Jesus should impact how we are to live in a rapidly changing culture as followers of Jesus.  So let’s discover that timeless truth together, beginning in 1 Peter 2:4:

And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, 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.

Now to fully understand what Peter is communicating here, we first need to understand a few things. The first thing that we need to understand is what Peter is referring to when he uses the phrase “coming to Him as living stones”. As we discovered a few weeks ago, the word living conveys the sense something that is life and produces life.

Peter then explained that this stone that is living and that produces life has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God. What is so interesting here is that the phrase, has been rejected by men, in the language that this letter was originally written in, literally means to regard as unworthy or unfit and therefore to be rejected.

However, while this living stone has been viewed as unworthy and has been rejected by men, it is choice and precious in the sight of God. In other words, this stone that is living and produces life is viewed by God as being of elite quality and of great value. But who or what is this living stone? With this phrase, Peter is painting a word picture of Jesus as the life producing stone that serves as the foundational stone, or cornerstone, of God’s movement in history called the church.

Peter is painting the image of two building projects, one by men; the other by God.  The human builders find Jesus unworthy of building their lives upon and reject Him. This very imagery was used by Jesus in Mark 12:10-11:

"Have you not even read this Scripture: 'THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; ¹¹ THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES '?"

In addition, Peter used this imagery in a conversation with the self righteous religious leaders who had sentenced Jesus to death in Acts 4:11-12:

"He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone. ¹² "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."

Both Jesus and Peter were quoting from a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Psalms. In Psalm 118:22, the Psalmist predicted and proclaimed that the King of the Jewish people would be rejected by men, but would conquer and overcome his enemies. Both Jesus and Peter applied the Psalmist’s words to also be referring to Jesus as the ultimate King and ruler of the universe as the Messiah.

As the life giving foundational cornerstone of God’s movement in history called the church, Jesus would begin to usher in the kingdom of Heaven here on earth by establishing a new kingdom community that would be responsible for bringing the light of the kingdom of heaven into the dark spaces and places of this world. Peter unpacks this reality in verse 5 with the phrase “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.”

Peter’s point here is that as followers of Jesus, we have been rescued from the selfishness and rebellion that separated us from God. As followers of Jesus, we have been given forgiveness and new life in relationship with God for all eternity. And as followers of Jesus, we have been given a new identity as a part of the new kingdom community called the church.

And as part of this new kingdom community, followers of Jesus are being built up as a spiritual house. In other words, God is actively at work to build, by the power of the Spirit of God, a Spirit-filled community called the church on the foundation stone of His Son Jesus. And as part of that Spirit-filled community, Peter explains that followers of Jesus are a holy priesthood. Peter’s point is that followers of Jesus have been dedicated, or set apart, to serve in the ministry and mission of God as a priest of God in the new kingdom community of God. Followers of Jesus have been dedicated, or set apart to live lives of worship to God that demonstrate that God is of supreme value and worth.

And it is here, in this section of this letter, that we see Peter reveal for us a timeless truth when it comes to how we are to live our lives as followers of Jesus in that the hope we have in Jesus should lead to us embracing our identity as part of God’s kingdom community. And in 1 Peter 2:4-10, we see Peter reveal for us three different aspects of the kingdom community that should shape our identity as followers of Jesus.

First, in 1 Peter 2:4-5, we see Peter reveal for us the reality that our identity as part of God's kingdom community is built on the foundation of Jesus. As the foundation, Jesus is the one who is life and who gives eternal life. As the foundation, Jesus was rejected by humanity as being unworthy to build their lives upon. However, as the foundation, Jesus is viewed as being the best of the best by God. As the foundation, Jesus is viewed as being of great value and worth by God.

And as followers of Jesus, our rescue from rebellion into relationship with God gives us a new identity as we are being built into a kingdom community by God. We are being built into a kingdom community that has eternal life with God. And we are being built into a kingdom community that is set apart and dedicated to the ministry and mission of God: A ministry that mediates between God and humanity so as to reveal and reflect Jesus to humanity: A ministry and mission that lives in a way that demonstrates that we view God as being of supreme value.

As Peter continued in this letter to early followers of Jesus, we see Peter begin to provide the evidence to support his claim of the new identity that followers of Jesus have as a part of this new kingdom community called the church. And as a result, we see Peter reveal a second aspect of the kingdom community that should shape our identity as followers of Jesus.

Tomorrow, we will discover that second aspect…