Pastor Tim Patoka Build On The Rock, Week 14: September 2, 2018 A Spiritual House 1 Peter 2:4-10 1) Built On The Living Stone 2) Adorned With Living Stones There’s a saying in our country that goes like this, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” I’m guessing you’ve heard that saying before and you would agree with me how true it is. That before you do anything big or small, it all begins with a single starting point. And if that starting point isn’t done right, then everything else that follows is bound for failure. I’m often reminded of this whenever I’m in kitchen. It’s for good reason that I’m not in there all that much to remember from trial and error how important it is to know your abbreviations for tablespoons and teaspoons. To make sure you’re using sugar instead salt because, even though they look the same, they don’t taste the same. But if you start in the right way by following the recipe, they say you can make anything from as simple as a cupcake to as complicated as a custom designed 3-layer cake. God’s Word for this morning may not talk about walking thousands of miles or my misadventures in cooking. But it does show us the truth of that saying about the importance of a correct starting point so that you may have a successful result. The Apostle Peter does this by mentioning a spiritual house that is the Christian Church, the collection of all believers. Peter also describes them as living stones. Yet we living stones didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Rather we have our life from the living Stone, from Jesus himself. And it is from this important starting point that we are then built up as the spiritual house which is built on the living Stone and adorned with living stones. 1) Built On The Living Stone The Apostle Peter wasn’t the first biblical writer to use the stone imagery when talking about religious matters, specifically when it comes to our Savior Jesus. Peter includes 3 quotations from the Old Testament in his verses for this morning. In his first one from Isaiah chapter 28, he calls Jesus a cornerstone. A cornerstone is important because it is the starting point of a building’s construction and determines its exterior look. It is cut to a 90 degree angle so that the walls are squared. It is level on top so that the walls are all the same height. If the cornerstone is off in any way, the rest of the building will be off. I encourage you to take a look at this building’s cornerstone after the service to see how it guides
1
Pastor Tim Patoka Build On The Rock, Week 14: September 2, 2018 our worship space to be squared and of uniform height. You can find it to the right when you go out the front entrance to church. As important a cornerstone is for a physical building, so is Jesus for the spiritual house that we are talking about this morning. He is the starting point of all things regarding salvation for he alone is the Savior. If anything is wrong that starting point, then the resulting faith will have problems. Certainly this happens when a person rejects Christ because they are also rejecting any semblance of a saving faith. But as I look at all of you today who have willingly come to hear God’s Word, I don’t think any of you have rejected Christ. If you had, you probably wouldn’t be here. But there still is a danger we face, the danger of adding something else to that cornerstone so that it does not consist of not Christ alone. The Apostle Peter knew how suffering can test a Christian to make them doubt if God is truly with his children in trying times or if it’s worth the cost to be a disciple of Christ. And when those moments of suffering come upon us, we’re tempted to take on the ways of this world so that we fit in, to avoid persecution, so that we aren’t put on the spot and asked to stand up for our faith. And what are some of the things that this world puts its faith in for the future? Things like money and retirement nest eggs. Things like ourselves and our strength to weather the years of want until the years of plenty come. Things like possessions which we are supposed to count on for years. Yet no matter how promising all those things may be, they cannot give us lasting confidence for the future. They are not fit to be the cornerstone of our physical future. But the real danger? That’s about our eternal future. That if Christ alone is not the cornerstone of our faith, then we run the danger of falling into the eternal depths of hell and suffering there for all eternity as Peter mentions in his last Old Testament quotation. But we don’t need to fret about our eternal future if we have Christ as the cornerstone of our faith. And that’s because of who he is. Peter calls him “the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him.” (1 Peter 2:4) While he was on earth, Jesus lived as no sinful human ever can. He walked in line with God’s laws and the government’s laws. He never did what he shouldn’t do or failed to do what he should do. He was chosen by God and precious to him. Yet he was rejected by sinful man as Peter mentions in his 2nd Old Testament quotation. At any moment Jesus could have put his divine foot down and stopped anyone from laying a hand on him. Yet he did not. He willingly went along with man’s rejection that would result with his death on a cross. An innocent
2
Pastor Tim Patoka Build On The Rock, Week 14: September 2, 2018 death of the perfect one so that his perfection may be credited to our sinful accounts. But Jesus’ life didn’t end there on the cross. 3 days later he rose from the dead and showed all people that not only does he have life again, he is the life. He is the living Stone and guarantee faith upon whom the spiritual house of the Christian church is built. So that when we suffer for being a Christian and the question comes to us, “Where is your faith for the future founded?” we can proudly say “It is founded on my Savior Jesus Christ. For he is the living Stone who promises me an eternal life in heaven through his forgiveness of all my sins.” 2) Adorned With Living Stones And so it is that you, me, and everyone whose faith is founded on the living Stone himself, who make up the spiritual house for this morning. As the Apostle Peter tells us in his verses, “As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.” (1 Peter 2:4-5a) Here again Peter gives us a comforting image by calling us stones. Stones are all unique and different from each other which is something I find comforting. It just so happens that our graphic for our summer worship series, which is on the front cover of your worship folder, is a stone wall that’s made up of different size stones. Even though the stones may be of different size, together they may a pretty nice wall. The Apostle Peter, by calling us living stones, recognizes how each Christian is different and unique. Each of us has different skills, interests, and inroads with the mission field around us. Yet so easily we look around and get down on ourselves because we aren’t as good as so-and-so at something. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t think you’re somehow worth less than another brother or sister in the faith because you’re different. God has made each us unique so that, using the stone imagery, we are different size stones working together to build one spiritual house. As living stones, we adorn it with a certain charm that comes from unique individuals working together for a common purpose. A purpose that comes from the living Stone which is to, as the Apostle Peter tells us, to “declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9b-10) And how do we declare the praises of the living Stone? By making sure that we keep on adorning this spiritual house we are. First of all we need to remember how it is we came to be a part of the Christian Church, the collection of all
3
Pastor Tim Patoka Build On The Rock, Week 14: September 2, 2018 believers. Peter tells us how in what is some of the most poetic language of the New Testament, that originally we were in darkness, not a people, and had not received God’s mercy. Now we have faith in the living Stone who has given us an eternal future because of his perfect death on the cross. And as a result we are now in his wonderful light, the people of God, and have received his mercy. After reminding ourselves that we are built on the living Stone, we then can look at our fellow living stones and build each other up with the love of Christ. When conflicts and tensions rise up, that we offer to be a part of the solution than complain about how things aren’t going the way we want. That we look out for each other so that if someone hasn’t come in a while, we reach out and see how they’re doing. Maybe suffering has come up to make them doubt if God is still with them. Maybe they’ve moved and are trying to find a new church home. Maybe they simply need a kind word reminding them that they’re valued by their fellow living stones. Again I go back to that illustration of a stone wall. That wall is only as strong and beautiful as the stones that make it up. If one of us is missing, then there’s a hole in the wall, the spiritual house isn’t adorned as it could be. But when we living stones are all together, built on the living Stone, it is then that we best adorn this spiritual house which is the Christian Church and so declare the praises of the living Stone. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” How true that saying is. No matter what you are setting out to do, it all begins somewhere and it is important to get that starting point done right. When it comes to the spiritual house of all believers, that starting point is the living Stone himself Jesus Christ. He is the cornerstone of saving faith. Nothing else can claim this authority about the life that is to come. For he alone lived, died, and lived again. He alone is the living Stone. Those call Jesus their Savior who are in turn the living stones who make up the spiritual house of all believers. Our purpose is to declare the praises of God who brought us out darkness into his wonderful by showing us his mercy and making us his people. And we get to do those very things by building each other up in the faith so that we may continue adorning this spiritual house. May the Lord help us to always remember that this spiritual house is built on Jesus the living Stone and encourage us to adorn it as his living stones. Amen.
4