Living Stones/Spir. House/Holy Priesthood

Introduction: The Two Kinds of Religion and the Nature of Grace

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, September 13, 1998, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us turn together to 1 Peter, Chapter 2, as we continue our expositions of this wonderful portion of the Word of God, 1 Peter, Chapter 2, and I shall read in your hearing the first ten verses. We will find 1 Peter toward the end of the New Testament. If you are in Hebrews, you need to go a little bit further. If you are in the book of the Revelation, you have gone a little bit too far.

0:54 For some of you who ask, why do I say that? Well, for several reasons. God has been pleased to bring among us in recent days some who have no or little acquaintance with the Scriptures, and it is embarrassing to be struggling trying to find the passage, and so more and more I will be doing that because God is answering our prayers. To bring among us those who need to know His Word. If you wonder why I am giving a little more explanation in our consecutive reading, it is for that purpose.

1:22 Because things that for some of us have been part of our upbringing are simply not true of many in our generation, and we need to be mindful of them so that they will obtain maximum profit from these various elements of our worship. All right, 1 Peter, Chapter 2, and I shall read the first ten verses. Putting away, therefore, all wickedness, or as we saw in our expositions, all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes long for the milk of the Word, which is without guile, that you may grow thereby unto salvation, if or since you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, unto whom coming a living stone, which is indeed of men, but with God elect, precious, you also as living stones are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Because it is contained in Scripture, behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believes on him shall not be put to death. 1 Peter, Chapter 2, and I shall read the first ten verses.

2:44 For you, therefore, that believe is the preciousness or the honor, but for such as disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense. For they stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed. But you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Now there are basically only two kinds of religion in the world.

3:49 Only two kinds of religion. Many institutions, many organizations, many gatherings of people around various teachers, and there are courses in colleges and seminaries and universities on comparative religions, and the religions of the world, like those demons, are legion. But at the end of the day, there are really only two kinds of religion in the world.

4:16 The one says, do this. In order to live. And the other says, because you live, do this. The former is the religion of self-effort and self-righteousness and self-endeavor, in which men think by what they do, they will earn acceptance with God.

4:47 And if they gain acceptance with God, they can reach around and pat themselves on the back, because like that Pharisee who stood in the temple, you can say, I thank God I am not like other men, not because of your grace, but because of who and what I am in myself, and because of what I do.

5:06 But the other religion, it does not say, do, in order to obtain life, but it says, because you have received life, having received life as a free gift of God's grace, You are now to do, not with any thought of earning the favor of God, but you do as an expression of your gratitude to God for the favor He has freely conferred. Now, the Christian faith, as conveyed to us in the Scriptures, is obviously a religion, the only religion of the second kind. It is a religion of grace. In the Gospel, God does not come to you and to me saying, Now look, if you do this, do this, do this, and do it hard enough and long enough, I just may reward you with forgiveness and pardon and acceptance and heaven at last. That's no Gospel. The Gospel is an announcement, it's good news of what God has done in Christ to overcome every barrier to the sinner's acceptance with God. And the Gospel declares, God so loved that...

6:21 That He gave His only begotten Son. Christ has died the just for the unjust. Christ has opened the way into the presence of God. Cast yourself upon who Christ is and what He has done, and you are given freely as the gift of God.

6:40 Pardon, acceptance, access to God and heaven at last. And so, because the Gospel is an announcement of what God has done, and it is not a religion of do in order to live, but you live because of grace, it then comes and says, Now this is what you are to do, not to obtain the favor of God, but to express your gratitude to the God who has conferred His grace upon you. And this has become abundantly clear to us in our studies in 1 Peter. Peter is writing to a group of Christians scattered throughout what is now the land of Turkey, called then Asia Minor in these Roman provinces.

7:25 And they are experiencing all kinds of opposition from their former companions in sin, from their own remaining sin, from the devil himself. And Peter, with a pastor's heart, wants to write to them, to instruct them and guide them as to how they are to live in that very real pressure cooker. But before he gives any directives, any imperatives, any exhortations, before he gives any directives, any imperatives, any exhortations, before he tells them what to do, he reminds them of what they already have and they already are because of the grace of God. As we went through verses 3 to 12 in chapter 1, we saw there is not one command.

8:05 Everything is a statement, an indicative, a statement of what is. And what is, is what it is, because God is a God of abundant grace and mercy. But then in the light of what God has given, Peter then gave five imperatives, five specific directives to the people of God as to how they are to live out of gratitude to God for His gracious salvation. And in the power and in the dynamics of that salvation, he tells them, you are to live a life of hope, a life of holiness, a life of godly fear, a life of brotherly love, and a life of continuous hunger for the word of God.

The Indicatives of Grace in 1 Peter 2:4-10

8:49 Now, this morning, we begin our study of verses 4 through 10 in chapter 2. And Peter is going back to the same principle. For in verses 4 through 10, there are no exhortations, there are no imperatives, there are no admonitions. In these verses, we have another block of instruction that tells us who we are and what we have because of the action of God's will.

9:19 The action of God's grace. Just a very surface glance at the passage and you will notice. Look at verse 5. You also as living stones are built up.

9:29 You are literally being built up. He doesn't say, build yourself up. You ought to be built up. He says, you are being built up.

9:40 The end of verse 6, he that believes on Him shall not be put to shame. He doesn't say, you ought not to be put to shame. He says, you shall not be put to shame. He says, you shall not be put to shame.

9:51 Verse 7. To you therefore that believe is the preciousness or the honor. You believers are regarded by God with the same disposition with which He regards His Son. Verse 9.

10:05 But you are. He's not saying you ought to be. You will eventually become. He says, you are.

10:11 And then he mentions all these things that they are. Verse 10. You were not, but you now are the people of God. You are, you are, you are, you are.

10:22 Verses 4 to 10 is another wonderful block of what we've come to know as the indicatives of grace. And I use the word not to impress you with big words. I do want that phrase to embed itself in your memory. I as a believer must constantly feed my soul upon the indicatives of grace.

10:45 That is, the statements of what God has done for me. In Christ. The unfolding of what I am in Christ. And only in the spirit wrought understanding of the indicatives of grace and the present believing embrace of the indicatives of grace will I be able to fulfill the obligations of grace.

11:09 And Peter has many more obligations to lay upon the people of God. You will notice in verse 11, he begins another whole string of them in chapter 2. Beloved, I beseech you. And then a whole string of imperatives flow out of this wonderful block of indicatives.

11:28 And as we come to the passage, I don't want you to get lost in the details and not see that overall picture that Peter is beginning to paint for us. In chapter 1 verses 3 to 12, a large block of the indicatives of grace. Then we have five imperatives of grace. From 1, 13 through 2 and verse 3.

11:51 Now we come to chapter 2 verses 4 to 10. And we have another big block of the indicatives of grace. And then there will follow an even larger block of the imperatives of grace. Well, as we come to the passage, I want you to notice with me very quickly by way, again, of introduction to it, three very vital things.

Spirit-Inspired Christianizing of Old Testament Concepts

12:11 And I hope as I mention them, you'll say, oh yes, I noticed that. Notice that even as we read through the passage. First of all, it is indeed another concentrated statement of the indicatives of grace. I've tried to establish that with you, that it has no exhortations.

12:28 There is not one verb in the imperative mood here in this passage. It is all a statement of what is. Secondly then, the focus of these verses is upon the corporate identity and privileges of the people of God. The focus is upon the corporate identity and privileges of the people of God.

12:50 Whereas verses 3 to 12 in chapter 1 predominantly emphasize the privileges that all of the people of God share in common. But the emphasis is upon the individual believer laying hold of and appreciating his individual possessions in Christ. Here the emphasis is upon what the people of God are together. You see the imagery of a house, the imagery of a priesthood, a class of people called priests.

13:24 The whole concepts in verse 9 are all the concepts of an elect race, a priesthood, a nation, a people. These are terms that focus not so much upon the individual identity and privilege of the child of God, though they are enjoyed individually or they would not, nor be their portion corporately. But the emphasis falls upon who and what the people of God are in their identity as the people of God in their corporate identity. And then thirdly, these verses are a spirit-inspired Christianizing of many Old Testament passages and concepts. These verses are a spirit-inspired Christianizing of many Old Testament passages and concepts. of many Old Testament passages and concepts. If you were to extract from verses 4 to 10 every explicit quotation from the Old Testament, every allusion to an Old Testament reality, every phrase that is extracted from the Old Testament, you'd be left with just a handful of words.

14:36 Verses 4 to 10, in many ways, is a rearranged concordance of large sections of the Old Testament. And we're going to see that as we unfold it. You say, what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is this.

14:49 Peter is writing to a community of New Covenant believers in Asia Minor. Most of them with a pagan background. He says in verse 10, you were not a people. You were part of the Goyim, part of the pagan nations of the Gentiles.

15:07 You had no past heritage in all of the rich realities that the Jewish nation, they had the tabernacle and the temple instituted by God. They had a priesthood instituted by God. They had a sacrificial system instituted by God. God could say of that people, you only have I known of all the peoples of the earth.

15:30 They were an elect nation, a chosen people. And what Peter does is he takes all of that rich Old Testament terminology, the concepts of temple, of priesthood, of sacrifice, of a holy nation, an elect race, God's peculiar possession, and he transfers all of that to the Christian community there in Asia Minor in the first century. And so I say, this is a spirit-inspired Christianizing of many Old Testament passages and concepts. And the reason Peter does that is he learned well from his Lord.

16:13 Who in his post-resurrection ministry opened the mind of his apostles that they might understand the Scriptures. And he taught them concerning the true significance of that Old Testament temple. The true significance of the Old Testament priesthood. The true significance of the Old Testament sacrifices.

16:36 All of which were not ends in themselves, but pointed to Christ and to His church. And to the privileges of gospel days. So Peter is not accommodating the Old Testament because he's got a bad set of hermeneutics. He is exemplifying true biblical hermeneutics.

16:57 He is demonstrating by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the use of all of this rich Old Testament terminology that it finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ and in His church. That's not an imposition of a theological position upon the text of Scripture. It is the only way we can handle honestly what Peter has written for the people of God for all of the ages until the Lord Jesus returns. Well, so much then for that broad introduction to this section.

The Continuous Activity of the True People of God: Coming to Christ

17:33 I hope you've not found it tedious. I felt it was necessary if I were going to responsibly expound the section. Now, God helping us in time permitting, we're going to look at verses 4 and 5 this morning. Unto whom coming?

17:47 A living stone rejected indeed of men, but with God, elect, precious. You also as living stones are built up a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. If I were to give a title to the exposition, it would be a very unglamorous title, The Liturgy of Jesus Christ. So we would have, The Liturgy of Jesus Christ.

18:15 And this is a title about three living stones, the spiritual house and the holy priesthood. Because that's what we have here in the passage. Now, note with me, first of all, what I'm calling the continuous activity of the true people of God. The continuous activity of the true people of God.

18:30 Verse 4a. Unto whom coming? Everything that Peter describes in verses 4 to 10 as part of the experience and possession of the people of God is predicated upon this description of the true people of God. And how are they described?

18:53 They are described as those who continually come to the Lord Jesus.

19:00 Who is the whom of verse 4? Well, the whom of verse 4, the relative pronoun, is the Lord of verse 3. You remember that He had said in verse 3, since you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. When He gives the exhortation, the command as newborn babes to long to yearn for the milk of the Word, He does so assuming that those to whom He speaks have indeed tasted that the Lord is gracious.

19:30 They have proven in their experience that Jesus Christ is a kind, beneficent, merciful Savior. That's not a notion that floats around in their heads, that merely passes by their ears. For the true people of God, they have tasted. They have known in the realm of the Spirit what the tasting and the ingesting of food is in the physical realm.

19:57 They have heard of Christ in the Gospel and they have in their experience tasted of Him. Now, He says, the same Lord of whom you have tasted. And there the form of the verb points to that definition. To that definitive tasting that comes in conversion.

20:16 He now says, unto whom coming. Unto whom coming. Unto whom, literally, you are continually coming. Now this word coming, if you know something of the New Testament, is synonymous with faith.

20:36 One of the ways faith is described is that of coming to Christ. Remember in John 5.40, Jesus said, you will not come to Me that you may have life. You will not believe upon Me.

20:48 John 6.37, all that the Father gives Me shall come to Me. And Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out. Coming to Christ is one of the terms used for approaching Christ in faith.

21:04 What I do when I come to Your door is I make a physical approach with my feet from where I am to Your door, and to where You are. What is faith? It is leaving where I am in my sin, in my guilt, in my hell deservingness, going out of myself and unto Christ. Coming to Christ is one of the descriptive elements of faith.

21:30 And this particular verb is also used in the Old Testament, in that Greek translation of the Old Testament, to describe what priests would do when they came with their sacrifices. It's used, for specific coming in acts of worship in the book of Hebrews. So the whole idea of this phrase, unto whom coming, is that Peter assumes in writing to these Christians that the fundamental characteristic of every one of them is that they are continual comers to Christ. Not referring to that initial coming to Christ for initial saving mercies, but referring to that initial coming to Christ but the ongoing, repeated, habitual coming to Christ for the sustaining of spiritual life. In the language of John 6.54, it is the continual eating of His flesh and the continual drinking of His blood. It is the coming continually to Christ.

22:33 You say, Pastor, you've labored the point. Let's get on to something else. Well, if I've labored it, I hope it will stick. Because it's critical to all that follows.

22:42 Peter assumes that when he says, you are, you are, you are, you were not, but you are, he's assuming, he's writing to those who are continual comers to Christ. And if you are a continual comer to Christ, you, with those saints back there in the first century, all that Peter says in verses 4 to 10 is true of you. If you only began to come to Him an hour ago and your possible, your posture is one of coming to Christ, you are determined, you're not going to go anywhere else for the ongoing pardon of your sins. You're not going to go anywhere else for strength to live a life pleasing to God.

23:24 You're not going to go anywhere else to find your deepest satisfaction. You have come to Christ. You have found in Him the pearl of great price. You're not out shopping for anyone else.

23:36 You are committed to continually come to Him. And dear people, if I stick by my notes, it's been very distracting. We've had so much, so much motion here this morning. It's been very, very distressful.

23:47 So please forgive me if I stick by my notes. But when you've labored for hours and are trying to deliver your soul, and I'm not faulting anyone, that's why I'm looking down. But if you wonder why, I find wherever I look, I try to turn away from motion. I'm meeting other motions.

24:01 So pardon me if I stick by my notes because it is most distracting. All right, it's critical to grasp this point that all of those who are the true people of God are comers to Christ. But we need to appreciate that this is true of all of them, regardless of their stage of growth. The most newborn babe in Christ and the most mature saint in Christ.

24:29 This is true. Everything Peter writes in 4 to 10 is true if only that individual is a comer to Christ. It applies to all of these comers, but only to these comers. If you are not described in 4A, unto whom continually coming, then all the things Peter says are true of such are not true of you.

24:52 Not true of you. And can only be true of you if you become a comer to Christ. They are not true of you out of Christ, but they can be true of you in Christ. Well then, having looked at the continuous activity of the true people of God, note with me secondly the specific identity of Christ as a living stone.

The Specific Identity of Christ: The Living Stone

25:14 Unto whom coming? A living stone.

25:21 Now that's nothing short of a startling metaphor.

25:25 Suppose I were to stand up here this morning and talk to you about a mild hurricane wind. Or talk about the timid roar of a lion. You'd say, Pastor Martin, you're mixed up. The wind in a hurricane is not mild.

25:45 It's a raging wind. It's a tearing. A rending wind. You don't talk about the soft roaring of a lion.

25:54 You talk about the soft purring of a cat. But it's the loud, intimidating roar of a lion. But this is that kind of a startling metaphor. He says, unto whom coming?

26:06 A living stone. Now when you want to show that something's dead and real dead, how do you describe it? We say that thing is dead as a stone. Cold as a stone.

26:20 That guy has a stone face. What do we mean? It's not showing the normal expressions of life. So living stone is a startling metaphor.

26:33 And he says, you who come to this Lord who is gracious, you come to him in his specific identity as living stone. Now where did Peter get that idea? Well, it's evident that when Peter wrote this, this portion of his letter, his mind was steeped with a rich vein of Old Testament teaching concerning Christ as a stone, particularly as a chief cornerstone in the construction of God's messianic temple made of his people. That will become clear when we come to verses 6 through 8, where he quotes from three pivotal Old Testament passages.

27:17 Isaiah 28, and then Psalm 118, and then Isaiah, and then Isaiah chapter 8. And we're not going to look at those passages now because that will be the task in expounding verses 6 to 8. But the concept of a stone, Peter derived directly from these Old Testament passages, clearly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But whatever possessed him to join to it the concept of living stone.

27:45 Well, it's one of Peter's favorite words. You remember in chapter 1 in verse 3, he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The same Peter who said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. He now sees that his hope, that confident expectation for all the blessings of a promised salvation, has its tap roots in the livingness of Christ.

28:21 It is a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. At the end of chapter 1, that's how he described the Word of God. The Word of God which is living and abiding. And as he contemplates his Lord, as God's appointed cornerstone in the construction of his spiritual temple, he cannot think of him in any other way but that of the living stone.

28:49 He is the stone who, though dead, was raised from the dead. The one who says to John in the book of the Revelation, I was dead and behold I am alive forevermore. And furthermore, as he's going to describe the experience and privilege of the people of God, he thinks of his Lord as the one who said in John 5, 26, that the Son has life in himself. And he has a life that he is able to impart to others for he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

29:24 And when sinners approach the Father through him, they know him not only as the way and the truth, but they experience him as the life. And so Peter sets before his hearers this specific identity of Christ, the one to whom they come as the living stone. The one who is able to impart life to dead stones. And make them with himself living stones in his spiritual temple.

The Contrasting Assessment of Christ: Rejected by Men, Elect by God

29:56 But now note, having looked at the prevailing disposition of the true people of God, they continually come to Christ, the specific identity of Christ as living stone. Note thirdly then, the contrasting assessment of Christ as the living stone. No sooner does Peter introduce the Lord Jesus as living stone, but he gives us this contrasting assessment of Christ as the living stone. And in the original it's a very clear, on the one hand, and on the other hand, structure.

30:32 For you Greek students, you have a men-dead construction. Peter says this living stone who, on the one hand, rejected of men, but on the other hand, with God, elect, precious. Man's assessment, and treatment, contrasted with God's assessment and treatment. Let's look at them for a few moments.

30:58 What is man's assessment? Peter writes, rejected, indeed, of men. In the Old Testament it says, the stone which the builders rejected. By the inspiration of the Spirit, Peter moves beyond whatever specific application that may have had in David's time.

31:22 And the application that our Lord, himself makes of it, with reference to himself being rejected by the religious leaders in Israel, and Peter says, rejected, indeed, of men. Mankind, in general, rejects this stone. The verb that he uses literally means to examine, and after examination, to reject or cast aside as worthless, or useless. It's the picture of what people do who are in the quality control section of a plant or a company.

31:59 Now, some of you perhaps have seen movies or you've visited a plant. Let's say it's an egg processing plant. And among the various responsibilities from the time the eggs are delivered to the time they go out in boxes, somewhere along the line you're going to have a quality control segment that by the use of certain instruments is going to examine whether or not an egg is fit for marketing. And when those who sit there examining the terminal, this egg is unworthy to be marketed, they take it out of that production line or whatever we would call the thing that is processing them and boxing them, and they cast it aside.

32:38 That's exactly the verb that Peter uses here. Rejected indeed of men, assessed and regarded as worthless and therefore set aside. And he uses a form of the verb. The verb which points to an action that continues.

32:58 It is a steady state. It is an action that abides in the overall assessment of mankind. This living stone, many evaluate it and they regard it as unworthy of any further consideration. It is rejected.

33:17 But with respect to God, God's assessment and treatment is. There is a subtle little emphasis that Peter gives, not merely with God, but he uses a preposition that is the preposition of a long-sightedness. The picture of God having that stone at his side, looks down upon it and he assesses it and two words reflect his assessment, elect and precious, elect, chosen, selected, perfectly suited for all that is involved. And that is the preposition of a long-sightedness.

33:53 In his identity as the living stone. Isaiah 42 in verse 1, behold my servant, my chosen one, my elect one. That's what the father says of his son. From all eternity, he regarded him as the one worthy and suitable to be the stone in this spiritual structure that God would build, comprised of those whom he would make living stones.

34:22 They come into relationship with Christ, the living stone. With God, elect and precious, honored, esteemed, properly regarded because of its intrinsic worth and character. That's how God esteems him. And God made that known audibly in the days of our Lord's flesh.

34:45 This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. He spoke directly to him on another occasion. You are my son, my beloved one, in whom I am well pleased. And when Peter introduces this whole imagery of Christ as the stone, before he even takes us to those passages that narrow down the focus and show us that he is that fashioned stone that has a unique place in the construction of God's spiritual temple, he is concerned to underscore that in a very real sense.

35:21 All mankind is confronted with this stone, and the true state of the heart is revealed in the presence of this one whom God regards elect and precious. And that will be amplified in the subsequent verses. The believers are those who will never be disappointed that they share God's assessment and see in Christ the one who was uniquely chosen to be the redeemer of sinners. The one who is in himself and in his work worthy to be honored and be regarded as precious.

35:59 But there are others to whom he is the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense. And they stumble at the word being disobedient. You see, Christ, when he comes to us in the word of the gospel, becomes that one in whose presence we either share the estimation of all men by nature, or by grace we are brought to share God's estimation of him. Well, we've looked then at the contrasting assessment of Christ, the living stone.

The Amazing Results of Coming to Christ: Living Stones, Spiritual House, Holy Priesthood

36:31 Now, come with me to consider the amazing results of coming to Christ as a living stone. What happens to those who, tasting that the Lord is gracious, continually come to him, come to him as the living stone, though rejected by men in general? Yet, the one whom God has designated as elect and precious, what happens to all who come to him? Well, in terms of how you regard the matters, we could say two fundamental things happen.

37:05 But I want, for the sake of simplicity, to consider the four things that Peter says happen to those who come to this living stone. First of all, they are made living stones. Look at the text. Unto whom coming, a living stone.

37:21 One, rejected indeed of men, but with God, elect, precious, you also as living stones. Well, how in the world did these people become living stones? Christ has life in himself. Christ is now resplendent with the uniqueness of resurrected life, having undergone the pains of death when he died the just for the unjust, raised to life to die no more.

37:49 How did they become? Living stones. Well, they became living stones by coming into union with him who is the, capital letters, Living Stone. You also as living stones.

38:03 Where did they get their livingness? By nature, they were stones, dead stones, dead as a stone. For you hath he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. But remember, Peter, using different imagery, has said, You have purified yourselves.

38:20 You have purified yourselves. You have purified yourselves in your souls, in your obedience to the truth, unto unfeigned love of the brethren, having been begotten again. Way back to chapter 1. Blessed be the God and Father who has begotten us again.

38:32 They were those in whom God had worked this mighty work of new life. They were newborn ones. And now Peter, changing the imagery, says, In being the recipients of God's gracious impartation of life in union with Christ, you have become living stones. That's what happens when people come to Christ.

38:56 In contact with Christ, they receive the very life of Christ. I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

39:07 And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Colossians chapter 3, when Christ who is our what? Our life shall appear. Then shall you also be manifested with him in glory.

39:23 The first amazing result of coming to Christ as living stone is that all who come to him are made living stones. They share in the very imperishable life of the Son of God. But secondly, they are also made or built into a spiritual house. They are built into a spiritual house.

39:48 Now the word in the original can either... be an imperative or an indicative.

39:52 And some commentators say, well, it's an imperative. Be built. But it makes really no sense to regard it as such. In this whole section, Peter is not exhorting.

40:02 He's not commanding. He's declaring what is and what has been the operation of grace. And he says that you are built together a spiritual house. A spiritual house.

40:19 Coming to Christ. This living stone. You are being built together a spiritual house. Now the word house can mean the house as a dwelling or the household that dwells within it.

40:34 And because of the emphasis here upon priesthood and sacrifice, it's most likely that Peter's using it in the sense you are the house. You are the building. And he doesn't use the term sanctuary for good and wise reasons. We won't go into all of that.

40:49 But here he is likening that which has happened to these who come to Christ as resulting in God continually building up this spiritual house, this spiritual dwelling, this spiritual temple. It is spiritual as opposed to material. It is spiritual in that it is the fruit of the action of the Spirit. And it has as its end that the Spirit Himself might dwell in the house that He builds.

41:21 The closest parallel would be Ephesians chapter 2, verses 19 through 22. And let me just read that passage. I say the closest parallel in the New Testament. You are no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief cornerstone in whom each several building fitly forms, framed together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are builded together for inhabitation of God in the Spirit.

42:00 Here you have Paul's description of a building that grows.

42:05 Whoever heard of a building that grows? I've heard of buildings that can be enlarged, but when the enlargement is done, you stop your building. But not so the church. God is continually building that sanctuary in which He dwells by the Spirit.

42:20 Peter, in the same category, of biblical reality, says, to whom coming, you are being builded up into this house of God, this spiritual house. A house built by the Spirit and for the Spirit. But not only this, you are not only made living stones, built into a spiritual house, you are constituted a holy priesthood. Again, look at the text.

42:48 You are as living stones being built up a spiritual house to this end, to be a holy priesthood. To be a holy priesthood. Now, wait a minute. What temple ever had its stones functioning as priests?

43:08 You say, you talk about mixing your metaphors. Yes, the Holy Ghost has wonderfully mixed the metaphors. What we have in Christ is so rich that no one metaphor will contain it. So much of the Old Testament points to Christ and to the fulfillment in Christ that Peter has no scruples of moving from living stones in the temple and now the stones, while still remaining as part of the temple, are suddenly priests clothed in garments, active within the temple, offering sacrifice.

43:40 And he says, this is what you believers, there in Asia Minor, despised by your former companions, treated as the nobodies of this world, this is what God has made you, to whom coming, you also, as living stones, built up a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood. Now, this word priesthood is used only here and in chapter 2 and verse 9 in the whole of the New Testament.

44:10 The word priest is found elsewhere, but priesthood, as a singular collective noun describing a class of people, who are the New Testament priesthood? The answer is simple. All of the people of God. There is, there is no priestly class in the New Testament.

44:30 Never once, among all the terms used to describe those who have various gifts to minister, never once is the term priest applied to them. Never once. And isn't it ironic that the so-called first pope of Rome is the instrument the Holy Spirit uses to give us the most explicit doctrine or statement of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers in the New Testament. Only Peter uses the word priesthood.

44:58 Two times, here and in chapter 2 and verse 9. And he says the priesthood is composed of all who come to Christ. All who have tasted that the Lord is gracious. All who continually come to Him.

45:13 They are not only the living stones in His spiritual house, they are constituted the priesthood that functions within that house. What is a temple without a priesthood to carry on its religious rituals within the temple? Well, a temple is just a building then. It needs a priesthood.

45:33 It needs those who can function within that temple doing the things that the God and the Lord of the temple commands. And Peter says, anything and everything that the Old Testament temple pointed to is now fulfilled in you believers there in Asia Minor. Coming to Christ, the living stone, you are constituted this spiritual priesthood, that which he calls a holy priesthood. That is a priesthood set apart unto God and to His service.

46:04 You are no longer a part of that world system that is marked by defilement. You have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth. You have in his initial description of them in chapter 1, he says that you are what you are as elect sojourners according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in sanctification. Same root concept in sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ.

46:36 So there is a positional but an internal and a moral holiness. They are a priesthood because in union with Christ and by the ministry of the Spirit they have purified their souls. They have been set apart unto God. They are constituted a holy priesthood.

The Privilege of Offering Spiritual and Acceptable Sacrifices

46:55 One of the writers I consulted, in my preparation, made a statement that has stuck with me and I have altered it a little bit. He said, Jewish terms given a Jewish meaning instead of Jewish terms with a distinctively Christian meaning have ruined many. What are some Jewish terms? Priesthood.

47:18 Sacrifice. Give to those Jewish terms a Jewish meaning in the New Testament and you have spiritual shipwreck. You have Rome with its priestcraft and Rome with its sacrifice of the Mass. That's giving Jewish terms a Jewish significance now that all of the shadows and tides are swallowed up in Christ.

47:43 What Peter does is he takes Jewish terms and he gives them a distinctive Christian meaning and says, coming to Christ, you are now the temple, you are the priesthood. And to call any man a priest to that which Christ has done away with in his death and resurrection. You are constituted a holy priesthood but then the fourth privilege is this, we are privileged to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices. What's a temple without a priesthood?

48:22 What's a priesthood without sacrifices? You see, to Peter's mind steeped in the Old Testament rituals, it would be unthinkable to have a temple without a priesthood and a priesthood without sacrifices. He says, yes, and it is unthinkable that God would bring people into union with His Son, make them living stones in a living house of His dwelling, constitute those same people a holy priesthood without giving them the privilege of offering sacrifices. And he says, God has given you that privilege.

48:58 He's made you these things to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Just a few moments on those words. To offer up, to offer up, a common word used to describe the Levitical sacrifices in that Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. If you were describing in Leviticus that the priest would come and offer, that's the word you would use.

49:27 It's used in James 2 regarding Abraham offering up Isaac upon the altar. And what we offer are real sacrifices. To offer up sacrifices. They are real, God-ordained, God-pleasing expressions of devotion and worship, but they are spiritual sacrifices.

49:48 They are not carnal, not animals and foodstuffs to make atonement or to express gratitude by tangible physical commodities. They are spiritual sacrifices. They are sacrifices offered in the power and in the grace of the Spirit. And they constitute the heart of new covenant worship.

50:12 Well, what are those sacrifices? Well, if you want a rich study, just take your concordance and look up the word sacrifice in the New Testament and see what things are designated sacrifices. And you'll come across verses like Romans 12, 1. I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptance, which is acceptable to God, which is your reasonable, your rational, your logikon, your spiritual service.

50:41 We present ourselves in response to the magnificence of God's grace and say, Here, Lord, I give myself away. It is all that I can do. I do not come to present an animal upon an altar. Lord, I give myself to you.

50:58 Because you were willing to give yourself for me. Or in Hebrews 13, 15, By him, therefore, let us offer up the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips, making confession to his name. Further on in verse 16, of good works, let us go on, he says, to perform good works, to communicate in physical things with such sacrifices God is well pleased. When Paul received the offering of the Philippians, he writes back and says in chapter 4 and verse 18, I've received the things that have come from Epaphroditus, a sacrifice well pleasing unto God.

51:36 Our selfless commitment to the advance of the gospel, Philippians 2, 17. Our contrition over sin, the sacrifices of God, are a broken and a contrite heart. A broken and a contrite heart thou will not despise. It's not my purpose.

51:52 We could take every one of those and preach a sermon on them. But you see, Peter writing to these believers says, Your great privilege is that you are not only made living stones and not only built into a spiritual house and constituted a holy priesthood, but you are privileged actively, all of you, in your life together, to offer up these spiritual sacrifices. And then he describes them in this way, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And that word acceptable means exceedingly well pleasing to God.

52:27 He uses a construction of a word that underscores acceptable indeed, very favorable acceptance. You mean God is pleased to receive these spiritual sacrifices? Yes, they are acceptable to Him. Ah, but why are they acceptable to Him?

52:46 The text says through Jesus Christ. We offer them through the mediation of Christ. God receives them. May I say it reverently, He savors.

53:01 All of the perfection of the atonement of His Son and the intercession of His Son and our pathetic sacrifices are well pleasing in His sight because they are presented through the Lord Jesus. Think of it. Sitting here this morning, if you sought to engage your heart in the singing of that opening section of Psalm 69, if you sought with all of your heart to say, yes, Jesus is my rock who was cleft for me, and I do desire to hide myself in Him, and in singing the hymn before the sermon, praising God for what His word is, if your heart was engaged, your conscience, there was still so much that was lacking. There was a stray thought here or there. I could have sung with greater enthusiasm and devotion. I see spots and blemishes in all the lambs of my sacrifice of praise. Yes, you do.

53:56 And God sees far more viewing them nakedly. But my dear Christian friend, He doesn't view them nakedly. He views them through His Son. And He says, that sacrifice smells sweetly.

54:10 The odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice well pleasing to God. And when you gave your offering this morning and you said, Lord, thank You. You blessed me. You provided my needs.

54:20 And it was a genuine expression of gratitude. But you know, you could have been more grateful. You could have been more thankful. The blemishes and the spots were in the sacrifice.

54:29 They were in the sacrifice of your giving. But it was well pleasing to God through Jesus Christ. You see, Peter begins and ends this section with Christ. To whom coming?

54:41 All of the things apply if you're coming to Christ. And now, as a comer to Christ, all that you are and all that you do in that identity is acceptable to God through Christ. Our Christian experience begins and ends with Him. We don't start with Him and go somewhere else and at the end hope that He'll come in.

Exhortation and Call to Unbelievers

55:06 No, it begins with Him, continues with Him, and will end with Him. Well, I've attempted to unpack these verses. We've looked at the continuous activity of the true people of God continually coming to Christ, the specific identity of Christ as the living stone, the contrasting assessment of Christ as the living stone, the amazing results, the results of coming to Christ as living stone. And to you, God's people, my only exhortation is this, as I exhort myself, pray for grace both to believe and understand and rejoice in all that you are and all that you have because of Christ. To whom coming? And everything that flows out of that is but an exposition of that which God freely confers upon His people because of Christ. And to you who are yet dead stones, you have no communion with God, no place among the people of God, no service that is pleasing to God.

56:13 Nothing pleases God if it does not come through Christ. And if you're not a comer to Christ, then whatever you bring to God doesn't come through Christ. You see, verse 4a is critical to all that follows. Those who can have the confidence that what they bring to God is well pleasing to God because it comes through Christ are those who are constant comers to Christ.

56:36 And so once again, Christ is set before you as the old Puritan said, Christ is freely preached in all of our assemblies every Lord's day. This Christ whom God regards as His elect, His highly valued one. He says, cast yourself upon this Christ. Begin to value Him as I do.

56:59 He must become your chosen and your highly valued one. For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man seeking goodly pearls who when he found one pearl of great price sold all that he had that he might obtain it. May God grant that you will lay hold of His promise. Him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out.

57:20 And if you come and you taste that the Lord is good, you'll be one of those who is a continual comer to Christ. And as a comer to Christ, you too will be part of that company being built up into this spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through the Lord Jesus. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for this portion of Your Word.

57:54 And we pray that the Holy Spirit would write it upon all of our hearts that we who are Your people may be given grace to know and to believe all that we are because of Christ. And that we may then, having embraced from the heart the indicatives of Your grace, that we may seek to live out the imperatives in gratitude and independence upon Your strength. We pray for those who are not comers to Christ, that You would make them such. O Lord, by Your grace, lay hold of them and draw them to Yourself, we plead.

58:33 Now we ask, that You would watch over Your Word, that You will dismiss us with Your blessing and Your grace resting upon us. And may the remaining hours of this day be kept holy unto You and to the profit of our souls, we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.