Stumbling or Standing?

We continue our series Exiles in Our Land: Standing as God’s people, with God’s people.

Today those two parts of our identity as Christians come through strong in the text. Because we are God’s people in the Messiah Jesus, we belong together. Together we’re a spiritual house, says Peter.

How is identity formed? Have you thought about that? Think of someone you knew in an earlier part of your life, but you haven’t seen them in, say, ten or fifteen years. And then you see them. And you go, They became a totally different person. 

Perhaps you knew him in childhood when he was skinny. But now he’s tall, 220lbs of lean muscle. He won’t eat pizza with you. Only chicken breasts. He doesn’t need to tell you he works out six days a week; it’s obvious. His clothes, his lingo, his diet—it all spells fitness. Fitness is his thing.

Or perhaps she, when you check her Facebook page and connect over coffee, only talks about politics. Policies. Rallies. Elections. Hot issues. And you think, OK. I care but not like this. 

The distance from this person helps you see clearly what has formed their identity. We all do this. We may do it along family lines, vocational lines, ideological lines. And our identity can be formed by a variety of things.

Some go deeper than others. A lawyer might speak a certain way, live in a certain neighborhood, wear certain clothes, drive a certain car, vacation in certain places. They will take on a specific persona.

But another lawyer might not conform to any of the lawyerly stereotypes. Law is just their vocation, not their identity.

Here’s why this matters.

In this letter Peter, as an apostle of Jesus, is deepening our identity as God’s people and with God’s people. He’s aware that Rome has a whole system of values and priorities that are forming and informing people’s choices. The same is true today.

For example, high school seniors often graduate from high school and from faith simultaneously.

Why does that happen? Because as they’re becoming adults, they realize, This Christian thing was my parents’ identity but not really mine. I’m going to explore if something else suits me better. And there are many things on offer.

So people decide, I’m going to jettison Christianity. OR I’m going to keep it but kind of in the background, something nice and small. OR I am a Christian. My Christian faith is the principle by which everything else in life makes sense.

That last option is what Peter is after. He’s helping us understand and form a deep Christian identity.

So let’s look at two things he builds on today.

1 Peter 2:4–5

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

In chapter 1, to explain how radical Christian conversion is, Peter used the theme of new birth.

When people join secret societies, or a team, or a club, they’re initiated. There’s some kind of initiation rite or ritual. Christian conversion is far more radical. Christian conversion is a new birth, a new birth by the Spirit of God through the Word of God, the gospel.

Now, you may say, What about baptism? Isn’t baptism the initiation rite into the Christian life? Yes, it is. But it’s a physical symbol of the spiritual new birth.

Well, now in chapter 2 Peter deploys a new image: the living stone. He calls Jesus the living stone and Christians living stones. (But we’ll come back to Christians in a bit.)

Why does he call Jesus the living stone?

Going back to the Mosaic Law, The Lord God was called the Rock. In the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32, God is called the Rock five times.

• Deut 32:3–4, I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect.
• Deut 32:15, Jeshurun, grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek. They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior.
• Deut 32:18, You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.
• Psalm 28:1, To you, LORD, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me.

Now, remember that during the ministry of Jesus when he takes his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, he asks them, Who do people say the son of man is? They give various answers—all wrong. But then he asks them, What about you? Who do you say I am? And Peter answers, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And Jesus says, On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it (Matt 16:15–18).

The rock on which the church is built is Jesus, the Messiah, the son of God.

Paul says, of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness, They all ate the same spiritual food  and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:3–4). The rock is Christ.

Then, we have Old Testament texts that reference a very important stone. These are the three that Peter quotes.

• Psalm 118:22–23, The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. 
• Isaiah 8:13–14, The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread. He will be a holy place; for both Israel and Judah he will be a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. 
• Isaiah 28:16, So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic.

Now, let’s look at what Jesus does with some of these texts. (When we read a New Testament text that quotes so many OT texts, we’re also learning how to read the Old Testament christologically, that is, with Christ at the center. This is how the apostles read the OT, and they learned it from Jesus.)

In all three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) there’s a parable of great import. Jesus tells it days before his death. It’s the Parable of the Tenants. How does it go?

A landowner plants a vineyard, rents it to some tenants, and goes away. At harvest time, he sends some servants to collect his fruit, but the tenants beat one, kill another, and stone a third. The landowner sends more servants, but they do the same. So, at last, he sends his son. He says, They will respect my son. But instead they say, This is the heir. Let’s kill him and take his inheritance. 

Then Jesus asks his audience, What will [the owner] do to those tenants? And they say, He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.

Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit (Matt 21:33–43).

Jesus told this parable while he was in the temple courts in Jerusalem speaking to the chief priests and the elders.

There are two things he does with this parable that completely bypassed them.
First, he finishes the parable with the landowner’s son being killed. And, of course, we now know Jesus was days from being killed.

Second, he quotes Psalm 118, The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 

The son is the stone that is being rejected by the builders, but the Lord is making him the cornerstone. That was Jesus.

So now Peter tells us, Everyone stands or stumbles on this stone.

Jesus is the precious stone. He is chosen by God and precious to him. There is no one who is more precious to God than Jesus.

But Jesus is also the rejected stone. Peter says he’s rejected by humans. All the way going back to Psalm 118, there was a prophecy of this important stone in God’s building project being passed over, overlooked by the architects and builders, rejected. How could he be so important to God and so unimportant to humans? Because we don’t have in mind the things of God. We don’t see as God sees.

Finally, Jesus is also the stumbling stone. In rejecting Jesus, many stumble and fall. He is a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. Why do they stumble? Because they disobey the message. They refuse to obey the message.

The good news is that Jesus, the living stone, is not only precious to God. He is also precious to those who believe. Peter says in verse 7, Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. 

So as the precious living stone, we are called to come to him.

• Come to him above all sin.
• Come to him above all good things.
• Come to him above all that your heart holds dear.
• Come to him above all the kingdoms of this world.

Come to the living stone, the son of God, our Rock and Savior.

And as you come to him, embrace his people.

1 Peter 2:4–5, 9–10

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ . . . But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 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. 

It’s not enough to say, Jesus the living stone is precious to me. 

Peter would say to you, Show it. Show it by your life. Show it by the building project you’re most committed to in your life. 

See, there have always been two building projects going on at any given moment in the world. God’s building project and humanity’s building project.

When God had Noah build the ark, everyone who saw it laughed. Noah, where’s the water? Is this a good ol’ case of ‘If you build it, rain will come’?

When people were building the Tower of Babel, God was not in it. He came down and put a stop to it.

In Psalm 118 it says, The stone the builders rejected. These builders were in the middle of a building project, and there was a stone they disregarded. It was of no use or consequence to them.

But then the psalm says, This rejected stone has become the cornerstone. The LORD has done this. God has his own building project, and in his building project he places a living stone in Zion, his son, his king. And everyone who puts their trust in him will never be put to shame.

And if you’ve placed your trust in him, then you also become a living stone being built into a spiritual house.

What this means is that God is not building a temple of stone in Jerusalem or any other place.

He’s building a spiritual temple, a spiritual house, all over the world, and each Christian is a stone, a brick, that goes on that house. Making the Lord the cornerstone is God’s doing, and building us into a spiritual house is also God’s doing.

Peter then gives us a number of descriptions of what this spiritual house is like.

A holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (v 5). 

One of the reasons the early Christians were seen as weird is because Roman religion and even Jewish religion (until the destruction of the Jerusalem temple) had temples, animal sacrifices, and priests. Christians had none of this. No temples. No animal sacrifices. No priests. So the Romans could not understand how Christians worshiped.

So Peter is deepening the Christians’ understanding (in part so they could give answers to those who asked). He’s saying, Jesus was rejected (killed) by the people, but God made him the cornerstone—he raised him from the dead. And now he’s building a worldwide spiritual house. So, actually, we do have a temple, sacrifices, and priests. But they don’t look like other religions. It’s a spiritual religion. All Christians are the priests. All Christians offer sacrifices. All Christians are the temple.

So when we come together to worship the name of Jesus, and that happens all around the world, God’s spiritual house is growing. And when you say, I’m not going to practice deceit, hypocrisy, envy, or slander, the holiness of your priestly duties to God is growing. And when you care for the poor and abstain from sexually defiling behavior and love those who insult you, you’re offering spiritual sacrifices to God.

This is remarkable. Peter is using language from Isaiah 43 where Go says to Israel, I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise (vv 20–21).

But now Peter applies the language of deliverance from the exile for Israel to all who belong to Jesus from around the world. He says, God has called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. You were exiled in darkness, now you’ve been delivered into God’s wonderful light. You were not his people, but now you are his people. 

So God’s chosen people today are the Christians all over the world, Jew or Gentile. This is why Christians read the Old Testament with promises for his chosen people then, Israel, and apply them to themselves—because Peter and the apostles did it.

The early Christians saw themselves as a new race, made up of all nationalities, all walks of life (elite or slave), men, women, and children. What unified this new race, this chosen race? Only one thing: the blood of Christ.

Therein lies the seed and the cure for all racism, classism, sexism, elitism. This is why it is utterly an insult to our God if your dominant lens for viewing people in our country is Republican or Democrat. How will you treat and speak of people in the other party on November 6, the day after the election? Deceit, slander, and malice OR kindness, patience, and love?

Democrats and Republicans that trust in Jesus are together a chosen people, with a deeper affiliation that will outlast our nation.

We are a royal priesthood.

Before Peter said we are a holy priesthood. Now he says we’re a royal priesthood. Holy has to do with our being set apart for God. Royal has to do with our belonging to God the King, to his kingdom.

Priesthood refers to the service we offer to the world on behalf of God and to God on behalf of the world.

A royal priesthood. The church as an entity cannot be Republican or Democrat because it’s already royal. Its allegiance is set to the King of the universe. Its allegiance is not up for grabs and cannot be manipulated.

This royal allegiance takes form in our priesthood, that is, in our service to the world mediating the word of Christ and loving those who are still in darkness.

Next Peter says we are a holy nation. 

Some Christians think America is to be a holy nation. It would be wonderful if America—and China, Spain, Nigeria, and every other nation—were holy. But that’s not what Peter is saying.

The holy nation in view here are the Christians scattered in many nations. So there is only one nation God is building in all the world, and it is not America. It is the holy nation of Christ followers made up of Chinese, Russian, American, Japanese, Nigerian, French—and people from every other country and people group.

Christian Nationalism should then mean, not that one country is God’s country, but that one nation with no geographic borders and with people from every country in the world is holy onto God by the blood of the Lamb.

That, brothers and sisters, is what the new earth will be like.

Finally, we are God’s special possession.

Above all things, God loves his son Jesus, so if you love his son, he loves you. God delights in his son, so if you delight in his son, God delights in you.

A new sensation for Anna and me came in the last year or so as we started observing someone who loved one of our children as much as we did. We had never seen this before. Austin came into our daughter’s life. They are now married. But as we watched how selflessly and devotedly he was loving her, our love for him grew.

Before that, he meant nothing to us! That’s too strong. He was like everyone else to us. But now, because he loved the daughter we loved, we loved him.

It’s the same for Christians. Because we love the Son God loves, God loves us. Once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy. Once we were not God’s people, but now we are the people of God.

We are his special possession.

So let me summarize:

• Jesus is the cornerstone, the living stone, and though many reject him, to us he is precious.
• And because he’s precious to us, we are living stones. As living stones, we are being built into a spiritual house that offers spiritual sacrifices.
• We are a holy priesthood, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and God’s special possession.
• And our purpose is to declare the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light. 

We live to declare the praises of our God.

So let me ask you: Do you live to declare the praises of God?

You can’t do it alone.

This entire text painstakingly and repeatedly makes the case that your identity as a Christian stands or falls with God’s people.

The text doesn’t say, You individual Christian are a priest. It says, You, the body of Christ, are a priesthood. We are a house, a priesthood, a nation, a people. These are all collective nouns. All of us individuals are considered a single entity in Christ.

So when people say, I love Jesus but not the church, they don’t understand that biblically they can’t love Jesus without loving his church.

This is why we’re restarting membership in the church. The logic for membership is simple.

Jesus is precious to God. No one has a higher worth than the son of God who died to save us from our sins and rose to give us new life. And because he is precious to God, he is precious to us.

And when we come to him, we embrace his people. We embrace that we are his spiritual house, a royal and holy priesthood, a holy nation, a chosen people.
When we don’t embrace his people, we are not a living stone, but a rolling stone, a stone on a heap with little purpose or beauty, a weak stone without the scale of a larger construction project, a lonely stone without support or connection.
But when we embrace his people, we’re saying, The church matters. 

Membership matters because the church matters. Membership is simply our way of saying, I belong to the spiritual house of the Messiah. My life is about offering spiritual sacrifices and declaring the praises of our God, and I can’t do it alone. 

I want you to wrestle with that statement. If Jesus is precious to you, so are his people. If his people are not precious to you, then you should question whether Jesus is as precious to you as you think he is.

But if his people are precious to you, then membership is simply your way of committing to his people, formalizing your love.

There are only two choices when it comes to Jesus: we’re either standing on him or stumbling on him. There is no middle way. If you reject him, he will make you fall. A stone that causes people to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall. Come to him and embrace his people.