1 Peter, 2:4-5

1 Peter 2, 4-5. I want to go through a few kind of preliminaries so that when we look at the passage, we've got the best perspective in mind. Okay? Does that work? Have your approval, Bertha? Okay, alright. She says it's okay. We're alright. What does Cadence think of this? Is it okay with Cadence too? Alright, cool. I'm happy. Alright. We are in this second section of the first part of 1 Peter, and sanctification of salvation's process is kind of the quick summary, which started in verse 13, continues to 2.13. So we're in that section.

And here's our passage here this morning, 1 Peter 2.4-5. We'll get back to the details on that. Here's where we want to take a look at it.

The first thing to think of is kind of the Jew-Gentile perspective. Peter. What's Peter? Jew or Gentile? Jew. Jew. All right. You got that. Great. He was Jewish. He was the apostle to introduce the gospel to the Gentiles, interestingly enough. We think of Paul. having the assignment to the Gentiles, and that's true. But Peter was the one who introduced the Gospel to Gentiles. And the great challenge, now to go back to the guys in Jerusalem and tell them what you just did. Can you imagine what that's like? Peter, you did what? You ate what? You slept with who? What on earth were you thinking? So, anyway, quite a shock.

He had, by this time, two decades of greater exposure to the Gentile culture since the time that he had introduced the gospel there into the house of Cornelius. Writings outside of scripture also indicate he may have spent some time in leadership at the church at Antioch, a fairly significant chunk of time, a number of years. If that's the case, the time frame in which that took place would have meant he came down for the Jerusalem Council, recorded in Acts 15, which would have been his last record of him personally in the Book of Acts.

His reading audience would be mostly Gentile, with a Greek cultural and language background, a significant number of Hellenistic Jews, that is Jews of Greek cultural and language exposure, They had been there in that area for about two and a half centuries, sometimes a little bit more, but about two and a half centuries.

They moved to that area from Babylon. So here are Jews that had gotten basically from Israel to Babylon to this area in what we now call Turkey and basically spent centuries away from the land that the Lord had given them. So Jewish and varying in background, some of them still strongly Jewish, visiting Israel and Jerusalem regularly, others never having been there and strongly influenced by the Greek culture that was there. So he had a range of Jewish backgrounds. So these are the people he's writing to, people who are mostly Gentiles, Greek background, and then Jews, a minority, but a significant minority, with a range of Greek cultural and language exposures.

Now, Peter is going to make reference to stones and buildings and houses here. We want to take a look at some of what he would be thinking of and referring to. Here is the Temple of Artemis, which would have been in Ephesus, part of the population that he wrote to. Here's this temple as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, still there and very prominent in Ephesus at the time of his writing. It would have been the Gentiles' main thought of a temple if they hadn't been to Jerusalem. So their thoughts would be there.

It's now a cow field with only one column standing. It's marshy. Here is a model of the temple in Jerusalem, the one that was present during the New Testament era. Interestingly enough, this one, we'll talk about the background a little bit, this one, the center part of it, in other words, not the outside plaza and the colonnades around the perimeter, the central part of it is the part of the temple that's described in the Old Testament, make this this way, make this out of this material, have this dimension, etc. And that central part there was an active temple. So it was constructed by priests. They could not have even non-Levite Jews work on that part of it. And they had to construct and keep working while it was an active temple.

Isn't that interesting? That was really a challenge. Some estimates were that there were as many as, over the period of time of construction, as many as 10,000 people worked on it. So quite a structure. It was a rebuilding and an enhancement of the one that had been built when the Jews came back from Babylon. So it was quite an upgrade and pretty impressive.

Norm? Ah, well, because remember you have an active middle temple there and you even have the Holy of Holies. You've got a building where you've got sacrifices going on right in front of it. There are things that nobody else is allowed to touch. If it had not been an active temple, that wouldn't have been an issue. But because of the fact that it was ongoing, nobody else could go in there. Nobody else was authorized and allowed to go in there. So they actually had craftsmen train the priests in the skills that were necessary to do the work.

Isn't that something? And it was quite a few, hundreds and hundreds of them. Carried out the work. So imagine these Levites, they were working double shifts between the construction work and doing the regular sacrificial jobs. Amazing stuff. Here are a couple of, here's a model on the left looking down and then a picture on the right to kind of give you some sense of what it was like. You'll notice a slight difference between the descriptions and it's kind of variations on how you interpret it artistically. But it gives you a sense, it's pretty phenomenal.

By the way, that half circle would be a place where the priests, because the priests not only did sacrifices and during this reconstruction built the middle part of the temple, the naos, they also came out at regular intervals and had a choir. And they would stand in a semicircle facing outward and think. So you have those people doing it as well.

Isn't that something? You also had trumpeting places. And matter of fact, from the ruins that the Romans dumped off the edge, we found one place where it's still marked in Hebrew on one of the stone blocks. This is the trumpeter's place. Isn't that something? So they had trumpeter's places. They had the reconstruction project. They had the sacrifices going on. They had choruses coming on. And what you don't see, there were different corners to that area in front. there, and those corners were kind of assigned to different people.

This is where the widow gave her little mite, the widow's mite, that Jesus referred to, in that area. And it was called the Court of Women because the Jewish women were allowed to go there, only the Jewish men could come up into the area in front of the temple building in order to give their sacrifice. So this is kind of what, think about what's going through the Jews' minds, including Peter. Peter had been here numerous times. So think about what's going through their minds as Peter's writing this and they're reading it, okay? Here is the court of the Gentiles, the broad court. And then this is a model, by the way, UCLA has done some fantastic modeling of the area, and I've only got a part of it. But this is a model. This would be the broad court. On the right-hand side, you see a short wall. That would be a warning wall to the Gentiles. Don't come in here, okay? That would be their warning wall.

Here is the porticoes. You see the porticoes from the outside. Here's what would be inside. So this would be where Jesus and the disciples would gather to say the various things that they said and teaching in the temple, things of that sort. That would happen in these porticoes, big broad porticoes. Even though it looks narrow compared to the port itself, imagine you could get quite a few people in an area like that teaching, right? They would say, here's our standard place to meet and get accustomed to that. This is available on the website that UCLA maintains. They've got a simulation project. Here's the timeline for reconstruction. 20 BC, basically zero. Actually nobody lived in the year zero. Isn't that interesting? They put the year zero and nobody lived there. It was one. I made all kinds of strange jokes about it, but you get the idea.

So, before that, 20 B.C., which would be roughly 15 years before Christ was born, would be the beginning of that reconstruction that Herod put into place. That reconstruction would continue until the birth of Christ, which would take place about 5 B.C., and then it would be the end of that reconstruction. Why do I say 5 B.C.? Herod died in the middle of March, 4 B.C., right? So, that puts it, about 5 B.C. is about the latest. Then, the crucifixion of Christ, about 30 A.D. Temple construction still happening. Still going on, okay? Ongoing.

The disciples remark in Matthew 24.1, boy, look at these stones. Impressive, right?

Completed in 63 AD, that's about the same year that Peter wrote this letter that we're studying. So here's Peter writing about the stones and the temple and those kinds of things about the same year when this multi-decade project is finally completed. And it would have been very much in the Jews' minds as they see this, oh, the temple's just done. It's just completed. What an impressive thing. Guess what, it's about to be wrecked in seven years, but oh well.

And then ruined by the Romans. Torn down, not one stone left upon another. Here is the rubble that the Romans left. They dumped it off the edge of the Temple Mount. There it is. It's among those ruins that we found one and a half of the stones that warned the Gentiles not to come here, that we read about caused a riot in the Book of Acts. There's where it is, also one of the stones that says the trumpeter's place is among those rubble stones.

It would be priests at the altar in front of the temple. This would be a site, imagine if you lived near the temple, it was according to law the fire must always go on, never be let out, constantly continued. you're always going to at least have fire smoke coming out of the temple, and then possibly kind of the smell of roasting meat. So here's the picture of the temple. This area here at the right end, that and on the other side would be an area where they would keep records of genealogies. That's why in the book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews could write, it is evident about Christ's genealogy.

Yeah. Ah, okay. Well, it's interesting. They didn't seem to be interested in finishing early. This was a thing that went on, you know, for 83 years. So it was a long-term project. Basically, Since people commonly would live into their 40s and 50s, sometimes more, sometimes less, but commonly in their 40s and 50s, this was a two-generation long project. Doing it fast wasn't the issue. Interesting, huh? Yeah, we would have a, you know, get her done kind of mentality. For them that wasn't the issue.

It was also very expensive. So it's a matter of, you know, more pay as you go as well. And so it took tax money, heavy tax, in order to pay for this thing. Okay, think of that, keep that in mind as we go through this passage here. I'm going to back up to get the passage in front of us. There. Okay, let's keep this in mind. Let's look in the middle of page 1. Here's this Matthew 24, 1 and 2. Jesus came out of the temple. that one that we just saw models and simulations of, and was going away when his disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to him. And he said to them, Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another which will not be torn down. Can you imagine that? They're not done with it yet. They're not done with the reconstruction.

Some of the stones were as many as 50 tons and very, very well crafted. Indications we have is that you'd have a stone as many as 50 ton stones and you couldn't put a piece of paper or a knife blade between them. Really well crafted in spite of the massive size.

So here's Peter, he's the one who having heard these things is writing this just as the temple is getting completed. The very last part of a decades-long project that began before he was born. is now getting completed so he's writing these things to these people. The foundations in those days were very carefully selected. Where do I put it?

In this case it was a matter of reconstructing what was there so that wasn't quite the same issue. They would have, you know, dignitaries come, they had kind of what we would call a time capsule that they would place and bury next to the foundation. Archaeologists are still puzzled about some of the things they find in those time capsules.

They don't understand them. So there was a lot to it. They would have dignitaries and ceremonies, much more than our, you know, get a bunch of dignitaries together and turn over a shovel full of dirt, you know, for no particular reason with chrome shovels. But their ceremonies were far more in-depth and again they included things we'd yet today don't understand. So we understand some of it, some of it's the archaeologists are still scratching their heads about. Preachers and sacrifices. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's what happened.

When the Roman soldiers came in, they had legions coming from as far away as Britain. Twelve legions of soldiers came in to put down the Jewish insurrection. It was the largest insurrection of any in Roman Empire's history at any time. And so they came to put down this resurrection, but fiercely, and they did.

When they broke through and got into the temple area, historians debate whether it was accidentally or deliberately set on fire. makes no difference. Your point's well taken. What happened is that the fire that was set melted a lot of the gold. And so the soldiers, of course, not wanting to let any of that go, pried every stone one from another and then dumped it all off the edge. Probably the dumping it off the edge was an order, you know, get this thing completely dismantled. But being careful to get the gold out was indeed a part of the history there. Norm? I do have a fair amount of the very first shovel load of dirt that was hauled out of the BIA. In case anybody wants some. Okay, some memorial dirt. Okay, cool.

The Old Testament provided substantial instructions to the Jews. It's interesting, two or three different rounds now, the elders have held me back from teaching through Leviticus. I'd like to do that sometime. But they gave quite detailed instructions about what the priests were to do, not do, the sequence, you know.

And interesting things, odd things to keep track of. Here's a lamb, it must be at least eight days old. So they have to ask, find out if there's any question. And you can't slaughter the lamb and its mother in the same day. So you keep track of that stuff. So you can't just run a bunch of lambs through and do them all in. You got to keep track of all these things. How old is this thing? Is his mother around? Can't do it today. Put that over there in that pen.

And so there was a lot of details. So there was all this to be taken care of. The Gentiles had also temples and sacrifices as well, although I think an important thing to look at, there was commonality, some points of commonality, between what the Gentiles did and what the Jews did, as well as some radical differences. Some very great differences.

We've kind of bulleted here some of the commonality points, and I think that'll be helpful. Because as Peter's writing this, remember, you're going to have Jews who had seen the temple, some of them numerous times, and you'd have other people that would be Gentiles that had never seen the temple in Jerusalem. And so Peter would have to draw on their understanding of a temple as well. Let's look at these points of commonality.

Temples were considered holy by the priesthood, and the adherents set apart for a sacred purpose. Obviously, the Jews would not consider the Gentiles temple sacred, but the Gentile mind, they would still have some understanding of that. The temple's construction was done with multiple careful considerations. Acceptance and rejection of critical building materials was a major element of any temple construction. Key point. And when we look at the passage, keep that in mind, okay? Next bullet.

Priests were those who were qualified to approach a deity having qualities similar to the temple and sacrifices. They were holy and acceptable. They could come into the temple, which was considered the housing place of the God, even among the Gentiles. Remember, repeatedly throughout the book of Revelation, there's mention of white robes. Even among the Gentiles, to come in with a robe that was stained or dirty was absolutely forbidden. So there was a sense of, you've got to come in here clean and ready, and it was an external representation of holiness. Then the next thing down, sacrifices that were acceptable were viewed as making a deity look upon the offeror favorably.

Among the Gentiles, the difficulty with the Gentile mind was The Gentiles, pagan gods, were not interested in the humans. Just fundamentally not interested. You would do a sacrifice in the Gentile mind in order to get the deity interested in you. Because otherwise they didn't give a hoot, right?

In the sacrificial system among the Jews, there was a different understanding that God did fundamentally care for the people. and that the sacrifices were simply to take the obstacle out of the way between the person and God. So a difference there, but still, nonetheless, there was this perspective. Sacrifices had to be acceptable, and an acceptable sacrifice made the deity look upon the offerer favorably. Yeah, it's interesting because the Gentiles didn't have the same sense of sin. And so the sacrificial system was not thought of in the same way.

It's a little hard for us to comprehend, but they would put, you know, like, for example, the Jews were not allowed to use strangled animals, right? Or eat them. But the Gentiles would. The Gentiles would have meat offered to idols and they'd have it sit on the altar and then they'd go out and put it for sale in the marketplace.

But laying that sacrificed animal was supposed to, obviously it seems kind of weird, but it was supposed to get the deity's attention. I think, Marilyn, part of what you're asking is what kind of attention were they trying to get? Yeah, it was basically the pagan god just didn't give a hoot about the people.

So what they keep trying to do is get their attention so they bring the rain or give them some sort of compensation. Yeah, some kind of compensation. And we have writings. Sometimes the pagans would say, boy, I don't know what they want. And they would pray for various things. Sometimes it would have to do with their crops. Sometimes it would have to do with my daughter's ill.

Fertility, Athena was the goddess of the Roman soldiers. And so before they go into battle, they'd give a sacrifice to Athena, looking for Athena's help in the battle. And the thought was, basically, Athena didn't care about them. But if they were going to get any assistance from the god, the goddess, they would do the sacrifice. And that supposedly was going to get the god or goddess's attention.

Sounds strange to us, but that was the mentality. Now, the Jewish readers, of course, would not think of a deity, but the deity. The God of Israel, specifically. And we continue to see titles in Isaiah. The Holy One of Israel. The Lord God. Phrases that come out and specifically point out this is the Lord, not just one of them. Now, some of the things that would come across these New Testament authors, and frequently we don't see this in the English translations, but the God, there would be a definite article, and most of our English translations will drop that out in many places.

Ephesians 2.4 is an example. The God is the way it actually has it, even though our translations don't bring that out. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1.3 and we saw it in 1 Peter 1.3. We're the only something or other God. The only wise God.

1 Timothy 1.17 and Jude 25. Alright, let's look at the passage here.

1 Peter 2.4, and coming to him as a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God.

This coming to Him, remember back in verse 3, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. These are people who have tasted the kindness of the Lord. That word tasted is a figure of speech, have personally experienced the kindness of the Lord, the Lord's grace. That's what he's talking about here. He wrote about the believers continuing to come to Him.

This is an action in progress. Not just, hey, you came to him once, that's cool, but continuing to come to him is the idea that's brought forth there. It's a present action in progress. One of the things that shows up here, look how the author of Hebrews used the same Greek word, proserkomai, translated as coming. Therefore let us draw near, that's how that's translated. So coming to him is a drawing near. Coming close. It's not just, hey, I'm coming to you, but I'm five miles away. But no, it's a drawing near is the idea. Therefore, let us draw near.

And it's an invitation, as the author of Hebrews puts it, with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. That's what Peter's drawing upon. Next page, Hebrews 10, 19 through 22. Therefore brethren since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh and Since we have a great priest over the house of God Let us draw near with a sincere heart full of assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled clean From an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Here's the author of Hebrews chapter See that large building that's standing tall? That's the holy place. Right in front of that would be the veil. Behind that would be the sprinkling. Here's the author of Hebrews. Peter's drawing upon that same imagery here.

A similar passage with different Greek words and images is given in Romans 8.15. The Romans elective is going to be encountering that shortly.

Galatians 4.6, Ephesians 2.18. Those are just examples. There are other passages. How about this phrase? Yeah, Steve? This is an interesting thing.

You can imagine some young priest First of all, you always had to keep the fire going, right? Who's bringing that in? You've got some young priest. They're not going to give this to some elder priest. This is a young priest. Hey, your job today is to bring the firewood in and keep going. Don't stop. And so you'd have them doing that. You would also have priests, again, usually younger ones because it was a lot of heavy work, hauling things out. A constant.

Oh, the bottom line is you've got to go out, you see that front gate and those side gates? You've got to go out that direction to get outside the city. So they would actually be going through those same gates that you see there and getting outside the city. Yes, right where you see the three doors.

Pinpoint them here. This is where there would be a sign, you know, Gentiles do not enter. That would be one of the exit doors. They might possibly come out some of these as well. The bottom line is they went out through a lot of the same doors that other people went. And they would take things in and out constantly. Constantly bringing in firewood. Constantly taking out sacrificial material outside the gate. They had specific things to do with some of those sacrifices once they took it out.

The priests got to eat some of the sacrifices? Let's say, for example, on Passover, the people all ate some of the sacrifices and the priests had their own sacrifices. So, yeah, the priests would eat of the sacrifices as well as have the tithe in order to support them. So the priests were followed by the holy of holies?

Yes. What about the guides that were moving? Those were also Levites. Those were also Levites. That would be their task. And again, you'd have people assigned to different things. Here would be some other Levite and his job is just to sing. Here would be some other Levite and his job is just, you know, move the firewood. This other guy, you know, take care of the sacrifice after it's done with. Bud? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and we think of a priest. I showed the picture of the altar. But the reality is there's a variety of tasks that have to be done. They had priests that over here, I showed off in this corner.

That's that's where the they kept the records of genealogy until the Romans destroyed the temple. They kept the genealogical records. So anybody want to verify the genealogy of Christ could go right there. and look it up until 70 AD, and then you couldn't. At the time of the destruction of the temple, they knew it was going to come down. Yes. There was no doubt about that. Did they make any attempt to save the genealogy? Because that was very important to them. Yes. From what we know, there was no overall attempt to save the genealogy.

It was lost. It was only those who were able at different times, like Luke did, to go in and record details of genealogy and to get those pieces of information and then to take it out and have it elsewhere. But anything inside the building was completely destroyed.

This was also overnight quarters for the Levites, many of whom lived in other places, even as far away as Jericho. Yeah, Bob? That's those buildings you see around there. Over here, this is where they kept the genealogical records. Over here was where the Sanhedrin met. So they had various things that they were doing in these corner buildings here. These here had genealogical records, and here and on the other corner that's behind there is where the priests would spend the night when they were doing their intensive service. They would have intensive service times and then have significant time off, and then intensive service times. Once they were on duty, it was a matter of minimal sleep, kind of like a fireman.

Minimal sleep and you might get disrupted. Basically, it was done during the day and obviously nothing on the Sabbath. Imagine even on Passover, what you'd have to do, they would slaughter thousands of lambs very quickly. I mean, within a very short window of time, thousands of lambs, just run them through, just zoom, zoom, run them through, but you had to get done before sundown.

So that's another thing that's interesting. As you look at the process of what's going on here, there are some very particular things, even things like efficiency. How do we get all these lambs slaughtered at once? And thinking through how do we do it efficiently? Because we've got thousands of people coming to Jerusalem and they all want to have this lamb slaughtered, and we've got to get it done.

And we can't say, hey, you're doing midnight shift. No. You've got to be done. That's the law. Yeah, there was no shortage of blood. Yeah, bottom line is you would have a vial and take some of the blood. Here it is, you know, they'd have people and it'd be a mass process doing all this slaughtering. Here's the blood and here's your lamb and, you know, quick, because you've got the next one lined up. Well, and, yes, there were thousands. I'm not going to lie. Yes. But just like we do with Thanksgiving and Christmas, we let people get together. One person does the turkey. Yeah. You know, many, sometimes multiple families.

Sure. Because didn't they have to consume it all? You have to consume it all. Yep. So they would invite neighbors and family. Sure. Get everybody together. And also the population of Jerusalem swelled during that time. And it was real common. If you lived in Jerusalem, just assume you're going to have guests. Steve?

Yeah, that impresses me because you know that peace would be more of a, I guess, a casualty. perception of this slaughtering, sacrifice process, but there's hordes of people with tons of animals. And lots of stuff to keep track of. So as each person brought their individual sacrifice as part of their system and organization to keep that particular chicken in sync with the person that brought it. Yeah, and are you qualified to even come in here and bring it? You have to check the animal.

Are you allowed to come in here? First of all, you're not going to be a Gentile. And there's not going to be a woman. And if you're a man, you better not be damaging the testicles. I mean, all these different things about who's going to, you know, and here's the animal. And is this animal over eight days old? And by the way, is that You're not going to do the mother the same day.

So all these things have to sit there and ask questions about and check and look this thing over. But you all got to do it fast because, boy, it better be done by sundown or you're in deep trouble. So there was a lot of very professional work to be done. How many days in advance does it start? Which? Or do they have just one day to do it? That's the day. It's the day. Isn't that something? The day. You get the day to do it. You don't do it in advance. Isn't that something? Now look at this.

As a living stone, Peter uses this analogy as coming to the Lord as a living stone. A brief but related detour in verse 5 from here into verse 8. Christ, that is Him, is the living stone. We saw all these temples. You see the model of the temple. Christ is the living stone. Interesting picture. He was the chief cornerstone. He had been rejected by the builders. This comes out of Psalm. I have Psalm 188. There is no Psalm 188. I think that's a typo. I think it should be like Psalm 18 or 118. I have to check that.

Anyway, as he himself quoted to the Sanhedrin, Matthew 21, 42, and Peter also quoted them in Acts 4, 11. Now, Peter has emphasized the word living, having used it now for the third time, and he's going to use it once more. So isn't it interesting? A living hope, a living word of God, a living stone, and then the next verse, living stones.

The lack of a definite article in the Greek puts the focus not on the specificity. Certainly Christ is specific, but he's focusing on the character. He is living, folks. That's what he's putting the emphasis on. Living stone! He is emphasizing the fact that Christ is alive. And by the way, he saw him personally. So he can testify to it. The lack of the death from the arctic hill puts that focus. Peter puts together an oxymoron of illustration. Ever see a living stone? No. So this is an oxymoron to drive the point home. Peter added and adapted was that Jesus Christ was a foundation. I think that's Psalm 18. That 188 or something? What's that? 118? Okay, that one up above where I asked you to correct it, 118. Okay. So, and he was the foundation for the church as well. The church was an entity not revealed in the Old Testament.

Now, which has been rejected by men. This Greek word for rejected is in the perfect tense. It means completely rejected and permanently rejected with the idea that it's still ongoing. It was the full rejection and a continuing rejection. Peter doesn't use the definite article before men. Anthropos here doesn't mean men, male. It means men, mankind, human beings. He doesn't use that. Upon all those who are human, who are characteristically human, rejection is typical. It's the standard reaction to Christ. Reject it. That's the way it's been. As he's writing, that's the way it continues even to this day. Rejection is the standard response.

So here's this Peter's characterization of the broad view of mankind. There will be those who believe, but the typical response is rejection. rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God. One of the things we talked about before was that Peter, as he writes this letter, is conveying some perspectives that he sees as very important for Christians to understand. And one of them we said was time, but another one we said was value. What's valuable? What's valuable?

Ever watch the Antiques Roadshow and see some story where somebody bought something for a quarter or three bucks or something and they turn around and they're told this thing is worth something in the thousands or tens of thousands? Recently I saw one where there was some really fancy watch with all sorts of lunar calendars and things like that. He was told it was worth a quarter of a million dollars and he'd gotten it for some two-digit figure or something.

This is the kind of thing that's happening here. The Lord is saying, I have an assessment of a valuation. God understands the true value, doesn't He? And that's what Peter is laying down here. Human beings will reject, ah, that's no good. God looks at Jesus Christ and says, ah, now that's a value.

God's assessment. The one who knows everything. The one who knows the end from the beginning. The one who was around before anything was created and will be around long after this world's gone. That God says, Jesus Christ of great value, precious. Isn't that neat? I think it's real valuable for us to understand, too. People's assessment of what's valuable is often way out of whack, and in this realm especially so. God is the one who has the real sense of understanding of what's precious and what's valuable. Let's take a look at page 4 here. Here's Matthew 3, 16 and 17.

After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him. And behold, a voice out of the heavens said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. There's His assessment. This is My beloved Son, I am well pleased. Not just, I'm kind of, sort of happy. Well, He's okay. He's sort of alright. Well, okay, I guess he's okay. No. In whom I am well pleased.

Now, second verse there in our passage, 1 Peter 2.5, 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.

We might be impressed by the stones at any particular place, and maybe the 50 ton stones at the temple might have impressed us. But believers, now remember, he said Christ is a living stone. What does he say? Believers are living stones. Isn't that something? Wow! This is phenomenal stuff. This is amazing.

And he's writing to people, some of whom were the lowest of the low, slaves. He says, I'll give you the same name I gave to Christ. Why does he dare do that? Why isn't that just sacrilege and blasphemy, to write to these people, and here's somebody who's just a lowly slave, and they became a believer yesterday. Why does that person get called a living stone? He's in the body of Christ.

It's not because of what that person has done, but because of what the Lord's done. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, certainly a messed up church. First chapter, 130. It is God who has placed you in Christ. Isn't that something? So here are these believers.

The world may think they're just scum. As a matter of fact, the slaves who worked in mining were the ones who got the worst raw end of the deal. Many of them were lucky to reach age 40. It was so dangerous. There was danger from falling rock and other material. There was danger from the toxicity of the things that they were working with. Danger just from the dust. The lowest of the low, the slaves who might not see 30 or 40, the one who was treated like dirt, because that's what he spent his time in, That one was a living stone, it's English Christ.

Amazing, absolutely amazing. You know, think about it, I was talking with Randy, he and I got together yesterday morning, and we were just talking about, for a good portion of the New Testament, the things that are written, if they're understood properly, are absolutely slap you in the face shocking. And this is one of them. One of the rules of thumb that I've used is, if I look at the passage and I think it's kind of boring, I probably don't understand it yet. This is shocking stuff, to write to people that... Some of these people may have been prostitutes their whole lives. Might have been even a male prostitute, maybe a little boy, a little girl that had been bought and abused her whole life.

She gets called the same as Christ. That's phenomenal stuff. That's amazing stuff. These living stones are built up into a temple. They're not just laying apart independently. Paul also used the analogy elsewhere of the body. And, you know, ever see a healthy liver just laying on the floor? No. Healthy is together with the rest of the body, and that's the same thing about these living stones. They're not valuable and impressive as they lay apart independently about, but as they're put together into a temple, a living temple. That's the point. Here's the key elements of a temple.

It's holy. It's set apart for a sacred purpose. Is that true of the believers? Yes. The Haggios, the saints. It's a place where God dwells. Is that true of the believers? Yeah, both individually and corporately. 1 Corinthians 3, 1 Corinthians 6. So it is a place where people come to have personal contact with God. As believers, do we have that privilege? Yep, we do. And as we gather here this morning, we have a corporate privilege of gathering together and having personal contact with God.

That's astounding! That's amazing privilege. It's a place of sacrifice. Let's take a look at that. This sense of sacrifice, and I'm going to kind of jump ahead here. Let's turn to page 5. To offer up spiritual sacrifice is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Peter moved from illustrating the body of Christ to the church as a holy priesthood to the holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifice. What are spiritual sacrifices?

We don't say, okay, Brad, come up here and slaughter these 12 lambs, right? Yeah, which is especially good because then we ask them to sit down. It'd be kind of messy. We're just not set up for that kind of thing, are we? We really don't have an altar called because we don't have an altar.

Romans 12.1, Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

A living sacrifice, a living stone. Okay? Acceptable to God. What was the character of the stones? Could you just put any stone in the temple? They were picky, weren't they? How about the sacrifices? Could you sacrifice anything? Oh, I got a lamb here. It's got a big scar on the side, but go ahead and do it anyway." No. Acceptable. What he says is, as a living sacrifice, acceptable to God. How are you and I acceptable to God? Through Jesus Christ. Yes. Amen.

It's your spiritual service of worship. Just like we talked about the service that the priest did, which had all kinds of variety and was very demanding. You as a believer, have this spiritual service of worship, like they. You are both a living stone and the priesthood in the temple, made up of living stones. How about that? You're a stone and a priest.

Hebrews 13, 15 and 16, Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of the lips that give thanks to his name, and do not neglect doing good and sharing With such sacrifices God is pleased. What are sacrifices, what are spiritual sacrifices based on these passages? What are spiritual sacrifices based on these passages? Yeah, giving ourselves our praise, our thanksgiving. Even the things that we do in honor of the Lord and by His power are sacrifices, okay?

Notice the bullets here. Spiritual sacrifices are living and active, just like the Word of God. How about that? Spiritual sacrifices are holy, acceptable, and pleasing to God, just like the sacrifices. Spiritual sacrifices are offered through Jesus Christ.

Holy, because of Him. Acceptable, because of Him. Pleasing to God, because of Him. That's why we can be a living stone. That's why we can be an acceptable sacrifice. Isn't that amazing? God doesn't come to the believer and say, no, that one won't do. No. We come to Him in faith. We are placed in Jesus Christ. In Christ we are acceptable. In Christ we are pleasing. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. This is my beloved believer in whom I am well pleased because that believer is in Christ.

So we have this neat living stones and priesthood illustration together, and you're both of them. You're both. This is cool stuff. One of the things to ponder here is what he puts together between the stones and the priesthood. Neither the stones nor the priesthood have a whole lot of meaning by themselves. The definition that he put together here has a corporate meaning. Believers together are the living stones which together build up a temple. Believers together are the priesthood.

It's that corporate entity that has significance. What's interesting is, as we go through this, unlike Paul, Peter never uses the word church. Isn't that fascinating? But he describes the church and writes to them lovingly and repeatedly. He uses instead illustrations like we've just seen to represent and present the church.

Fascinating stuff. Amazing stuff. And deep. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this, it is indeed fascinating. It is phenomenal how you have spoken. through your humbled Apostle Peter. And we thank you for the ways in which it is evident that he has grown during this time. And we can see his spiritual growth from the man who said, oh, I never knew him, to the man that is instructing others who know him. And Lord, those are wonderful things. Pray that you would work these truths deep into our hearts and minds. In Jesus' name, amen.