A Living Stone: The Living Church
1 Peter 2:4-12
I. Introduction
-What the church should be vs. what it is!
1. It falls far short of the NT church.
2. In power!
3. Maybe we have derived our power from human sources.
-Personality, charisma, talents have driven the church.
1. We tend to look for talented ppl to recruit.
2. I think we should look for Holy ppl to recruit.
-The church in our society has become mediocre.
1. Complacent & weak!
2. Sickly & shallow.
-The church doesn't stand for anything or proclaim anything worth hearing.
-Pardon my pessimism.
-Let me get to the Good News...
II. Scripture
III. The Rejected Stone
-Let me talk about some of the different stones mentioned in the scripture.
-First a stone that the builder's rejected.
1. Your life is built on something.
2. Some philosophy directs your life.
3. It determines your actions, your values, even your thinking.
-Most often we debate that w/ the nature vs. nurture idea
1. Nature: You are born pre-disposed to be a certain way.
2. Nurture: Your raisin' determines the way you will be.
-But we don't always consider what Christ is able to do...
1. Transform your personality.
2. Some things are A-spiritual.
-We often reject what God wants to do!
-A rejected stone becomes a stumbling block.
1. v. 8
2. To oppose God is a poor decision.
-Ill. "I Don't Believe in Holiness!"
1. Perfect holiness w/out which no man shall see Christ!
IV. The Cornerstone
-v. 6
-Ill. Cornerstone as a starting point for building.
1. Everything is set to the cornerstone.
2. Everything is measured back to the cornerstone.
3. Most important piece.
4. Standard-setter.
-C.S. Lewis: "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
-Christ informs all the rest of life.
VII. The Living Stone
-v. 4
-Each generation of the church is a fragile thing.
-Could the church breathe it's last in our generation?
-AW Tozer from Keys to the Deeper Life: "‘The deeper life' is deeper only b/c the average Christian life is tragically shallow."
-The viability of the church is dependant upon the Spirit!
1. Not programs, money,
2. Attendance, preacher, etc.
3. (All those can influence the life of the church.)
-Necessity of the Spirit.
-Living things grow.
1. Individually & corporately!
2. Numerically & Spiritually
VIII. The Remnant
-vv 9-10 "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. [10]Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
-In the darkest generation there is always a remnant! (Difficult place to be!)
-At some point, God will cut away all the dead, diseased, & decaying!
-He will breathe on his true disciples again.
-If God be for us who could be against us?
-The remnant are the building blocks of the true church. (v. 5)
IX. Conclusion
-The Church
1. A Rejected Stone
2. A Cornerstone
3. A Living Stone
4. The Remnant
-God's People, the called out, the body of Christ, the church, etc.
-What a task we have!
Response
