A spiritual house for a holy priesthood
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2010 · 28 March 2010
As I asked God about what we as a people would need from God's Word this Palm Sunday, it seemed to me that the very next passage scheduled in 1 Peter 2:4-8 is precisely what we need.
“Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.” 7 Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.”
In contrast to what happened 2000 years ago we need this part of the Word and we need it badly. It is God’s word about how we are to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God. Let us study verses 4–5.
Notice, in these verses, God tells us there are six steps in the way of spiritual sacrifices acceptable to Him.
First, in verse 4, we begin with Jesus Christ as the living Stone. Peter calls Him a stone because of prophecies in the Old Testament: "Behold I am laying in Zion a chief cornerstone" (Isaiah 28:16). "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone." (Psalm 118:22). We'll come back to this.
Second, in verse 4 those who have tasted the kindness or the grace of the Lord (recall a few weeks ago?), and now long for him the way a baby longs for milk, they now come to him: "And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and precious in the sight of God."
Third, the result of this coming to him is that we are shaped into living stones for use in a spiritual building. Verse 5: "You also as living stones are being built." Contact with the Living Stone makes us alive spiritually and fits us for our place in his architectural plan.
Fourth, when we come to the living stone and are shaped into living stones ourselves, we are built into a “spiritual house.” Christ is the builder here. He builds individual Christians into a spiritual temple.
It's a spiritual house because collectively we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). Here it becomes a reference to the local church, not to individuals in this context.
What we see so far is that God lays this stone, Jesus Christ, in Zion, that is, in Jerusalem, and men reject it— crucify Him—but God has chosen this stone and regards Him as extremely precious, and raises Him from the dead and makes Him an ever-living stone, and gives Him the place of highest honor.
All of this to the end that Christ might gather a people who would themselves be alive like Him and all together would make a temple, a church—an eternal dwelling place for the Spirit of God.
Fifth, the greatness of the reality forces the imagery to break down. Because not only are we living stones being built into a spiritual house for God's habitation, we are also a "holy priesthood."
In other words, we are not merely the passive building where God dwells; we are also the active participants in worship. And not just participants, but a special kind of participant, the priests, and God means all of you.
This is the great teaching about the "priesthood of all believers." We all, lay believers and deacons and elders, are the priests of this new spiritual house, and now as priests we need to draw near to God with spiritual sacrifices.
The priests brought the sacrifices into the tabernacle in the Old Testament. But now that tabernacle is replaced by the Christian church. The atoning altar is replaced by Jesus Christ and his shed blood. And the priests then are now replaced by you, those who believe in Christ.
Sixth, the goal of all this is that all spiritual sacrifices would be offered which are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Make sure Jesus gets his due right here. God's aim is that we offer Him all our spiritual sacrifices (we'll talk about what that is in a minute).
And we can only do that "through Jesus Christ." Jesus is the Living Stone. Everything hangs on our coming to the Living Stone. If we don't come to Jesus, the Living Stone, then we don't have life and we are not built into a spiritual house, and we do not become a holy priesthood, and we will not offer spiritual sacrifices.
It all hangs on Jesus and connecting with Jesus and coming to Jesus. That's why Peter ends verse 5 with the words "to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
This is why verse 7 says that He is precious, costly to us who believe. Yes, infinitely precious. There is no greater value in the universe than Jesus. He means more to us than anything or anybody.
Just think of all the people around the world who know there is a God. Nature declares his glory and their own consciences tell them it must be so. But they don't know how to do anything fully acceptable to this God, because they don't know Jesus.
They try rituals and disciplines and sacrifices and vows and relics and virtues—but all in vain. Because God says (at the end of verse 5) that sacrifices are acceptable to Him only "through Jesus Christ." Not through human effort or human merit or human achievement, but only "through Jesus Christ."
That's why Paul said in Romans 15:18, "I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me." The preciousness of Christ to our hearts is this: through him we know God and come to God and experience the presence of God and offer acceptable sacrifices to God.
Now let's walk backward through some of these six steps and take another look at them. What are these spiritual sacrifices that we offer to God through Jesus Christ (v. 5b). If that's the goal of everything else, it must be very important. What is it?
In Romans 12:1 Paul says that we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship. That means that everything you do with your body is to be done as an act of worship to God.
Whether you eat or drink or drive a car or make a meal or use a computer or read a book or shoot a basketball or mend a shirt, whatever you do with your body, do to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Then it is your spiritual service of worship.
Your worship might include acts of love like giving and sharing. For example, in Philippians 4:18 Paul receives gifts of support from the Philippian church and says, "I received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God." And in Hebrews 13:16 it says, "Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased."
What then are spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ? They are the deeds you do, the words you speak, the songs you sing—when you do them spiritually. That is, when you do them in reliance on the power of the Spirit, according to the will of the Spirit, and for a manifestation of the Spirit—which is a manifestation of Christ.
This is clearly a word to us about our worship here at the Indonesian Baptist Fellowship. Is it spiritual? Are the sacrifices we offer spiritual sacrifices? Are we leaders in worship spiritual people? Do we sing in the power of the Spirit, and according to the will of the Spirit, and as a manifestation of the Spirit of Christ?
Do our instrumentalists play their instruments in the power of the Spirit, according to the will of the Spirit, and as a manifestation of the Spirit of Christ? Do I preach in reliance on the power of the Spirit, according to the will of the Spirit, and as a manifestation of the Spirit of Christ?
Spiritual sacrifices are sacrifices from Christ and through Christ and for Christ. They get their power from the Spirit of Christ, they get their content from the Word of Christ, and they have their goal in the glory of Christ. And they flow only from a heart devoted to his power and his Word and his glory. And that is the only kind of worship God accepts.
The second step in moving backward through the six steps is that these spiritual sacrifices are offered by a holy priesthood. That's not the pastor, that's not the elders, that's not the deacons; but it's you the people.
Look at verse 9: "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood." This means that you all have access to God through Jesus Christ. You do not take your sacrifice to the priest and watch while he takes it to the altar or to the tent of meeting with God. You all are called by God to approach the altar and the throne, and to make your own personal sacrifice in personal life and in corporate worship.
Third, this holy priesthood is also a "spiritual house." You are all living stones built by God into a spiritual house, that is, a temple made for the presence of a holy God. Listen to the way Paul said this in Ephesians 2:19–22,
“You are . . . of God's household, . . . Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”
The main thing here is that we as a church are meant by Christ to be a corporate dwelling of God in the Spirit. It's true that each of us is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) but there is more of God to be known and enjoyed than anyone can know in isolation.
We are being fitted together, Paul says, for a temple and for a dwelling of God by his Spirit. There is a presence and power and manifestation of the Spirit of God meant to be known in this gathering at worship that we will not experience at any time by ourselves in isolation.
We are not just isolated living stones. We are, verse 5 says, being built (by Christ I Matthew 16:18, "I will build my church") as a spiritual house. The stones are meant to so fit together in this house called Indonesian Baptist Fellowship so that something whole, something more than a collection of individuals comes into being, a temple, a dwelling of God by his Spirit.
How are we being built into a spiritual house? Answer: By coming to Christ. Let me just return to the strategy Peter focuses on for this to happen. He says in verse 4, "And coming to Him [Christ] as to a living stone, rejected by men, but chosen and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built."
Now be careful here. This is not a reference to conversion, that initial coming to Christ, though that it awesomely important and I pray some may come this evening for the first time. This is a reference to daily, hour-by-hour drawing near to Christ as strong, living persons working and living together.
There were two women were planting a vegetable garden. On the same day, they prepared the earth and planted their seeds. One then neglected her garden and waited for her vegetables to grow. The other woman worked in her garden regularly. She drove in sticks beside those vegetable plants that were going to grow up high, and she put netting around plants that were particularly attractive to rabbits and other animals.
Several months later the two women went out for the harvest. One found tomatoes rotting on the ground, beans whose vines had spread among the other plants, weeds that were choking most of the carrots, all of which had been raided by birds and squirrels. She figured that planting a garden wasn’t worth it, the harvest was small, and, well grocery stores were so much more convenient.
Her neighbor, however, harvested basketful of good vegetables every other day, which had a better taste than those in the grocery store. She figured that, when everything was added up, she probably saved a good fifteen to twenty percent on her grocery bill during the summer months. Both women planted, but only one tended.
I’ve known Christians who have committed their lives to following Christ at about the same time; but the influence this commitment had on their lives soon became markedly different. One lived a life of self-absorption. Christianity made sense, but it became almost a convenience, no need to take it too seriously or feel it necessary to regroup one’s life around it to make it the most important.
The other person, however, took a different life approach. She found ways to make Bible study a regular part of her life. She kept her prayer life fresh and varied. New attributes came to the forefront, and before she knew it, people were asking her for advice and counseling. She soon had a real ministry. Both planted a spiritual garden, but only one took really care of it.
If we tend our garden, we’ll have plenty of food with which to feed others. If we give our garden just cursory attention, we may have enough food just to feed ourselves. If we completely neglect our garden, we’re going to be so hungry we’ll become “consumer” Christians, feeding off others.
If we are going to be a spiritual temple for God's presence, and if we are going to be a holy priesthood, and if we are going to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, then we must day-by-day, hour-by-hour come to Christ.
This is Palm Sunday today. It is appropriate that we must taste His grace by feeding on his Word, his promises, his commands, his teachings, his warnings, until we are so filled with Him that his Word will dwell among us richly so that not only we are filled but we teach others with thankfulness in our hearts to God, Amen?