The Cornerstone 1 Peter 2: 4-10
We have developed new ways of doing construction in the modern world, but the importance of a solid foundation has not changed at all. In ancient times, the cornerstone was the most important part, not only of the foundation, but of the entire building. The cornerstone was most often the largest, most perfectly quarried, and the most costly of all of the stones in the entire building. The cornerstone was used to level and orient the entire building project. Once the cornerstone was set, every other stone was set in relation to it. It was also used to level the rest of the stones that would be placed in the building.
The Bible tells us that Jesus is the cornerstone of the Church and all of the followers of Jesus are living stones who are being built into the building of the people of God. With Jesus as our cornerstone, He orients every aspect of our lives, He determines what is straight and true, and we are called to align our lives with His. Let’s read our Scripture for this morning found in 1 Peter 2:4-10
4 As you come to him, the living Stone-- rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him-- 5 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. 6 For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone," 8 and, "A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message-- which is also what they were destined for. 9 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. 10 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. (1 Peter 2:4-10 NIV)
Those early followers of Jesus who first received this letter were on the fringes of Roman society. They were outsiders. Many were outcasts. Because of their relationship to Jesus they were constantly being reminded that they didn’t belong to the society in which they lived. In The Psychology of Groups we read,
Across individuals, societies, and even eras, humans consistently seek inclusion over exclusion, membership over isolation, and acceptance over rejection. As Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary conclude, humans have a need to belong: ‘a pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and impactful interpersonal relationships’ (1995, p. 497). And most of us satisfy this need by joining groups. (Taken from The Psychology of Groups by Donelson R. Forsyth)
This was true in Peter’s day, in biblical times, as well as today…we want to belong. Most often when people feel they don’t belong there is a sense of isolation and depression can set in, but Peter wants his readers to know they fit perfectly, they have been joined to the Cornerstone and their identity is in Him. In verse 4, Peter writes,
4 As you come to him, the living Stone-- rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him-- (1 Peter 2:4 NIV)
It is important to know that the Greek word which is translated as “come,” “...come to him, the living stone,” is a Greek verb which is in the present tense. We often think of how we must come to Jesus for salvation, but Peter has something more in mind, he wants those early followers to continuously come to Jesus for everything in life. Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote an entire sermon on this one phrase in 1868. In his sermon he wrote,
The Christian life is begun, continued, and perfected altogether in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ....He is the author and He is the finisher of our faith. We have not to seek a fresh physician, to find a new friend or to discover a novel hope, but we are to look for everything to Jesus Christ, ‘the same yesterday, and today, and forever.’ ‘Ye are complete in Him.’ Here is a complete description of the Christian life. It is a continuous ‘coming’ to Jesus. (Spurgeon, Charles. Coming, Always Coming. June 17, 1868).
We come to Jesus we find our identity in Him, solely in Him and Him alone. He is our Cornerstone by which every detail of our life is oriented. Coming to Jesus will not eliminate all of the hardships and heartaches of this life, but when we go through the hardships of life, we will continually go to Him for strength and comfort. Jesus said,
28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV)
Peter wants the followers of Jesus who have been rejected to know that they were not the first to be rejected. The One they follow, the One who has claimed them as His own, was rejected as well. In verse 4, when Peter writes, “the living Stone-- rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him-- he is quoting from Psalm 118:22-23.
22 The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; 23 the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. (Psalm 118:22-23 NIV)
This verse was quoted by Jesus Himself when He told a parable about a landowner who planted a vineyard. The man put a wall around it, dug a winepress, and built a watchtower. He decided to rent the vineyard to some farmers and then he moved to another piece of property. When harvest time came, the owner sent his servants to the farmers to collect his share of the harvest. The farmers beat one, killed another, and stoned a third man who was sent by the landowner. He sent another group to collect his share of the harvest and they were treated the same way. Finally, the landowner thought, “They will respect my son,” so he sent him. The farmers said, “This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.” And they did. Jesus asked, “What do you think the landowner will do to those men?” Let’s pick up the story in Matthew 21:41-45 as the crowd answered Jesus’ question.
41 "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time." 42 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'? 43 "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. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed." 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them. (Matthew 21:41-45 NIV)
The same parable appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and it is obvious that Jesus saw Himself as the fulfillment of Psalm 118:22–23. He is the Stone rejected by men which has become the Cornerstone. And it’s important to know that when Peter quoted Psalm 118:22 in 1 Peter 2:4, it’s not the first time he had done so. Back in Acts 4, Peter and Barnabas were on trial before the religious leaders in Jerusalem when Peter said to them,
11 Jesus is "'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.' 12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." 13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:11-13 NIV)
There is no single verse from the Hebrew Bible that is quoted more often in the New Testament than this one verse. He was rejected and yet Jesus is the Cornerstone, God’s Cornerstone, the One by which all of history is oriented.
I was in Bible study this past Wednesday evening when someone asked a question: “Jesus was Jewish and He was God’s Messiah and yet the Jewish religious leaders rejected Him. How does that work?” How do you make sense of the rejection of Jesus, not just by those in His day, but also those in our own day? I’m sure there are an endless list of answers to the question, but let’s stick to finding our answers in God’s Word. I believe we will find that the answers we come up with in God’s Word concerning those who rejected Jesus in biblical times will still apply today. First, let’s turn to John 1:10-14. Read along with me.
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:10-14 NIV)
That God would become one of us to offer Himself on our behalf so that we might be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God is a mind-boggling thought is it not? Who among us, seated in this sanctuary, would volunteer to die so that someone else, not your family members, but some other person might be able to live? That’s a sobering thought isn’t it? And yet, we read in Romans 5,
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! (Romans 5:6-9 NIV)
How could anyone hear this news and turn and walk away? They not only walked away from Jesus, but they plotted His execution. Why would they do such a thing? And why do people still walk away or become so agitated at simply the mention of His name in our day?
Let me take you back to the time when Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus became ill and was dying. Jesus was told about His friend’s illness, but He purposefully didn’t show up until after Lazarus had died. You may have heard the story, but if not, you need to know that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. After Lazarus came out of the tomb and had his graveclothes removed, we read, in John 11:45-48.
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. "What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation." (John 11:45-48 NIV)
Did you hear that? “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” “Our temple.” “Our nation.” That’s a problem. Just one more example of this type of thinking. When Jesus was on trial for His life, Pilate had the opportunity to release one prisoner, Barabbas or Jesus. He asked the crowd who they wanted to be released? Then, in verse 18, we read the most telling insight into what was really taking place. Matthew tells us what was going on in Pilate’s mind,
18 For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him. (Matthew 27:18 NIV)
They handed Jesus over because of “self-interest.” Jesus was a threat to the power of the religious leaders of His day. They couldn’t have the people turning to Jesus. They couldn’t have their temple and their nation taken away from them. And that is still the reason so many turn away from Jesus today. We want control of our own lives, our own decisions, and our own destiny. We don’t want anyone making demands on our lives that will hinder our doing whatever it is that we want to do. I understand that there are some today who teach that you can follow Jesus and still do whatever you want to do, but they don’t draw those conclusions from reading the Bible. Jesus is very clear that to follow Him means that we die to ourselves and live for Him. In Matthew 16, Jesus told His followers.
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. (Matthew 16:24-25 NIV)
The religious leaders in Jesus’ day, and people throughout the ages, have not wanted to lose their lives, they do not want to give up control of their lives. We want to do what we want to do and nothing and no one will stop us. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.
Aldous Huxley was a famous English writer and philosopher. He wrote Brave New World and many other books. Huxley was an important figure during his generation and he died in 1963. Huxley was quite vocal about his atheism and the reason why he rejected God. In his book, Ends and Means: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Ideas, Huxley wrote,
I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. …For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning-the Christian meaning, they insisted-of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.” (Huxley, Aldous, Ends and Means: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Ideas. 1937)
Huxley got it right. It’s not that we are ignorant; it’s that we are determined. We refuse to turn to Jesus because of our selfish, self-centered desires that are more important to us than surrendering control and living our lives for God’s pleasure and glory instead of our own. As long as we desire our desires more than we desire the Lord we will continue to reject Jesus. Let’s move on to 1 Peter 2:5. Read it with me.
5 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. (1 Peter 2:5 NIV)
Can you imagine what a powerful statement this was to those alienated, scattered followers of Jesus in the first century? It is no less of a powerful statement to you and me today. Peter says, by virtue of their relationship with the “Living Stone,” in verse 4, they are “living stones, being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” We have a far greater identity, a much greater purpose than any identity or purpose this world can give to us. Our identity and purpose is not found in our accomplishments, our standing in the community, our gender, ethnicity, profession, or anything else that our society values so highly. We are living stones because of our relationship with the Living Stone and each of us is being built into a spiritual house. Paul shared this same idea with those who were part of the church in Ephesus in Ephesians 2:19-22.
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22 NIV)
Do you remember how Peter addressed those he was writing to in the very first verse of his letter? He wrote, “To God's elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,” (1 Peter 1:1 NIV). They were God’s “elect,” chosen by God. They were exiles, aliens in this world, but they were God’s elect, His chosen people, and they were living stones being built into a spiritual house as a priesthood of believers. Karen Jobes writes,
Notably, these living stones are not lying about in idle isolation or disorder in Peter’s description. They are not heaped in a pile or scattered across a field. Christians are not individually temples of God in the image Peter presents. They are each put in place in a spiritual house for the purpose of joining a holy priesthood that offers acceptable sacrifices to God… (Jobes, Karen. 1 Peter. pg. 147)
That gives me chills when I stop to think of the implications. Let me share just a couple of the aspects of the implications of verse 5 with you. If you will go back to that verse and read it with me one more time.
5 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. (1 Peter 2:5 NIV)
I want you to notice the little phrase, “are being built.” In Greek it is just one word, the word, “οἰκοδομέω” (oikodomeō) and it means, “to build, strengthen, or build up.” The interesting thing about its use here is that it is a passive verb. The building is not something we are doing, it is something being done for us by God. God is building a spiritual house through each and every follower of Jesus, every living stone. This is so powerful, especially in our day when so many followers of Jesus focus on their own individual relationship with the Lord and never give a thought to the corporate Body of Christ. Peter had in mind the corporate Church which He makes a set-apart priesthood. And this leads me to the second mind-boggling truth shared with us in this verse.
For us to understand the idea of a priesthood we have to go back to the Hebrew Bible and the temple. Only one out of the twelve tribes of Israel were chosen by God to serve as priests, the tribe of Levi. And there was only one priest, the high priest, who could actually go into God’s presence, into the Holy of Holies, and that was on the Day of Atonement, and only after he had gone through all kinds of ritual purification rites. All that changed when Jesus, the Perfect Lamb of God, offered Himself for our sins and the curtain surrounding the Holy of Holies was torn in two, from top to bottom. The writer of Hebrews tells us,
11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:11-14 NIV)
We, those of us who are followers of Jesus, have been cleansed, we’ve been chosen, we’ve been given entrance into the very presence of God. Once again, in Hebrews we read,
16 Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16 NIV)
We are not made a priesthood so we can glory in our status before people. No, no, we must remember the role that the priests played in the temple. They were there to offer up praises to God and to minister on behalf of the people. We will talk more about this next week when we come to verse 9, but it is important to know that God has made us a priesthood to make us servants.
Our time is up, but before we go I must ask you, “Can you see how Jesus as our Cornerstone orients us to every aspect of life? It is because of Jesus that you and I do the things we do, that we believe the things we believe, and that we live how we live. Without Jesus as our Cornerstone we are left to try and figure things out on our own. If you are here this morning and this is the way you have been living your life, trying to figure things out on your own, then I want to ask you, “How’s that working for you?”
Each and every person here this morning walked into this sanctuary with the cornerstone of their life already in place. For some of you, your cornerstone is Jesus and He has proven to be the firm foundation upon which you have built your life. For others, your cornerstone might be making a name for yourself, achieving great accomplishments, your family, or the freedom to live however you want to live with no regrets. There are so many things we make the cornerstone of our lives.
Bertrand Russell was one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. He also won numerous awards for his works in mathematics, logic, social activism, and philosophy. Bertrand was raised in a Christian home, but at the age of 18 he abandoned God. When he banished God from his life, he set out on a course of trying to make life work on his own. In so doing, he tried to destroy the faith that was once so dear to him. At the end of his life he wrote a poem, To Edith. In the poem he wrote,
Through the long years
I have sought peace,
I found ecstasy,
I found anguish,
I found madness,
I found loneliness.
I found the solitary pain
that gnaws the heart,
But peace I did not find.
Bertrand Russell, like so many people today, tried to make life work on his own, but it didn’t, and it won’t. We need a cornerstone that is immovable, unshakeable, and ever present to guide us, direct us, and remind us that we fit most perfectly in Christ. Won’t you invite Him in?
Mike Hays
Britton Christian Church
April 21, 2024