Treasure Christ, Love His Church

Introduction

1 Peter is a letter that was written to Christians who were dealing with a heavy amount of persecution and suffering for there faith.

These Christians that Peter were writing to it is costing them too openly be Christian. They were enduring the reign of King Nero who was burning Christians at the stake for their faith.

Peters theme throughout this letter has been that those who persevere in faith while suffering persecution should be full of hope, for they will certainly enjoy end-time salvation since they are already enjoying God’s saving promises here and now through death and resurrection of Christ.

There is a undergirding in the theology in this letter that Christians are to endure suffering for the sake of Christ, looking back on Christ’s suffering and forward to Jesus coming back.

The first chapter of this letter Peter spends time reminding these believers that they are exiles in a lost dying world and to be joyful and give praise for there salvation.

He reminds them that they are to be different in this world that every aspect of there lives ought to be impacted by the holiness imparted to them in Christ.

The way that they would stand out in a time of persecution for there faith would be to still remain unashamed of the gospel and to still walk in holiness despite the fire they were under for bearing the name of christian.

Peter reminds the believers in this letter that the world that they were suffering in is not there home in Christ your given a new identity and a new home.

Read Passage: 1 Peter 2:1–12 “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possess…”

We need the word individually and corporately.(vs 1-4)

For the believer their is a particular posture of the heart towards the word. We are reminded in John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This refers to Jesus. So in other words their is a parallel between the written word of God which at its core is about Jesus and Jesus himself.

We cannot separate Jesus from the written word of God. If heard it said by well-meaning preachers that the bible does not save, and I get that sentiment I understand what is being communicated by that statement however without the written word of God we have no guide or depiction of Jesus who is the word made flesh according to John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

In chapter 1 paragraph 5 of the 1689 2nd London Baptist Confession it reads “We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church of God to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scriptures; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, and the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, and many other incomparable excellencies, and entire perfections thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.”

We must have a certain posture in our heart towards the word of God. In 1 Peter 2:2 “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—” . A healthy new baby has an instinctive yearning for its mother’s milk. When things are right, you don’t have to tell it to want the milk.

It is in the word that we are pointed to Jesus, and I love that what Peter does here connects a deep longing for the word with spiritual growth.

Sometimes we make spiritual growth more than what more complicated that the bible plainly make it. Sometimes we want to be so ground breaking that we add complexity to the things of scripture that were meant to be plainly understood.

The work of the spiritual growth up in that Peter speaks upon is done by way of The Holy Spirit.

But in this passage Peter uses the word “long for” in regards to spiritual growth which we are empowered to do by the Holy Spirit and is centered around the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Do you long for the things of The Lord. Do you long for Jesus? Do you long for the word of God? Do you long to be in the gathering with the church? What we have a deep longing for says a lot about the condition of our heart spiritually.

1 Peter for You How to Grow

The “pure spiritual milk” we are to crave is the same word through which we were born again. Peter’s argument flows from 1:22–25—the “so” in 2:1 tells us that verses 1–3 are inferred from 1:22–25. So Peter is saying that all Christians, regardless of maturity, should passionately crave the same word that saved them in order that they may be caused to grow into salvation

Almost every day of my life I am praying that “a jubilant pining and longing for God” might come back on the evangelical churches. We don’t need to have our doctrine straightened out; we are as orthodox as the Pharisees of old. But this longing for God that brings spiritual torrents and whirlwinds of seeking and self-denial—this is almost gone from our midst.

A. W. Tozer

Remember who Peter is writing to here a body of believers that are suffering for there faith. If they needed to be reminded to long for the word, spiritual growth, and the church how much more should we?

2. The church is made by Christ for His glory and our good. (v.4-8)

1 Peter for You Chapter 5: The Greatest Building, the Greatest Story (1 Peter Chapter 2 Verses 4–8)

Peter encourages them by explaining that, in Christ, they have a new identity that grants them privileged status in the kingdom of God. The church is the new temple and holy priesthood, created to make much of Jesus. It is his fame they, and we, are to work for—and, if we grasp what Peter is telling us here, we’ll joyfully tear down our own platforms and dedicate ourselves to building Christ’s

The Christian faith is communal and interdependent. While Jesus saves the individual He saves the individual to unto himself and the church.

Every aspect of the christian life is a means to edify the body of Christ. Wayne Grudem in his commentary on this passage said that “Personal devotion to Christ through the word also increases corporate integration into the church”. In other words your spiritual growth is not solely for you. Where you are growing in grace and truth someone in the church is weak in that area you are to use that growth in that area to lock arms with saints in the church that struggle with that area.

To live for Christ is to live for His church by whom he is the cornerstone. The church was always Gods plan by which believers would hear the gospel and gather with one another. And would be indestructible thats why Jesus says in Matthew 16:18 “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

This was the plan from the beginning Jesus being the cornerstone of the church look at verse 6 again Peter quotes Isaiah 28:16 “therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’”

This message is a message that was rejected then and now. Jesus is the stone referenced that the builders reject. Not rejecting Jesus is why the very believers that Peter is writing to are under severe persecution and some being burned alive at the stake because they are unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The promise in this passage when you boldly stand for your faith we will be built up because Jesus is constantly building up his church because to build up believers is to build up his church.

This is the promise that kept these believers Peter is writing to that are under the persecution of King Nero that are held up by this promise that Jesus will build them up.

We as Christians must keep plodding coming to Christ in worship, in prayer, in praise remembering that we are being built up into a spiritual temple, a place in which God more and more dwells.

This is hard for a lot of Christians in american because we are often prone to tap out when life gets hard and we quickly forget that Jesus keeps his promises to build us up in strength and in truth.

Temporary Christians are no Christians: only the believer who continues to believe will enter heaven.

The Covenant Promise Of The Spirit, Volume 37, Sermon #2200 - Ezekiel 36:27

Charles Spurgeon

There are only two types of people in the end. Those that believed and persevere to the end and those that as verse 8 says “They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do”. When Peter says they disobey its that they don’t believe in the one who is the cornerstone.

When Charles Spurgeon was 16 years old, he preached his first sermon in a village cottage to a handful of poor people, and he chose for his text 1 Peter 2:7: “Unto you therefore which believe He is precious.” Spurgeon said that he didn’t think he could have preached on any other Bible passage, “but Christ was precious to my soul and I was in the flush of my youthful love, and I could not be silent when a precious Jesus was the subject.” (Spurgeon)

“Is Jesus precious to your soul? Remember, on your answer to this question depends your condition. You believe, if he is precious to you, but if he is not precious, then you are not believers, and you are condemned already because you believe not on the Son of God.” (Spurgeon)

Christ is precious intrinsically.

· Christ is precious positively.

· Christ is precious comparatively.

· Christ is precious superlatively.

· Christ is precious suitably to the need of the believer.

It does not mean that one was not religious enough in that verse that verse is referred to those that do not believe that Jesus is whom he says he is.

Jesus Christ never asks anyone to define his position or to understand a creed, but “Who am I to you?” Jesus Christ makes the whole of human destiny depend on a man’s relationship to himself.

Oswald Chambers

You get get a lot wrong in this life but one HAS to get Jesus right. This is why we make much of Jesus here at Charis Church.

3.) To be United to Christ is to Belong to His Church. (vs.9-12)

1 Peter for You The Church: A Spiritual House

All Christians are individually indwelled by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:9) and therefore our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19)—but the repeated emphasis of the New Testament is that Christians are corporately the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16), the place where God’s glory dwells (Ephesians 2:21). We are living stones, made to be built into a living building.

Jesus saved us from our sin, from the wrath of God and saved us to a life interdependence, community, to the gathering of the saints the church which he promises to all ways be with us.

As we gather together as a local church, God is there with us! We don’t have to conjure up his presence; we don’t have to beg God to show up; we don’t have to travel to some shrine. He is with us when we gather because he is in us we are living stones!

This was always God’s plan before the foundation of the world. May we never forget our identity in Christ and more importantly our union with Christ.

See Peter is taking the time to remind these believers that are going through it who they are and whom they belong to.

Chosen race, royal priest hood, holy nation, a people for his own possession. These are are all descriptive that Jesus gives the elect. There is no separation because the christian and the church because all these descriptions are corporate rather than individualistic.

The to belonging to the church is that we can stir one another affections for Jesus proclaiming the excellencies of Him meaning Jesus who called us of darkness into the marvelous light.

I love that Peter goes here because he knows what these Christians are going through, and he brings them back the gospels. He reminds them of their who and why. He reminds them that they were saved by grace out of the darkness of sin and into the marvelous light of Jesus and that now they have access to an everlasting fountain of grace and of mercy.

This passage ends with Peter reminding believers that we are not of this world we are exiles we are sojourners and makes a full circle to his original though of his letter all the way from chapter 1 for a call to glorifying God and holiness.

Abstaining from the passion of the flesh, having honorable conduct, glorifying God all point back to Peters original thought through out the letter of walking in the holiness imparted to us by Christ.

“Holiness is a community project. Sanctification is a community project. To the modern Christian American ear this sounds insane. The Christian life is inherently corporate its personal but never private. Christian devotion is church shaped if you read the New Testament. Holiness is a community project. This is not something that we will do on our own but rather by virtue of being a part of a local church where Christ is preached, where we come to his table, where baptism is administered, where we gather, and we sing. We exhort, we pray and build one another up in the faith by singing spiritual songs, confess our sin to one another, praying in Jesus together as a gathered church. As we are doing all this as a gathered church week after week after week and we live life in the fellowship of the saints within the church, holiness is the fruit of all that. If you want an imperative for holiness show up to your local church every Sunday. If you want to be holy if you want to be Godly that's priority number 1 without question. Show up week after week lock arms with your people for decades be faithful to that church then we can talk about holiness. The church is how the Lord produces holiness in our lives”-Justin Purdue