Christ the Cornerstone

1 Peter 2:4–8 – Perspective: Sermon Series on 1 Peter – Jan 30, 2022

Introduction

Reading of 1 Peter 2:4–8.

A year-and-a-half ago we changed the name of our church to Cornerstone Fellowship Church. After considering many name possibilities we landed on a name that highlights several things:

• Cornerstone: We are intentionally and explicitly built on the Cornerstone, the Lord Jesus Christ.
• Fellowship: We are serious about fellowship and doing life together. NT = communities involved in “one anothering” for the glory of God.
• Church: We’re a church. Not a Bible study or parachurch ministry. We hope it’s a church organized and thriving as God designs.
• Thriving how?
• Built on Sound Doctrine & being Spirit-Filled, growing in Relationships & Spiritual Growth—love for God, one another, our neighbors.

Mention this because 1 Peter 2:4–8 is one of THE Cornerstone texts.

• Brings together three OT texts that build on this idea.

The passage

• Written by Peter (Silvanus).
• Relevance of Peter in this text—his connection to Jesus, preaching in Acts.
• Peter’s style—masterful back-and-forth of KEY IDEAS and HOW TO LIVE.
• Our text one of the KEY IDEAS texts; in 2:11 turns to HOW TO LIVE.

Perspective Series: 1 Peter gives such critical perspective on so many areas.

• Today it’s IDENTITY & PURPOSE. WHO WE ARE, PURPOSE this brings.

Sermon:

• The Living Stone (2:4–5)
• The Cornerstone (2:6)
• The Rejected Stone (2:7–8)

I. The Living Stone (2:4–5)

As the son of an architect, building projects are fasicinating to me. Even something like 540. Wonderful and terrible. Wonderful as an act of creativity and engineering on a grand scale. And terrible because it means fewer trees and natural areas. 

God the builder:

• See it in Creation.
• See it in the tabernacle.
• See it in the temple.
• See it in Ezekiel’s temple (Ezek 40–48).
• See it in the new Jerusalem. This spiritual city God is building.
• See it in Abraham described as “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb 11:10).

In this passage Peter’s reflecting on the idea of Christ as the Cornerstone.

• If Christ is the Cornerstone, then he must be the Cornerstone of a building.
• If there’s a building, then it must be “a spiritual house.”
• But this “spiritual house” is no typical house.
• It’s us, it’s Christians, who are the stones being brought together into this spiritual house with Christ as the unique and precious Cornerstone.

In this “spiritual house” one “Stone” is more important than all the others, it’s Christ, “the living stone.”

• “A Living Stone”—“Living” = “the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1:3); “living and abiding word of God” (1:23). “Stone” = lithos, shaped stone for particular project, not a rock you just find.
• “Rejected by Men”—His identity was rejected. His teaching was rejected. His miracles were rejected. By those who knew him best (family). Jewish leaders. His own disciples scattered at his arrest.
• “In the sight of God chosen and precious”—But one person did NOT reject him, God the Father. To the Father Jesus was “chosen and precious.” We’ll

Because that stone is a “living stone,” we, too, can be “living stones.” Alive in Christ. Not just “rocks” but shaped for something intentional and valuable.

God’s design: “a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

The church performs this double role, it’s the temple AND the priesthood. It’s the temple because it’s the place where God dwells. It’s the priesthood because it’s doing these priestly things—offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.

What’s amazing about this, is Peter is saying this while the temple in Jerusalem is still standing. It’s a reminder of how much things changed when Jesus died on the cross and the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Mark 15:38).

Passages like this one are the reason why Christians since the Reformation have talked about “the priesthood of all believers.”

• During the Reformation of the 1500s the idea was prominent that you could divide things into the “sacred” and the “secular.”
• The “sacred” were more holy and more important.
• You had holy places. You could buy holy relics. And you had holy people, the priests. The priests did holy work that was more important than the rest of society.
• The Reformers saw passages like 1 Peter 2:4.
• In this passage, who is “a holy priesthood”? (2:4). This will be echoed in 2:9 with “royal priesthood”? Who is that “priesthood”?
• It’s the church!
• The whole church is a “holy priesthood”!
• Whether you’re a pastor or a plumber or a programmer or a studying polygons for class, if you’re in Christ you’re part of this “holy priesthood.”
• You are called as holy priests “to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
• Some of us need to RETHINK OUR VOCATIONS.
• If that’s you, consider the FAITH AT WORK discipleship class next week.

Our sacrifices are ACCEPTABLE only through Christ—another key Reformation theme. You can hear this in the Heidelberg Catechism, Question 60:

How are you righteous before God?
Only by true faith in Jesus Christ.
Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments, of never having kept any of them, and of still being inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me—if only I accept this gift with a believing heart.
Heidelburg Catechism, Question 60

II. The Cornerstone (2:6)

The basis for what Peter says in 2:4–5 is a set of 3 OT passages. Three “stone” texts—Isa 28:16 (V6), Ps 118:22 (V7), Isa 8:14 (V8).

In the first he’s quoting from Isa 28:16—Isaiah rebukes God’s people for making treaties for their protection instead of turning to him. His answer? Cornerstone.

Your security is in the Cornerstone, not any foreign power with only an army of men.

God promises to “lay in Zion a stone, a cornerstone.”

• Now the builder is God the Father.
• And the first stone in the building he’s making is Christ himself.
• Christ is the “cornerstone.”
• He’s “chosen and precious.”

To the Father, Jesus is “chosen.” He’s “precious.”

• Don’t miss the Father’s heart for his Son!
• At his baptism:

And behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt 3:17)

• At his transfiguration

He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matt 17:5)

• Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus reveals how much the Father loves him:

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. (John 10:17)

• This is why God the Father has no hesitation in all creation celebrating the glory of his Son:

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9–11)

The greatness of the Father’s love for the Son is why it’s so amazing that to become a Christian is to become a child of God.

• We’re brought into this love, we receive this love.
• We’re not outsiders to it.
• It’s given freely to us.
• Hear God assuring us:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. (John 15:9)

1 Peter 2:6/Isaiah 28:16 ends with a promise: “whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

• Two sides of this.
• “Not ashamed” can mean “not ashamed” in the eyes of men.
• Or “not ashamed” in the eyes of God.
• Both are true. Not ashamed in the eyes of God is the accent.
• Not put to shame on the last day: You’ll stand in the judgment because of Christ.
• But also, believing in Christ will mean “not ashamed” in the eyes of men.
• Not put to shame in the sense of living your life for a lie, a fraud: At the end of it all you’ll realize it was no wasted life. All that you gave for Christ’s sake will be of immense value and bring sweet rewards. You won’t look back and think, “What a waste.”

III. The Rejected Stone (2:7–8)

Now we see that rejecting the Cornerstone has consequences.

• Popular view is that “you be you.”
• That’s not reality.
• Like “you be you” walking off a cliff.
• The “stone” verses have another side, which is judgment.

“Those who do not believe” are in view in these two verses.

Verse 7 = Ps 118:22 = Cited by Jesus in Matt 21:42; Quoted by Peter to Jewish leaders in Acts 4:11–12.

Jesus on the Tuesday before his crucifixion:

Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? (Matt 21:37–42)

Acts 4 by Peter himself to the Jewish leaders themselves:

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:11–12)

Jesus at the end of the Parable of the Tenants:

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” (Matt 21:43–44)

Picking up the language of Daniel 2, which also speaks of a “stone” that will crush all kingdoms that oppose God.

This promised judgment Peter refers to as “STUMBLING” (V8) from Isa 8:14.

This stumbling was no accident. It was an act of deliberate disobedience.

But also…an act of God’s predestined foreknowledge: “as they were destined (tithēmi) to do.”

• Just as God’s people are “living stones” “chosen” by him to be living stones.
• So unbelievers are “destined” to “stumble” over Christ the Cornerstone.

Conclusion

Identity and Purpose.

Identity as “spiritual priesthood” and “spiritual house” with Christ as the Cornerstone.

Purpose “spiritual priesthood” offering “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Familiar ideas in Romans 12:1–2—“living sacirifice,” “holy,” “acceptable to God,” “spiritual worship”:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12:1–2)

Bodies and minds dedicated to God. Understanding that we are not our own.

E.g., Dan Franz, “Home Again,” from Steven Garber’s Visions of Vocation (149–151).

Prayer and closing song