Howard Hendricks, one of my professors at Dallas Theological Seminary, sometimes talked about his days when he was a student at the same seminary. In one of those stories, he tells about the time he was invited to preach in west Texas. “You’ve all heard of Nowhere? Well,” Hendricks says, “this was 25 miles beyond that.” The teeming crowds were gathering – all 17 of them, but Hendricks preached with all the fervor and passion of his heart. When he got through, a tall Texan came up to him and said, “You were wrong.”
“Well, sir,” Hendricks said. “I've been wrong on many occasions. Give me the information.”
The Texan replied, “In your sermon you made a moronic statement. You said you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And that ain't true, ‘cause you can feed him salt.” (Howard Hendricks, “Beyond the Bottom Line,” Preaching Today, Tape No.101; www.PreachingToday.com)
Many of us desire for our friends and family members to drink the Living Water of salvation that Jesus offers, but they don’t seem to want to drink. They don’t seem to be the least bit interested in spiritual things, so they often brush off our attempts to tell them about what Jesus did for us.
The question is: How can we feed them the kind of salt that will make them thirsty for Jesus? How can we present Jesus in such a way that they will want to get to know Him personally?
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 1 Peter 2, 1 Peter 2, where the Bible tells us how we can influence even those who are hostile to Christ, much less those who are indifferent.
1 Peter 2:4-5 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— 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. (NIV)
God is building a spiritual house, not with bricks and mortar, but with living stones, with people who come to Christ like you and me. That means…
TOGETHER, WE ARE A HOLY TEMPLE!
Together, we are a magnificent cathedral designed to reflect the glory of Christ, especially to those who reject Him.
You see, Jesus is the cornerstone of this temple. He is the foundation piece that gives direction to the whole edifice, even though He is rejected by so many.
1 Peter 2:6-8 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.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,” and, “A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. (NIV)
Those who refuse to be persuaded by the word are destined to stumble over Christ. That’s literally the meaning of the word, “disobey.” It describes someone who refuses to believe or someone who refuses to be persuaded.
You see, people DO not believe in Jesus not because they CAN not believe. They DO not believe in Jesus because they WILL not believe. Faith is a choice, and those who choose not to believe in Jesus stumble and fall over Him. He is scandalous to them. He is offensive. But for those of us who choose to believe in Him, we find Him to be precious (vs.8), literally, to be honored or valued. That’s because He is the foundation stone, the cornerstone that gives stability and direction to all of us who trust Him.
When the Jews built the temple in Jerusalem, they did not want to desecrate that holy site with the ugly sounds of the breaking and splitting of rock. The building site was to be as quiet as possible. It was holy ground. So they required that all the stones for the temple be cut at another location. It required a tremendous amount of skill and precise measurements by the stone masons, but they did their job well and all the cut rock they sent to the temple site fit perfectly together with one exception. That exception was an odd-sized rock that didn’t seem to fit anywhere. The builders on the temple site rejected it first, but then they discovered that the odd-sized rock was the cornerstone to the whole structure. It was the foundation piece that gave stability and direction to the whole building.
That’s who Jesus is for all of us who trust in Him. In the Gospels, Jesus had said to Peter, “On this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). Well here, Peter identifies that Rock as Jesus. He is the cornerstone that gives stability and direction to the church. He is the cornerstone that gives stability and direction to all His people together who depend on Him.
As a result, we will never be put to shame, verse 6 says. The original Greek uses a double negative here to indicate that it is absolutely impossible for those of us who depend on Christ to ever be put to shame while we look to Him for stability and direction. That’s because God is using us to put together a glorious temple founded on Jesus Christ Himself.
He is the cornerstone, and we are the rest of the stones God is using to reflect His glory. We too, like Christ, are living stones, rejected by men but chosen by God to make up His magnificent cathedral.
Now, God is doing this for one purpose and one purpose alone. He is building us into a spiritual house of holy priests to offer “spiritual sacrifices,” verse 5 says. In other words, God wants us to bring Him something. God wants us to bring Him our very lives. God wants us to bring Him all our words and deeds so He can use us to bring others to Himself.
Hebrews 13 says, “Through Jesus…let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased” (Hebrews 13:15-16).
Our words and our good deeds, when offered in dependence upon Christ, are sacrifices which are acceptable to God. But not only that, we ourselves, our very bodies, when offered to God, are holy and pleasing to Him.
Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God….”
When we bring our words, our deeds, and ourselves to the Lord, then God in His grace uses us to bring others to Himself.
In Romans 15, the Apostle Paul says, “Because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:15-16).
Our words, our deeds, our-selves, and the people who come to faith in Christ through our witness: these are the kind of sacrifices God wants us to bring; these are the offerings that are acceptable and pleasing to Him. That’s why He is building us into a holy temple – so we can honor Him with our lives.
Just a couple of months ago, we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day on the Island with a parade and corned beef & cabbage at Karly’s. We had a lot of fun, but very few of us really knew much about St. Patrick himself.
As a young boy Patrick lived a comfortable life near an English coastal city where his father was a deacon in their church. But at the age of 16, all that came to an end. Irish pirates attacked his village, abducting Patrick and many of the household servants. After arriving in Ireland, Patrick was sold as a slave to a Druid tribal chieftain who forced Patrick to work with a herd of pigs.
In the midst of all that pig filth, God began to transform Patrick's heart. In his Confessions he wrote, “I was sixteen and knew not the true God, but in a strange land the Lord opened my unbelieving eyes, and I was converted.” Patrick became convinced that the kidnapping and homesickness were actually opportunities to know Christ better. “Anything that happens to me,” he wrote, “whether pleasant or distasteful, I ought to accept with [serenity] giving thanks to God … who never disappoints.”
After serving as a slave for six years, Patrick escaped, boarded a boat, and found his way back home. Finally, he was back on British soil, warmly embraced by his family and his community. In his own mind, Patrick was finished with Ireland for good. Patrick was adamant: “It is not in my nature to show divine mercy toward the very ones who once enslaved me.”
But once again, God changed Patrick's heart. Partially through a dramatic dream, Patrick knew that God had called him to return to Ireland—not as a slave, but as a preacher of the gospel. His family and friends tried to stop him, telling him, “Why does this fellow waste himself among dangerous enemies who don't even know God?”
Despite their objections, Patrick used his own money to purchase a boat and sail back to Ireland in A.D. 432. Patrick then spent the rest of his life preaching the gospel in Ireland, seeing many people come to Christ. He also passionately defended the human rights of slaves, writing a letter of scathing protest to King Coroticus after his soldiers had raided a village, slaughtered the men and sold the women into slavery.
Patrick never got over what God had done for Him. In his Confessions he wrote, “I was a dumb stone lying squashed in the mud; the Mighty and Merciful God came, dug me out and set me on top of the wall. Therefore, I praise him and ought to render him something for his wonderful benefits to me both now and in eternity.” (John W. Cowart, People Whose Faith Got Them into Trouble. InterVarsity Press, 1990, pp. 31-42; www.Preaching Today.com)
Like Patrick, we too were dumb stones lying squashed in the mud, but our Mighty and Merciful God came, dug us out, and put us into his magnificent, holy temple so that together we could bring Him glory the rest of our lives.
If we want to influence our family and friends to follow Christ, then first of all, we must understand who we are as followers of Christ. We are living stones in a holy temple. But more than that…
WE ARE GOD’S SPECIAL PEOPLE.
We are not only a holy temple, we are a holy nation put together to declare God’s virtues to a world in darkness.
1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 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. (NIV)
All of this was once said of God’s special people in the Old Testament – the nation of Israel. In Exodus 19, from fiery Mount Sinai, God said to them, “Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6). And in Hosea 2, God said about Israel, “I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ “You are my people’…” (Hosea 2:23). And in Isaiah 43, God said about them, “I provide water in the desert and steams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise” (Isaiah 43:20-21).
The Israelites were God’s special people in the Old Testament, gathered together to be a positive influence on the godless nations around them. But they forgot who they were. Instead of seeing themselves as God’s special people, they imitated the godless nations around them and adopted their practices. They blended in, lost their influence; and today, Israel has no temple or priesthood.
Now, God calls His people in the church to be what He wanted Israel to be. We don’t replace Israel, because God will restore them some day (according to Romans 11). But in the meantime, He calls us His special people to be His light in a dark world.
My friends, let’s not forget who we are! We are designed to be living advertisements for the virtues of God as His holy temple and his special people. And as such, our lives should reflect the wonderful light into which He has called us.
In his book Leaving Home, Garrison Keillor tells a fictional story about a family from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Grace Tollefson married Alex Campbell back in the 1930s, a man who turned out to be a ne'er-do-well. They had three kids – Earl, Marlys, and Walter. One day Alex left Grace. Penniless, she was forced to move back home to live off the kindness of folks there, enduring the relentless “I-told-you-so's” of her mother. It was humiliating.
But one day they got a letter from a man in Philadelphia doing research on Scottish nobility. He asked who their ancestors were so he could look it up. Grace wrote the man back, and a few days later another letter came in the mail. Though the envelope was addressed to Mrs. Grace Campbell, the letter was addressed to “Your Royal Highness.” In the letter the man wrote: “Today is the happiest day of my life as I greet my one true Sovereign Queen.” He went on to say that their branch of the Campbell family was first in the line of succession of the House of Steward, the Royal Family of Scotland. Keillor writes:
[The line on the chart led] right straight to them: Earl, Marlys, and Walter. The Royal Family of Scotland living in Lake Wobegon in a green mobile home, furniture donated by the Lutheran church.
They were astounded beyond words. Disbelieving at first, afraid to put their weight on something so beautiful, afraid it was too good to be true, and then it took hold – this was grace, pure grace that God offered them. Not their will but His. Grace. Here they were in their same dismal place but everything had changed. They were different people. Their surroundings were the same, but they were different.
Years later, the youngest son, Walter, finds out the whole business was a fraud. But he never tells his mother or siblings, because thinking you are royalty, whether anyone else knows it or not, changes a person. At the end of the story, Grace is much older, and she says to her son:
Oh, Walter, what would I do without you? You're so strong. You're so good to me. You're a prince, you know. They can put a crown on a dog and call it a prince, but you are a prince through and through. They may not know it now, but they'll know it soon. Next year we'll be in Edinburgh with the bands playing and the flags flying and the crowds cheering. (Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home, Viking, 1987, pp. 140-141, 145; www.PreachingToday.com)
My dear believing friends, as we gather for worship on Sunday mornings (or Saturday nights), we are among unrecognized royalty. Only this is no fraud! God Himself tells us in verse 9, “You are a chosen people, a ROYAL priesthood, a holy nation, [literally] a people unto obtaining or preserving.” In other words, God preserves us exclusively for Himself.
We are royalty! Our neighbors may not suspect it, nor those we work with day in and day out, but we know who we are, and that knowledge changes us. Our surroundings may be the same, but WE are different.
Let’s never forget it like Israel did. We are God’s Holy Temple. We are God’s Special People, designed to be living displays of His virtues. So let’s BE who we ARE. Let’s…
BE THE WITNESSES GOD HAS CALLED US TO BE.
Let’s live our lives in such a way that even our accusers come to see God in us.
1 Peter 2:11-12
This is how we influence people who are indifferent or even hostile to our faith. We do it by the kind of lives we live that reflect who we are in Christ.
A Second Century believer, in a letter to his friend, Diognetus, described how Christians are alike and different from others. He wrote, “Though they are residents at home in their own countries, their behavior there is more like transients… Though destiny has placed them here in the flesh, they do not live after the flesh; their days are passed on earth, but their citizenship is above in the heavens. They obey the prescribed laws, but in their own private lives they transcend the laws. They show love to all men—and all men persecute them. They are misunderstood, and condemned; yet by suffering death they are quickened into life. They are poor, yet making many rich; lacking all things, yet having all things in abundance… They repay [curses] with blessings, and abuse with courtesy. For the good they do, they suffer stripes as evildoers. (James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community, IVP, 2010, pp.28-29; www.PreachingToday.com)
These Second Century believers suffered much, but by the example of their lives, they turned their world upside down! Just a little more than a hundred years later, Christianity had reached the highest levels of government – the Emperor of Rome himself – and the world was never the same after that.
Do you want to reach your family and friends who at this time may be hostile to Christ, or at best indifferent? Then KNOW who you are and BE who you are. We as believers in Christ are God’s holy temple and God’s special people, designed to be living displays of His greatness.
So let’s LIVE that way. Let’s live our lives in such a way that even our accusers come to see God in us.
Bill White, of Paramount, California, talks about being in Compton, California, working with volunteers from several different churches on a Saturday doing projects to serve the city. At lunch time, he was headed down a narrow side street when he saw dozens of church volunteers (maybe 50 in all), all dressed in yellow shirts, streaming out of one of the sites. They had just completed a makeover of a local house.
Bill was six or eight houses away when he passed a married couple working in their own yard. He paused to compliment the woman on her roses, and she asked him what they were doing down the street. Bill told her that they represented a band of churches united in their desire to serve the city. Then they continued to talk about how that neighborhood had been radically transformed by these Christians’ simple acts of goodness.
When the woman’s husband saw Bill’s yellow “volunteer shirt,” he turned off his weed-whacker, set it down and started walking straight towards his wife and Bill. Bill says, “I will never forget his words. After looking into my eyes,” Bill says, “he nodded approvingly towards the renovated house down the street and then said, ‘I love your heart. Where can I get a heart like yours?’”
Flabbergasted, Bill simply replied, “We got our hearts from Jesus, and he would be glad to give you one like his, too.” And before he left, they had a great conversation about the unparalleled gospel of Jesus Christ and his power to change hearts, homes, neighborhoods, and cities. (Bill White, Paramount, California; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s how it’s done, my friends. Simply BE who you are in Christ and reflect His love to a dark and broken world.
