“Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, 2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 3 if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. 4 And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For this is contained in Scripture: “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” 7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone,” 8 and, “A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed. 9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.”
TAKE ON THE LIFE OF THE SAVED (vs 1-3)
Well, this time the ‘therefore’ is real easy. See it?
“…THE WORD OF THE LORD ABIDES FOREVER. And this is the word which was preached to you.” (1:25)
Do you remember what we talked about? The ‘word’ being referenced to being, specifically, the gospel message; the truth which they had obeyed in faith leading to salvation.
“Therefore…” putting aside certain things…
On the basis of their imperishable life gained through the imperishable seed of God’s Word, and sustained thereby, the sin that once controlled them must now be controlled by them. Put aside. Put off.
This is a term that Paul employed to the Colossians (3:8-9) and also James to his readers that referred to taking off old, soiled garments and putting on new clean ones.
In early Christian baptism ceremonies the candidate would remove his old clothes that he arrived in and after baptism the church supplied him (or her) with clean, white garments to go away in. It signified the new, clean life they had in Christ and the putting away of the old sinful life.
So Peter’s admonition to them might have brought the picture of their own baptism back to their remembrance as he spoke of putting away the sins of their past that they had been washed clean of.
Now I don’t want to spend our time today looking in great detail at each of these sins Peter lists here – and by the way, later you might just compare this list with Paul’s in Colossians 3:8-9 – but notice please that they all come from inside.
In response to criticism from the Pharisees that His disciples were not conducting ceremonial hand-washing before eating, Jesus said to them:
“It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.” Matt 15:11
He had a few other things to say to them also that had His disciples coming to Him to inform Him that He had offended the Pharisees. I’m not going to get off track with that but it just always tickles me to read that.
I picture Jesus looking surprised, then embarrassed and appointing a committee to decide how they could best approach the Pharisees to appease their anger and make up with them. Maybe some flowers… no, a nice dinner… no, nothing less than a public apology will do! On CNN.
Anyway…
Think about the list. Malice. That means wickedness. A desire to do evil. In English we use the word to denote a desire to hurt someone or at least a lack of caring whether or not they are hurt.
Guile has to do with falsehood. You may remember when Jesus first met Nathaniel in John 1:47 He called him ‘an Israelite in whom there is no deceit’, and the King James translation there uses the word ‘guile’.
Now that would be an interesting point for another sermon. Had Jesus seen so much deception from His people that He thought it significant to point out one who was honest? Or was Nathaniel’s personal character so noble and forthright that he deserved the acclaim?
Anyway…
Hypocrisy means pretending to be what you are not. It is the fruit of guile. Envy. Do you remember some of the discussions we’ve had recently about the ‘Prosperity Lite’ doctrine? The ‘God wants you to be rich and healthy’ teaching?
I have to wonder how they will defend themselves to God when He confronts them with the fact that they, by their false and worldly teaching, appealed to greed in people and caused otherwise sincere Christians to have to battle with envy in their hearts against those who, according to this doctrine, must have been more acceptable to God than themselves?
Slander comes out of a heart that harbors malice and guile and hypocrisy and envy. Those things make a person want to destroy the reputations of those they perceive as more fortunate, smarter, better looking, contented, well, anything they are not that they wish they could be.
I’ve had the experience of being slandered simply because I would not be controlled and the backbiting was the only small sense of control they could get without needing my cooperation.
Now I’d like to add right here that I sincerely hope that I wasn’t fitting into the category of the deserving that Peter talks about in verse 20 of this chapter; we’ll talk about that on another day.
But slander also comes out of a defiled heart as one of the evidences of that defilement.
Peter has told them back in chapter 1 verse 22 that by the new birth they have received through the living and abiding word of God their souls have been purified and they have been enabled to love the brethren with a fervent, supernatural love.
So, as I said earlier, the sin which once controlled them they are now to be on the alert against and instead control it.
Put it off. Put it away. And how are we to do that successfully? Well, the answer lies in the fact that he has not ended his sentence.
Do you see? He said, “Therefore, putting away…” Putting away these things that defile, desire the pure milk of the Word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.
Since you have all of my sermons memorized, you may remember that sometime back we discussed this term, ‘like newborn babes’. It means, ‘born just now’. In that other sermon I went into detail about the Colostrum, also known as ‘first milk’ that the babies get the first few days after birth and which is high in nutrients and immunities. It has numerous other benefits for the one born ‘just now’, but the point is that Peter wants believers, not to be like immature babies, but to long for the Word of God and its spiritual nutrients and immunities against spiritual maladies.
He is encouraging us to desire the pure Word of God like a newborn desires the mother’s early milk in order to guard against the presence of these other, verse 1 things, and to cause us to grow strong and healthy in respect to our salvation; that is, our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
In verse three he says, “…if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord”
No mystery there. He means if you are saved. Are you born again? Have you been a partaker of the kindness of the Lord in giving you the Holy Spirit and having fed you with the pure milk of the Word? Then take on the life of the saved. Put on the new, take off the old.
LIVING STONES OF SACRIFICE (vs 4-5)
When my brother Alan Ratzlaff did some stonework in the front of our house by the driveway he came with a couple of pickup truck loads of rock from up in the mountains. He had found a natural quarry of stones that were of the same kind and color and his creative mind came up with a plan for the walkway he was going to build for us.
Over the course of the days that he worked on it I was in and out, working on sermons and so forth, and on occasion I would glance out the window and see Alan, standing back and looking at the work he had done so far. Then he would examine a stone in his hand or several on the ground, look some more, then finally he would take a certain one that he had chosen and put it in place with mortar.
In some cases he would shape that stone first with a saw or a pick, and in some cases he would place it just as it was because it was already of the acceptable size and shape for where he needed it.
When he was done we had not just a short walk way that would allow us to get our lawnmower up onto the lawn that was raised above the driveway, but we also had something very attractive and artful to grace the front of our house.
Peter said that Christ is a living stone. He is risen from the dead, never to die again, as Romans 6:9 says:
“…knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.”
And as the Rock on which our faith rests He is also the builder and the cornerstone of His church.
The picture Peter draws is the same one I get when I envision that walkway out front; the stones are different in size and shape, each one unique and each one fitting into its own special place, yet they are the same in content and color as though they were all hewn from the same large cliff side.
Jesus, the living stone, by His death and resurrection and His calling us and giving us His kind of life has made us also living stones, each to be a part and play a unique roll in the building up of His church.
Unlike dead stones though, we as living stones make up a living house where the Holy Spirit dwells. By that same Spirit we now offer up spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God as they are offered through Jesus Christ.
This is reminiscent of Paul’s calling for the Christians in Rome to:
“…present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship”.
How privileged we are, as believers, that we can even approach God in the first place; that He has provided the way for us to come to Him through Christ, the living stone.
But more, we come to Him as those who are now, as new creatures, made like Him.
But more, we have the great honor of being used of Him to make up His spiritual house. As the writer to the Hebrews says, “…Christ was faithful over all His house whose house we are...
And wonder of wonders, there’s more! He has made us a royal priesthood, serving in this spiritual house. He has cleansed us and anointed us and established us in this place where no unbeliever can go, and He has done this so we can, as we are commanded to do, offer up spiritual sacrifices to Him.
What are these? Let me quote MacArthur.
“God-honoring spiritual sacrifice begins when believers offer God all their human faculties, including their minds and every part of their bodies. The unregenerate yield the members of their bodies to sin, but the redeemed yield their members as instruments of righteousness (Rom 6:13).” The MacArthur New Testament Commentary – 1 Peter - J. MacArthur, 2004, Moody
PRECIOUS STONE OF BUILDING (VS 6)
Now I talked to Alan about his work out front and he said that he didn’t need a cornerstone per se, but the first few stones that he used definitely established a sort of foundation for putting the rest of it together. Wanting to give the walk a natural, non-symmetrical look he was careful to avoid using anything too squared or too smooth, but his method still needed to provide strength and structure.
The word here in verse 6 for cornerstone describes a very important stone that sets all the proper angles for the building; both vertical and horizontal.
Note also that Peter is quoting Isaiah (28:16) here. In Isaiah’s prophecy he said “I lay in Zion a costly corner stone”, and here Peter says “precious”.
He has already said in verse 4 that although this living stone was rejected by men, in the sight of God it is ‘choice’ and ‘precious’.
It means that it is unequaled in value. We can receive that two ways.
Christ is, of course, unequaled in value. He is our precious Savior whose death for us was a costly one but by it He has purchased us, redeemed us back to the Father.
The second way, though not the primary way, to hear this term used by both Isaiah and Peter is that the chief cornerstone is invaluable to the entire structure. Without it, or with it improperly laid, the building cannot stand.
Well Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith. He is our firm foundation.
There’s an 18th century hymn based on 1 Peter 1:23, “How Firm a Foundation”.
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, tho’ all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake!”
- Rippon
And we come to a line here in 1 Peter that is one of my favorites in all of scripture.
In Isaiah 28:16 after he declares this costly cornerstone to be placed in Zion the prophet says, “He who believes in it will not be disturbed”.
Peter, having the full revelation of the Christ, says, “And he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed.”
Paul also quotes the assurance from Isaiah 28 in Romans 10:11, following the verses with which we are so familiar:
“…that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation”.
I know a woman in California whose grandfather passed away quite unexpectedly. He was sitting in his favorite rocking chair watching television while grandma fixed dinner. When it was ready she called to him and when he didn’t respond she went to the living room to find that he had passed away.
On the day of his funeral as the family got ready to go to the chapel my friend was alone with her grandma and being concerned for her eternal welfare asked if she was confident of her relationship with Jesus.
Grandma told her that many years ago she and grandpa, very poor at the time, had been asked not to return to church until they could come in better clothing. She said they had never returned to any church, having been so disappointed with their treatment there, but that yes, they both were believers in Christ.
My friend went to Romans 10 and read verses 9 and 10, and then she said, “Do you know, grandma, that the very next verse says “Whoever believes in Him shall not be disappointed”. The church may have disappointed you, but Jesus never will.”
She said tears rolled down her grandma’s cheek and she said, “I know your grandpa is with Jesus and soon I will be too”.
An hour and a half later as they sat in the family section of the chapel waiting for grandpa’s funeral service to begin, grandma sighed, laid her head on her son’s shoulder, and went to be with Jesus.
Oh, how precious is our Foundation, on whom we have leaned for repose.
STUMBLING STONE OF OFFENSE (VS 7-8)
One hot Summer day the girls and I were handing out Popsicles at the park along with gospel tracts. One man readily accepted the Popsicle then said, “I don’t like religion”. I shot back, “Neither does Jesus”.
He looked a little shocked but walked away, obviously not wanting to talk further. He did thank me for the Popsicle though.
How ironic, that the building stone on which we have been built up for a spiritual house, is paradoxically a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense for those who refuse to believe.
Anyone who has an evangelistic zeal and looks for opportunities to tell people the good news of Jesus Christ will have a repertoire of excuses people have given them for not believing.
It’s sad really, to think that people will go into eternity apart from Christ based on an offense at another person, or a silly, prideful attitude that all religion is a crutch and a real man doesn’t need it, or refusal to believe in a God that would send anyone to Hell, or a God that would let little children suffer and so on.
Whatever their excuses are though, the Holy Spirit exposes the real reason they stumble; it is because they are disobedient to the word.
Paul told the Corinthians,
“…the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Cor 1:18
And again, the difference, bottom line, is obedience to the word or disobedience to the word. Specifically, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now I won’t go over recent territory here, but I want you to specially note what Peter says here in verse 8 about those who are disobedient to the word.
“…to this doom they were also appointed.”
THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE (VS 9-10)
In verse 9 Peter draws from Deuteronomy 7.
“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
All of these descriptive terms, ‘a chosen race’, ‘a royal priesthood’, ‘a holy nation’, ‘a people for God’s own possession’, were used of the Children of Israel.
But Israel forfeited her right to bear these titles when she rejected her Messiah and was sidetracked until the time of the Gentiles is completed.
So Peter now says of us, of you, Christian, you are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession.”
You are chosen by Him. You are His elect, called to live the Christ-life. Your souls are purified for the fervent love of the brethren, to serve as His priests in this world in that you pray for men and point them to Jesus.
Believer in Christ, you stand between God and the unsaved of the world to be His agent, calling them to repent and come to Him for cleansing and for life.
You are a Holy nation. That is, you are made pure by the shed blood of Christ and you are set apart for His glory and His purpose.
Do not ever wonder if your life has purpose in this world. If you are His you have the greatest, most noble and significant purpose of all.
It is to proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
By His mercy and His grace He has made you a peculiar people. Not peculiar as in weird or strange, but special, set apart from the rest, other-worldly. It is now your duty and should be your delight to proclaim to those who have stumbled over the very Rock on which you stand, His excellent attributes, His exceptional love, His extended offer of salvation and an imperishable life for all who will turn from sin and believe Christ from the heart.
For the scripture says, whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.
