Just as a point of clarification, I want to assure you I'm not going to neglect the reading of God's Word, but I do have a short introduction I would like to start with first. I just don't want you to be distracted by that in any way. The title of our message this morning is Cornerstone of a Holy Nation. But what is a cornerstone anyway? Is it something that's really important? Or is it just like any other stone or brick we may find in a building. In our day, it's really kind of difficult to tell the difference, isn't it? Between a brick on the corner of a building and a brick alongside of a building. But in biblical times, the cornerstone was something very, very different. The cornerstone was interpreted in different ways in ancient times. It was often looked at as an important block to bind together the sides of a building. Oftentimes, this was a measuring stone from where the builders measured. So it had to be square or the whole building would be off. Some also consider it the top stone of an arch. If you imagine, if you will, an arch built with a large stone in the middle that bears the pressure of both sides leaning against each other. Again, it's a very, very important stone. This is also known as a capstone. In another word for capstone, another illustration for capstone is the top stone of a doorway. If you've ever seen pictures of ancient buildings, you may have noticed this, where there's two sides to a doorway with one large, flat stone across the top, a very heavy, strong stone that bore a lot of weight for the structure above it. In any one of these illustrations, any one of these structures, you can tell that this cornerstone or this capstone was the most important, the most solid stone in the structure. Now the cornerstone is just one of many ways that Christ is referred to in the Old Testament. Our passage today from 1 Peter contains a few of those references. The problem is that many people misunderstood the nature of those references. What kind of Messiah were people expecting? Many people were expecting a conqueror who would come in and run the Romans out of Israel and restore Israel to glory. Even some of Jesus' followers had this expectation. They looked forward to reigning on earth with Christ without the oppression of the Roman Empire. The most obvious of the people who misunderstood the nature of this coming Messiah were the people who should have known best when you think about it. These were the people who were authority on Scripture. The scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Jesus, throughout His ministry on earth, butted heads with these men over and over and over again. They didn't understand, as Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. They had misinterpreted what Scripture says about Christ and had completely different expectations of what the Messiah would be. Throughout Christ's ministry, they wanted to arrest Him several times for things that He said, claims that He made about Himself, Things that He did. But oftentimes they were afraid of the crowds. In the end, ultimately they succeeded. They arrested Him and killed Him by crucifying Him on a cross. Now let's turn to our passage from 1 Peter this morning, keeping all of this in mind. We'll be looking at 1 Peter chapter 2. We'll be reading verses 4 through 12. The text is 4 through 10, but verses 11 and 12 flow so nicely. out of the passage this morning, I wanted to read them as well to just set it in context. 1 Peter 2, starting at verse 4. This is the Word of God. 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. 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. 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. Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful desires which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us. So ends the reading of God's holy word. Now the interesting part of this particular passage is that Christ is pointed out as the cornerstone as well as the stone of stumbling. It also talks about how Christ was rejected. And that's something that Peter's readers were very concerned about. Many people in their day rejected Christ. But who were these listeners, these readers of Peter's letter? His listeners were people living in Asia Minor, now known as modern-day Turkey. But these readers had converted to Christianity from pagan religions. You see, by professing Christ, they rejected their former gods and their sinful ways of worship and so basically became aliens in the land in which they lived. They had alienated themselves from friends and family for they had forsaken their upbringing. These new Christians now place their faith only in Christ. So when others around them rejected Christ, as Peter talks about in this passage, this concerned them a great deal. Now let's examine the passage a little more closely. First let's look, how was Christ a stone of stumbling? Peter tells us He is a stone of stumbling, but how? When verse 7, Peter talks about those who do not believe. This is a very, very broad category. This can refer to the Pharisees and Sadducees who hated Jesus. They were against what He stood for. His law didn't fit their law. They tried to imprison Him and they ultimately succeeded and had Him crucified, as we mentioned a moment ago. They called Jesus a blasphemer because He claimed to be who He was, the true Son of God. This, again, conflicted with their law. You see, they had this law that they lived under, that they added things to and supplemented with, that they enjoyed living under. They added many little requirements to it. Just as a simple illustration of that, on the Lord's Day, you could only take a certain number of steps. So you had to be very careful about how far you wandered from home on the Lord's Day. You see, these Pharisees and Sadducees, These religious leaders had misinterpreted the Old Testament passages concerning the Messiah. They didn't understand that they were rejecting the very cornerstone of God. They misunderstood each one of these references in our passage this morning. There's one in each of verses 6, 7, and 8. But this group who doesn't believe isn't restricted just to Pharisees and Sadducees, otherwise we'd be hard-pressed to find non-Christians today. It can include many religious persuasions, contemporarily speaking, as well. Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, even Jews. Sadly enough, even some people who try to call themselves Christians. What I'd like to look at briefly is universalism, since that covers so many groups of people. Now, universalism, put simply, in its simplest form, is that there are many ways to get to God. I'll just keep it as a large umbrella that way. Now this is a false teaching that has been present for many, many years and will probably be present until the coming again of Christ. The universalism is the idea that Christianity may get you to God. That's fine. They'll accept Christians because Christianity is your way to get to God. But that it's not everybody's way. Some people believe Krishna or Buddha, Muhammad. All these people, all these religious figures can help lead you to heaven. But we know that not to be true. For Christ said of Himself that He is the only way to get to the Father. See, the interesting thing is that these groups still want to include Jesus in their theology. They want to plug Him in somewhere to make it work, to make it fit, to make it palatable to other people. They call Jesus a prophet or a good moral example. But when you think about it, what good prophet or what good moral example claims to be God or makes other claims that Jesus makes or teaches the things that He taught? If they seriously sat down and looked at everything that Jesus said about Himself, they'd almost have to dismiss Him as some kind of a wacko, to put it frankly. Because what they're saying is that Jesus didn't have to die for the sins of sinful man. There are other ways to get to heaven. So if Christ didn't have to die, I ask you, why would He? In other words, what they're doing is they're completely denying the person and work of Jesus Christ. At the same time, they still try to include Him in their beliefs. What these groups don't realize is that Jesus is critical to their souls, central to their spiritual life. 1 Corinthians 3, verses 10 and 11 says that no one can lay a foundation other than Christ. So that these groups are using Christ improperly by trying to manipulate Him into their religious framework, if you will. In Luke 20, verses 17 and 18, just to put this in context, This is the parable of the tenants. Christ talks about what will happen to those who completely reject him. The context here is that there's a landlord that goes away and rents his property to some tenants who raise the crops. After a time, he sends a servant to go collect a portion of that harvest. Many of you know what happens. They take that servant and they beat him and send him away. The landlord sends yet another one. Same thing happens to him. He's beaten and sent away. He sends yet a third servant. And they beat him severely and throw him out. The landlord says, I'll send my son. Surely they'll respect him. But the tenants, when they saw him, they said, This is the heir. If we kill him, we get the vineyard. So they did that. They killed him. Then Jesus tells his listeners what the landlord will do. Say, he will go to the vineyard and destroy those tenants. And the people listening said, may this never be. And then the words of Scripture. Jesus looked directly at them and asked, then what is the meaning of that which is written? The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. Christ is saying in this passage that if we fall on Him, we will be broken. We will be broken. And when you think about it, that's necessary for everyone. We're all sinners. We need to be broken by the knowledge of our offenses, of our sin against our holy God. But He is also saying that if we are not broken by our sin, if we are not repentant, if we don't accept Christ, He will fall upon us in judgment and we will be crushed. Also in verses 7 and 8, we see that obedience is a test of faith. Now the Greek word used here in verse 8 for disobedience denotes something stronger than what we commonly read in most English translations. It's more of an unwillingness or a refusal to obey, kind of an outright rebellion, more than a simple disobedience. It's basically the idea of having a hardened heart. Brothers and sisters in Christ, when we're talking about the religious leaders in Christ's day, we're not talking just about people who didn't understand the Gospel or who hadn't heard it. We're talking about people who heard Jesus' teaching. Throughout the Gospels, we read where the religious leaders were present and then they tried to corner Jesus afterwards by using what He said against Him. they heard what Jesus said. They knew what He taught. They simply wouldn't believe. And the second part of verse 8 says that they were not meant to obey. They had no predisposition in their heart to obey the gospel. The hearts of the religious leaders were hardened, as so many people's hearts today are hardened. But Peter doesn't just point out Christ as a stone of stumbling. He points him out as the chief cornerstone, which is encouragement to Peter's readers. Because even though Christ is rejected by so many in their area, so many of their friends and family, He is critical to their faith. He is their foundation to their faith. What is a cornerstone? We talked about a few things a moment ago. It is most commonly understood as a foundational stone usually at the corner of a building that bears a lot of weight of that structure. Now some of these cornerstones in ancient times were huge. They were very large. From the temple some were said to have been 17 to 19 feet long and as much as 7 1⁄2 feet thick. In our day a cornerstone may not have such a huge it may not be such a vivid illustration but people in that day understood that. A stone that huge, if you take that out of the building, it's gone. That's how critical Christ is to the faith of His people. Well, since Christ is the cornerstone, the most important stone, we can say along with Paul from 1 Corinthians that there is no building up of the church without Christ. He is the living stone upon which the spiritual house in verse 5 is being built. We like living stones ourselves being built upon Christ. as our foundation. You see, Christ is the stone of trial. The whole building is to be measured according to Him. In verses 4 and 6, we're told that Christ is precious to the Father. Verse 6 is quoted from Isaiah 28, verse 16. I'll read that to you. So this is what the Sovereign Lord says. See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation The one who trusts will never be dismayed. We also see this reflected in Luke 3, verses 21 and 22. The context is Jesus' baptism, where the Father says, You are my Son, whom I love. With you I am well pleased. But Christ is also precious to those who believe in Him. This is our assurance, our hope, that we will never be put to shame. John Calvin prefers the phrase or the translation that we will not waver. We will not waver. That denotes a very firm foundation. We will not fall. There's even hope in the parable of the tenants that we mentioned a moment ago. That if we fall on him, we will be broken to pieces. We will be made aware of our sins. And we need to repent of those. But we will not be crushed in judgment due to the sacrifice of Christ. Peter tells us that Christ was rejected by men. Again, this is a huge concern for the believers that Peter is writing to. A famous passage from the Old Testament, Isaiah writes in Isaiah 53, Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted. Christ is still to this day discarded by so many as a stone of no worth. So you may ask, how are these things tied together? How can a stone of stumbling and a cornerstone be tied together? Well, Christ is both parts. Christ is the cornerstone for those of us who believe in Him. But He's a stumbling block to those who don't believe. You cannot build a spiritual house on anything, but Christ is your foundation. John Calvin says that Christ is truly the stone of trial for by him must the whole building be regulated and we cannot be the building of God if we are not adapted to him he's referring to the need to be living stones to be adapted to Christ to be truly a part of the building of God but Peter doesn't stop there after telling us about the stumbling stone and Christ as a cornerstone, he gives us the assurance that Christ is our cornerstone. We are, as Peter says in verse 9, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. Again, language is used from the Old Testament which reminds us of God's choosing of Israel as His chosen people. Exodus 19, verse 6 says, You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites. But again, Israel had broken the covenant with God. They broke it and repented. Broke it again, repented again, finally breaking the covenant with God. They had become, as translated from the Hebrew text, no people to God. And what is Peter saying? He's reminding us that Israel will again be made holy. Not in the national sense, however. Yes, the remnant of Israel will be restored along with the nations. Even the enemy nations, as Isaiah puts it in chapter 19 of his book. In that day, Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, Blessed be Egypt, my people, Assyria, my handiwork, and Israel, my inheritance. Pretty powerful and strange words when you think about it because Egypt and Assyria were probably the two most oppressive enemies of Israel. Peter reinforces in the minds of his Gentile readers that they are the true people of God. They are now a holy nation, the new Israel. And that includes us. For the new Israel is made up of Christians. Jewish Christians as well as Gentile Christians. We have here a proclamation of the fulfillment of the promise that even Gentile nations will be brought into an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Because they have been made, through Christ, a royal priesthood. In a sense, Peter is now telling them that we are no longer aliens, but that we belong to the true people of God. So what else is Peter saying to his readers and to us today? He says in this passage that spiritual holiness is required. You are now part of a holy nation, he says, the new Israel. And holiness is required of you. We are God's possession. We are His chosen race as an elect people. Peter also says that God elects you. So there's no grounds for pride in our faith. It's a gift given to us. He's telling us that we are bound together in the community of those united in the Lord of His church. As one commentator says, church fellowship is not an optional advantage to be chosen or ignored like membership in a social club. It is the calling of every Christian. Peter then tells us what we as a holy nation are to do. He draws a parallel between verse 5, where he talks about offering spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God, and verse 9, where he talks about declaring praises of Him who called you out of darkness and into His wonderful light. We are called to praise God. Declaring His praise is the great work of worship. We are called to celebrate the work of salvation that Christ gave to us, that Christ did for us. Praise goes beyond thanksgiving. Praise also adores God as the deliverer of our souls from eternal death. We often lose focus of what worship is all about, don't we? Worship is so incredibly important. The core of our worship is not in our receiving, but it's in our giving. Now don't get me wrong, of course we're blessed through our worship as we draw near to God through corporate singing. We're blessed through that as well and especially through the preaching of the Word. But our adoration of God and our praise to Him is our joyful response to the grace given to us. Jesus Christ took us from the depths of our sin and lifted us up so that we can lift God's name on high. We were created to praise our God. Well, in conclusion, in our passage for today, we're being taught about Christ as our cornerstone. We are the holy nation of God. Even Peter, prior to Pentecost, had looked forward to a national restoration for the people of Israel. Peter's hopes for this had died on the cross with Christ. Edmund Clowney looks at Peter and puts it this way. He's a former teacher at Westminster Theological Seminary. He says, Peter had learned that the death of Christ was not an unthinkable defeat for the Son of God and the Kingdom of God. Rather, by the cross and the resurrection, God's eternal purpose of salvation had been fulfilled. Those who had crucified Jesus had accomplished what God's power and will had decided beforehand should happen. In their rejection of Christ, the builders, in spite of themselves, served to put God's stone in place. Think on that. It was God's will for Christ to die to save us from our sins. It was in His plan from the beginning. The leaders of the day, Pharisees and the Sadducees and scribes, the religious leaders, they thought that crucifying Christ would end their problem. Even the high priest made the remark that it is better that one man die that others might not perish. But they were actually the means of carrying out God's will, of establishing Christ as the true cornerstone of His church. You see, Christ died to save sinners. And we have all sinned against our holy God. And Christ's sacrifice is our only way, it's the only way to appease the wrath of God against the offensive stench of our sins. It is only through faith in Christ that we can be reconciled to our God. Is Christ the cornerstone of your faith? Do you put your faith wholly upon Him, resting upon nothing else to obtain eternal life? If not, your faith profits you nothing. If you have not placed your faith completely in Christ, I urge you to repent of your sins and humbly turn to Christ and ask Him to take the burden of your sins away and in turn, clothe you in His righteousness. Christ is the cornerstone of His holy nation, of His church. And if you are a part of Christ's holy nation, you are called to be holy. As Peter points out in chapter 1 and really throughout this book, the verses immediately following our text, which just flow right out of the verses that we read this morning, tells Christians to live such good lives among the pagans that they bring glory to God. I challenge you to make it evident to others around you that you are a Christian. Let God glorify Himself through your walk, through your talk. Let your life itself be a fragrant offering to the Lord. Just don't be like the lumberjack I read of recently who, when asked if it was difficult being the only Christian in his workplace, said, no, not at all. They never knew I was a Christian. Don't let that happen to you because you are a part of the Holy Nation, Christ's Church. Therefore, which is a word that Peter uses throughout this book, you're a Holy Nation. And therefore, praise God. You're called to praise God for what He has done for you through Jesus Christ. And you are called to do this in the world in which you live. It's a wonderful call. I'd like to close with three verses from Psalm 96 where the psalmist says it so well. Sing to the Lord. Praise His name. Proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples. For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. Amen. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to You at the close of this service and we thank You so much for Your Word. Lord, we thank You for the gift of salvation that You have offered to us through Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of Your church. Lord, help us to focus on Christ alone as the hope of salvation for us and to praise you daily through our lives, through our walk, through our actions, and also in our worship here today. In Christ's name alone we ask this. Amen.