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Now let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. If the angle of the cornerstone, any of the sides were off, the building would be off. The building could kind of go in one direction if it wasn't lined up right and skew up. And the stones, because they wouldn't be laid right, the cornerstone wasn't cut just perfectly, the building could collapse outward or inward.
So think of the cornerstone as the reference point for the whole building. I read this week about an artist. He's a landscape artist. He paints landscapes with oils. And he said that by his easel or on his easel, he always keeps three stones for reference, an emerald, a sapphire, and a ruby, simply to bring him back to what true blue, true green, true red is.
He said when you're involved in painting oil landscapes like he does, after a while you start losing color perception and you need to go back in reference to the standard.
Well, that's what the cornerstone was like. It provided an orientation. It unified the structure. It brought foundation for the entire building.
So Peter describes Jesus Christ as the living cornerstone, the foundation on which everything is laid. And I hope Jesus Christ is the foundation of your faith. I hope that you are not building on just the sayings of Jesus or the example of Jesus. Oh, isn't Jesus just a fine example? And he said so many cool, wonderful things.
I hope you're not building on just those things or on the traditions of people who follow Jesus, but on Jesus himself, the chief cornerstone. Notice he says, coming to him. That's when it all begins for you and I. We come to him. We speak about coming to Christ or coming to faith in Christ.
A term Jesus even used, come unto me, he said, all you who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.
So here's God. He's got his building program going. You and I enter into that building program when you come to Christ. That's the basis. That's the foundation, Christ.
Second notice, the building. That's us. Verse 5. You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. This is profound.
It's one thing to come to a living stone. It's quite another thing to become a living stone. That's his whole point. When you come, you become. When you come to Jesus Christ, you become like Jesus Christ.
Did you know that? That's the whole point that Peter is making. When you come to him, what happens is you start following him and you become more and more like him. You know the very term Christian, what it means in its origin, right? It actually means a miniature Christ, a little Christ.
So how are we doing with keeping up with that title? that's kind of a tall order but the point is this stone is alive and when you come to him you're not a dead unanimated rock anymore you are alive yourself you share his life and you share his strength because you're a living stone great story about the ancient king of Sparta in ancient Greece he used to brag about the mighty walls of Sparta how strong they were how massive they were. One day a king came to visit Sparta. He said, I've heard about the mighty walls of Sparta, but I see no walls. Where are they?
And then the king of Sparta pointed to his well-disciplined troops, his men. He said, there they are. These men are the mighty walls of Sparta. Even so, Jesus Christ would point to you and I saying, these are the stones of the building that I am building. They are the living stones.
It simply means we share his life. We share his strength. The life and strength that exists in Christ exists in us. Christianity is the only belief system, or if you prefer, the only religion where the life of the one we worship becomes our life. Do you ever hear of anyone being in Buddha, in Confucius, in Muhammad?
Yet repeatedly the New Testament says you and I are in Christ. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we will appear with him in glory. Or as Peter writes in his second letter, if by God's grace we ever get to it. In 2 Peter chapter 1, he says, he has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue whereby are given to us he continues great and precious promises Here it is listen that by these we may be partakers of the divine nature We come to him and we become like him, sharing the nature, the life, and the strength that is in Jesus himself. Look back at verse five, he continues.
As living stones are being built up a spiritual house, Now think of everything we've heard just so far. We're built upon the foundation, Jesus Christ. He sets the angles. He gives the direction. And he's all about building people up.
You know, God isn't all about property and all about temples. I hope you know that.
Well, is this the right temple? Is this the right place we can put God in? God doesn't care. Stephen said to the Sanhedrin, and Paul said to the men and women of Athens, for the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands. But he does build a people.
And the point that Peter is making is this is a spiritual house. In verse 9, you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people. Verse 10, who once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. God is far more concerned with building up people than us building properties. That's why in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 6, Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are.
1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 9, you are God's building.
So God builds up his kingdom by using people, and he's not done yet. If you ever want to go to an interesting house, go to San Jose, California, and check out the Winchester Mystery House, it's called. The story is that Sarah Winchester, who was the heiress of the Winchester Rifle Group, in the late 1800s, she inherited $20 million. That's an enormous amount at any time, but back then it was huge.
So she took her money and went west to San Jose, California. And she was very superstitious. And a medium told her that if she continued building a house, that she would never die. She'd have eternal life. For the next 38 years, 24-7, she hired something like 36 different building crews to build a house that eventually took up six acres, just the house.
It had six kitchens inside of it, 40 stairways, many that led to nowhere, because just keep building, and rooms are added and hallways are added. 10,000 windows, 160 rooms, and the house was never finished.
So think of this house, the spiritual house that God is building, though with a different motivation than Sarah Winchester, as not being done yet. Every time a person comes to Christ, another stone is added. God adds another hallway, another staircase, another room. His building program continues. It's a spiritual house.
And notice it has a holy priesthood. See the analogy? Offering up spiritual sacrifices.
Okay, so the analogy is that of the temple that was in Jerusalem that Peter had seen with his other buddies and with his Lord. And now he says we're a spiritual house. we're a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices. I want you to understand the point he is making. He's saying we don't go to the temple.
We are the temple. We don't come through a priest. You are those priests. And it's a spiritual house. And we have access like a priest, but also a responsibility to be holy like those priests.
I have a question. What kind of spiritual sacrifices would you and I be offering? Can you think of any?
Well, one, the most important one is you. You sacrifice your bodies. Romans chapter 12, verse 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
So basically you say, God, here, here are my hands and my feet and my mouth. They're yours. I sacrifice them for your purpose. That's a living sacrifice. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig, Weekend Edition.
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Now let's return to today's teaching.
Now a living sacrifice is always harder than a dead sacrifice. A living sacrifice has the tendency to want to squirm off the altar. Lord, I give you my life the next day. I not sure about that commitment Get back on the altar That a living sacrifice You live it out Another sacrifice is praise Hebrews 13 verse 15 let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise which is the fruit of our lips, the writer said. How is praise a sacrifice?
Simply this way.
Sometimes you don't feel like worshiping. You don't feel like saying, God, you're awesome. I trust you, I believe you, that's when it's a sacrifice. You do it anyway. It's a sacrifice.
Sacrifice of praise. Good works, sharing with people, is also a sacrifice. Hebrews 13, verse 16, do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Fourth, another sacrifice would be when we give financially to God's kingdom, His work. Philippians chapter 4, Paul speaks of their giving as an acceptable sacrifice that is well-pleasing to God.
So we're a spiritual priesthood in a spiritual house with spiritual living stones being built together solidly on the cornerstone, which is Jesus Christ. And it's a wonderful endeavor, but it's also a messy one. Because God is in the business of building us all up. And you know what? You and I don't always agree on everything, do we?
We don't always get along on every theological issue. And yet he builds us up together. Do you know that you're going to be in heaven with people you disagree with? And that God reserves the right to use people who don't agree with you on every issue? I know that bothers some.
I know that's one of the reasons people say, I'm leaving this church and going to that church. That's fine until you find people of that church that don't agree with you either. But one day we're all going to be in heaven together if we trust the Lord Jesus Christ. That's just what the family is all about. Every family has people who are different.
There's loud ones and quiet ones in your family. There's morning people and there's night people. They're all part of the same family. Even among the apostles, there were arguments. Between Peter and Paul, there were disagreements.
And so it is in the church. there's premillennialists and there's amillennialists and there's people who are just sort of confused about the whole thing. There are people who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. There are, I call them post-toasties. There's fuzzy fundamentalists and kooky charismatics, and God puts us all together and builds up his house.
And I'm glad he's the one building.
So there's the basis. There's the building. Third, there's blueprints. And my dad always used a set of blueprints in his buildings, and so does God. And Peter refers to those.
Verse 6, therefore, it is also contained in the Scriptures. Those are the blueprints. And he quotes three of them. In verse 6, 7, and 8, he goes back to the Old Testament. He goes, look, this building that we're a part of didn't just sort of come up haphazardly and instantaneously.
it's built upon the blueprints of what God said in the Old Testament. He mentions three texts out of the Old Testament that speak of this building or of this stone or of this cornerstone. In other words, what Peter wants us to know is that the building enterprise that God is all about has been passed through the building commission of heaven and come through the architect God into the hands of the Old Testament prophets. God spoke about it, and here we are enjoying it. And these are the scriptures, the blueprints of scriptures.
Now, let's close with two builders. I want you to notice this here. There's two builders that are mentioned, false ones and the real one. Wannabe builders, self-appointed builders, but then the real builder, which is God. Verse 4, coming to him as to a living stone.
Look at this. Go down to verse 6. Therefore, it is also contained in Scripture, going back to the blueprints, He continues the thought. Verse 7. Therefore, to you who believe, he is precious.
But to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
So first of all, there's these wannabe builders. What Peter has in mind, no doubt, is the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Sanhedrin, 2,000 years ago, the caretakers of this religious system who were the self-imposed builders of God's work on earth. And the picture that he uses is that they had sort of like a measuring line. They took out their measuring rod, the measuring instruments of their own religion, and they surveyed Jesus Christ and his claims as Messiah. They checked out Jesus as possibly being the cornerstone, but they took out the measuring implements of their religion, and they assessed the suitability of Jesus Christ and they decided, reject him.
He's not qualified to be the cornerstone. He's not qualified to be the Messiah. He didn't pass their calculations. Nothing was more abhorrent to those Jewish leaders than the idea that Jesus Christ would be the cornerstone that God would build everything on They rejected him And what they did 2 years ago People still do today They look Jesus over they think about him and then most people reject him as being the one that they should build their lives upon They'll build their lives on something or someone else, some superstar, some rock star, some ideology, some religion, but not Jesus.
So he's rejected. Which leads me to this. just surmise. Why should I care about what the world out there thinks about me? I mean, they didn't get Jesus right.
They rejected the most important one God sent. They kicked him out. They rejected him.
So why do I care what they think about me? Their opinion holds no value at all. They didn't get the most important one right. But then there's the real builder. That's God.
Verse 4, but chosen by God and precious. And to you who believe he continued in verse 7, he is precious. You see, what Peter wants us to know is that God also had a measuring line. God also examined Jesus according to the measurements of his own perfection. And God looked over the cornerstone and said, I approve.
It's perfect. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. He passed that test. There were two men who went to the Louvre, the museum in Paris, and looked at this classic work of art, this beautiful painting. And as they stood in front of it.
One man said to the other, his buddy, I don't get it. I don't get much out of that work of art. A curator overheard them and walked up to them and said, excuse me, gentlemen, but that painting is not on trial. You are. This painting has already passed the muster of value.
The world has already assessed this as being valuable. All you are doing is showing the adequacy or the inadequacy of what you think of it. But it's not on trial. You are. So Jesus came and the leaders and the people rejected him and they wanted him crucified.
They got rid of him. That's why Peter would stand up in Acts chapter 4 and say to those very people these words, let it be known to you that Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead. That's why this man whom they healed stands before you whole. Peter continued, this is the stone that you builders have rejected, but has become the chief cornerstone. In other words, you might have rejected him.
You might have rejected that stone, but God did not. And he proved his approval by the resurrection. That's what this means. There was a young teacher teaching her class, and there were young kids in the class, and this young school teacher, she was an atheist, and she felt compelled to let her students know. She said, I'm an atheist.
She announced that to her class. I'm an atheist. And then she said, how many of you are atheists?
Well, these are little kids. They really didn't understand the concept of atheism.
So they just wanted to please the teacher and like fireworks shot their little hands up. Except for one little girl named Lucy. She wouldn't raise her hand. Teacher said, Lucy, what's wrong with you? She goes, I'm not an atheist.
Oh, you're not?
Well, what are you? Lucy said, I'm a Christian. Oh, you are, said the teacher. Why are you a Christian? And she said, well, I was raised to love Jesus in my home, and my mom, he's a Christian, and my daddy's a Christian, so I'm a Christian.
The teacher got angry, and she goes, well, what if your mommy was an idiot and your daddy was an idiot? What would that make you? And she said with a smile, an atheist.
so just because the world at large looks at Jesus Christ and says not for me I'm rejecting him I will not build my life upon him to us he is precious and he sets the angles and he sets the direction and it's the smartest wisest choice anyone could make. It's filled with biblical insight and practical encouragement to help families grow stronger, even in challenging seasons. Give today at connectwithskiff.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
