The Sacred Life

Walk in love just like Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. An offering and a sacrifice to God is a fragrant aroma. In other words, the self-sacrificing love of Christ was not only a fragrant aroma to God the Father, but an example that we should also offer that sacrifice. So whatever you sacrifice, your will, your interests, and you demonstrate selfless love toward another, your love is actually a fragrant, aromatic offering to God.

Everything about the Old Testament temple pointed to God's holiness. The sacrifices, the lampstands, the priestly attire, everything was set apart for God's glory. In the New Testament, Peter referred to Christians as living stones that God is building into the church. But God doesn't make us like bricks that are all standard and uniform. He crafts each of us differently to fulfill the unique role he has for us. In all that uniqueness, we are still set apart for his glory. We're going to learn more about this today.

This is Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen Davey has a message today called The Sacred Life. Now what I want to do is cover the next few verses, and I'm going to do it by just simply giving you an outline if you care to write down these kinds of outlines.

But the first point is simply a sacred relationship, and the second point is a sacred response. Let's pick it up where we left off at chapter 2 and beginning with verse 4. Now let's stop there for a minute.

Actually for about 40 minutes. Here we go. As Peter changes the illustration from the nursery to a building site, he begins by drawing our attention to the focal architectural piece of this building program, and it is Jesus Christ our cornerstone. And I thought we'd get there.

We're not going to get there. We'll talk more about that in our next discussion. But what Peter begins to do here is describe the Lord for those of us who love him and those who are considering him. And he basically gives our world the two reactions that to this day exist when it comes to Jesus Christ. He on the one hand references those who reject him. Notice he writes, he is rejected by men or mankind.

Peter is quoting here from Psalm 118 verse 22 where we read the prophetic announcement that the Messiah is the stone the builders rejected, certainly Israel and even to our day and beyond, including us. I don't know about you, I'm sure many of you have delivered the gospel. I hope all of you have. But you've delivered the gospel if you've lived long enough, like some of us where I've done it enough times where I can actually see their expression cloud over. As I'm delivering the gospel where Jesus moves from becoming a possible attraction to them to becoming an offense to them.

And you can see it in their eyes as they shut down. Notice again verse 4 you have this response of rejection. At the beginning of the verse you have the response of reception. And coming to him as a living stone, the verb he uses for coming is actually a reference not so much to initial salvation, which would be included in that. But he uses in this original grammar the idea of a repeated voluntary habitual coming to Christ for communion and fellowship and strength and hope. In fact, you as a believer have arrived today to do just that corporately with the body of brothers and sisters.

So you've received him. It's the same verb, by the way, the writer of Hebrews used to talk about people, believers, drawing near to God. Chapter 10 and verse 22.

That's the same word used here. And to whom are we drawing near? Peter describes Jesus here as a living stone.

He's the only New Testament author to designate Jesus this way. And it strikes you at first, stones aren't alive. Stones might be strong or enduring, solid. But we refer to something being stone dead, not stone alive, if you reverse the order. But for Peter, the stone is living because this stone is a person. It's an implication of the resurrection.

He's alive. And one author, in fact, picks up on the uniqueness of this expression by writing these words, no other faith can claim a living founder who has passed through death and has risen to a triumph at God the Father's right hand and remains now continually available to the immediate fellowship of each person who trusts in him. Just like he is today to you and me. And Peter goes on here in verse 4 to inform us that God the Father has measured up Jesus. He said that's what he's saying.

He has sized him up and he has found him worthy of his election. The word is choice as redeemer. He adds that Jesus Christ is also precious. That is, he is of the highest value, the expression he gives.

You see, this is our opinion. We agree with God the Father. Jesus is our chosen redeemer and he is precious. In other words, what the world considers worthless and discards, we consider priceless and in him we delight.

Now, what Peter says next is surprising. He uses the same terminology for the Christian that he just used for Jesus. Notice verse 5, you also as living stones. This is another study for you perhaps on your own but it's interesting in the New Testament a number of names or titles are given to Jesus and it's singular and then they're attributed to the believer in the plural. For instance, he is the son of God. We are called sons of God. He's called the light of the world. We at other places are called lights in the world. He's the lamb.

We are called lambs. He is now here the living stone and we are living stones. Now let me address this word for just a moment. The word Peter uses here for stones isn't just some random collection of rocks lying around on the ground that you might have as a kid.

You might have thrown them at squirrels or other animals that come into your property. He's not referring to that. He's talking about stones in a very unique way. He's talking about a stone that has been dug up from the quarry and cut and shaped and fashioned to fit the builder's purposes. What a great analogy for the Christian. We are stones dug out, rescued from the pit of sin and death and then by his grace shaped and fashioned by the divine builder to suit his divine purposes. Don't miss the fact that we are living stones because we belong to the one who is the way, the truth and the life.

The giver of life. The text reminds me that without the grace of God none of us belong here. We wouldn't be here.

We'd still be in the pit. We needed to be rescued by the grace of God. It also reminds me that Peter doesn't say we're bricks manufactured to look alike in the same dimensions and everything is alike. But stones, a reference to the unique variety in this house of God. A little girl I read about this past week had memorized Matthew 22 14 which she then got confused as she quoted it. The text reads, many are called but few are chosen. She said it this way, many are cold and a few are frozen.

It's pretty good. We're not all manufactured to look alike. We're different. By faith in Jesus Christ we are living stones uniquely fashioned by God's delight for his assignments. So if you're here today and you don't know Christ or maybe you have an image that you do but you know in your heart you don't care about him, you don't care about his word, you don't care about his church.

You're here because your parents made you come or you're here because your wife asked you to come or you're here because your business profile looks better because you did come or whatever. But you know in your heart you really don't care about any of it and certainly you don't care about him. Listen, somebody somewhere on the planet is going to be the last living stone.

I pray it will be you and I'm afraid it might not be. For those of us who have believed by the grace of God and found in Christ our life and our hope and our strength, do we just sit around? Is that all there is to a truly sacred life? No. Oh no. We have this sacred relationship but now something is to take place in this sacred response.

Let me show you. Look at verse 5 again. You also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, now notice, for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Now granted, beloved, especially those of you who are older in the faith, it's easy, you know, after 1900 years in this dispensation to, you know, the church to sort of yawn your way through that and say, yes, that's great. But for many of Peter's readers who were old enough to have lived in the Old Testament who now live in the New Testament, imagine the staggering implications. And by the way, Peter was one of them. We call this wonderful doctrine the individual priesthood of the believer.

And by the way, 400 years ago, people died because they believed this that we might yawn through. See, in the Old Testament, God's people had a priesthood. In the New Testament, God's people are the priesthood. And that is, that's a staggering distinction.

I can't imagine those early believers living in both. See, believers now have this direct access through Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God the Father and mankind, 1 Timothy chapter 2, and Peter is describing or implying here this stunning privilege of the New Testament believer. You can confess your sins immediately.

You don't have to wait until Saturday and bring your turtle up. I mean, you sin, you confess because you're a priest. You can fellowship with God intimately.

You can serve in his presence immediately, daily. See, here's the implication. For the Old Testament believer, that once a year moment when the high priest went in to the Holy of Holies with a little blood to sprinkle it on the mercy, see, they were terrified.

There was no boldness in their approach. They were singing their way through that veil. They had a rope tied around that guy's ankle and the bells on the hem of his garment stopped jingling. They assumed that God didn't accept it and struck them dead and they dragged his body out. And we, we get to go into his presence as if he's saying, do you realize as a priest you actually live inside the Holy of Holies, daily, moment by moment. First, we can offer to God the sacrifice of our bodies. Paul wrote to the believers living in Rome to offer their bodies a living and holy sacrifice. Paul describes the unbeliever as offering their bodies to do evil and the believer as one who offers his body to do righteousness or right things. That's Romans chapter 6.

So offering our bodies with every ability and every disability. Secondly, we offer to God the sacrifice of praise. The writer of Hebrews says this is the fruit of lips, the sacrifice of praise to God, giving thanks to his name. That's Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 15. It's a sacrifice unto God. The third and fourth sacrifices are in the next verse in Hebrews chapter 13 and that's verse 16, which reads, And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Again, borrowing terminology from the Old Testament. So these are the sacrifices of doing good deeds and sharing with those in need. Fifth, you can offer to God the sacrifice of financial generosity. It's interesting that Paul commends the church in Philippi for their sacrificial giving and he again dips into the Old Testament terminology to give them the analogy of what their offerings were.

Listen as he writes, As a missionary he wasn't supported very well by this church. And he says, Number six is a sacrifice most often overlooked. It's the sacrifice of converts. You have reconciled sinners who come to faith in Christ who are forgiven and reconciled with God. You've delivered the gospel to them and they've believed. Have you ever offered that sacrifice to God?

Have you ever delivered the gospel to someone and you have seen them, you have been with them as they prayed to believe the gospel and receive Christ? I can tell you there's no sacrifice offered to God like that one. Number seven is the sacrifice of love, sacrificial love. In Ephesians that we should imitate Christ and his sacrificial love, he wrote we should walk in love, the love just like Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. An offering and a sacrifice to God is a fragrant aroma. In other words, the self-sacrificing love of Christ for us was not only a fragrant aroma to God the Father but an example that we should also offer that sacrifice, sacrificial love. So whenever you sacrifice your will, your interests, your needs, your desires and you demonstrate selfless love toward another, your love is actually a fragrant, aromatic offering to God. By the way, God may be the only one who notices or appreciates it.

But in the end, he's going to be the one you're going to be thrilled to hear commendation from for having offered it. Finally, number eight is the sacrifice of intercession or prayer. Prayer is often overlooked and undervalued as a spiritual sacrifice.

It's often viewed as something less than good deeds or being on the front line or being in public. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the prayers of a committed wife, how much I appreciate the prayers of people who gathered today at eight o'clock in the morning and prayed over me and then prayed through the hour, how much I appreciate gathering with some of our lay elder teammates before the last hour to pray. Frankly, the older I get, the more mystery becomes. We have no idea how God hears and records and appreciates and rewards and orchestrates and orders and designs and responds to our prayers. But it's interesting to me, as John the Apostle writes his last letter, we call it the Book of Revelation, he sees before the throne of God the prayers of believers taking physical shape, as it were, ascending to God the Father like incense.

As priests we offer the sacrificial incense of intercession, knowing it is heard and received by our Heavenly Father who chooses to respond according to his purposes. The Washington Post carried the story of a woman, and I'll start wrapping things up with this. She died a few years ago. Her name was Emma Daniel Gray. Every night, she had a night shift and she would clean, in fact for 24 years, she cleaned the White House. She took pride in pursuing excellence in her work. She was diligent. Her official title was charwoman, and that title goes back to the 1600s.

Char has been morphed into our word chore. She was one of the custodians, primary custodians or housemaids. She was a charwoman.

She traveled every day by public transportation. She would serve behind the scenes in the White House from 1943 until her retirement in 1979. When she died a couple of years ago at the age of 95, her pastor eulogized that she not only responded to her environment, she set the tone, sort of set the tone to her commitment. Now what made her life compelling to me wasn't just that she was a hard worker, but it was to read surprisingly out of a Washington Post article that Miss Emma, as she was called, was a committed believer. She was a hard worker offering her work as a sacrifice to her Lord.

The Washington Post article actually included this telling vignette, and this is where I'm trying to get to. Whenever Miss Emma cleaned the Oval Office by herself, every night she would pause cleaning materials in one hand and with her other hand resting on the president's chair in the solitude of that office, she prayed for him. Those who knew her and her family knew that she did this and she was praying that God would give the president wisdom and safety, that his leadership would lead to the blessing of God on his family and our nation. She would serve and do that for six presidents of these United States until she retired in the 1970s.

And we've been going downhill ever since. I would say Miss Emma Daniel Gray got it. She understood she was a priest standing between God and man, bringing people, as it were, to the attention of God and offering through her sacrifice of prayer quiet, unknown, faithful intercession, in this case for the president. You know, I couldn't help but think, who knows?

Well, capital W. Who knows? What God orchestrated and accomplished through the presidents of the past and current presidents because of people like her who have the boldness and audacity and courage as she had there in that oval office to represent the president to God. As you move through this coming week, view life as a priest assigned to sacred duty, no matter where you are, no matter what you've been assigned at the moment.

Maybe talk over lunch or write some things down about ways that you can offer your body, your gratitude, your good deeds, sharing with others in need, financial gifts, self-sacrificing love, prayer. See, the truth is, beloved, we'll never know until much later what God orchestrates and arranges and accomplishes as a result of his church made up of priests who understand they have a sacred relationship with the Lord who rescued us from the quarry of sin and emptiness and hopelessness and death and judgment who shapes us and fashions us and fits us into his assignment for this week. This is then our sacred response, the privilege of perpetually living life as an offering of all these sacrifices to our living Lord, knowing that at some point the building will be finished, maybe today. In the meantime, we understand, beloved, that this is what it really means to live a deeply spiritual, holy, sacred life. It's exciting and encouraging to be reminded that God did more than save us from the penalty of our sin as wonderful as that is. God also involves us in his mission and gives us all a role to play. We're only truly satisfied when we're obediently involved in what God has for us to do.

I hope you've discovered that. We sure are glad you joined us today. If you joined us late, you've tuned in to Wisdom for the Heart, the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. Today's lesson, as well as all of the lessons Stephen's taught, are available online at wisdomonline.org. You can also follow along using the Wisdom International app for your smartphone. Download that today from the iTunes or Google Play Store. I'm Scott Wiley, and I thank you for listening. Stephen will continue through this series from 1 Peter next time. Join us for that here on Wisdom for the Heart. .