1 Peter 2:1-10 "Reflect on our Identity"

 

1 Peter 2:1-10

Reflect on our Identity

 

I wish that everyone has a Stephanie in their life.  I am so grateful for her.  She will always be totally honest with me.  She will hold me accountable and not let me off the hook easy. She encourages me to be the very best Bill Wright I can be.

I was on the way to preach in a revival while serving with CMBA.  Stephanie was going with me on this service.  I was planning to preach from 1 Peter and so I asked her, “Honey do you remember in Aiken when we went through 1 Peter paragraph by paragraph on Wednesday nights?  How long did we study 1 Peter?  She said, “I think it was about 5 years.”  I said, Stephanie is only 5 chapters I know we did not spend 5 years in the book.  She said, “It felt like it.”

Everyone needs a Stephanie in your life.  Someone who loves you enough to always tell you the truth. 

The Theme of 1 Peter 1:3 – 2:10:  Those who have put their trust in Christ are to praise him for his promised salvation and to live out that salvation in our daily lives.

Who are we as followers of Christ?

We long for the word like a new born baby longs for milk (vv.1-3)

The Bible tells us we are to put away some things:

Malice- means to want to cause injury, pain, or distress to someone.

Deceit – means trying to trick someone, trying to get someone to accept as true something that is false.

Hypocrisy – actors would wear a mask for a different character in a play, play acting, behavior that contradicts what we claim to believe, or feel, or be.

Envy – jealousy about what someone else has with a desire to have it ourselves.

Slander- saying false things about someone in order to damage their reputation

Desire the Bible that will help us to grow spiritually

Baby begins by drinking milk and eventually is able to eat solid food.

Like our puppy Chance he started with his puppy and now he has learned that what we eat is better, so he wants that.  He is growing and hungry. 

When we read the Bible, when we have the Bible read to us.  When we learn the Bible by memory.  We want more of the Bible.  The more of the Bible we get the more we want. 

I became a Christian when I was 10 years old.  I am 58 now.  I want the scripture more now than ever.

The more I read and study the more I want.

Just like you eat healthy food to help you grow up physically, the Bible is spiritual food to help us to grow spiritually.  Develop a habit of reading the Bible early.  It will help you mature spiritually.

If you have indeed tasted that the Lord is good (v.3)

Some scholars believe that Peter was meditating on Psalm 34:8 when writing these words.

We have tasted and experienced for ourselves the goodness of God, because of that we hunger for his word and to know him better, to walk closer with him, to obey him

 

We are living stones (vv.4-8)

Jesus is the living stone (v.4)

Jesus was rejected and persecuted.  As his followers we will be also.

We are living stones as followers of Christ,

We are being built up into a spiritual house

We are a holy priesthood

Our lives, our love, our service to Christ is a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus (v.5).

Jesus is the cornerstone (vv.6-8)

Our faith in Christ the cornerstone means we will not be put to shame

Those who reject Christ he is a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense

They stumble because they reject and disobey the Word.

But we are living stones, a holy priesthood, being built up into a spiritual house.

We are God’s people (vv.9-10)

Once

·        Once we were not a people

·        Once we were far from God

·        Once we were walking in spiritual darkness

·        Once we had not received mercy

 

But now

·        We have received mercy

·        We are a chosen race

·        We are a royal priesthood

·        We are a holy nation

·        We are a people of his own possession

 

 

Now our purpose

We are called to proclaim the Excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.

·        Proclaim his mercy, grace his love

·        Proclaim how he transformed our life

·        Proclaim his desire for all to come to the Father through his wonderful sacrifice on the cross

 

Listen to verses 11-12 in closing

We are aliens, strangers in this world, this world is not our home.

We are to live a life that demonstrates the power of the gospel to a lost and dying world.

That is who we are church

·        A chosen race

·        A royal priesthood

·        A holy nation

·        A people of his own possession