God's corner stone and identity with Christ - part 1
1 Peter 2:6-10 · Roger Henderson · Mar 22, 2015
1 & 2 Peter (2015), No. 11
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/41026163266837

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

As I mentioned before, we're going to be covering this morning. Actually, I'm going to have to come and improvise here. So I can't go back and say, OK, so we're going to be covering today and next week. First, Peter two, six through ten. I'm going to cover verses six, seven and eight this morning. And the next week I'm going to cover nine and ten. And actually, we're going to go back and review a little bit of what was covered last week in verses 4 and 5. So this will be a lot nicer looking. So basically, Chester McCulloch divided this section of 1 Peter into three sections, chapter 1, 1 through 2, 10.

God's plan of salvation, which is the hope of salvation, verses 1 through 5. The joy of salvation. The second section was the lifestyle of salvation, which is our holiness, reverence, and love. Then we kind of moved into this area of the purpose of salvation. There are three parts to that. The first part was, and Bob kind of covered it Together, he kind of covered the growth aspect of that, when we talked about newborn babes' desire to pierce the milk of the words. We talked about that last week.

And then today, and then last week, he started in this section on what's called the believer's sacrifice. And it's kind of important to remember that when we talk about the believer's sacrifice, off the top of your head, what do you think, how does a believer today, in Israelite, we have the priests, we have the priests that believe on a class, They would officiate and take the sacrifice to the altar, and they would prepare all that. How does a believer, how does a believer priest today, how does that work as far as his sacrifice? Can you think of any verses that kind of talk about the sacrifice that the believer has?

I'm going to show Jay. And sacrifice is the only one that's mentioned here in these verses. It talks about it. It's talking about the word. We're talking about spiritual. It's spiritual sacrifice. Obviously, we're not offering bulls and goats. You know, we don't have a bird doesn't have, you know, you don't bring out animals. It's a spiritual sacrifice.

Well, there's several verses that talk about basically, you know, through your monetary means, you know, sacrifice of what you have, your wealth and goods and the sacrifice of praise as talked about. And then part of the one that is 1316 says not to neglect doing good and sharing.

Right. So I would assume that it could be monetary. It could be sharing your time. Right. Possibly. And it goes on to say, with such sacrifices, God is pleased. So there's a list of the other believers sacrificing, and one of those, which is the one, you know, Romans 12, one, present your body, a living sacrifice. So that's part. So the believer.

So these verses are going to talk about in four through eight. We're going to cover six through six or eight today. But they're going to talk about the believers. sacrifice, basically, and actually the foundation of the spiritual house that God is building, the church, basically. So let's not talk about that. We're going to see that today.

And then lastly, next week, we're going to look at verses 9 and 10. That's a believer's witness. So basically, we're going to see a verse that It is really, you know, you think about the Great Commission and the Gospels there. Well, this is going to be the Great Commission to the Church we're going to see next week, which is kind of interesting. I have not actually thought about that. After getting into studying it, it's really kind of interesting. So that's kind of coming up here next week.

But for today, we're going to look at the Believer's Sacrifices. So can I get someone to read these verses? You can read from your Bible, 4 through 10 in 2 Peter. here, or you can read from the Bible. 4 through 8 or 9? We're going to cover the middle part, but read the whole thing. 4 through 10? Yes. To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. You also, as living stones, are built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

Wherefore also, it is contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you, therefore, who believe, he is precious. But unto them who are disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, even to them who stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light, who in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Thank you.

So actually, we're going to see in this section, this is going to talk more about the body of believers, but not actually use The word church in there is going to talk about words like, well, if you look here, what's interesting is from last week, we have a living stone. Also, we have some metaphors here.

We have stones and we have rocks. And they're going to refer to either the Christ or the body of Christ. So we have a living stone. We have living stones plural. And we come down here talking about this living stone is And some of its characteristics is choice is precious.

The stone was rejected by the built by the builders. That's been kind of interesting. Who are the who are the builders we're talking about here? And it's a very cornerstone. And also the stone turns out to be offensive. And it's metaphorically is important. Referring to the word Jesus Christ. It's offensive. You know, if you I'm sure we've all experienced in the workplace. I think about how they were on that. Many times that can be offensive. It can be offensive to people. It can be offensive that you even believe scripture.

I had a gentleman I was talking with the other day and we had a conversation and I made the statement about the first part of Genesis. And it was like he kind of looked at me like I was some kind of crazy person. I would actually believe that. that there was an Adam and an Eve, and that's all kind of mythical and allegorical, and that's not real. The conversation went nowhere after a while, so we kind of gave up.

But it was interesting. It shows the offense that God's truth is. And we're going to see that a lot today. There's an offense that just comes built in. And the builders rejected it. And we're going to see about that. So that's kind of where we're headed today. So let's go ahead here. OK, so last week.

Who's the Living Stone? Christ. Okay, good. What happened to the Living Stone? Based on those verses from last week, what happened to the Living Stone? It was rejected. Right, good. Alright. What was God's estimation of the Living Stone? Precious. Precious. Choice and precious, right? Choice and precious on the side of God.

And then, underline the plural. Who are the Living Stones? Now the thing about this, this is identification, right? We have the same name. In this context here, we have the stone, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're called, plurally, the stones. We're part of that, you know, there's a connection there. So the living stones are believers, right, of the church. And what is God doing with the living stones?

I think it's verse 5. What kind of place? building up. Yeah. Okay. And to a spiritual house, which is kind of interesting. And there's a picture of I have to show you here from a colleague. I thought it was really good. So that's kind of review of kind of some of the key words from last week. Okay.

So here's the foundation of the spiritual house. You remember the verse that no man can lay a foundation other than that, which is laid upon Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ, and he's going to be called the cornerstone in the context of or six through eight, he's a foundation. And then built upon that is the doctrine of the apostles and prophets. And then built upon that is the spiritual house.

And it's an ongoing process. I don't know whether you guys have heard this, but I've heard many, many sermons that talk about, and they'll have these as little bricks. In fact, this is from Justin McCauley. He has a top little box in little bricks. And each one represents a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the thought process is that when that last brick is complete in the spiritual house that's being built, then Christ will return.

Now, I have not exactly found that verse that says that. But it's an interesting thought. And if there is one, please tell me. I have not found that exact verse that says that. But I think that it's probably not too far from the truth, really. I think this could be very accurate. So we have Jesus Christ as a cornerstone. And built on top of that is the doctrine.

And one thing important is, it's not the apostles and the prophets, not the men. It's God's word, which they conveyed. That's what forms the body of truth, the truth, or the faith. And we're built upon that, we're not built upon a person other than Jesus Christ. So it's not like you look up in the margin, copyright St. Peter, XAD, whatever it is, all rights reserved. It's not the men apostles, it's their doctrine which was inspired, which we have here for us.

And built upon that is the spiritual house that's being built. That's what we're going to talk about today. And I'm going to have some verses that come with the verses that support that. Some thoughts about this before we go on. And this is kind of a move ahead. We're going to cover the verses that support this. OK.

So the first verse is, this is contained in scripture. We call it a land Zion, a choice stone, a precious cornerstone. He who believes in him will not be disappointed. So the first phrase there is, this is contained in scripture. or this stands from scripture.

So scripture is going to support, basically we're going to talk about the foundation of our faith, if you will. The foundation of the spiritual house that's being built. And this is, and it says, he's going to quote some verses from the Old Testament. And we're going to find these verses, they show up in a lot of places.

You know, I'm just amazed. The more I look at this, there's probably, I had like, there's three there, but there's actually more than that. There's actually more places that refer to this phrase that talks about Zion. We're going to talk about that a little bit here. Behold, I lay in Zion. I put her place in Zion. So Zion here, it starts out, the first occurrence is like Zion is this genocide fortress that David captured.

But then as you go on in scripture, you'll see it referred to many times. It kind of has multiple meanings. I think in this case, the picture I think in this case is that God, the picture of God's heavenly, heavenly Jerusalem. And there's some verses that talk about, let's look at one of those. Let's look at Romans 11, 26 and 27.

And this is going to talk about Zion. It refers to Zion not residing here on earth, but residing in heaven, basically. And so all Israel will be saved, just as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion. He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. So we've heard of the Lord Jesus. He's going to come from Zion, this heavenly city.

So we see it in many contexts, but not always. It kind of refers to a variety of things. It's still like, you've got to look at the context and see what it's talking about. And the other verse I have there is in Hebrews. Let's look at that for a second. Hebrews. And it kind of explains a little bit more about what the Zion is about.

Hebrews 12. that you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Thank you. So here again, I like the phrase here, it says, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.

So I think that's what's being spoken of here. So it says, the picture is that God is laying in this heavenly scene, something that has applicability here on earth. I lay in Zion. He's talking about that it's his plan, his purpose to have the Lord Jesus be the cornerstone of this living organism called the church, or called the body of believers. Or in this case, called the stones, I think that's what's going on there in the first phrase of this.

Nate starts describing some of the characteristics of what he's laying in Zion. He says it's a choice and precious cornerstone. If you look carefully, there's actually three characteristics. It's a cornerstone, it's chosen or choice, And it's precious. I want to look at those three. But before I do that, I'd just like to...

There's kind of another word that's associated with stone. A rock. You know, rock and stones. And they're used kind of somewhat differently, but they all kind of point to the Lord Jesus. So, there's several verses in the Old Testament that talk about... And this is a picture here with Moses. And the people are...

They have nothing to drink. They have no water. And they're complaining. that Moses brought them out in the wilderness and they don't have any food. The food is not as good as it was that God is providing. They are upset about that. They don't have good water to drink.

And so basically, this verse here talks about he strikes this rock. He says, Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Orakor and you shall strike the rock and water will come out of it that people may drink. So if we just had this verse by itself, we might not really understand what's kind of going on here. In the first part of 1 Corinthians 10, it talks about this relationship with Moses and the people of Israel. This is a really cool passage that we have used in the past to teach about identification. This is identification with Moses.

It says, And all were baptized into Moses, and the cloud and the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, where they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them. Their rock was Christ Jesus. So it's going to talk about the fact that this spiritual rock is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that connection makes the passage in Exodus kind of understandable. So my point here is that we're going to see a little bit later on, we're going to see that Christ is two aspects.

He's a stone. He's a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. So he's not just one thing, it's like a multiplication factor showing how offensive the truth about Jesus Christ is. He can stumble people, and the rock is this word Petra, which is this massive rock, and he can be a massive offense to people.

And as I was alluding to earlier, and we see that just in our daily lives, we see that it's very true. So I want to kind of bring out the fact about the rock. Okay, so let's go on to these characteristics. The three aspects of the living stone we've talked about. First of all, he's the cornerstone. And basically cornerstone is, It's good to think about this. You know, sometimes there are decorative cornerstones.

You know, if you walk around like in downtown Denver or someplace, you'll see the side of the building is a corner there. You'll see a few streets. You'll see only gray and black. This building was built by somebody and they donated it to whatever. And there'll be a commemoration of that.

The idea of the stone here is, this is a critical member to support the building. Without this stone, the building could collapse. The context of this is, this cornerstone is integral to the building standing. That's very appropriate for what we're talking about Lord Jesus Christ. Without the chief cornerstone, it would make no sense.

That's really key. What's interesting here is, you could read this and say, If you hadn't read much of scripture, you'd say, well, who are they talking about here? What's going on here? So let's look at Ephesians chapter 2. And it's a lot more explicit about who this cornerstone is. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20.

So could someone read Ephesians 2.20?

In fact, actually, let's just go back maybe, because this actually kind of is, could someone read Ephesians 2.19 through 22? Now therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly frame together growth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye are also built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.

Good, thank you. Actually, that verse kind of summarizes some of the key aspects. God is building this spiritual house based upon what we talked about. He's the cornerstone. And notice here, it says explicitly, Christ Jesus, verse 20, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. So he is the unique cornerstone of the spiritual house that God is building.

And it's in process. It's not, well, I've already done that. No, it's in progress. And basically, we haven't got the verb yet for that, but it's coming. Actually, the verb is actually back in verse 5. In verse 5, it says that it's being built. It says, in verse 5, it says, you also as living stones are being built, so it's in the process of being built, up to a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. The building is being built right now, as believers are added, as another brick, so to speak, in the spiritual house is being built. So Jesus Christ is a cornerstone, a unique cornerstone, that holds everything together.

Hey Roger. Yes, go ahead. On the being built up, it would not necessarily just be limited to the individual stones being as individual believers say, per se, but our personal growth as well, would that be a component of growth in that being built up? It could be.

I don't think it excludes that, but I think the focus is that it talks about a house. And I guess you could argue that, yeah, okay, as I come to know the Lord Jesus better, I contribute more to the overall spiritual, just like in a body of believers. We're to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. So I think in that context, but I think the primary focus is that we're being built together to complete the spiritual house and God is doing it. He's in control of that.

In a way, it's even more fitting today than in the past because the stones they used then for common building purposes were just solid, no holes in it, anything else. But when you look at the essence of the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ covering There's holes in modern day brick that I guess could be used for reinforcement rods if they really wanted to, but otherwise it's just there as part of the assembly. Well, Jesus is in contact with each and every individual stone in that way. It's not like we have to wait. OK, we have the wonderful truth is that we have access immediately to the corner.

So it's not like we have to go through as a process. Remember, this is talking about the foundation of the building. It's not necessarily addressing the intimacy we have with the Lord Jesus. That's another set of passages. But that's a good point. That intimacy is there. This is addressing making sure we understand the foundation is secure and that God is in the process of building this spiritual body, spiritual house. And your idea was we have some direct access, right? With the rods and that kind of stuff.

OK, good. Hopefully that helps. All right, so let's see here. Chosen. So we saw that previously, back in a previous verse, that God's estimation of the Lord Jesus Christ, he's precious and chosen. And that's back in 2 Peter. Choice and precious in the sight of God.

And also in John 4.14, it talks about the fact that it was God's plan. It's his purpose to have the Lord Jesus God has sent his son to be the savior of the world. So it's his choice, his selection, and that was something that was agreed to in eternity past, that the Lord Jesus would die on the cross, would pay for the sins of the world.

And then thirdly, he's precious. We've seen that before. Basically, that word is translated a lot of times, honored. That he deserves the honor and the glory. And actually there's a passage, let's turn over to Luke here, just for a second. Not a real striking passage, Luke chapter 7. Not a real striking passage, but this is the one where Christ is, Luke chapter 7. Yeah, and this is a centurion servant where basically, I'll start reading in verse 1.

When he had completed all his discourse in the hearing of the people, he went to Capernaum. And a certain centurion slave who was highly regarded by him was sick and about to die. So my point here was highly regarded. So this word precious is honored, esteemed, but highly regarded. He's the chief coroner, he's chosen, and he's precious, highly honored, in this context, by the Father. And basically, we're going to see that he's precious to us as well. He has that same characteristic to us as believers. OK, so let's go on to the last part here. And he who believes in him will not be disappointed.

Let me just stop here for a second. I usually go to charts with Bonnie. Bonnie's not here this morning. So she usually asks me questions. Sometimes they're easy to answer. Sometimes they're not. So I'm going to ask you guys a question she asked me. See if you can answer it for me. Actually, I think I have the answer.

And he who believes in him will not be disappointed. What do you think? What should be our view of disappointment in the Christian life? Based upon this verse. How does this verse help us in terms of disappointment? I noticed you referred to Wiest, but when I was reading our Wiest, he says that we will not be defeated. Interesting. OK. Really makes it different. OK. Well I will. I'm kind of sticking with my. Let's see.

I have the word disappointed. I know. But it's an expanded translation. He says you will not be you will not be defeated. Well, he he has. Now I have I don't know. We have the same one. I have the was going out of the end here. Yeah, I have shall possibly not be. I have disappointed. I have. It's this Greek word here. I didn't put it up there. Yeah, I'm Bible disappointed. But I thought that was interesting. I didn't look up the word. OK. OK. Well, but there's a point in this action is to two meetings. I'm pretty sure this is right. As far as there's two meetings for this.

And actually, they're quite. somewhat divergent. One means to frustrate one's hope. And I refer to Romans chapter five. That's the one that says hope does not disappoint. And that's that's for that. And so that's one mean idea of frustrating one's hope. The second meaning is put to shame.

So what's interesting is in the Amplified Bible, they translate both. They put both meanings in there. So they sort of allow you to decide what you're going to do with it. But depending upon how you translate that, you can make it sound quite different.

In the three versions I've used, two of them have put the shame and one has the disappointment. Right, so people will come down on either side of that. And what you find is, if you go through and look at the verses, you'll see some verses in the context seem to be shame, that context.

And others, like in Romans 5.5, of course that's a positive application.

God's hope will not disappoint you, basically. The hope of God will not disappoint you. So it really focuses back to, not I, but Christ. So, I guess I went down the disappointment route. So, back to my question. On the other hand, we were not going to be defeated if we believed in Christ. Right, absolutely. You can argue both are going to be true. Okay, that's good.

So, let's go down the disappointment path. I guess I was kind of focused based on what Bonnie asked me the question about. So, is there something... Let's go ahead and ask the question and I'll go back and we'll cover the word here. If we take the week's translation, the one who rests in faith on him shall positively not be disappointed. I thought that verse kind of explained itself.

Because it showed a focus, right? According to this verse, disappointment could come if your focus shifts off Christ. very to the point, very much in the Christian life. If we focus on self, we focus on the all nature, then we can be very disappointed. If we focus on the Lord, we trust him that all things work together for good, there will be trials, there will be tribulations, in all the aspects of the Christian life. So you can, you know, the one who rests in faith on him, shall positively, and that's kind of the verb tense there, shall positively not be disappointed.

Now if you go the other route and put the shame, you've got a different, you know. So I kind of took that route of disappointed. So any other thoughts or discussion about this? Go ahead. It just, what it's seeming to me is kind of the big picture of, you know, overall you're not going to be disappointed if you focus on Christ. That's the big picture. Whereas you can kind of get bogged down every day and, oh, I'm disappointed about this or this or this. But if you look at the big picture and what God is doing, then you won't be disappointed. Right. And also, it's an aspect because it uses the word believe. The core word uses this word pistis, which is translated believe or faith. The core word is exercising trust and faith. We're exercising trust and faith in the word Jesus.

And when we do that, our focus is on him. If we're not doing that, then just like you said, all the things of life can terribly upset us. We can say, well, this didn't work out, that didn't work out. Because we are focused on the situation. This and that. We are counting. We are being counting. We are saying that didn't work. I got 12 out of 5. I'm not doing too well.

Whatever you think. But when our focus is on him, we accept that his way, his purpose, His plan for us is correct, and that keeps us steady and on the right track. I think it's kind of irony, really. I mean, when I tell my daughter, oh, you won't be disappointed. You're going to be amazed. It's kind of the extreme opposite of just wowed and floored. I mean, he's a choice stone. He's precious in God's eyes, and you may not be disappointed. Right. I think it's more about Jesus. But that can be a hard thing.

Also, another corollary to that question, are we talking about immediately right now in our condition or is this talking about in the future? Obviously in the future, I guess most Christians probably wouldn't give me a hard time if I said in the future you will not be disappointed. You say, amen brother, I'm going to be with the Lord, it's going to be wonderful. But I might have disappointment right now. But this verse I think goes beyond that. This verse says, He who rests in faith on Him will not be disappointed. It's present now. He wants our focus to be now. That's what the cool thing about the Christian life is. He wants us in the midst of trials and difficulties and disappointments to be focused on Him.

I think kind of going off of what Autumn said, when we think about disappointment, it's failure to meet expectations, right? So, you know, my dad tells stories when he was a kid, you know, back in the 50s and 60s, you'd get comic books and there'd be advertisements for whatever toy in the back. And the advertisement was always better than the actual toy that got in the mail. And you were so disappointed because it failed to meet your expectation.

And I think we can read the verse in that light. If you trust in Christ, You're not going to be disappointed in what Christ represents and what Christ has done for you. There's no possible way. that whatever expectation we have, based on what scripture has revealed of Christ, will fail to be met. It's, if anything, going to be exceedingly abundant. That's what Paul says in Corinthians. He's able to give us exceedingly abundantly all that we ask or think.

So, I don't, it's true, when you look at life and our expectations and what we put our trust in in life, we're going to have tons of disappointments. But, putting your faith in Christ He's not going to disappoint you. I think the focus is just on that. You can put your faith in other things, and you're going to be disappointed because your expectations won't be met. But Christ will always exceed our expectations. Absolutely.

Another corollary to that is we should be careful. The whole counsel of God is Don't be surprised when all kinds of trials and temptations come into your life. God's word not only tells you this, it tells you that you are going to have trials and temptations. We shouldn't think of those as being disappointments. We should think of those as being part of what the Christian life is.

There will be trials. There will be tribulation. But this says we're resting our faith on Him. That was the question. I think it helps you to have a better perspective, too. Take your eyes off all this little daily stuff and put your eyes on Him. But also, you're talking about living in the present, but it also builds the anticipation. Oh, it does. It does.

Because you just can't imagine. Well, last week we said, I'll fly away. There might be some slight scriptural things. I'm not sure how totally accurate that is, the scriptural lines. But the Father is pretty wonderful, that we'll be with our Savior. It's pretty wonderful. And the words kind of give you the fact that all the burdens of life are lifted. I'm just gone. I'm just out of here. And that's such an encouragement, that all the burdens of this life are gone.

Well, I mean, along with that, I think it's also, this verse doesn't specifically identify that, but putting faith in who he actually is. You know, you talk about I'll fly away, and regarding heaven, there's a lot of weird conceptions about what heaven is, and if your faith is in that, that's not reality.

But if you understand what the scripture teaches about the future salvation we have, as Peter talks about, or if your faith is in Christ as the cosmic genie who's going to give you everything that you ask, you know, this prosperity gospel, well, you are going to be disappointed. But if you understand who Christ actually is, he's not somebody that just, you know, this cosmic ATM that you can go to anytime and it's going to give you money and all this wealth. Well, no, he gives you something much better than that, but it's it's based on a proper understanding.

Our faith in Him, believing in Him is in who He actually is, what's the scripture revealed, not some other version of Christ that people are populating. It's in Christ Himself. And when we truly understand Him, when we truly understand Heaven and our future salvation, well no, when that is finally revealed, we're not going to be disappointed. But we still need to be careful that our conception And our expectation is based on what the scripture says we do.

That's what I was saying, the whole counsel of God is, if the Christian doesn't, you know, unfortunately Christianity has been portrayed sometimes, all your problems are gone. Well, it's actually the opposite of that. The Christian life says, God, in the thought of his word, says you will have to, and don't be surprised about that.

I mean, it's just like, wait a minute, what do I get to get into in this deal? So we have to take all the counsel of God and believe the entire counsel of God. And that will be with a proper view. OK, great. That's a great discussion. Great discussion. OK, so let's go on here. OK, so here's this verse. It kind of expands this really wonderful.

This precious value, then, is for you who believe. But those who disbelieve, the stone which the builder rejected became the very cornerstone. So basically, in the literal translation, what I do is that's basically just looking at the individual Greek words and putting their meaning together in a sentence. So it basically says, the preciousness of the stone is for you who believe.

And I think we've talked about that. When we realize who the Lord Jesus Christ is, he's precious. He's just incredible. Incredibly precious to us. The other translation is a little bit harder to see, but preciousness of the stone is for you who believe. Preciousness is this word, it's related, it's another form of the previous word, honor, respect, and a couple of verses there we won't look at right now. It talks about honor for him and glory and honor for Jesus. And so I like Ruiz's comment here.

Evidently, Peter is showing the contrast between the living stone, what the living stone means to believers, and what he has become to the unbeliever because they refused to allow him to become precious to them. So we're going to see a contrast here in this verse. We're going to switch with the but. We're going to see it's going to switch to the disbeliever. And they're going to reject him because he doesn't fit into what they see. And we're going to ask who these builders are. But for those who disbelieve, now we have the contrast, the stone which the builders rejected. So who are the builders? Who do you think the builders are? Is that, let's see, what's that?

Well, if they think they're in charge and God's honoring their ministry, even though it has nothing to do with the dispensation that really happened, Yeah, it's going to be something that's irrelevant to them. So that's why they reject it. It's important to realize, remember this is a quote. This is a quote from the Old Testament. So in light of the fact that this is a quote from the Old Testament, who do you think these builders are? The ones you rejected.

OK. And who was that? The priests, the rabbis. Exactly. Exactly. The church. Exactly. The ones. And you could argue that those were the. I couldn't find a verse that actually said they were builders. I just found verses and I have some here. If you look at the Acts passage. And it talks about the fact that the rulers, the elders of the people, and he's talking about that they, they're the ones that crucified him. They're the ones that brought him before the different people in Acts.

It doesn't talk about builders. This is the only place I found the word builders used in terms of the ones that rejected him. Now, if you look at the word rejected, it's to, It's a result of examination and the consequence of disapproval. So they examined the rulers and the leaders.

They examined Christ. They saw Christ as a threat. They didn't see him as a messiah. I think they knew he was a messiah, but it didn't fit into their game plan. We're in control here guys. You come along here and you're going to put us out of business. We're not going to be able to be the big guys in the temple. Christ is going to put us out of business. He didn't fit there, and they examined him, and they disapproved. No, we're not going to have you. We're not going to have this man of words. So they rejected him. So there's a whole bunch of different verses here that talk about rejecting something.

In the Matthew passage, a Mark passage for a second, I've always liked this passage because it kind of is a picture of what God has done. Mark chapter 12. This is a parable here. It's a parable of the vineyard owner. Basically, it starts off where he sends out different people over his vineyards.

Eventually he sends his son. It's kind of a picture of what God has done in the Old Testament. He sent the prophets. and they went out, and what happened, the prophets got killed and wiped out. Then eventually what happened, the big picture, he sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's a picture of that. And at the very end of that, we come down and it's going to basically quote, in verse 10 and 11, it's going to quote this passage here.

Have you not ever read the scriptures, the stone which the builders rejected? This became the chief cornerstone, and so on. Like I said, these set of verses here that are quoted from the Old Testament show up in a variety of places to kind of point out the fact that men, in their unrighteousness, have rejected God's plan for what He wanted to do through the Lord Jesus Christ. And the builders, again, are basically not explicitly stated, but they are the chief priests, the elders, describes all the people in authority in Israel are kind of focused on that.

But you can argue, I think Tom was going down that path. You can argue that in today's context, you'd argue that people that reject Jesus Christ, you know, if they're, they're, they're trying to build some building, you know, but actually I don't think you can quite make that connection with today's. The connection seems to be with the, with Israel. Okay.

This became the very cornerstone, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. So it became the very cornerstone, or the head of the corner, a pivotal part of the building. A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. What's interesting is if you look at the original, you'll see that it's literally a stone for stumbling over. and a rock for falling over.

So there's several allusions here or pictures here. First of all, we have a stone. A stone typically is a smaller rock like thing. It talks about the fact that stumbling over something, you might hit your foot or dash your foot against. So that's not too big a situation. You may stumble over something. That's a smaller issue.

But then you come to, This idea of falling over, or actually it's translated offense in our version, rock of offense. Well, this word rock here is a massive structure. There's a picture in the Gospels where they compare this massive rock with Peter, who's a small little pebble. There's that illusion there. So it's like in this passage here, a stone is stumbling. Christ is a stone that people will stumble over.

But then also, he's this massive offense to them. He's this massive rock which they fall over. And Vine has here, of anything that arouses prejudice or becomes a hindrance to others to cause them to fall away. So it's like he intensifies it here. Peter intensifies it. It's a stone of stumbling and a rock of falling over, a rock of offense. So he magnifies the effect that Christ has on men. He not only stumbles him, but he's offensive to the point of being a massive thing. For they stumble because they are disobedient to the words.

This is kind of an interesting little section. So I asked, who is they? I think it's pointing back to the leaders again. But it could be wider than that, I think. Because we see in the account, like in Acts, we studied Acts last year, and in Acts there were many, many people. The apostles would go into different places and they'd preach the gospel. And many would stumble. They would stumble because of him, because of the Lord Jesus Christ. So they could be certainly those people as well. And I had some verses there about that.

But what I wanted to do here, so disobedience here is to refuse, to be persuaded. So what do you think it means to be disobedient to the word? What does that mean at its core? If you have God's word and you're disobedient, does that mean you... I think that's a possibility. Anything else? You have two choices and you pick the bad one. That's the way it is. God's word is there. God's word is true. It's revealed to you.

There's a conscious effort to say no, I don't really want to do that. It's more than just saying It's more than just a logical kind of thing. It's more saying, no, I don't want that. I think we've had experiences talking to people. They say, no, I don't want what you have. I see what you are. I don't want that.

It's kind of insulting sometimes. I don't want to be carrying a Bible. I had a Bible study out at Buckley for a while. I remember this guy said, I don't want to be like you, carrying a Bible down the hallway. I said, OK. So, I think actually you could put in here, it's disbelief of God's word. Disbelief kind of comes into focus. You disbelieve what God said. I don't believe that. And you have your reasons, and basically your reasons if you don't want the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't want him. You don't want what God has for you. And actually we're going to see this come up again. This disobedience to the word is going to occur in chapter three, disobedience to the word.

So we're going to see this in connection down the road. OK, then the last part of this is kind of interesting. And to this doom they were appointed, literally is to which to which they were indeed appointed. So actually Constable had an interesting question here. So I'll just read his question.

So in this verse it says, well, let's read the verse again. For they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were appointed. So Coswell asks the question, to what does God appoint those who stumble? Does he appoint them to unbelief, or the stumbling that results from unbelief?

Does that make any sense? It's kind of an important thing. In interpreting this last phrase here, and it ought to be something that kind of jumps out to you. In God's word, he tells us many marvelous things. He tells us that he's not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance. He tells us that every believer is chosen in him before the foundation of the world. So he tells us some things about the characteristics of the believer. He also tells us his view about unbelievers.

So when we try to interpret this passage here, we have to be kind of careful. Would God appoint or destined a person to unbelief is saying, well, Sally over here, or John over here, you're not going to believe. That's, in my mind, it's inconsistent with who God is. But what I do think is right is the second part of this is that if you don't believe that, that is the stumbling. Your unbelief or disbelief of the word is what stumbles you. It's the stumbling that results from your unbelief.

And it's sort of like the hardening of the heart that we see in the Old Testament, too. They harden their hearts, and then it says, at some point, God hardened their hearts. You had a question? So are you saying that because they're disobedient to the Lord, of course that means that they're destined to then stumble? Yes. That's what I'm saying. And I think that also fits the context of the rest of Scripture. When you refuse to believe what God says, you've gone down a path that's very treacherous. You're going to stumble. I mean, you've decided to go down that path.

And that's a stumbling. So this idea of doom, that's a pretty strong word. Doom sounds pretty, of course, that's not in the original. The original has, basically, to which they were indeed appointed. And so the question comes up, what are we talking about appointed here? God wouldn't appoint them to unbelief. That's inconsistent with who he is. He couldn't do that. Would you say it's because he knew they were going to choose to not believe? I knew they were going to choose to make their own choices. I guess I'd rather say that the result, and I hear what you're saying, God knows the end of the beginning. We're predestined.

But he doesn't cause his cause of unbelief. I guess I have to be better to say that their actions by not believing will result in stumbling. Just what was mentioned before. That will result. Which in converse would be they get sick and tired of stumbling. They might decide to look up and find out the truth. Right. And you could argue that maybe you have to stumble for a while and maybe they'll something will click. I don't know. Thanks for the point, Roy. Just a thought. The word here is the focus of disobedience. And the word, according to John, has become false among us. Right.

And so if you think of Logos, the eternal word he took upon himself flesh, that's who they were disobedient to. And so they rejected him. I agree that they rejected Christ. When I had this man over us, they did not want Christ. So that's a real good point. It says they're disobedient to the word. The translators didn't capitalize it here, but you certainly could go down that path. And there is an article there that's specific. That's good. Good point. I miss that. OK. Well, thanks. Jack? One last comment.

How many years were the Jews under the law? Well, it wasn't easy. I mean, all the all these years and all of a sudden somebody comes into town and this is all going to change and it's all different. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they were in the law for a couple thousand years.

All of a sudden, here comes this cornerstone and Right, right. But what's interesting is there were those in the time that Christ was here by bodily form that believed. He did miracles many times. The miracles he performed, what he said and what he did, many people believed. So it was available to them. The interesting thing is when you think about Nicodemus, at some point he was stumbling, but it wasn't a stumbling, it was a total unbelief. I'm not clear about this. Somebody might want to help you. Right. Okay. Let's close then. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we just thank you for this day, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have. Thank you for our time today. In Christ's name, Amen.