Living Stones in God’s Portable Temple (1 Peter 2:4-10)

Big Idea: Believers, as living stones and priests in God's temple, offer their lives as spiritual sacrifices rooted in Christ.

Awesome in the extreme is a visit to any of the world's great temples. The Temple-Palace of Karnak, located 300 miles up the Nile from Cairo in the desert, is one of humanity's most impressive structures. Its dimensions are 1,200 feet in length by 360 feet in breadth, covering more than twice the area of St. Peter’s in Rome. It's hard to find words to describe its beauty, and no artist has been able to capture on canvas or film the idea of its grandeur. The Egyptians erected it as a mighty temple to that which they worshiped.

Look again at the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens. It is without exception the most magnificent ruin in the world. Hovering as if in the air above the great city of Greece, it was commenced in 448 B.C. and completed in only 16 years. To see it is to never forget it. The Parthenon was a temple featuring a statue of the goddess Athena, made of ivory and covered with gold.

When we think of a temple, we envision grand monuments like these or Solomon's Temple from the Old Testament. But do we connect the sacred idea of temples with the church we attend today, or more specifically, with the people sitting next to us in the pews?

In the Bible, God's people are considered his temple, and what we offer to Him are the spiritual sacrifices of a holy priesthood. In last week's message, we saw that God's church is a mighty human temple. In the Old Testament, God had a temple for his people. In the New Testament, God has a people for his temple.

Here's what we learn in today's passage. Thee things.

You Are A Stone In God's Temple

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. (1 Peter 2:4-5)

At the cornerstone of the living temple stands Christ, the great living Stone. That appears to be a dramatic contradiction in language – "living Stone." Normally we speak of something as being "stone dead." "Living Stone" conveys an idea that language struggles to capture.

The Bible speaks of Christ as our Rock and Christ as our Life. Only here do these two words come together. This "living Stone" oxymoron says something about Jesus Christ that is unique. Our Lord has the qualities of a massive stone: fixed foundation, a fortress, solid, steadfast, strong, massive, immovable. Yet there is another side. There is warmth, vitality, and life. The Stone is living in that it is personal; it is a life-giving Stone. Jesus embodies paradoxes: he is a wounded healer, a dying life-giver, a tolerant dictator, a strict liberator, and a humble master. He gives us a light yoke, a peaceful sword, and he makes us winning losers. Along with this, he is a "living Stone."

Peter says as well that we are living stones. We are not just lifeless stones; through our connection with Christ, we become vital parts of God's temple. Contact with Christ brings life to the lifeless, similar to how a radioactive isotope makes you radioactive or how phosphorus glows in sunlight. When you contact Christ, you become as he is – a living stone.

Peter presents one of the most beautiful pictures of the church's dignity and destiny. God is building a spiritual temple with you as the living stones of that edifice. From a human viewpoint, the church and its individual branches may seem divided, weak, competitive, inefficient, and transient. Yet Peter reminds us that we cannot see what God is doing. God is building a living temple that spans the ages and the continents. And he is building it with living stones. It has always been God's final intention not to have a temple for his people, but to have a people for his temple.

Jesus said early in his ministry:

Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." (John 2:19)

He was speaking of his own body as the temple of God where God and humanity would meet. Even the witnesses at his trial quoted him as saying:

We heard him say, "I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man." (Mark 14:58)

Stephen declared in his trial:

However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. (Acts 7:48)

When Paul preached in the shadow of the Greek Acropolis, he said:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. (Acts 17:24)

Listen: you are God's temple!

In the noblest sense, God is building a temple of living human stones, of which you are a part. No matter how impressive a physical structure may be, it cannot define what truly constitutes the church. The visible church on earth is not denoted by Gothic, Romanesque, Renaissance, Colonial, or modern architecture. The true temple of God is the individual and the collective body of believers. Every believer, although part of the whole, is a microcosm of the whole. Paul says:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? (1 Corinthians 6:19)

Every believer is a spiritual building with a royal presence. Each Christian is a temple. All Christians collectively constitute an immense, timeless temple. And I need to tell you: our local church is the visible scaffold around that invisible temple.

When the last and the least enter the kingdom of God, and the Gospel is preached worldwide, the archangel will shout, the scaffolding will come down, and we will see the great work God has accomplished throughout time. The repetitive nature of church routines can make us fail to see the incredible work God is doing in our midst. If we could recover that vision, it would transform our view of life in the local church.

Bible studies are sacred quarries where living stones are found and shaped. Meetings turn from budgets and statistics into divine sessions for temple construction. Children's ministers recognize their role in shaping each child as "living stones" for God's temple. Worship services are moments of anticipation where we see God add new living stones to his structure.

This vision fundamentally transforms our understanding of giving. At its worst, giving turns into reluctant financial extraction to support an organization. Giving from obligation to fund ministries and infrastructure is just slightly better. But what if believers recognized each gift as a contribution to God's eternal temple? What if we understood that every offering builds the living temple of God on earth? No other recipient of our generosity holds such lasting significance. Schools eventually close, charities complete their missions, nations outgrow their tax systems—but Christ's living church transcends time, enduring throughout eternity.

Peter continues with another thought. Not only are you a stone in God's temple, but:

You Are A Chosen Priest In God's Temple

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. 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. (1 Peter 2:5, 9-10)

Peter changes images and picks up a new picture of our status. He sees every believer as a priest in God's holy temple. In the Old Testament, priests were men selected to serve for limited times in only one place. Only men served; there was no question of a woman being a believer-priest. These men served in rotations, episodically and intermittently. They could serve only at one place, the Jerusalem temple. Peter envisions a universal church where everyone serves as priests, regardless of time or place. You are a priest in various places: the factory, sales office, hospital nursing station, and recreational club. You are always serving as a priest.

What do you do as a believer-priest? The Latin word for priest is pontifex. This comes from two words, "bridge" and "to make." The priest is one who builds a bridge between God and man. In one sense, there is only one great Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. But in another sense, God has left us as his under-priests, bridge-builders for him on earth. The sphere of every believer-priest has no limitations geographically or chronologically. We are not confined to one day on Sunday or a place of worship. We are portable temples and mobile priests. Everywhere and anywhere we find ourselves, we are bridge-builders for God.

How this concept dignifies every life and every aspect of each life! There is no job so low or vocation so prestigious that it is not dignified by this high calling. Both a common laborer in the ditch and a distinguished professor in the classroom can each say, "I am a priest in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ." Every ditch dug and every lecture given serves God equally. Were we to see our lives in this way, it would utterly transform our concept of giving to the work of the church. For many, the offering time is a thing detached, separated, truncated, and denatured from all of life. It's part of the service that lasts only a few seconds, something we hardly think about.

If we view our lives as a continuous act of serving God, then our offerings become part of something greater. It is simply one more way among many that I live out my vocation as a believer-priest. Our outlook shapes our results. If we were to view ourselves in this way, our generosity would instinctively soar to a whole new level. The church's call for offerings will no longer feel like just another request for money. Our royal, personal priesthood would make all giving a joy, not a burden.

There's one more image we're going to look at. We're stones and priests in God's temple, and Peter also says:

You Bring A Spiritual Sacrifice In God's Temple

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. (1 Peter 2:5)

Peter tells us that the believer-priests are offering up "spiritual sacrifices." The concept of sacrifice is lost in the modern world. We all make sacrifices to something, like materialism, prestige, or modern idols. We offer spiritual sacrifices to God.

What sacred offering are you bringing before God? Have you presented the sacrifice of a truly repentant heart?

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
(Psalm 51:16-17)

Somebody has said, "To err is understandable; to admit it is unlikely." Do you offer the sacrifice of penitence to God – admitting the simple reality that you are a sinner and need his forgiveness?

Another sacrifice we can bring God is the sacrifice of praise.

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that confess his name. (Hebrews 13:15).

One of the refreshing winds blowing through the church is the renewed emphasis on the vibrant praise of God. This is a sacrifice to God. Are you offering it?

At the same time, there is the sacrifice of possession. The apostle Paul had not seen the Philippians in ten years when he unexpectedly received a generous gift from Macedonia, Greece, while in prison in Rome. He called their gift "a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God" (Philippians 4:18).

Does anything stay with the sensual mind more than the fragrance of a pleasing aroma? The scent of a loved one's perfume, freshly mowed grass, ocean air, or a pine forest can all trigger strong memories. Our Christian giving is compared to a fragrance that fills the room, the house, and life itself. There is nothing forced or unpleasant about such a sacrifice. It simply happens as the natural response to the situation.

Christian giving should not be forced by a desperate finance committee or a pressured pastor. Viewing ourselves as living stones in a temple, like believer-priests offering spiritual sacrifices, will make giving as natural as breathing. What if we can't give the perfect gift? We can always bring our gift, confident that it is "acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

There was an old wood carver deep in the forest who at one time had been the best at his craft. He had taught the craft to his son, who followed him as an artisan. But the old man's eyes began to dim, and his hands began to tremble. He could no longer carve the perfect figures of his youth. He would mar the figure, and imperfections blighted his work. His fading eyes could no longer see the flaws. Late in the night, while his old father slept, the son would sneak down the stairs and pick up the figures marred by the shaking hands of the ancient artisan. With a few apt strokes, the son would correct the flaws in the newly carved wood. When the figures passed through the hands of the son, they were made perfect again. We can confidently offer our gifts, knowing that Jesus Christ will present them to the Father perfectly.

Part of the stewardship program The Joy of Belonging by Resource Services, Inc.