Growing Into Salvation

                                       1 Peter 2: 1-10

 

 

          Ever built a house? Watched a multi-story building going up? Maybe you have built a tree house. A couple weeks ago, many church members took part in constructing our new playground set. In every instance, without exception, none of these projects started at the top. Even a tree house has to have some sort of anchoring for the floor or it will never be finished. 
In the second chapter of 1 Peter, our friend Peter talks a lot about foundations. He talks about cornerstones, rocks, even living stones.  Everyone understands that sort of analogy. Cornerstones are essential to the integrity of buildings. Without a solid foundation, everything that is built afterward is suspect.

Every building starts at the bottom. In fact, it really starts below the bottom. If you’re building something big and you want it to last, you will go down until you hit bedrock to start your project. Remember the hymn: On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. It’s true.

If you have built anything substantial, you know that it takes time, usually more time than you initially thought. A building project takes planning and cooperation. No matter how much thought goes into it, there will still be delays, there will still be surprises and there will still be setbacks.

The Christian life is strikingly similar to a building project. Peter gives us some very helpful hints as to what is going to happen along the way to salvation. We are “saved” by grace at the moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, but Sanctification, that process of growing into grace, is a lifetime proposition.  There are things we have to do, things we have to leave behind, things we have to adopt as our way of life, if we are to enjoy the life that God has planned for us.

Peter seems to be talking to new believers, but he may as well be talking to each of us, for most of us continue to have our problems with the underbelly of our emotions. We still do battle with malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander. They are still part of that which we struggle to put away for good. Peter suggests that we need to taste the milk of the Spirit. When we do so, it tastes so good that we will want more of it. He is so right. Have you ever tried to put away some bad habit? One of the great strategies to quitting something is replacement.  Don’t leave a void. Replace bad thoughts with good thoughts. Replace bad habits with good habits. Don’t spend all your time quitting something. Instead, spend it learning and doing something good.

An infant baptism like the one today gives pause for parents to renew vows to God and the church and for the church members to also renew similar vows. We pledge to help young parents bring up their child in Christian faith. We do so as the body of Christ, acknowledging our interdependence on one another as members of that body. Peter reminds us of just such a commitment when he characterizes us as “living stones” who “are being built up as a spiritual house.” He says we are to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We are “being built up.” We are “being” a holy priesthood. We are in action, moving the body of Christ forward as it ministers to community and world. Peter is not just talking about what has happened, as in finding our belief. He is also talking about what we do with that faith. Christianity is not just the finite act of conversion, but rather the dynamic action of mission and ministry and witness. 

Wow. That’s a lot to lay on believers. Isn’t that what our ministers are supposed to do? Yes, they do or try to do. But the job is not confined to ministers. Or put another way, it is the job of the minister, but everyone is a minister. That’s what Peter means when he calls us a chosen race and a royal priesthood in v. 9. Peter is talking about the priesthood of believers and that is one of the cornerstones of our belief. We believe, and because of our belief, we minister. That is the calling of the Christian. We are saved by God’s grace and in grace we serve our Lord.

Let’s talk about those living stones for a moment. That’s what Peter calls us. He refers to us as the building blocks of a structure because that is precisely what we are. We are nothing less than the spiritual house of God. Please note the pronoun. It is “we.” The great poet John Donne once wrote, that no man is an island. Nothing could be more true in the church. Christianity is community in the fullest sense of the word.

There is a great story about a Spartan king who was bragging to a visiting monarch about the walls of Sparta. The visitor looked around but found no walls in sight. The king pointed to his body guard of troops. He said: “These are the walls of Sparta, every man a brick.” What the Spartan king meant was that the men of Sparta stood as one. In so doing, they were able to accomplish great things. Standing alone, they were virtually useless, but together they were a magnificent force. The Church is the same. It is a wall of faith made up of the hands and feet and hearts of Christians.

In this wonderful passage, Peter also refers to Christians as a priesthood. In today’s world, we are long removed from the priesthood as it was understood in the days of Peter, so it helps to understand that word in its first century context. Theologian William Barclay points out that priests of old had two very important characteristics: they had access to God and they brought the offering to God. Christians now enjoy both such characteristics. We are a priesthood of believers and we minister to God’s children as the body of Christ. We are the living stones that comprise the church. This is the priesthood to which Peter refers.

As God partially revealed himself to humanity through the patriarchs and the nation of Israel, the full revelation was saved for the time when he came down and lived among us. Jesus Christ was the ultimate revelation, that all who believe in him become God’s chosen people. As he formed the true cornerstone for all life, we as Christians now act as living stones from the same building. We are that spiritual house. We are the bricks of that wall of Christianity that Jesus named the church. We cannot do this alone. God designed us to live and work and worship in community.

As we give thanks for this new life here dedicated today, let us remember how much we are designed to lean upon one another. Peter understood. The church is not a building or a creed. The church is us…you and me. As Peter asks then and now, let us offer ourselves as those spiritual sacrifices acceptable to Jesus Christ.