Are You “Living Stone?”

1 Peter 2:4-10, The Message – Welcome to the living Stone, the source of life. The workmen took one look and threw it out; God set it in the place of honor. Present yourselves as building stones for the construction of a sanctuary vibrant with life, in which you’ll serve as holy priests offering Christ-approved lives up to God. The Scriptures provide precedent:

Look! I’m setting a stone in Zion,

    a cornerstone in the place of honor.

Whoever trusts in this stone as a foundation

    will never have cause to regret it.

To you who trust him, he’s a Stone to be proud of, but to those who refuse to trust him,

The stone the workmen threw out

    is now the chief foundation stone.

For the untrusting it’s

. . . a stone to trip over,

    a boulder blocking the way.

They trip and fall because they refuse to obey, just as predicted.

But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.

                “You get a gift of grace every time you stand up to speak in a room full of people and no one gets up and walks out.” 

My preaching professor Dr. Gail O’Day said this to us on the first day of the preaching class I had with her.  I have never forgotten it.  Almost every time I rise up to speak, her words run through my mind.  In thirty years of preaching, only less than a handful of people have walked out while I was speaking – grace indeed.  What’s even more amazing to me is that regularly, someone tells me how God did something for them while I was speaking.  It is overwhelming to me every time I hear that.

I’m under no illusion that I am some preaching phenom.  I work hard at my craft to be solidly competent and to improve over time.  But I am all too aware that so many people do this way better than I do and don’t seem to work as hard at it.  So the idea that God would use my efforts to accomplish significant kingdom things among God’s people still blows me away. 

This is not low self-esteem talking.  I generally feel good about the work that I do, but the idea that the work I do is, somehow in the mysterious grace of God, also the work that God does is the most humbling reality of my life.  This is what Peter means when he says that we are “living stones” being built into a “spiritual house.”  Even more mind-blowing is that he uses the same term, “living Stone,” to describe Jesus. 

You are a living stone just as Jesus is a living Stone.  You and I are called to priestly work, work that God can use to accomplish things that we have no business attempting on our own.   But we’re called to attempt it anyway with the faith that God can do something with it that we can’t.  We are. . .

“…the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.

                So I’ll keep doing my thing, but you need to keep doing yours too.  If you don’t know what your “thing” is, just ask God to show you and then start doing something for others.  Eventually you’ll find yourself in that position of remarkable grace where people not only accept what you do, but get a blessing from God from it.  Start today.

Question:  What is something you can do with the aim of helping others today? What is stopping you from doing it?

Prayer:  God, show us our work today and every day.  Should we ever become arrogant about it, humble us.  Should we ever come to believe it doesn’t matter, empower us.  Build us into your House Lord.  Amen.

Prayer Focus:  Today, pray for people who are in jail for crimes they DID commit.

Song: Lauren Daigle – Still Rolling Stones (Social Distancing Version)