Tuesday, June 12, 2018

2018.06.12 Hopewell @Home ▫ 1Peter 2:4-10

Questions for Littles: What did men do with Jesus Christ, the living stone (v4)? What had God done? Who else are living stones (v5)? What are these stones for building? What are to offer to God?  Through what (Whom!) are our spiritual sacrifices made acceptable? Where had God told about this beforehand (v6)? Who will by no means be put to shame? To whom is Jesus precious (v7, cf. v4)? What did the disobedient builders do to Him? To what were they disobedient (v8a)? How did this come about (v8b)? What four glorious things does v9 call us? For what purpose did God make us into this? Whose praises do we proclaim?  
This week’s Call to Worship, Prayer for Help, and Confession of Sin came from 1Peter 2:4-10. It’s a helpful passage to have in the same week as our particular reading from the gospel of Mark, where we literally see the “builders” rejecting Christ, who is our Chief Cornerstone.

Now, it is obvious that we should aim to receive and submit to Christ, rather than reject and attack Him like the builders did. We need continual reminding to condition our hearts properly toward Him, so it’s a blessing to have that reminder in our passage.

But there is something else wonderful that I would like to point out here: how belonging to God in Christ makes us more and more like Him.

Our heavenly Father holds Christ dear and precious (v4), and when He calls us out of darkness into His marvelous light, we too come to consider Christ as precious (v7)?

Jesus is a living stone (v4), and so also we are living stones (v5).

Just as Jesus was chosen by God and precious (v4), so also in Him we are a chosen generation (v9).

The Lord loves to produce in us the many evidences and examples of how we belong to Him, and now we are His.

So, the question for us is: do we love to bring our Cornerstone glory by acting as a holy nation? Do we recognize that one of the primary purposes of our salvation is that we would proclaim His praises?

The Lord would have had every right to appoint us to a disobedience that we would willingly enter into as sinners. But instead, He has made us His people, and He has given us His mercy.
In what part of your worship or thought life do you acknowledge that God chose you simply out of His mere goodness, and not for any good thing in you?
Suggested songs: ARP4 “Answer When I Call” or HB402 “I Sought the Lord, and Afterward I Knew”

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