UNITY IN THE BODY OF CHRIST
(The Living Stone and a Holy People - May 1, 2022)
Series Big Idea: "The Church is meant to be a place where unity is encouraged and lived out in daily life"
Sermon Big Idea: "Church can be messy, but God uses these challenges to help us know Him better"
Key Scripture (1 Peter 2:1-5)
If you could dream up the perfect church, what would it look like? What are all the ingredients that you would include? We all have an idea of the ideal church. I heard about a man once who said on the days that he was sitting in his real church and feeling frustrated by things he would sometimes daydream about his ideal church. He said his ideal church is one where he would feel completely understood, his perspectives would be valued, and his gifts and passions would flourish. He said it would be a place where he could be proud and never embarrassed to call home. It would be a place so amazing that non-christians who visited would never want to leave. The problem was that the church he attended and serves almost never looks like the one he described. At times the Church can be a messy place. Let’s see what the apostle Peter had to say about the Church and why unity matters so much.
(1 Peter 2:1-5)
So rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, desire the pure spiritual milk, so that you may grow by it for your salvation, since you have tasted that the Lord is good. Coming to him, a living stone rejected by men but chosen and valuable to God you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Over the next few weeks we will study several passages of scripture that I believe can begin to shape our mindset about the Church and even the way we think about life in the church. So, what did the Apostle Peter say in these verses about the Church and how we can stay focused when pressures build among us and we realize that the Church can be a messy place?
God’s people must keep God Central in everything
Peter is painting a picture of a community of believers who are keeping Jesus at the forefront of all they do. He describes a community that is laying aside personal preferences, fighting, and being comfortable for the sake of the Gospel of Christ and for the sake of becoming “living stones.” It is all about knowing God and worshiping Him as King. But this is so much different from what we think sometimes the ideal church should be.
The culture around us has told us that it is our personal desires and comfort that is important in life. The reality of all this is that the “dream church” we mentioned in the introduction is just a myth. It doesn’t exist. Jesus is the only One who is real and eternal and our entire goal as the Church is to be “living stones” who are “acceptable to God.” When we allow the culture around us to influence our spiritual lives it will become less and less about knowing and serving God, and more about finding a community that meets our own preferences. We are to be formed by God and His people.
Conclusion:
Jesus tells us that it will cost us our lives when we follow Him. The way that we grow as Christians is we leave our comfort zones and we embrace the challenges and discomforts of our faith. So, we should embrace this truth and lean into the joy of dying to ourselves and living for God and our neighbor. What if we were to give up our “dream church?” What if instead of finding fault with the community of Christ, we embraced the discomfort that we feel? C.S. Lewis once said, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port wine would do that. If you want religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” It is easy to find basic comfort and happiness, but living the Christian life and being a part of the Church community requires that we make sacrifices that at times might make us feel uncomfortable. It ultimately helps us to become more like Jesus. I believe it is worth it, don’t you?
Pastor Beaver's thoughts and ideals are inspired by:
Holman Christian Standard Bible
English Standard Version Bible
King James Version Bible
Christian Standard Bible
Water, Mark, ed. Encyclopedia of Bible Facts. Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004. WORDsearch CROSS e-book.
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Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Duane Garrett, and Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
NIV, First-Century Study Bible, eBook: Explore Scripture in Its Jewish and Early Christian Context
Zondervan, Kent Dobson, and Ed Dobson
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