lion rebel

1 PETER 2.4-10

As you come to him, the living Stone–rejected by human beings 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. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, ”The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message–which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people,a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, 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.

Seeking Him out before anything else, desiring his milk, his kindness, grace, and peace – this is when we discover that Christ, like many men, yet different because he is God, our Messiah, is the source of rejection for many people. For those who abandon everything but pursuit of Him, there is relief and a firm place to stand. For those who abandon him to pursue everything else, there is fear, rejection, and emptiness.

But for those of us who choose to pursue him, who rely on him as our only hope, he is the very foundation that we, as his people, are built upon. I think it is an easy temptation for us believe that our pursuit of Christ is only about ourselves, only about living for God in singleness and making ourselves right before him. But that is a great lie – because Jesus’ death and coming to life again was to make a way for his people to unite together into one people, one nation, one priesthood. And there is no distinction between clergy and laity as has been defined throughout generations. No, these people of God are all created to serve all people. There is no Reverend and then his people – no Father and then his sheep, no mega-church Pastor and then his congregation. There is a holy priesthood, ordained to declare the praises of God who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.

This priesthood is designed to meet the needs of the poor and needy, the fatherless, the loveless, the abandoned. We are called to meet the needs of those to whom Jesus is a stumbling block. Otherwise, we’re just a cult, a mission without a true cause, a religious group of bigots. And that is not what God has called us to.