Well, you've heard it many times that a picture is worth a thousand words. It's so true, isn't it? I mean, especially, it's always been true, but especially in our days, so visuals, such an image-oriented culture, that oftentimes we are driven and guided by those images. I think a lot of examples I'm sure of in your own life of different snapshots of your life that's captured by a picture. And you're so thankful for that. My parents took us on a really fun trip that last summer, and I worked on a family DVD. It took me forever. It couldn't get finally got it done, and they called me yesterday. They were crying because it was just so moving, because the picture reminded them of the incredible time. Well, on the other end of the continuum, really negative picture. You probably have heard of the Danish cartoons that came out a good bit ago, but it's actually just stirred into a huge controversy in the last month. These cartoons were depicting the founder of Islam, Muhammad, in a very unflattering light, actually as a terrorist, and it's provoked incredible protests, worldwide, and quite a bit of bloodshed. The image can do incredible things. That picture can capture for us things that we feel, and we're passionate about, and it can get down deep into us, and cause a whole variety of emotions to flower. Peter understood the power of a picture. He was writing you remember to an oppressed group. These were people under incredible trials and sufferings. It was undoubtedly going to get a lot worse, and he was saying, look, you are going to be tempted to give away under this pressure. You're going to give, you're going to be tempted to kind of live however you want to live, and so instead you need to live as God's holy people. That's what we've talked about a couple of weeks ago. So you're going to be tempted to take out your pressures and your frustrations on other people, especially those near to you. And so that's what we talked about last week. The Christian community is to be holy in a very specific way, in that it should be this distinctive community of otherworldly love. He said, you may be tempted to focus on all the wrong things, on your circumstances that are shouting at you. You know, the images of your life, and we live with them, don't we? I mean, we wake up, and it's like this slide show starts right here, all the problems, all the difficulties, all the challenges. And the key to Christianity, I think Peter is saying is, is to push back those images, those pictures, and focus in on the greater reality. Live into that, and out of that reality. And so he's an essence saying in this passage, I mean, this is a very full passage. He's giving us one image after another. He's saying these are the images that must guide and shape your life. Don't let all those other things that are shouting at you. Guide you, let these be the influencing picture in your life. So he's saying in essence, holding up this passage, like a slide show before us, picture this, and it'll make all the difference in your life. Whether you're going through intense suffering, most of us aren't going through the kinds of suffering they were going through, intense persecution. But as we're going to talk about in a minute, all of us, as if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, all of us face a variety of kinds of persecutions, because the world is hostile to the Christian message. But even if you're not going through persecution, this includes all kinds of suffering this passage does. And even if you're not going through sufferings, let's say I'm going through one of those unique moments, Leo, knock on wood, so to speak, where I'm soaring in success. All right, whether you are on that end of life or suffering, it's the same thing. We are going to be tempted to define our happiness, I'm happy because this is going well, or I'm really depressed because I'm going to be tempted to shape our life and live based on those images, those circumstances, any saying we've got to resist that. Picture this instead. So we want to look at is the picture that he lays out in this magnificent passage. First of all, what is the picture? What is it telling us about ourselves? And then how do we participate, secondly, in the picture? How do we enter into it? And then finally, what's the purpose for which he's given us this picture? All right, first of all, the picture. And the picture is really getting at the fundamental question of life. I mean, the fundamental question for every human being is, who am I? Because you're going to live your life based on the answer to that question. And so he's saying, who are you? You're going to be tempted to answer that question based on all these other images of life. I'm going to give you images of substance, of biblical value, let these shape you. And what he's done here, I mean, it is such a magnificent passage for one of the things that I love. I mean, is one of my biblical hobby horses is how the New Testament unfolds the Old Testament. And Augustine said back in the fifth century that the New Testament is in the Old Concealed, and the Old Testament is in the New Revealed, how the Bible is a unity, is a one redemptive story from the Garden of Eden where human beings rebelled against God. And God said to the one who led the mystery, the serpent, that one day the seed of the woman would crush that serpent said, from that point forward it's one great story of God's redemption. And what Peter does for us here is he, in essence, shows us how to be interpreting the Bible. He quotes three times from the Old Testament, but don't let that stop you. The passage is thick, full of illusions from the Old Testament that we want to look at. And there in essence saying here are pictures, things that you can meditate upon. These are shorthand, pregnant and fought, embedded inside of them are things you can grab hold of and live your life upon. First of all he talks about living stones, being built versus five into a spiritual house. Now this is a construction project living in Houston, that is not always the best subject, is it? I mean, is there another place anywhere in America where there's more construction going on in the freeways? It's amazing, right? Well, this was a construction project that should encourage us, that we should be attracted to. And it's striking to me that Peter uses the imagery of stones. Think of Peter. Jesus looked at Peter and said, you are, his name is Simon, and he said, I'm going to give you a new name, your name is rock. Your name is the rock, Peter. And so what Peter is doing here, after having gone through some moments of humiliation as a disciple and apostle of Christ, now an aged mature man, still humble. I think what he's doing in a subtle way is saying, yeah, I may be the stone, I may be the rock, but I'm nothing on my own. I'm part of a larger collection of stones. And we're nothing if we are not fastened to the chief stone, the cornerstone, you know, in the ancient world. Today, I think it's probably more ceremonial than actual in terms of architecture. We'll lay the foundation or cornerstone, but I'm looking at an architect out there. He's probably going out this guy, so nutty. Nevertheless, in the ancient world, this was supposedly very critical. You have a weak cornerstone, the whole edifice implodes. And so he's saying, that's how our lives are. We are not out here on our own. Remember this Simon and Garfunkel song, I am a rock, I am an island, I touch no one, no one touches me. I mean, is that not the way of the world? That's that is what our heart gravitates toward. And the Bible is saying, yeah, we're rocks, but we're not islands. If we're out there on our own, we, we will decay. We will never grow as human beings. If you want to grow as a human being, you need to be connected to other people and not just other people, but you need to be connected to other people through the chief cornerstone, Jesus. And so he's really deflecting our attention away from him and pointing us to Christ, which is really what all of us should be about in life. Other images that are here for us to picture, a chosen race, verse nine, royal priesthood, holy nation, God's treasured possession. Let me read you just, I mean, we could go through hundreds of passages in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, to highlight how what Peter's doing is he is copying and pasting from the Old Testament to this passage in the New Testament. Here's just one Exodus chapter 19. This is right after God's people have been redeemed, delivered out of over 400 years of slavery under Pharaoh's hand in Egypt. And he says this, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples for the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. You see, I mean, just in that one verse, how so much of that is collected and distilled in this passage. In the ancient world, supposedly, you know, kings, they owned everything. And so all the treasury was theirs, but they typically would have their, you know, the treasury that was for government purposes, and then they'd have their own stash, their own secret treasure room that was just for their own possession. That's one of the ideas here in the ancient world behind this concept of our being of people for his possession. And we're not, I mean, of course, every human being in one sense is, you know, a creature of God, they are his possession in one sense, but what he's saying here is, no, we are so special. We are so prized that we are his, we're in his secret treasure chest, and he lavishes us and pours out his affection upon us, lavishes his affection upon us. Let me ask you, as you think through, and boy, we could spend, we could spend a whole sermon on each one of those pictures, but as you think through those pictures, what comes to mind? Does it do anything to you? Or you just kind of go, hmm, okay, sort of like when you're watching a really wonderful, fascinating show, and then a commercial comes on and you just kind of go, hmm, oftentimes that's what these biblical images are for us. They're just, hmm, and what we need is to peer into them so that our heart begins to be touched by them to meditate upon them. Martin Lloyd Jones, a great British preacher of the 20th century said, he thought the biggest problem that Christians had was in making too little of their conversion. In other words, not much had really happened. And one of the things that Peter's been trying to drive home from the beginning, I mean, literally the first verse of this book is, this Christian thing is no small thing that's happened to you. We talked about last week, it's a gospel explosion, all right. You are a radically new person. Twice already, he's used the imagery, the picture of birth. We have been birthed again. We are a totally new breed. He says, a new race here. We are royalty. We were cast out, abandoned, and God has brought us in as his own. So, you know, the point of application here is you're going to be tempted daily, moment by moment, to think of yourself. Who am I? To answer that question based on what other people think about you, based on how much money you've got, based on other possessions, based on your reputation. So, based on a relationship, positive or negative. And what Peter is urging us to do is say, no, push aside those snapshots of life and sink your teeth into the pictures of the Bible. To tell you who you are, you are God's treasured people. You are his royal family. And you are living stones being built into a spiritual house with Christ as the all important cornerstone. And of course, one of the other aspects of this is that we are not alone. Many of you feel alone. Many of you feel, I know, feel insignificant. You feel like a failure in life. The Bible was saying, that's because you are defining yourself based on the pictures of this life, your own circumstances, the way people think about you and life. Here's a picture of this from the animated movie Ants. Did you see that? I don't know. It was out within the last 10 years I suppose. And it's about this Ant colony. And one of the characters voiced by none of the Woody Allen is a character named Z, and very typical for Woody Allen. The scene takes place in a therapist's office. He's on the couch. And he says this to his therapist. All my life, I've lived and worked in the big city. I always tell myself there's got to be something better out there. Maybe I think too much. I think everything must go back to the fact that I had a very anxious childhood. My mother never had time for me. When you're the middle child and a family of five million, you don't get any attention. I mean, how is it possible? I've always had these abandonment issues also, which plagued me. My father was basically a drone, like I've said. The guy flew away when I was just a larva. And my job, don't get me started on it because it really annoys me. I wasn't cut out to be a worker. I feel physically inadequate. My whole life, I've never been able to lift more than 10 times my own body weight. And when you get down to it, handling dirt is not my idea of a rewarding career. I mean, what is it I'm supposed to do everything for the colony? What about my needs? What about me? I mean, I've got to believe there's some place out there that's better than this. Otherwise, I'll just curl up into a larva position in the week. The whole system makes me feel, and then there's a pause, and then he says, insignificant. And the therapist responds, excellent, Z. You've made a real breakthrough. Z says, I have. He says, yes, Z. You are insignificant. You know, and I think that we laugh at that because we go, oh my goodness, that really, if I'm candid with my soul, that is a fear that I'm making no progress in this journey towards self-significance. I'm really nothing. And there's all these images in our culture that remind us of that every day. You're a failure. You're ugly. You're either too fat or too thin. Whatever, you don't have whatever it's going to make you to be significant. The Bible is saying, you've got to push aside those images and realize you are significant because God says you are. And you're significant not because you're this dangling stone out there, but you're alive through the spirit, and you're connected to a larger body of living stones, all interconnected to the chief foundation cornerstone Jesus Christ. You are a priceless treasure. Let me ask you, who are you? Do you picture what the Bible is saying? Do you see that you're not this individual out there? Now, absolutely. You are, you know, the illustration she's from ants is saying that you're insignificant because you exist totally for the colony. What the Bible is saying is you have individual significance just never divorced from the larger community, and for a purpose that we'll talk about in a few minutes. So it really is an issue of community, the other people. Are you experiencing community here at Christ the King? Maybe you're new to this church family, and you're very, you're very leery of churches. You've been burned. Church is full of hypocrites, right? Well, it reminded me of a story someone sent me on an email not too long ago about this guy who was stranded on a desert island for many, many years all by himself. He was rescued. And as his rescuers are pulling away from shore, they look back and they see three huts that he had obviously made, and I see someone laughing out there. So they already know this one. Does everybody know this one already? All right. And he said, you know, who, what are these three huts? And he said, that, that one over there was my home. I made that. That's where I live. That's pretty cool. And what's that one over there? He said, well, that's, that's the place where I go to church. And he thought, that is really amazing that he would build an entire building just to go to church. And then someone said, well, what's that third hut over there? And he said, oh, well, that's where I used to go to church. There's a little dance that I call the evangelical shuffle. You know, we hang out in this church over here until someone burns us or someone disillusions us, and then we kind of slip over here and we dance over here for a little while. And you know, most of us have kind of been there and done that. And I'm not saying there aren't good reasons occasionally for leaving one body of believers, but look, isn't it true? In our day, the church is grossly devalued. And it's funny because the Bible never encourages us to distance ourselves best I can tell from a group of Christians because they're still sinners. In fact, that's what the church is. It's a group of people in process of redemption. And I think the application is we need to start an increasingly so valuing what God values, what is God value, the church, the church is his people that he catapulted out of darkness into his marvelous light. And it's his treasured possession. How dare we devalued what he considers priceless? We need to picture this. Secondly, how do we participate in these things? How do these things become a reality for us? And of course, from one standpoint, which Peter's covered pretty thoroughly up to this point, from one standpoint, the divine standpoint, the way that a person participates in these things that are pictured for us, is solely of God. God is the divine architect. He's the one that's taking us and breathing life into dead inanimate stones and building us together one another into a spiritual house for his praises. God is the one who said in the very beginning of the letter, who chose us based on his own foreknowledge, that is his love in advance, irrespective of what we would end up doing. He poured out his love upon us and chose us. And so you see this incredible picture, even here in this passage in verse 9, this very enigmatic passing statement that Peter makes, that even those who reject Jesus, who stumble over him, ultimately, that is part of the world. This is part of God's plan. They were in essence destined to do that. And I know that raises all sorts of questions. And I have the luxury of saying, I don't have time to deal with those questions. Because he doesn't really deal with it. He just kind of just passes on it. And so I think we chalk it up to the larger theme of God's sovereignty that he's already underscored and say that he is part of the mystery of his ways. So how do we from the human standpoint? That's God's standpoint. How do we from the human vantage point? Take advantage of these things. So we're not left out in the cold. Well, the very first phrase in this passage, as you come to him and stop there for a second. Christianity is not what most of us think it is. Currently now with the world things. Christianity is not coming into a club where it's people that look just like you and have the same pedigree as you do. The church is from all across the spectrum of humanity. It's one of the beautiful things. It's the race leveler. Christianity is about people who come to a person, Jesus Christ. As you come to him, have you come to Jesus? I haven't asked have you have you joined a religious club? Have you tried to be a basically good person or maybe on the other end of life? You find yourself totally unfit. You know you're a miserable wretch of a person. The good news is Christianity says, come one, come all, come to Jesus. Have you come to him? Because the difference between those who enjoy the wondrous reality that Peter has painted for us and those who fail to enjoy that is their response to Jesus Christ from the human vantage point. He says, you either come to the stone, verse 4, or you stumble over the stone, verse 8. You either consider him as God the Father does as chosen and precious, verse 6, or you find him offensive. You either believe in him or verse 7, you reject him, which one are you? This church exists for a collection of people across the spiritual continuum that are in process. For some of you you know you reject Christ. For others of you, you absolutely would never say you reject Christ. But if you're honest in the inner workings of your heart, if I say not so much do you reject him but do you consider him and nothing else in comparison precious, then what's your answer? See because we're always living for what we consider precious and valuable and he is the uniquely precious one of the Father. For those who reject these things, he says that it leads to shame in verse 6 and dishonor. Behold I am laying a stone and laying in Zion a stone, quoting from Isaiah 28, 16, a cornerstone chosen in precious and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe. Then in verse 8 he says, for those who don't Jesus becomes a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense. See Jesus is right here in the middle of every person's life and you can't just conveniently step over him and go about your daily business. You have to come to terms with him. You have to butt up against him. You're confronted by his presence and reality and that's offensive. Look I understand Christianity is offensive to the unbeliever. Absolutely it is. Biblical Christianity is incredibly narrow because it says that there is a God in heaven who has the freedom to do as he pleases with a fallen, broken, rebellious people and he has called his people into his private treasure room for his enjoyment and his purposes. The world wants spirituality without that kind of offense. One little picture from a well-known song by John Lennon called Imagine. He's basically saying, picture this. Imagine there is no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us only sky. Imagine all the people. I'm sparing you actually singing this. It's a lovely tune. Imagine all the people living for today. Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. No religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace. That's the world and as a Christian, we'll talk about this a lot more next week. Our posture toward the world. I'm not saying, oh you should look down your nose. Typical. Hostile to Christianity. I think we should say that's the natural reaction to the offense of Christianity. Of course people are going to stumble over Jesus. It is only by God's mercy that we don't and that's the real issue because he ends the passage by borrowing powerful imagery from the book of Jose and the Old Testament saying, once you were not my people, now you are my people, once you had not received mercy, now you have received mercy. The picture you may know is about as R-rated as the Bible can get. There's a few more scandalous passages but this is pretty R-rated. It's where God is called Jose to go marry a woman who becomes a prostitute on him. She runs around with other men. And then God says now, now go love her again, go take her again as your own, go pour out your mercy on her because what she is is a picture of what the people of God have done. They have adulterated themselves by regarding other things as precious in comparison to me. And I'm not going to disregard them even though they stumble over me, I'm going to overcome their stumbling by pouring out my mercy and loving kindness upon them. Go marry yourself to her again, he's saying in essence, and that's what the gospel is my friends. It's not because we've cleaned up our act and we've become all of a sudden very pleasing to God. It's because God in the mystery of his sovereign grace and mercy pours out his love upon us and marries himself to us as it were regarding us as more priceless than we could ever imagine. And the reality, the benefit of that is we end up sharing in the honor that the father gives to the son. That's what he says. We don't have time to go into in detail in verse seven. So the honor is for you. The honor that he regards to the chief, priceless cornerstone, Jesus Christ who was rejected in this world endured unimaginable suffering has been highly exalted and he is now honored far above any other creature in all the universe. That honor we will share and for those who stumble and do not believe in Christ there will be what he says shame and the idea there is embarrassment. Let me bring a little levity to this very heavy constant. At least it's levity to us not to hurt y'all see it's very sad don't mean to make fun of her this American snowboarder who had essentially won the gold medal did you see this. I mean light years ahead of everyone else heading to the promised land heading to the finish line finish line and and she then kind of hot dogs it and falls short of the finish line and loses. What embarrassment it's so sad it's shame I mean that's the idea that for those who are struggling and I do pray every Sunday there's many in this congregation who are in process spiritually if you're struggling with these things if Jesus is offensive to you hang around because of course he's offensive but you will find that what you once regarded as offensive as distasteful. It's become the most precious beautiful excellent thing in all of life and you will share everlasting way in the honor that the father gives to the son. Finally and we're really out of time for what purpose is all of this why why would God the grand architect do this amazing thing. And we get a hint of it early on in the passage where he calls us a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God of course old testament imagery of the temple and and priest offering sacrifices but what he's saying is these are spiritual sacrifices because you see the one atoning sacrifice has already been given through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary all the blood it's necessary to be shed to. To be shed to expiate to take away our sin has been spilled now all those who are living stones all who are believers are together priests and what do priests do they offer up sacrifice spiritual sacrifices what is that later in the passage he tells us in verse 9 that we have been brought out of the darkness and despair of this world into the world. This world into the light of Jesus Christ for this purpose that we might proclaim the excellence of him who brought us out of that darkness into his light it's worship why do you and I exist as human beings to worship all that sin is as a disorder of worship we don't worship the right things we prize the wrong things that God in his grace through Jesus's sacrifice. His opened up the doorway for us to really live that's what it's saying look a picture may be worth a thousand words but a thousand ten thousand pictures could never begin to contain the exolences of the one incarnate word Jesus Christ. If you appear into all the pictures in the Bible ask God to help those pictures like the ones in this passage lead you to the living stone the cornerstone Jesus Christ daily that you might suppress and even get rid of those competing pictures of this world that the infinite excellence of Jesus Christ might resonate upon your heart and that you might live one day together with all the angels and saints in glory bowing in freedom before the Lord. Father we do thank you for your patience and mercy how we pray more and more that we would picture in a transforming way the wonder of that mercy in Jesus our savior and cornerstone.