Wednesday Bible Study: Stones, living and dead (Part 2)

 

Living stones, and dead stones.

1Pe 2:4  As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 

1Pe 2:5  you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 

You are a living stone, Peter tells us- under the caveat he mentioned just before this, 1Pe 2:3  if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.  But what does that mean?  

The first of Christ's living stones WAS Peter, and it came with confession:

Mat 16:15  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 

Mat 16:16  Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

Mat 16:17  And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 

Mat 16:18  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 

You become alive by confessing Christ as God.  What then, is the result of this?  

1Pe 2:9  But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 

1Pe 2:10  Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 

-You become a UNITY with all other believers- not black or white, slave or free, but one.

-You belong to GOD, separated unto Him.

-You have received mercy; the judgment that is yours, Christ takes on Himself.

-And you have a new PURPOSE; worship and praise of the God who gifted you with the faith to confess Him.

Here's the thing we don't get, and I will likely go more into depth on this later on-  Everywhere a holy stone is mentioned, it is or is to be "uncut by human hands".  God makes it, He calls you, He gives you faith, He shares His grace and mercy.

But there is a difference between being a living stone and a dead one.

Mat 3:7  But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 

Mat 3:8  Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 

Mat 3:9  And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 

This sentence is heavy with meaning.  John was baptizing in the same place that the Children of Israel first crossed into the promised land.  And there were stones there:

Jos 4:9  And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood; and they are there to this day. 

Jos 4:10  For the priests bearing the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the LORD commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua. The people passed over in haste. 

Hear me out:  Before this, he had elders from each tribe take a stone FROM the miraculously dried bed of the Jordan and set them up un the other side as a memorial; these they could see, while once the river was returned, these others they would not.  They would look on the ones they could see, and see themselves, each tribe, memorialized, and miss the point beneath the waves, that the miracle was God's provision, not their efforts.  It was the stones beneath the living water of the Jordan (the Jews called running water 'living'), submerged in the Spirit of God, that would be the Children of Abraham- not those who pointed to their own names on the dead rocks they could see.

The point was and is that they, and we, start out with that heart of stone, affected only by what we see.  And it takes plumbing the depths to realize that only God can give that stone heart flesh.  When we start out, we are driven by our idols: Money, fame, sex, whatever- and we never see the effect that has on us:

Psa 115:4  Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 

Psa 115:5  They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 

Psa 115:6  They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 

Psa 115:7  They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 

Psa 115:8  Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them. 

And we will go on not seeing, not hearing, not feeling- unless something marvelous happens:

Eze 36:25  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 

Eze 36:26  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 

Eze 36:27  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 

See how it all ties together?  The living stones, submerged in the living water of the Holy Spirit, given a heart of flesh to seek Christ.  The dead stones, content to be shaped by their idols , content to not hear, not see, not feel, not really.