About this sermon
1. As a church, we offer Spiritual sacrifices to God (v. 5).
2. Consider how our spiritual sacrifices are made acceptable to our holy God (v. 5).
Sermon transcript
Friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We continue on in our consideration of 1 Peter. First epistle of the Apostle Peter, and we continue in chapter two, verses four through five, though I will once again read verses four through 12 to fill out the context for you. But let’s take it up in verse four of 1 Peter 2, dear friends. This is the word of God, let’s hear it with reverence and awe. As you come to Him, a living stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 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. For it stands in Scripture, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. 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. 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. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of His Word tonight. Heavenly Father, once again we ask for the assistance and grace of Your Holy Spirit to open up to us the Scriptures. We pray that you would give us insight into this passage of Scripture and the truths that it contains, and we ask that you would grant me the grace, Lord God, to speak forth and declare your truth here, as revealed in this portion of Scripture, in a manner that is clear, in a manner that is powerfully and faithfully communicated. We pray all of these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is A Living Stone, A Holy Priesthood.
This is part two. And you’ll notice there are about six key words that the children can be listening for. Sacrifice, praise, thanksgiving, works, mediation, and spiritual. Well dear ones, on the last Lord’s Day evening we considered this passage of God, what this passage of God’s Word teaches us about the nature and the function of the church as a holy priesthood. By the Holy Spirit’s supernatural work of inspiration, Saint Peter the Apostle wrote this letter, this epistle, to a group of believers facing persecution for their faith. And in seeking to encourage them in the face of that persecution, Peter not only offers them instructions in godly living in the midst of a godless, hostile environment, Peter also reminds them of the spiritual and saving blessings that they had received in Christ. And he reminds them as well of their identity as God’s people.
And part of that identity included the truth that Christ’s church is a holy priesthood. As a holy priesthood, God’s people have been set apart from and delivered out of the domain of darkness, in other words, out of Satan’s pseudo-kingdom, and have been set apart and consecrated unto God that they might worship Him and serve Him faithfully. This is clearly brought out in the parallel text to verse four, or verse five, rather, in verse nine, where it says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may do what? That you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Those wonderful gospel truths about our identity as God’s people apply to us believers, whether or not we are currently facing persecution for our faith, like the original readers of Peter’s first epistle.
It’s not like these truths only apply to persecuted believers. They apply to all believers, whether we are currently facing persecution or not. So friends, on the last Lord’s Day evening, we focused mainly on what this passage teaches us about our identity as a holy priesthood. And we also focused as well on the important distinction between Christ’s high priesthood on the one hand, and our priesthood as the priesthood of all believers on the other hand. Well, tonight I would have us focus on what the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Peter, and also through other portions of God’s Word that we will be focusing on as well, what the Scriptures teach us about the kinds of sacrifices that we offer to God as the church. If we are a holy priesthood, we would expect priests to offer sacrifices.
So what are the kinds of sacrifices that we in the church are to offer up to God? And we’re also going to focus on what we learn from this passage about how those spiritual sacrifices are made acceptable to our holy God. We’re going to seek to answer the question, how is it that an infinitely holy God would receive sacrifices, if you will, spiritual sacrifices from those of us who are sinners. And so with all of this in mind, let’s dive into our passage for tonight, and we’ll be focusing especially on verse five. And the first thing I want us to consider, brothers and sisters, is that as a church, we offer what are described as spiritual sacrifices to God. As a church, we offer spiritual sacrifices to God. As it says in verse, well, let me start at verse four again.
As you come to Him, meaning Jesus, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 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. So as a holy priesthood, we are called to offer up spiritual sacrifices. The Greek word for that is pneumatikos. In Christ, we are being built up as spiritual stones into a spiritual house, a spiritual temple. And we are being built up thus in order to offer spiritual sacrifices. And that term spiritual indicates that which is animated by the Holy Spirit. It’s not just talking about you know, spiritual as opposed to material, for example. It’s not just talking about the immaterial as opposed to the material. It’s talking about that which is animated by the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
And these sacrifices appear to be defined in the parallel verse, in verse nine, as proclaiming the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Those spiritual sacrifices include proclaiming, declaring the excellencies of the God who called us out of spiritual darkness and called us into His marvelous light, namely the kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now friends, when we compare Scripture with Scripture, we see this kind of sacrificial language being used of various activities of God’s people in the New Testament in particular. And these sacrifices, these spiritual sacrifices, therefore, can include a whole host of activities. For example, let’s take a look at some passages that underscore the truth that these spiritual sacrifices include verbal praise and thanksgiving. This evening, as we’ve sung hymns and psalms to the Lord, those are spiritual sacrifices.
As we offer those hymns and psalms up to God out of gratitude and thanksgiving and animated by gratitude from the Holy Spirit, those psalms and hymns and spiritual songs are, as it were, spiritual sacrifices unto the Lord. And there’s many passages of scripture that teach this truth, but I’d like us to just focus on a few other passages outside of 1 Peter. Let’s turn briefly to, for example, Colossians 3, and look at verses 16 and 17. Colossians 3. verses 16 and 17. We read these words. Paul, in writing the Colossian believers, he says in chapter 3 beginning at verse 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. In the Word of Christ, what’s he talking about? I believe he’s talking about the Gospel. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, and not just dwell in you subjectively.
I think the case can be made, he’s talking about let the Word of Christ dwell among you as the people of God. as the church. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. There’s a horizontal aspect to the singing of praise and thanksgiving. There’s an instructional and edificational aspect to that. But there’s also an aspect of pouring out our hearts to God in thanksgiving, offering up these psalms and hymns and spiritual songs as acts of thankfulness. to God. So, in that sense, this is describing what Peter would call spiritual sacrifices.
Or consider what the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 13, verse 15. Hebrews 13, verse 15. The author of Hebrews says in that passage, through him, that’s through Christ then, let us continually offer up what? Offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, and then he defines what that is, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge or confess his name. Through him, through Christ, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. We do that in our prayers, we do that in our praises, we do that in our confessions of faith, and so forth. We offer up the fruit of lips that acknowledge or confess His holy name. Or consider what Paul says in Ephesians 5, verses 18 through 21, which is similar to what he writes in Colossians 3, 16 and 17.
In Ephesians 5, verses 18 through 21, We read these words, Paul addressing a group of former Gentile idolaters who were used to the debauched worship of the pagan deities, which included not only immorality, but often drunkenness. He says, verse 18, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. So we see that one way that we offer spiritual sacrifices to God is through our verbal praise and thanksgiving. Another aspect of offering spiritual sacrifices of God is publicly confessing Christ to others.
Let’s consider what Paul writes in 1 Timothy 3, verse 18, 1 Timothy 3, verse 18, where Paul records what very well may have been an early Christian creed or creedal hymn that was used by the early apostolic church. Paul writes in that verse, great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Christ was proclaimed and is to be proclaimed among the nations as the gospel is to be taken to the ends of the earth. And this too, my friends, can be viewed as one way of offering spiritual sacrifices of gratitude to God as we publicly confess, as we tell others about Jesus, and as we as the church faithfully carry out our missionary labors that Christ has called us to.
But another way in which these spiritual sacrifices manifest themselves is through the good works of believers. Consider again as we go back to Hebrews 13. Look at Hebrews 13, verse 16. Hebrews 13 verse 16, again, the author of Hebrews using this sacrificial language, he says, do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such, what? Such sacrifices are pleasing to God. And so we offer spiritual sacrifices to the God through verbal praise and thanksgiving, through publicly confessing Christ to others as a church, and as we have individual opportunity to share Jesus with others. We do so also through our good works. We also do so through consecrating our very bodies, our very own selves unto the Lord, as we’re told in Romans 12, verse 1. Again, which ought to be a very familiar passage to all of us, especially as I preached from it recently.
Hebrews 12, verse 1, after Paul has spent the first 11 chapters of Romans just expounding and doing a deep dive into the truths of the gospel. He then says this in chapter 12, verse 1, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, in other words, by the mercies that I’ve been writing about up to this point, I appeal to you by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a what? a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. We give our bodies, our very selves, the body represents the whole man, the whole being. Another aspect, another way in which, and this is the final example I’ll give from scriptures, another way in which we offer spiritual sacrifices to God is through our financial gifts to support the spread of the gospel.
Philippians 4, verse 18, Paul again uses this kind of sacrificial language, and he says in Philippians 4, verse 18, Remember that Paul as a missionary depended, though he was a tent maker, but he also depended upon and was grateful for receiving gifts from the churches to support his missionary labors. He says, I have received full payment and more I am well supplied having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. These were gifts of financial support that Paul had received to support his missionary labors. And notice how he describes these gifts. He describes them as a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. Beloved in Christ, everything we do as a holy priesthood, as the priesthood of believers, is to be done as unto the Lord and for His glory and out of gratitude for His wonderful gift of salvation to us in Jesus.
This includes not just holy activities that we do together on the Lord’s Day, although that’s an important component of such spiritual sacrifices, but this also includes even common everyday activities. Everyday activities like doing your job well. Christians should be the best employees and employers. They should do their work diligently as unto the Lord. or making sure that your children receive a sound Christian education, doing work around the house, washing the dishes, taking out the trash, planning your budget in good stewardship unto the Lord, and so forth. All of these things can be done as acts of praise and thanksgiving to God and service to the Lord. Just as it also includes these sacrifices unto the Lord, also includes specifically holy and religious activities like reading your Bible, doing theological and devotional studies, prayer, family devotions, raising your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, fasting, and so forth.
Dear listener, let me ask you, are you offering to God such spiritual sacrifices of praise and obedience out of gratitude for Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for your sins? So we’ve considered what these spiritual sacrifices, what they include, but next let’s consider how our spiritual sacrifices are made acceptable to our holy God. Again, earlier in the sermon, I asked the question, how is it that our holy creator, the infinitely holy, sovereign, triune God could ever deign to accept our acts of prayer and praise, worship, obedience, our good works, to ever accept them as pleasing in his sight, since we are sinners, and since sin taints everything that we do, including our worship, including our good works. Well, the answer is given in verse 5. It says that 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.
How? Through Jesus Christ. Three very important words there. through Jesus Christ. It is through the merit and mediation of Christ that our works are made acceptable to God. Dear ones, our prayers, our praises, our offerings, and our good works are only acceptable to God our Father as we offer them through faith in the mediation and merit of our great high priest and mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. This means that any acts of prayer, any acts of praise, any offerings, no matter for what good cause those offerings may be, any so-called good works which are not done from the heart, from the heart of trust in Christ and with the primary aim of glorifying God, such acts are in reality actually sins in the eyes of the infinitely holy God. And I would suggest to you, brothers and sisters, that this is especially the case of devotional and religious acts and good deeds done from a motive of trying to appease God’s wrath, or trying to atone for your own sins, or trying to earn or merit a place in heaven.
All of these things. from those motives are in fact high and horrible blasphemy against the gracious God who sent his son Jesus Christ to atone for our sins and to merit for us the gift of eternal life. You know, if you’re reading your Bible because you think, well, the more I read my Bible, God’s really going to be pleased with me. If I do more Bible reading, God’s going to give me a pat on the back. If I spend more time in prayer, if I go to church more faithfully. Again, these are all good things in and of themselves, but if you are doing these things in order to earn points with God, in order to commend yourself to His favor, or to make yourself somehow more acceptable to Him, you are blaspheming. You are taking the Lord’s name in vain.
When you perform religious acts and good deeds in an attempt to earn God’s favor, you’re essentially telling Jesus that what he did on the cross to redeem sinners like you from their sins wasn’t enough to save you. You’re essentially saying, okay, Jesus, thanks for dying for me, but I know you need a little bit of help to save me, so I’m gonna add my good works, I’m gonna add my prayers, I’m gonna add my devotion to your finished work. You’re essentially telling God the Father that his sending of his son to be the savior of sinners like you and like me is inadequate to secure your salvation. What an insult against our merciful and gracious God. I think our Westminster Confession of Faith in chapter 16, which is the chapter on good works in section 7, puts it well.
And if you want to read along, it’s found on page, this section is found on page 929 in the back of your Psalter hymnal. This is Confession of Faith, chapter 16, section 7. This section says this. Works done by unregenerate men, that is, those who are not born again, those who are not converted. Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and others, yet because they proceed not from a heart purified by faith, nor are done in a right manner according to the word, nor to a right end the glory of God. They are therefore sinful and cannot please God or make a man meet or prepare a man to receive grace from God, and yet their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing unto God.
Beloved, this is why it’s important to remember that as a holy priesthood, the sacrifices that we offer to God, which are acceptable to God, are described as spiritual sacrifices. They are animated by the Spirit. They are motivated and animated by the indwelling Spirit of God, who has regenerated and who sanctifies His people. Any prayers or works or offerings which are not the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts and lives are not spiritual sacrifices, but instead are works of the flesh, works of the fallen nature, and therefore they are unacceptable to God, even though formally speaking, they may be things that God actually commands. As it has been said, it is impossible for the unbeliever not to sin. Even the good works of the unbeliever are sinful in the eyes of God. Instead, friends, such spiritual sacrifices that we as God’s people are to offer are only made acceptable to God the Father through the merit and mediation of Jesus Christ the Son.
And this is why our prayers and praises must be offered in Jesus’ name. In other words, independence upon His mediation in order for them to be acceptable to God. And likewise, our offerings and our good works and our serving God in our vocations, all of these things, likewise, must be offered to God in Jesus’ name. Now, that does not mean that simply tacking on the words in Jesus’ name at the end of your prayer makes your prayer acceptable to God. You can use the words in Jesus’ name without actually praying in Jesus’ name. Likewise, you can pray without using the words in Jesus’ name, but in actuality, you can be praying in Jesus’ name because you pray and praise God and follow the Lord, resting in what Christ has done for you. Friends, we offer spiritual sacrifices to God, not in our own strength or power.
We offer them out of gratitude. Gratitude for what Jesus did for us. Gratitude to the God who loved us to such an extent that he sent his son Jesus to die for our sins. And we rely upon Jesus and his finished work to make all of our works acceptable to God. But I want to make an important clarification here. I want to issue an important reminder as we close our time in the Word this evening. We’ve been talking about the spiritual sacrifices that we as a holy priesthood, as the church, offer up to God. And we’ve also talked about how those sacrifices are made acceptable to God. They’re made acceptable through Christ, through His merit and mediation, in reliance upon His finished work. Important reminder is this, these spiritual sacrifices which we offer as the church are not in any way meritorious or atoning.
They don’t appease God’s holy wrath or in any way satisfy his justice. They do not in any way gain or increase his favor toward us. They are simply sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving offered in gratitude to God for his gift of salvation in Christ. If you’re a parent, you’ve had this experience. You have a young child who draws a picture for you. And the picture is, you know, this is not Michelangelo. This is not a piece of great art being presented to you. Maybe it’s a stick figure, but you love receiving that little picture that your son or your daughter made for you. and you probably put it up on your refrigerator, you know, put the magnets up on the refrigerator, and you display it for all in the house and all your guests to see.
And it’s not because that picture is necessarily great artwork. It’s you know that this picture comes from a heart of love, that your child made this for you because he or she loves you. and you accept it in spite of its artistic imperfections, because of the relationship that your child has to you. And it’s the same, it’s similar in our relationship with the Father. He deigns to accept our prayers, our praises, our good works, not to, not to earn points with him or to gain salvation, but he deigns to receive those things. He delights in those things. They are acceptable to him because they come from hearts of faith and love for the loving Heavenly Father who sent his son Jesus to be our Savior. Of course, all of this is very contrary to the popular notion, and it sadly is a popular notion out there, and even sadly a popular notion among professing Christian people.
This is against the popular notion that we have the power somehow to earn points with God by things like our good deeds or our charitable works or our religious involvement. But the Bible makes it clear that even our best good works as believers continue to be tainted by the stain of sin, and therefore they can only be pleasing to our Heavenly Father through the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we wrap up our time this evening, I’d like us to turn to the Confession of Faith once again, page 929, and I’d like to read from chapter 16, section five, page 929. Chapter 16, section 5. Actually, the section begins at the bottom of page 928. It says this. We cannot, by our best works, merit pardon of sin or eternal life at the hands of God, by reason of the great disproportion that is between them and the glory to come, and the infinite distance that is between us and God, whom by them we can neither profit nor satisfy for the debt of our former sins.
But when we have done all we can, We have done but our duty and our unprofitable servants. And because as they are good, they proceed from his spirit. And as they are wrought by us, they are defiled and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment. Dear ones, let us give praise and thanks to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who as our great high priest stretched out his arms upon the hard wood of the cruel cross and offered a perfect once for all, eternally efficacious sacrifice of infinite value to pay our sin debt and to win for us the free gift of eternal life. And let us also thank him that through his priestly work, He has formed us as his people into a holy priesthood, called to offer up spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving.
Sacrifices which, though imperfect, are made acceptable to God through the mediation of Jesus Christ, our great high priest and savior. Dear listener, is Jesus Christ your savior and priest? Is he your mediator and king? As we go from this place, let us heed the challenge to live out our calling as a priesthood of believers unto God. May all of our work, may all of our prayers, all of our thoughts and all of our meditations and all of our words be an offering of gratitude to our merciful God, an offering which says to God, Thank you, oh dear Lord, for loving me so much and for giving me the greatest gift of all, the gift of your Son, Jesus. Amen. Let’s pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we do thank you and praise you that you have formed us into one as a holy priesthood We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would fill our hearts with gratitude and love and praise for you for all that you have done for us, that we may be freed up, Lord God, to offer you these spiritual sacrifices, not in an attempt to gain your favor or increase your favor toward us, For you all already have infinitely favored us in Christ, the infinite Son of God.
Lord, help us to be motivated to offer these spiritual sacrifices in praise and gratitude for the gospel, the good news of Jesus our Savior. For it is in his name that we pray and all of God’s people said, amen. As we close our time this evening, let’s rise and we’ll sing as our closing hymn, number 158, all praise to thee my God this night, 158.
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