Rev. Deacon Allen Batchelder

Trinity Church
Waltham, Massachusetts
August 21, 2011 Pentecost X

Isaiah 51:6-8, Psalm 138, Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:13-20

From the Prophet Isaiah:
“Hearken to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law.”

From St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:
I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

And from the Gospel of St. Matthew:
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.

Let us pray:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation.
Amen. †

My sermon title today is “A Living Stone.” Now picture a stone in your mind. Do you think of a stone as being alive or dead? When you hear someone talk about a “rock garden” does this mean that you plant a rock in the dirt and a rock will grow out of the ground? A stone can be used for constructive purposes or destructive purposes. A stone could be used as a marker. It could be used for building a wall along one’s property line or just adding beauty to your property. My house is built on a foundation of stone and mortar. It usually takes the joining together of many stones in order to build something special and bring “life” to some structure, perhaps a church.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus took His disciples to Gentile territory, in the region of Caesarea Philippi. They were about 120 miles from Jerusalem in the northern part of Palestine. The region was strongly identified with various religions:
It had been a center for Baal worship; the Greek god Pan had shrines there; and Herod the Great had built a temple there to honor Augustus Caesar. It was in the midst of this pagan superstition that Peter confessed Jesus as the Son of God. And it was probably within sight of Caesar’s temple that Jesus announced a surprise: He would not yet establish His kingdom, but He would build His church.

It had been prophesied that Elijah would come again (Mal. 4:5), and some thought that this prediction was fulfilled in Christ. However, Jesus did not minister as did Elijah; it was John the Baptist who came “in the spirit and power of Elias” (Luke 1:13-17). Jeremiah was the weeping prophet whose tender heart was broken at the sight of the decay of the nation. Certainly this attitude was seen in Jesus, the Man of sorrows.

One thing is sure, we should never make a decision about Jesus Christ by taking a poll of the people. Yet Jesus asked this of the disciples, “who do people say that I am?” The important thing is not what others say, but what do you and I personally say? The decisions of the crowd, right or wrong, can never take the place of our own decisions. We are responsible for the decisions that we make.

Peter had the correct response: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!” This response was Peter’s response to the revelation God the Father had given him. This revelation was not the result of Peter’s own investigation. It came as the gracious act of God. God had hidden these things from the proud Pharisees and Sadducees and revealed them to the humble disciples.

It should be noted that there had been other confessions of faith prior to this one. Nathanael had confessed Christ as the Son of God (John 1:49), and the disciples had declared Him God’s Son after He stilled the storm (Matt. 14:33). Peter had given a confession of faith when the crowds left Jesus after His sermon on the Bread of Life (John 6:68-69). In fact, when Andrew had brought his brother Simon to Jesus, it was on the basis of this belief (John 1:41).

How, then, did this confession differ from those that preceded it? To begin with, Jesus explicitly asked for this confession. It was not an emotional response from people who had seen a miracle, but the studied and sincere statement of a man who had been taught by God.

Also, Jesus accepted this confession and built on it to teach them new truth. It must have rejoiced His heart to hear Peter’s words. The Lord knew that Peter could now be led into new steps of deeper truth and service. Our Lord’s ministry to His disciples had prepared the way for this experience.

From this confession of Simon, Jesus gave him a new name, Peter, which means “rock” or “stone.” These Jewish men, steeped in Old Testament Scripture, recognized the rock as a symbol of God. Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ and confesses Him as the Son and God and Saviour, is a “living stone.”

Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into 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 he who believes in him will not be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:4-6).

Jesus Christ is the foundation rock on which the church is built. The Old Testament prophets said so (Ps. 118:22,; Isa. 28:16), Jesus Himself said this (Matt. 21:42), and so did Peter and the other Apostles (Acts 4:10-12). Paul also stated that the foundation for the church is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11). This foundation was laid by the Apostles and prophets as they preached Christ to the lost (1Cor. 2:1-2, 3:11, Eph. 2:20). In other words, when the evidence is examined, the total teaching of Scripture is that the church, God’s temple (Eph. 2:19-22), is built on Jesus Christ – not on Peter.

When Jesus spoke of building His church, He wasn’t just speaking of one building or local assembly, but a universal church composed of all who make the same confession of faith that Peter made.

When Jesus spoke about “My church” in contrast to these other assemblies. This was to be something new and different, for in His church, Jesus Christ would unite believing Jews and Gentiles and form a new temple, a new body (Eph. 2:11-3:12). In His church natural distinctions would be unimportant (Gal. 3:28), Jesus Christ would be the Builder of this church, the Head of this church (Eph. 1:22; Col 1:18).

Each believer in this church is a “living stone” (1 Peter 2:5). Believers would meet in local congregations, or assemblies, to worship Christ and to serve Him; but they would also belong to a universal church, a temple being built by Christ. There is a oneness to the people of God (Eph. 4:1-6) that ought to be revealed to the world by love and unity (John 17:20-26).

We are the body of Christ and each one of us has a purpose and together we become alive in Christ. Before we trusted Christ, we used our body for sinful pleasures and purposes, but now that we belong to Him, we want to use our body for His glory. The Christian’s body is God’s temple (1 Cor. 6:19-20) because the Spirit of God dwells within him (Rom. 8:9). It is our privilege to glorify Christ in our body and magnify Christ in our body (Phil. 1:20-21).

Just as Christ had to take on Himself a body in order to accomplish God’s will on earth, so we must yield our bodies to Christ that He might continue God’s work through us. We must yield the members of the body as “instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 6:13) for the Holy Spirit to use in the doing of God’s work. The Old Testament sacrifices were dead sacrifices, but we are to be living sacrifices.

Of course, our Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect illustration of a “living sacrifice,” because He actually died as a sacrifice, in obedience to His Father’s will. But He rose again. And today He is in heaven as a “living sacrifice,” bearing in His body the wounds of Calvary. He is our High Priest (Heb. 4:14-16) and our Advocate (1 John 2:1) before the throne of God.

As believers we need to give Christ our mind. The world wants to control your mind, but God wants to transform your mind. It describes a change from within. The world wants to change your mind, so it exerts pressure from without. But the Holy Spirit changes your mind by releasing power from within. If the world controls your thinking, you are a conformer; if God controls your thinking, you are a transformer.

God transforms our minds and makes us spiritually minded by using His Word. As you spend time meditating on God’s Word, memorizing it, and making it a part of your inner being, God will gradually make your mind more spiritual.

Your mind controls your body, and your will controls your mind. Many people think they can control their will by “willpower,” but quite often they fail. It is only when we yield our will to God that His power can take over and give us the willpower that we need to be victorious Christians.

We surrender our wills to God through disciplined prayer. As we spend time in prayer, we surrender our will to God and pray, with the Lord. “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” We must pray about everything, and let God have His way in everything. Start each day by surrendering your body to the Lord. Spend time with His Word and let Him transform your mind and prepare your thinking for the new day. Yield to Him your plans and let Him guide you as He sees best. To have a right relationship with God, we must start the day by yielding to Him our bodies, minds and wills.

“Hearken to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law” (Isa. 51:7). To have God’s law in your heart means to belong to Him and be saved (Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 10:16).

In our Epistle reading this morning, Paul was writing to Christians who were members of local churches in Rome. He described their relationship to each other in terms of the members of a body. The basic idea is that each believer is a living part of Christ’s body, and each one has a spiritual function to perform. Each believer has a gift or gifts to be used for the building up of the body and the perfecting of the other members of the body. In short, we belong to and need each other. Putting on and organizing a fundraiser could be a monumental task for one person, but many hands, working together makes the fundraiser a success.

Each Christian should take a self evaluation of his spiritual gifts and what ministry or ministries he is to have in the local church. If you are good in math, you may want to be the church treasurer or count the offering after church. However, if you can’t carry a tune, you shouldn’t join the choir. Perhaps you are a good cook and could feed the hungry with physical nourishment while someone else could feed the hungry with spiritual food.

The gifts that we have came because of God’s grace. They must be accepted and exercised by faith. Since our gifts are from God, we cannot take the credit for them. All we can do is accept them and use them to honor His name.

Each believer has a different gift, and God has bestowed these gifts so the local body can grow in a balanced way. But each Christian must exercise his or her gift by faith. Whatever gift we have must be dedicated to God and used for the good of the whole church, so that our gifts may bear fruit.

There is only one Saviour, Jesus Christ, and only one spiritual building, the church. Jesus Christ is the chief corner stone of the church (Eph. 2:20), binding the building together. Whether we agree with each other or not, all true Christians belong to each other as stones in God’s building.

Jesus Christ is a living stone because He was raised from the dead in victory. He is the chosen stone of the Father, and He is precious. Jesus Christ was chosen by God and rejected by men. He was not the kind of Messiah they were expecting, so they stumbled over Him. Of course, people today still stumble over Christ and His cross (1 Cor. 1:18ff). Those who believe on Christ “shall not be confounded or ashamed.”

Believers are living stones in His building. Each time someone trusts Christ, another stone is quarried out of the pit of sin and cemented by grace into the building. It may look to us at times that the church on earth is a pile of rubble and ruins, but God sees the total structure as it grows (Eph. 2:19-22). If we use the gifts, the spiritual gifts that God has given each one of us; if we work in unity and love, He will bless us and our gifts and we will become a living stone and bear much fruit for His glory.

Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, make us builders of your church. Mold us and use us for thy work. Help us to realize the gifts that you have given us, so that we will use them for your church and your glory. Make us instruments of your peace. May we share your love with others. Help us to surrender to your will. Take what we have Lord, bless it, and give it back to us so that we might feed your hungry people. Help us to grow in the knowledge of your Holy Word; that we may share this with others. Transform us to be your disciple. May we always look to you, until your coming again. We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

AMEN †