Church is God's Temple

1 Peter 2:4-10

Christ = the cornerstone, the living Stone
Christians =. living stones

You can't be a loner avoiding the church community and grow in your faith and spiritual life. Life is not like a school exam/test in which you try to score high all on your own. It's God's plan and design for us that we "are being built together into a spiritual house" of God (v. 5). So, we are called to belong to the church where we can grow together in and through Christ. 

1. What Christ means to us who believe:
a) He is God's chosen, precious cornerstone of the temple in Zion (v. 6), and precious to us who believe (v. 7). And we are living stones, being built into God's temple. The rightful place of Christ as the cornerstone of the Church must be reserved not for someone else, whether Abraham, Peter, Paul, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, or any particular man. 
b) "The one who trusts in him will never be put to shame" (Isaiah 28:16 in v. 6), because they are acceptable to God and built on Christ the cornerstone. 
c) We are like "living stones" being built into God's temple. We are God's work in progress, building our life and ourselves in sync with Christ as the cornerstone. Cornerstone is "a stone uniting two masonry walls at an intersection" (dictionary.com). Likewise, Christ, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him, serves as the cornerstone who join together both the Jewish and Gentile believers, "who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility... to create in himself one new humanity out of the two" (Eph. 2:14-18). If Christ makes peace between the Jews and Gentiles in God's household and destroys the hostility, barrier between them, then we have this adequate reason, greater than any objections, to pursue peace and reconciliation among us today. 

2. What Christ means to those who reject Him: 
They stumble and fall on the Cornerstone. Why?
a) "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" (Psalm 118:22 in v. 7). God planned to make His dwelling place in His people (temple), and started to build it with Christ as the cornerstone. Without the corner stone God chose, the builders labor in vain for their products will not be acceptable to God or sustained apart from the cornerstone. 
b) "They stumble because they disobey the message" (v. 8). 

The Temple implies...

• The presence of God in/among His people
• God’s holiness against men’s sinfulness
• God’s family/household of diverse members
• Our dual role of royal priesthood is to declare God’s praise and offer spiritual sacrifices through Christ.
• We are being built up God’s temple – growing together into spiritual maturity. You don't grow alone. 

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