Chosen and Sent: Discover Your Place in God's Story

Every follower of Jesus has a place in God's plan. In this message from 1 Peter 2, Pastor Chris Teien explains how Christ is the Cornerstone, believers are living stones, and every Christian has been chosen and sent to proclaim the hope of the gospel.

It's easy to feel insignificant or wonder if your life really matters. God's Word reminds us that every believer has a purpose. As we build our lives on Christ, embrace our identity as God's people, and faithfully represent Him wherever He places us, we become part of His unfolding story of redemption.

In This Message: 

1. Build Your Life on Christ, the Sure Foundation

Jesus is the Cornerstone upon whom every lasting life must be built. While the world builds on temporary things, those who trust Christ discover a foundation that will never fail. (1 Peter 2:4-8; Matthew 7:24-27; Acts 4:11-12)

2. Discover Your Place as a Living Stone

God is building every believer into His spiritual house. Each follower of Christ has unique gifts, purpose, and value as part of God's church, working together to accomplish His mission. (1 Peter 2:5; Ephesians 2:19-22)

3. Remember Who You Are in Christ

Believers are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and God's treasured possession. Our identity is no longer defined by our past but by God's grace and His calling on our lives. (1 Peter 2:9-10)

4. Live as Someone Sent to Reflect God's Greatness

God calls His people to live honorable lives that point others to Jesus. Through our words, our character, and our relationships, we demonstrate the transforming power of the gospel to the world around us. (1 Peter 2:11-12; Matthew 5:16)

Takeaway

Don't underestimate your place in God's story. Build your life on Jesus Christ, faithfully serve where He has placed you, and allow your life to point others to the hope found only in Him.

Illustrations

• The church's historic cornerstone illustrates how Jesus is the perfect foundation upon which every believer and every church must be built.

• Installing a fence that continually struck hidden rocks demonstrates the importance of beginning with a solid foundation.

• Building a stone structure reminds us that every believer is a living stone with an important place in God's kingdom.

Key Quotes

"Jesus is the Cornerstone. We are the living stones."

"Every believer has a place in God's story."

"Build your life on the foundation that will never fail."

Search Topics

1 Peter 2, Cornerstone, living stones, identity in Christ, chosen people, royal priesthood, Christian purpose, discipleship, church, Pastor Chris Teien

Full Episode & Transcript:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/18076734

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Helping you apply God's Word and follow Jesus in everyday life. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church  Find episode transcripts at Well.faith 

Transcript

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Chris T 0:16

When we think about all of the things that the Lord has done in our life and what the Lord is doing in our life, we wonder, what are we here for? And what is our place in God's story? Sometimes we feel so ignit insignificant. Sometimes we feel like we don't really have a whole lot to contribute. But all of us can serve Jesus, can glorify Jesus, can pray for one another, can care for one another, and try to advance the good news of the gospel of the kingdom. We have a stack of New Believers, New Testaments out there, and there's another case in my office. We're about to put the Rockwell Church stickers in and put those out there. So you just keep giving those away and we'll just keep buying more because that is a great way, a great tool to help people find Jesus Christ. But the story of your life, the story of this church. Some people see that we change the name and wonder if it's a new church. And I tell them, no, actually, this church has been around since 1900, and they're like, what? And it's like, well, the Evelith Church and the Virginia Church merged together in the late 70s and became Emmanuel Baptist. And then in 2022 we changed the name, but still moving forward on pretty much the same mission. And it's interesting that I think that this is the cornerstone. I'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong, I asked some people today if this is the cornerstone from the Virginia, from First Baptist in Virginia on our sign there. It's been recycled. It's been recycled and placed in the in the sign stone there. A historical monument to remember what was and what this has become. And I don't know what kind of stones will be placed in your life, but I know that this passage talks about Jesus being the cornerstone. And when we think about the cornerstone, we think about how they used to build buildings in the old days. Now I wanted to come up with a bunch of pictures and show a cornerstone back in ancient times, but I couldn't find anything that was licensed for showing on YouTube, so I don't have anything. But just imagine, if you will, they're building a building in the old days with stones. So what they would do is they would try to find the perfect stone to chisel and to put in there, and that would be the first stone that they would build everything else upon. So that stone had to be vertical and horizontally level, perfect plum, so that they could build the rest of the building on it. They didn't have all the laser tools and all the things that we have nowadays. But if you didn't have a quality stone, the whole building could collapse, especially after you kept putting stone after stone on top of it. If there was a crack in it, if it was made of sandstone, if for some reason it wasn't a sturdy stone, it could collapse. Or if it was crooked, if it was off-center, that could mess up the whole building, the whole way it was built. And I've never actually done anything with stone, though I'd like to. It seems kind of fun. But I have put in fences and built a deck and some other things before I helped build houses, but I just did what they told me to do. But I know on my fence that when I came here, I was in a hurry to put in my fence. I had to put up a chain link fence so I could keep my dogs in. And it was, I came up here in October when I started here four years ago, but then I moved into the house November 1st, and we were in a hurry to get the fence in before it got too cold, and I got one of those power post drivers. It was gas operated, so I'd be on a step ladder, stupid, dangerous probably, on a stepladder with this power post driver, and it would-you'd hit the lever thing and it'd try to pound this post down into the ground. And where I used to live, where it was all farmland, sandy soil, I wouldn't have had a problem with that. That would have been quick. But here you got rocks and all sorts of stuff. So what would happen is the post would be going down straight and everything would be perfect. I'd check it with my little two-sided level and everything would be going great. And all of a sudden it would like start straying off because it hit a rock. And then I'd have to try to pull it out and start over again. And I did everything I could to make my fence straight. When I look out my top upstairs window, I can see one side of the fence and I can look straight down the line. And I expected it to be perfectly straight, but it's not perfectly straight because it's like that's where I hit a rock I couldn't get around. That's where I and so I tried. And then with the frost heaves and everything. But in this passage, we're gonna hear about Jesus, the cornerstone, the perfect cornerstone, the perfect one that you can build your life upon. And what's even more exciting about this passage is that not only is Jesus the cornerstone, but he calls each one of us that have come to him to Christ, that we are the living stones, that he takes our raw, sinful, worthless, to some people, stones and chisels them into what they need to be, so that we become a living building, a living temple, a living thing for Christ. Jesus is the cornerstone that we build our lives upon, and we are the living rocks that get built upon that, and each one of us matter, whether we're a large stone that faces the front or a small supporting stone in the back, every one of us matters to the Lord, and he can take the messed up stuff of the past and he can make it into something good. And I think that's pretty exciting. So, just real quick to remember to remind you that Peter was writing to the dispersed people that had received Jesus. A lot of them were Gentiles, some were Jews, but they were just kind of all over the place. They weren't near a local body, church, what we'd call today church or whatever. And so they often felt that they were distant. Uh they felt, well, they all felt persecuted back in that time. I mean, if you were, if you were a non-Jew and all of a sudden you started to believe in this Jesus, the Romans would think that you were odd, if not disloyal, and that maybe you were in some kind of cult or whatever. But Peter's writing to the persecuted. Peter is writing to those who seem far away. Peter is writing to those who seem or who feel like they aren't cared about. And so, number one, build your life on Christ, the sure foundation. To build our life on Christ, the sure foundation. There's all sorts of things you could build your life upon, and people do. They build their life on wealth, they build their life on career, they build their life on possessions, they build their life on heritage, uh, they do all of these things, but that's worldly and that's temporary. And when you come to the end of your days and everybody does, nobody without Christ lives forever, you'll have to look back and wonder if you built your life on the wrong thing. There's lots of people that change their career late in life when they realize that what they built isn't really what they wanted and it doesn't bring satisfaction. Sometimes people are very disappointed with the way that they spent their days. And they always say things like, If I had it to do over again, I would have spent more time serving Jesus. If I had it to do over again, I would have taken the Bible seriously and tried to teach it to my kids and to my grandkids. If I had my life to do over again, I wouldn't have worried about as much as I did, and I would have trusted the Lord more. If I had my life to do over again, I wouldn't have been so afraid to tell people about Jesus. So, all right, let's look at verse 4 through chapter, 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 4 through 12. I'm gonna use the New Living Translation. I always give this disclaimer because there's rumors out there that it's not a translation, it's just a paraphrase. But it's not. And I actually just watched another Bible college professor list the five best Bible translations and for dynamic Bible translations to transform people's life, he named the New Living Translation. And part of the commentary that I've used for this came from Chuck Swindahl, who later in his ministry decided to use the updated New Living Translation for his main text. And my hope for you is that you'll have lots of different Bibles, Bibles that you love. We sang some songs today that were King Jamesy, you know, the young people might not know what the means, but it means you. And so when we think about our culture and we think about who we care for, we want to be well versed and have many tools. And if I could read Greek and Hebrew and speak New Living Translation, that would make it all the difference in the world because I need to speak what the Bible says in a clear, able to understand, transformational way. So that's what I've used for today, and that's what we use in our how to find God in New Testaments. So we also use many other Bible translations, but this is what we got today. So, verse 4 you are coming to Christ, who is a living cornerstone of God's temple. He was rejected by people, he was chosen by God for great honor. Now, in the Greek, this coming isn't a one-time thing. This isn't I showed up to Christ, I I said a prayer, I got right with Jesus, and now I'm good. But this is a continually coming. I'm coming back to Christ again and again, I'm coming before him, I'm coming in praise, I'm coming in worship, I'm coming to Christ, and I realize that he is the living cornerstone, not the dead cornerstone, of God's temple. So he was rejected and despised by men. So when he was here among us, John made it very clear that he came to his own and they rejected him. They esteemed him not, they didn't care, they didn't understand. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And it is so easy when you are feeling persecuted, when you are feeling misunderstood, when you feel that your faith don't matter, when your faith doesn't matter, that you are being rejected. And you need to remember that Jesus was rejected. And if you're really going to be on fire for Jesus and you're being kind and polite and everything else, you're still going to get rejected. People are often going to reject you, not be even because of who you are, but because of what you stand for. Because maybe they have sin in their life and they don't want to deal with it because maybe there's something else going on, and they'll see that you have this life in Christ, this transformational life in Christ. And they're just not ready to give up whatever it is, the sin in their life, to follow Jesus. There's a lot of pride, a lot of things that keep them. But Jesus was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And we worship Jesus, we follow Jesus, we love Jesus, and we realize that if we're on Jesus' team, we might not always be appreciated. So remember, Jesus is the cornerstone, and I already mentioned the cornerstone. And so when we think about building upon that cornerstone, that is going to make the difference on what can be built, how much can be built, how it can be built. And just real quick, when you think about foundations nowadays and how important they are, we see some pretty amazing modern marvels of architecture, like in Qatar. Seems like a really amazing thing, but now they're moving, they're sinking, they're failing. Pretty crazy. Uh, if you were in Florida, and you oh maybe you do, if you have a condo and a high rise in Florida, uh, you might be paying more for your association fee as they're trying to inspect all of those to make sure that they're not about to collapse. What a terrible thing. And so many times, buildings can fail, buildings can sink. Even here. So when my wife and I were first married, we really wanted to find a house, and we didn't have a lot of money. She stayed at home with the kids. And so we were out around Lake Minnetonka, and what used to be cabins were now houses. And we were looking at this one house, and the price was right, and the house was kind of small, but the weird thing about it was that it tilted like a fun house at an amusement park. And the realtor made it seem like, oh, it's okay, you get used to it. I don't think you would. And so it was tilty, and I don't know how long the people be that were selling it lived there like that. I don't know if it, you know, started to sink while they were there or whatever. But because the foundation was bad, the whole house was bad, and I don't really think that you could do anything to fix it, let alone tear it apart, do something about the foundation and put it back together again. But Jesus, Jesus is a sure foundation. Everything about what Jesus taught, what Jesus stood for, what Jesus did for our salvation, what he promises for our eternity, everything about that is solid and sure. And you can build your life on the foundation of Jesus Christ. And not only do you want to, but you are invited to, because verse 5 says, and you are living stones that God is building into a spiritual temple. What's more, you are as holy priests, through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. So to be living stones, to be built into what God is doing, to be built into God's temple, to be built into what God is doing is so wonderful and exciting. And it makes every one of you, Christ followers, it makes your life matter, it makes you important. It shows that we need each other, it shows that God is doing things and putting us together to make a difference in the world. And then Peter shifts to this idea of being holy priests. Now, in the in the old days, you had to be a Levite and only a few people could be priests. The men would represent God to the people and the people to God and they would offer sacrifices and hear about sin and all of these things. But here you have the opportunity, and you are told to be his holy priests. That offers two things. One, it brings you into direct access with the Lord. If you are a priest, you have an opportunity to come into the Lord's presence and to worship, to boldly come into the Lord's presence. And it gives you an opportunity, uh, like the priests of old did, not to ask for sacrifices, but to represent God to the people and the people to God, to pray for people, to share Christ with people, to help people understand how to read the Bible for themselves, how to understand the Bible. We have so much technology now. The technology can read the Bible to people, the technology can now even answer questions about the Bible to people, but it's not a hundred percent trustworthy, and it's not totally connected, but you are. So people will come up to you, people will trust you, people will want to hear what you have to say, and as you share what Christ is doing in your life, as you share what uh script how scripture has transformed you, as you share your testimony, as we always say, tell them what your life was like before you came to Christ, how you came to Christ, and what your life has been like since. As you share that and make that connection, you will put credibility on the Christian faith. You will put credibility on the Word of God, you will put credibility on that stuff. People will always, now even easier, people will always be able to research things, but they do need a human connection. They do need someone like you. And God is giving you an opportunity to serve as that spiritual priest to the people. And what else did priests do? They spent a lot of time worshiping God. They spent a lot of time praising God, and we are invited and told to do that. Verse 6, as the scriptures say, I'm placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem, chosen for great honor, and anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. When you put your faith in Jesus, when you follow Jesus the right way, according to Scripture, you will not be disappointed. You will not be disgraced. Now, culture, people that around you might persecute you, they might speak poorly about you, they might do other things that are humiliating or difficult or sad. But who's who are you trying to please? Last week I talked about pleasing an audience of one, and when you put Christ first, when you build your life on the cornerstone, when you follow him in all those ways, you will never be disgraced. You know, in Ephesians 2 it says, So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners, you are citizens along with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family. Together we are his house built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, and the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself. So together we are being built up in the Lord. We are being built up in the kingdom of God, and we work together. We come together. That's why we need local church. That's why it's not good enough to just watch online or just listen, but to come and to rub shoulders with people. And after this service, share donuts, I guess. But to care for one another, to have a place where people know who you are, to have a place you can call when trouble comes your way for people to pray for you. Each of us being built up in the kingdom of God. Acts 4, 11. Jesus is the one referred to in the scriptures where it says the stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. There is salvation and no one else. God has given no other name under heaven, by which we must be saved. And again, Jesus says, anyone, Matthew 7, verse 24, anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds his house on a rock. Though the rain comes and torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse, because it is built on bedrock. Anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. But when the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash. Number two, know who you are as God's chosen people. When you know who you are as God's chosen people, when you know who you are identified with, when you know, like I mentioned before, that you're on the team, it makes a difference in the way that you serve, your level of commitment, and the things that you do. So Peter continues. Remember, he's writing to the persecuted church, he's writing to the people who are lonely, the people who feel far off, the people who do not have a great support system. Verse 7. Yes, you who trust in him recognize the honor God has given him, but those who reject him, the stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. It's interesting. Some translations say capstone, but either way, the cornerstone is the foundational one, uh, the one that you build upon, and the capstone is the blocks that you put on the top when you're done. So Jesus is the Alpha Omega, the beginning and the end. So that works too. Then there's the keystone that supposedly holds arches together, but one thing said that the keystone can also be the cornerstone, but nonetheless, Jesus holds these things together, a foundation that can be built upon, a foundation that makes all the difference. And it says, you who trust him, do you trust in Jesus? There's so many people that say, I believe in Jesus from an academic standpoint, but do you trust him? I believe in Jesus to get me to heaven, but do you trust him? When you truly trust Jesus, you will trust him with your finances. We sang a song about going wherever Jesus leads us, and I I've prayed that before, and it's led me here. But the idea of trusting him with your life, trusting him with your finances, trusting him with your faith, trusting him in hard times, trusting his plan more than yours, trusting that God is working out what you need in your life more than what you know. So again, if we're building a building and it's a really big, say it's a really big cathedral, okay? And so maybe you're the block layer and you come and they say, okay, you need to build this block wall like this, and you do you, okay, I'm gonna do that. And someone else comes in and they're like, Okay, you you work with glass, okay? Can we need some windows right here? And so you might do what you're told to do, and so you do it well, but you really have no idea what you're building. You don't you don't have a clue of what it's gonna look like in the end. But the master architect does know exactly what's being built, and he sees the whole plan. And the master architect, Jesus, knows what's going on in your life, he knows how he's building you, he knows that he's chiseling you to fit just where he wants you based on the gifts that he's given you, because you matter to God. Verse 8, and he is the stone that makes people stumble, the rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they do not obey God's word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them. This is very interesting in the next verse, too. Very interesting verses. But basically, if you're gonna reject Jesus, the cornerstone, you will trip over it. It will it will trip you up as you deny Christ, as you deny following Christ. When Jesus says he's the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but by him, but through him, and you're like, Yeah, I'm not gonna believe that. I think Buddha's good, I think Muhammad's good, I think anybody, I think all religions matter, and God honors them all. That's not what Scripture says, that's not what the cornerstone Jesus said, and so you're going to stumble over the cornerstone instead of being built upon it. It will be your downfall, not your blessing. Verse 9, and this is the one I'm coming back to on Thanksgiving. Uh, you are not like that. You are a chosen people, you are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession, and as a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Because you know, Jesus, you are you know that you're being built upon a foundation of Scripture, a foundation of what the apostles taught, even a foundation of what the Christians who went before us that were really good at writing stuff down and trustworthy books and biographies and things for us to read, to gain hope, to gain inspiration and courage from. That we are being built into a holy nation, God's very own possession, you, me, believers in Christ, all around the world, so exciting. He calls you out of the darkness into his wonderful life. Once you had no identity as a people, now you are God's people. Once you received no mercy, now you have received God's mercy. And number three, number three, live as one sent to show God's greatness, to spend your life doing everything you can to glorify Christ in the way that you do it. So I'm I keep finding more. And more sports channels on YouTube, Christian athletes sharing their testimony, sharing their faith, doing great things to proclaim Christ, using their athletic uh opportunity as a platform, and I really like it. So maybe you like something besides sports and to find Christ followers, to find the Christians, to find the ones that are using their platform to proclaim Jesus, to live as one sent to show God's greatness. And maybe you just do it by sending out Christmas cards to your family or being quick to share what God's doing in your life at the family gatherings or among your friends. But verse 11, dear friends, I warn you as temporary residents and foreigners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. It says, temporary residents and foreigners, because our citizenship is in heaven. We are bound for glory in heaven. We are this is just a temporary place. We're just passing through. Yes, we should be good neighbors, we should be good citizens, we should make a difference while we're here. But we also know that this isn't it. There's still more to come. And then verse 12, be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors, that even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior and they will give honor to God when He judges the world. I was reading this missionary story, and so I'm not sure where it was, but they're trying to reach the natives, the Indians, and so this guy was preaching, and one of the Indians came and said, Well, I hear you preaching this message to the white people, and we're going to watch and see how they respond. And if it makes a difference in their lives, then maybe we will we will believe. And what an interesting thing to think and to say. Are people watching us? Are people looking at us to see what kind of difference Christ makes in our life? Do we just give word service or does it make a transformational difference in our life? These are things to pray about. If you've come here today and you don't know who Jesus is, or you would like to know how you can know for sure you're saved, I would like to talk to you about that. So please come talk to me or call me. My numbers on the my contact information is on the bulletin there or on rockwell.church. You can send us a message through there. Uh we've got how to find God in New Testaments, but I'd love to talk to you about that. Maybe you just need to recommit yourself to the Lord and just start trusting Him. A lot of things I could say about this, but the next time the worship team can get up, come up here. We're gonna talk about honoring Christ in everyday relationships. And I'm gonna pick this back up on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. But uh, let's pray. And uh I also wanted to mention one other thing is that at our sister church, Chisholm Baptist, today is their harvest Sunday or whatever, and they have a special professor, leader from Dallas Theological Seminary, one of their one of their big theologians is there this afternoon. I think it's like four o'clock and then at dinner, and he's speaking again. But not only is he an amazing speaker, but if I remember right, he was also from Nashua, Minnesota, so that's pretty amazing. But that's something that you could go to today if you have time. But Lord Jesus, I thank you so much that we can share with one another. I thank you so much. I appreciate these people and I thank you for their appreciation. Lord, I know that encouragement is one thing that keeps us all moving forward. I pray that we would realize that we are part of your plan, that we're being built into what you want us to be, and that you can use us. We can serve you, we can do uh things through the power of your Holy Spirit, and we can do things greater when we do it together. So, Lord, we just thank you for your word. We thank you for this time, and we just thank you, Jesus, that uh you're working your plan and making all things right. And someday you're gonna return. But in the midst of all that, you have us in mind and you care about us very deeply. In Jesus' name, amen.