SPEAKER_01 0:00

A reading from God's Word, 1 Peter 2, 4 through 8. 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, and they were destined to do as they were destined to do. This is the word of God.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Hey, so you're Ricky? Yes, I am. I'm Ricky Burr. Yes, sir. Okay, we've been looking, we've heard about your good contractor. Listen, my colleague and I want to talk to you about some remodeling we want to do for the youth area. What's up, guys? What's going on? Hey, whoa, what's up? Put the hat there, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Man, safety first. Man, I'll put safety first, everything I do. I got the vest, I got the hat, I'm ready to do this thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Alright, well, this is Ricky. Ricky, this is just to meet you. You tell them what you want to do here, but you don't mind.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Well, Ricky, uh, this wall right here, we're trying to create a bigger space for our youth. I want this wall to come down.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Okay. You want it to come down? I want this whole wall of this. So, this is a low-brand wall, so I mean, if I were you, it probably wouldn't be a good idea, sir.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Uh no, no, no, no, no. This is a good idea, man. Listen, I got this hat on. That means I know what I'm talking about. I want this wall to go out, Ricky. I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

What are you saying what can happen if we take it out?

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Hey, cliff, cliff, cliff, cliff. This ain't your thing. I got the hat on. You gotta respect the hat. You gotta respect the hat. You don't you don't listen. You don't know nothing about this construction life.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

I mean, yeah, but I think I can get one of those for Amazon, huh?

SPEAKER_03 2:05

No, no, no, no, no. They don't just give these out to everybody. I guess they don't. Listen, Ricky, I I want I want this wall down. Just take it down.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

Like I said, sir, we can do it, but it's pretty much gonna collapse on you.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

I disagree.

SPEAKER_04 2:24

Hello? Hey, Steve. Yeah, who's this? This is Ricky with uh Ricky Bird Constructions. How you doing, Ricky? Doing great, Ricky. Oh, good, good. Um we have a slight issue that is going on with that while you want to take it down. You might want to come and check it out.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Ricky, I'm sure it's fine. I know you didn't want to do it, but you know, nothing's gonna happen. Sir, I really recommend you come and check it out.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Riggy, just send me a video. You know what? I will. I'm gonna I'm gonna send you a video.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Might should have listened to Ricky Berg's advice there. In the year 1173, uh construction began on a building in the country of Italy. Uh this building, it took it took just under 200 years to build, about 199 years to build. This building ended up being about eight stories tall, about eight levels tall. Uh it's 186 feet tall to be precise. It's almost 200 feet tall, and it's still standing to this day. Sort of. I think most of you probably know of this building, and some of you have perhaps even visited the building and uh potentially even braved going up in the building. It's called the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Have you heard of it? The Leaning Tower of Pisa, it's 186 feet tall. It has, well, now today it has about a four-degree lean because it had a five-degree lean, and some engineers did some things to hopefully preserve it for even longer. But it's about 850 years old, and it's still standing today, but it's leaning. The reason it's leaning is because in Tuscany, the region of Italy where this tower was constructed, it's because the soil there is very soft and very moist. And you can build there, but if you're going to build, you have to give extra attention and extra effort to the foundation before you build. And the builders of this tower of Pisa, that is now the leaning tower of Pisa, they did just the opposite. They rushed through the foundation and started building. The funny thing is, as the story goes, they realized after the first level that the tower was leaning. And instead of scrapping the project and readdressing the foundation, they just kept on building. And so today we have this eight-story high tourist attraction, the leaning tower of Pisa. It's unstable. It's uncertain. It truly could topple over at any moment. Now, this relates to your spiritual life. This relates to our Christian life because don't we want a life that's anything but the leaning tower of Pisa? We don't want an unstable Christian life. We don't want an uncertain Christian life. We don't want a Christian life that could topple over at any moment. We want a Christian life that is solid and resilient and stands tall in the good times and in the bad times. I think if I were to ask the question, do you want a solid Christian life? It would be a rhetorical question because everybody in the room would say yes. And so the question this morning is not, do you want it or do you not want it? The question is, we all want a solid Christian life. How do we build it? How do we actually build a solid Christian life? Just like the leaning tower of Pisa, we need to pay extra special attention and give extra special effort to the foundation. What does that look like when you're building a Christian life and not some tower in Italy? Well, if you haven't already, turn with me in your Bibles to the book of 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2, and I'll meet you there in just a moment to discuss building a solid Christian life. Well, this morning we are continuing our sermon series, our Living Hope sermon series through the books of 1st and 2 Peter. And today is the sixth message, the sixth installment in this series. We do have two more messages in the Living Hope series before we take a break for the summer. So just a heads up, starting in June, we will be studying the Psalms. And if you were with us last summer, we did an edition of this, Ps of the Summer. But I can assure you that in 2026 we'll be studying different Psalms from those we looked at in 2025. But you've got a couple more messages in 1 Peter, then we'll study some psalms during the summertime. And in the fall, we'll pick right back up where we leave off in 1 Peter. But today we're in 1 Peter 2, verses 4 through 8. Just five verses to study together today. And as we study these five verses, we're going to learn from Peter what it looks like to build a solid Christian life. And so, church, let's dive right in. If you're taking notes this morning, number one on your notes is this respond to God's invitation to come to him. If you want to build a solid Christian life, not an unstable, uncertain Christian life that could topple over at any time, if you want to build a solid Christian life, a resilient Christian life, step one, respond to God's invitation to come to him. Look with me in verse four of today's passage. In 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 4, Peter says, As you come to him, a living stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious. As we begin verse 4, perhaps the most important question is, Who is him? As you come to whom, who are we talking about in verse 4? That question is quickly answered when you look back in verse 3. You'll remember from last week that Peter ended our passage last week in verse 3 by quoting a psalm from the Old Testament. There's no quotation marks in your English Bibles in verse 3, but Peter is, he is quoting a psalm. And in verse 3 he says, If you've tasted and seen that the Lord is good, then continue coming to him. So him refers to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As you come to Jesus, as you continue coming to Jesus. The beginning of that verse, that word as, as, is also a really significant word because it has present implications. Peter doesn't begin verse 4 by talking about the past or the future or something conditional. He's talking about something present and he's talking about something continual. He doesn't say when you came to Jesus or when you come to Jesus in the future, or conditionally, if you come to Jesus, he doesn't say any of those things. He says present tense in a continual sense as you come to Jesus. When you became a Christian, you responded in faith for the first time. You came to Jesus for the first time. And it's our duty all of our days to continue coming to Jesus with all the sin in our lives and the trials and the tribulations in our lives as you come to Jesus. There's a present, continual nature to verse 4. There's an assumption that God's people are responding to God's invitation. As you come to Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, a living stone, Peter calls him. Now that phrase, living stone, I don't know if you've ever thought about this much, but it doesn't make sense. It's an oxymoron. I mean, I went to biology class in middle school, and people are living. In fact, people are the most valuable living thing on the planet. Animals are living, trees are living, stones, they're not living. They're inanimate objects. But Peter loves to describe things as living, doesn't he? We've learned that already. In verse 3, in verse 3 of chapter 1, that is, Peter tells us we have a hope, but not just any kind of hope. We have a living hope. In fact, that's the title of this entire sermon series, living hope. In verse 23 of chapter 1, Peter says that you were born again through the living word. God gave us his word, but his word is not dead or expired. His word is living and active. And here we are again in chapter 2, verse 4. And Peter says that Jesus is a living stone. For a stone to be living, that's not natural. For a stone to be living, something supernatural has to take place. But with Jesus, something supernatural took place, didn't it? You see, Jesus died on the cross in your place and in my place. He definitely bore the weight of our sin on the cross, but death is natural. He was buried in the grave. That's natural. But what happened on the third day? That's supernatural. Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, and he's alive today as we speak, because something supernatural took place in the grave on the third day. Jesus was not resuscitated to one day die again. Jesus was not revived to one day die again. Jesus was resurrected and he's alive today. And because something supernatural took place in the tomb on the third day, Jesus, as Peter wrote, and as we speak today, Jesus is our living hope, and he is a living stone. Something unnatural, something that could only be true if something supernatural takes place. Jesus is a living stone. This is really significant what Peter does in the Greek language. We're reading the Bible in English this morning, but in the Greek, Peter uses the word lithos, L-I-T-H-O-S, when he says a living stone, a living lithos. Now, that's significant because some of you know your Bible really well, and you remember in Matthew chapter 16, when Peter made a profession of faith to Jesus, and Jesus said, Peter, you are the rock, and upon this rock I will build my church. When Jesus was talking to Peter in Matthew 16, he said, Peter, you are the Petra, and on this Petra I will build my church. And here in 1 Peter 2 4, Peter says, Jesus is a living lithos. He doesn't use the word petra. He uses a different word out of reverence for Jesus and humility for himself. He doesn't want to use the same word to describe Jesus that Jesus used to describe him. So he uses a different word. Christ is not a living rock, he's a living stone to Peter. It's reverent the way Peter does that in the Greek. He was rejected by men and women and boys and girls. People were rejecting Jesus back then, and people still reject Jesus today. I specifically think of Luke chapter 19. In Luke 19, Jesus is concluding his final journey to Jerusalem. And as he makes this triumphal entry into Jerusalem, you remember that from Palm Sunday, people are praising him. And they're saying, Hosanna, and they're crowning him king of kings. And the Pharisees and the religious leaders, they're somewhat upset by this. And so they say, Jesus, you've got to tell those people to be quiet. And Jesus responds to the Pharisees and the religious leaders in Luke 19, verse 40, and he says, If I tell them to be quiet, then the rocks will cry out, and the stones will cry out and praise me, Jesus says. Jesus is done hiding the fact that he's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. In Luke 19, 40, he says, the King of Kings is due his praise. And if we're not going to let these people praise me, then we'll just have the stones praise me instead. People have been rejecting Jesus for thousands of years. He was rejected by men, but in the sight of God, Jesus was chosen, and Jesus is precious. He's a living stone. And that living stone is inviting us to come to him. Not just for the first time when we respond in faith, but every single day with our sin and our struggles and our joys and our celebrations and our grief, he's inviting us to come to him. See, brothers and sisters, there's a difference between a blanket invitation and a personal invitation, isn't there? There's a few different kinds of invitations when you think about it. Blanket invitations and personal invitations. I mean, think about we live in Oxford, Florida. Think about if a new restaurant opens in the area, and that restaurant decides to do a grand opening promotion and says, hey, we're opening on this day, and the first 100 customers to our restaurant on grand opening day get free food for a year. That promotion would go out on social media, you'd see it on the news, you'd see it in the newspaper. That is a blanket invitation to the whole community, isn't it? Now, what you don't need to do if you're not going to go, you don't need to call the restaurant and say, hey, thanks for inviting me to your grand opening, but I'm not going to be able to make it. You don't need to do that, do you? But then there's another kind of invitation. There's a personal invitation. I think about one time, uh one time my dad and I, we were at an Orlando Magic game. This was like 25 years ago, okay? And uh we were sitting in uh in our seats, and um, my dad's company at the time had season tickets to games, and whenever clients and customers couldn't use the tickets, we would go. And so we were sitting there in the seats and we were watching the game as the beginning of the fourth quarter. The game had just started. And and a lady walks up to us in a very nice suit, and she's got her earpiece on and she's got her leather clipboard and all the she she she works for the magic, you can tell. And she says to my dad, Sir, are you Mr. Greg Haywood? And he says, Yes, that's me. And she says, Hey, you may not know this, but uh we have two courtside seats that we save, and every game we randomly select two season ticket holders to come sit in those courtside seats. And tonight, uh, you guys were selected. You know what my dad and I did not do? We did not look at each other like, did you hear something? Hey, Mrs. Would you mind moving out of the way? I'm trying to watch the game. No, we didn't ignore her invitation. We looked at each other like, absolutely, let's go now. And that's probably the only time in my life I will ever sit at courtside at a basketball game. But there's a difference between a blanket invitation and a personal invitation, but they do have one thing in common. Ignoring the invitation is always equivalent to declining the invitation. Whether it's a blanket invitation or a personal invitation, if you ignore the invitation, that's as good as declining the invitation. Here's the thing about God's invitation for you to come to him. It's a personal invitation. He's not calling you generally, he's calling you personally. He's calling your name. He's calling you to come to him, not just once for salvation, but every single day. He's calling you and inviting you to come to him. Are you ignoring his invitation or are you responding to God's invitation to come to him? If you want to build a solid Christian life, then I would encourage you to respond to his invitation to come to him. Hey church, one more comment about invitations. As an organization, First Baptist Leesburg, we are gonna do our very best to issue blanket invitations across this community to Oxford campus. Social media and newspaper ads and flyers and door hangers and inviter cards, we're gonna do our very best to issue blanket invitations across the community to Oxford campus. And I'll tell you what, some people will respond to those invitations to Oxford Campus. In fact, some of you in the room right now, you're here because of one of those blanket invitations. And I'm glad that you're here. But brothers and sisters, you know what's so much more powerful is when you personally invite someone to church. When you take the time to tell one of your neighbors or family members or friends, hey, I go to church here at First Baptist Leesburg, they have four campuses. I go to the Oxford campus, we worship at 9:45. You can ride with me, or I'll meet you in the parking lot if you want to drive yourself. I'll introduce you to some of my friends, you can sit with me and worship. That is ten times more powerful than any blanket invitation, and it's free. That is the best way to invite people to church. And so when you think about invitations, God is issuing to you a personal invitation to come to Him. And I would challenge you to issue a personal invitation to someone in your life to come with you to church. As we're talking about this, uh, the Holy Spirit is placing someone in your mind right now. You can picture them, you can hear their name. I would challenge you this week to invite them to join you for church next Sunday. Hey, brothers and sisters, number two on your notes is this. Number two, let's keep moving through our passage. Remember that God is the one doing the building. If you want to build a solid Christian life, then you must remember who the true builder really is. Look with me in verse 5 of 1 Peter chapter 2. You yourselves are living stones being built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, offering sacrifices to God that are acceptable through Jesus Christ. You yourselves are like living stones. You know, we said earlier that a living stone, in order for a stone to be living, that's not natural. Something supernatural has to take place. Well, something supernatural, the resurrection took place in order for Jesus to be labeled a living stone. But now, as one preacher puts it, when you come to Jesus, you become like Jesus. When you come to the living stone, you become a living stone yourself. Because something supernatural happens in your heart. The resurrection is the supernatural thing that caused Jesus to be labeled a living stone, but God is not done doing supernatural things. God is not done working miracles. A miracle happens every single time someone repents of their sins and places their faith in Jesus. A miracle happens in their heart. That heart of stone is turned into a heart of beating flesh. They step from death to life, and that is a miracle. And that person, if you're a Christian, you are labeled a living stone because something supernatural took place in your heart. And you yourselves are like living stones being built up into a spiritual house. I'll tell you what, we got to celebrate two living stones this morning: Lois and Bill, who got into the waters of baptism this morning and declared to the watching world that they believe in Jesus. And uh Bill, I was talking to Bill backstage after getting baptized, and Bill said, I never thought I'd be back in church after 20 years, especially not getting in the waters of baptism in front of all these people. How awesome is that! Two people declaring their faith in Jesus publicly, two more living stones being added to the spiritual house of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. When you come to Jesus, you become like Jesus. You're being built up into a spiritual house. That phrase, you are being built up, that's the crux of point number two. It's not you yourselves are becoming living stones and building yourselves up into a spiritual house. No, no, you're being built up. God is the one doing the building. And if we're gonna build a solid Christian life, we have to remember who the true builder is. God is the one doing the building. What are we being built up into? A spiritual house. Elsewhere in the scriptures, God refers to us as the body of Christ, all members of one body. But here we're not being built up into a body, we're being built up into a house. It's not anatomical language, it's architectural language. You're being built up into a spiritual house. I do think it's significant, given Peter's original audience and even his audience right now in this room, that he does not say you're being built up into a spiritual subdivision with a bunch of houses. He does not say you're being built up into a spiritual condominium with a bunch of condos. No, you're being built up into one spiritual house. And that's important because if you remember back to 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 1, Peter kicks off the whole letter by telling us his audience, a bunch of Jewish converts to Christianity who are living in exile all across all these Gentile territories. Now, how could all of these Christians spread across one big region, how could they be built up into one spiritual house only if God's the one doing the building? If these Christians spread across this big region, Cappadocia and Galatia and Asia, if you look back in 1 Peter 1:1, if these Christians spread all across this region could be built up into one spiritual house, how is that possible? Because God is the builder. God's the one doing the building. And I think that applies to us here at First Baptist Leesburg. Because we are one church in four locations: Oxford, Florida, Fruitland Park, Florida, downtown Leesburg, South Leesburg. We've got thousands of Christians spread all across this region. How could we possibly call ourselves one church? Well, because God is building this church. God is the one building First Baptist Church Leesburg, and he has built this church into one church in four locations. And when we win, when two people get baptized at this campus, two people get baptized at First Baptist Leesburg. When one of our other campuses wins, we win. Because we are one spiritual house. We are one church. You are also being built up into a holy priesthood. Notice that Peter does not say you're being built up into a holy priest. You're being built up into a holy priesthood. The Christian life, it's not meant to be lived alone. It's meant to be lived in a community like this one. You're being built up into a holy priesthood. You see, you are the spiritual house, you are the temple. Well, the temple, it needs some priests. Who are the priests? Well, it's you. You are the temple, you are the priests. Okay, well, when the priests go to the temple, when the priests go to the spiritual house, they typically sacrifice some stuff. So what is the sacrifice? Well, I hate to keep giving the same answer to all these questions, but the sacrifice is you. A spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You are the temple, you are the priest, you are the sacrifice. Here's what we mean by that. Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. In Romans 12, 1 and 2, we've referenced those verses before. Paul says, Do not be conformed to the ways of this world, but instead be transformed and offer your lives as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Your life is the sacrifice. You are the temple, you are the priests, you are the sacrifice. And if you want to build a solid Christian life, it starts by laying down your life. It starts by surrendering and putting your life on the altar and saying, God, my life is no longer mine, it is yours. Not some of it, not most of it, all of it. Doeth it what you will. You are the temple, you are the priest, and you are the living sacrifice. And you're only acceptable to God as a living sacrifice because of Jesus Christ. Verse 5. Remember, God is the one doing the building. You know, over the past uh three days, Thursday through Saturday, um, Hannah and myself and my three kids, we were on a quick little vacation with some of our extended family, my my side of the family. In fact, they're still there today, but we wanted to come back for church with you guys this morning. And so they're just down in Orlando, and it's my parents, and I have two sisters, and one of my sisters is married, and so in this in this little beach house, there were seven adults and three kids. And I tell you what, we we took half the people because we've got two adults and the three little kids in our van. And when you uh when you pack for a three-day, two-night getaway with three little people and two adults, two parents, it looks like you're packing to leave for like three months, okay? You've got all these blankets and pillows, and you've got seven suitcases and all these duffel bags and all this food. You take all the and so we had all this stuff. And yesterday, last night, as I was repacking and reconsolidating all the stuff to come home, come back to Wildwood and back to Oxford. I had all the stuff piled up at the door to take it to the van. And I was about to take it all to the van, and my my little two-year-old, Gunner, he comes up to me and says, Dad, can I help you? And I'll be honest, my first response was, No, buddy, I'm good. You can you can keep playing. This will take too long if you help me. And he insisted, and he said, No, Dad, I want to help you. I was like, Alright, buddy, you can help me. And you know what happened? We got the van loaded, but it took about twice as long as it would have if I had done it myself. And the trunk was horribly disorganized, so we opened it and we got home and stuff just fell out. But my relationship with my son was stronger because I let him help me. Something similar is true of you and your heavenly father. It's it might be difficult to reconcile the hard work you're doing for your church, to replant this church and to serve your church and serve the bride of Christ. You might look at your life and say, I'm working so hard to serve the Lord, but then you see a truth like this that God is the builder, and you might say, How do those two things go together? Well, they go together because God is the builder, and he could actually do this a lot faster, and it might be a little more organized if he did it by himself. But he's invited us into the process because he's a personal God who wants a relationship with you. And so the work that you do to serve Jesus and serve his bride, the church, is one of God's mechanisms for strengthening his relationship with you. So lean into it because serving the Lord helps you strengthen your relationship with the Lord. If you want to build a solid Christian life, then you have to remember who the true builder is. Hey, church, let's keep going in our notes this morning and in our passage. Number three on your notes is this. Number three, recognize that Jesus, he can bear the weight of your life. If you want to build a solid Christian life, then you have to recognize that Christ can bear the weight of your life. Look with me in verses six and seven of First Peter chapter two. In these verses, Peter starts quoting from the Old Testament. If you want to know where he quotes from, he quotes from Isaiah 28, 16. He also quotes from Psalm 118, 22. Isaiah 28, 16 and Psalm 118, 22. And Peter says that uh the Lord, really Peter's quoting the Lord, and he says, I'm laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, and anyone who believes in that cornerstone will not be put to shame. But instead, verse 7, those who believe in that cornerstone will receive honor. Because those who reject the cornerstone, they will be put to shame when they find out the stone they rejected became the cornerstone they were looking for all along. Verses 6 and 7. Jesus Christ, he's referred here, referred to here as the cornerstone. What is a cornerstone? A cornerstone is the stone that is laid first in the foundation. The cornerstone, as they say in architecture, it squares the corners. It kind of guides the rest of the foundation, it guides the rest of the structure. The cornerstone itself has to be perfect, and the cornerstone has to be perfectly laid. Jesus is the cornerstone. He lived a perfect life that you and I could never live. And Jesus was perfectly laid so that the rest of the foundation and the rest of the structure could be built correctly, unlike the leaning tower of Pisa. Jesus is the perfect cornerstone. But a point worth clarifying is this Jesus may be the cornerstone, but Jesus is not the foundation. Here's what that means. You don't have to turn there, but you might jot down Ephesians chapter 2, verse 20. In Ephesians 2.20, Paul he references this word cornerstone. He says, Jesus is the cornerstone, but in that same verse, in that same breath, he says, the apostles and the prophets are the foundation. Now this is interesting in Ephesians 2.20, because when when Paul says that Jesus is the cornerstone, he's referring to the person of Jesus. But when he says the apostles and the prophets are the foundation, he's referring to their writings. He's saying that the 66 books of the Bible are the foundation. And so it goes, cornerstone, foundation, living stones, the cinder blocks. And so check this out. It goes, God's Son, God's word, God's people. That's how the spiritual house is built. God's Son is the cornerstone, God's word is the foundation, God's people, you and I, we're the living stones, the cinder blocks. God's Son, God's word, God's people, a spiritual house is being built in our midst. Jesus is the cornerstone. His word is the foundation. If you believe in Jesus, if you believe in the cornerstone, you will not be put to shame. Instead, you will be granted honor. It's important to know that in the first century Greco-Roman world, it was an honor-shame culture. Today in the 21st century West, we have what's often referred to as a guilt-innocence culture. Neither culture is right or wrong. It's just helpful to understand the significance of these words Peter is using. He's saying if you believe in Jesus, you will not be put to shame, but instead you will be given honor. Those words were very significant back then. They're still significant today, but they were especially significant back then. They were the builders, they rejected the cornerstone, and then later found out that that cornerstone was the cornerstone they were looking for all along. We have to recognize that Christ is the cornerstone, his word is the foundation, and all of that can bear the weight of our lives as we try to build a Christian life that is solid. Hey, can I uh can I confess something to you? Last week I broke my daughter's scooter. Okay. So we have three kids, and for Christmas, like six months ago, uh, we bought them three identical scooters, okay, off Amazon or whatever. And they're all the they're all the same except for the colors, okay? Each one has their own color, so we know whose is whose. They still somehow fight over them, but they know whose is whose. My middle child, Piper, she got a purple scooter. Sure, purple's her favorite color. She got a purple scooter for Christmas. And in our our our neighborhood, down toward the bottom of the neighborhood, there's like a quarter mile paved walking path, and there's a big grassy area and a field in the middle, and so a couple times a week, uh, when the weather's good, we'll we'll go down there and play. We'll take our scooters down there and we'll they'll they'll ride the scooters around the track, and one of the games I'll play is I'll get my phone out and the stopwatch and I'll time them and see how fast they can go around the track. So the other day, Piper had a great idea. Piper said, Hey dad, let's switch. I'll take your phone and I'll time you while you ride my scooter around the track. And I wanted to have some fun, so I hopped on the scooter and I made it like a third of the way around the track before the bottom just snapped. And so I started, I picked up the scooter and I started walking it back to Hannah and Piper, and Hannah said, Did you break the scooter? And so let's not jump to conclusions here, let's take a look. So we flipped it over and it was cracked. It was cracked in half. And uh the funny part is if an adult man stands on it, it kind of bows and you can't ride it anymore. But little 30-pound Piper, it doesn't bow too much. He can still ride it, so not all is lost. But the this the scooter could not bear the weight of Piper's dad. A broker scooter. Now, I wonder how many of you this morning, brothers and sisters, you you come to church and you hear a truth like this: Christ is the cornerstone, God's word is the foundation, Christ can bear the weight of your life. You hear a truth like that and you you nod in agreement, but then you live Monday through Saturday like Christ is a plastic scooter off of Amazon. Like he's gonna crack under the pressure of your life. Maybe you live Monday through Saturday like I keep on sinning, and if I come to Jesus with this sin one more time, he's just gonna be so disappointed in me. Or I just I can't shake this trial or this tribulation, and Jesus is just tired and frustrated of me bringing it to him. He doesn't want to hear it anymore. No, he's never gonna be disappointed in you. He's never gonna get to the point where he doesn't want to hear it anymore. He wants you to confess your sin to him. He wants you to bring your trials and your tribulations to him. He can bear the weight of your life. Or maybe you look at the foundation of God's word and you say, I'm going through something that no one's ever gone through before. This relationship struggle or this health struggle or this financial struggle or marriage or parenting or grandparenting. There's no way the word of God has anything to say about my struggles right now. I bet it does. If you dive in and look, don't live Monday through Saturday like Christ's and his word is a plastic scooter off of Amazon. It's not. Jesus is the cornerstone, his word is the foundation, and Jesus in the Bible can bear the weight of your life if you'll let him. Quit trying to carry it yourself. Come to Jesus if you're weary and heavy laden, and he will give you rest for your soul. Hey, brothers and sisters, let's let's finish up your notes this morning. Number four on your notes is this. Number four, realize that you will never win by rejecting Jesus. If you want to build a solid Christian life, then you must realize you will never win by rejecting Jesus. Look with me in verse eight of 1 Peter chapter 2. In verse 8, Peter says that this was a stone of stumbling, and the builders they stumbled over the stone because they disobeyed the word of God as they were destined to do. A stone of stumbling. As one preacher puts it, it's impossible to stumble over a stone without coming in contact with the stone. These Pharisees and these religious leaders who stumbled over the stone, they came in contact with Jesus. They knew who he was, they heard his teaching, they saw his miracles, they talked directly to him, and they still stumbled right over him. See, what we're not talking about in 1 Peter 2.8 is what maybe missiologists, the study of missions, would refer to as the innocent man on the island conundrum. Maybe you've heard of this before. Maybe you've even asked this question before. What happens to the person on the island who dies without ever hearing the name of Jesus? Well, unfortunately, the answer is they spend forever in a real place, the Bible calls hell. That is the urgency of our international missions. That is why we are so passionate about being a launching pad to the nations. Because if you die without hearing the name of Jesus, then you spend forever separated from God. But that's not what Peter's talking about in 1 Peter 2.8. He's talking about people who heard the name of Jesus dozens of times. Because you can't stumble over a stone that you don't come in contact with. You don't trip over something that your toes don't touch. When you stub your toe, when you trip over something, it's because you came in contact with it. And these religious leaders came in contact with Jesus and had every opportunity to believe. But instead of making him their cornerstone, they made him their stumbling stone and they tripped right over him. He was their stumbling stone. They stumbled because they disobeyed his word as they were destined to do. Alright, we're supposed to be landing the plane, but this is perhaps the hardest phrase in the passage to interpret, as they were destined to do. Now, I don't want you to be afraid of some of these words or some of these concepts in the Bible in 1 Peter, predestination, election, foreknowledge. They're Bible words. They're good things for us to seek understanding. Peter has already brought up a lot of these words. If you think back to 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 1, Peter refers to his audience as elect exiles. Yeah, that's the doctrine of election. In 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 2, Peter says that those exiles were elected based on the foreknowledge of God. There's the doctrine of foreknowledge, and Peter's saying those people were chosen ahead of time and elected ahead of time because of the foreknowledge of God. And now here in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 8, Peter says that these people were stumbling over these stones as they were destined to do. There's the doctrine of predestination. Now, some interpreters of verse 8 will say, What was predestined was the stumbling and not the disobedience itself. I wish that were the case, but grammatically that doesn't work. That's not what the verse is saying. The verse is not saying that if you choose to disobey, then your punishment is predestined and predetermined. Actually, the verse grammatically says that the disobedience itself is what was predestined. How do we reconcile that with God's loving, sovereign will? If I could give you some big words this morning, church, I want to give you three categories that theologians use to talk about the will of God. Theologians talk about the will of God in three different ways. God has a secret will, you might hear it referred to as his decretive will. God has a revealed will in the Bible, you might hear that referred to as his preceptive will. And God also has a permissive will, that which he allows to happen, so that his glory can be maximized. First Peter chapter 2, verse 8 would fall under the category of God's permissive will, that which he allows to happen such that his glory would be maximized. He permitted that, he allowed that. And some people uh some people accuse God when they hear about verses like 1 Peter 2.8. Some people accuse God of what's called double predestination. Okay, this is the last big phrase I'm gonna throw at you this morning, I promise. But some people accuse God of double predestination. They would say, God actively predestines some to redemption, and then he actively predestines others to reprobation. But that's not what God does. God engages in singular predestination. You see, all of us by default, because of the fall, are destined for hell, are destined for eternal separation from God. And when God predestines us, he plucks some of us off that pathway to hell and redeems us. He actively predestines some of us to redemption and passes over the rest. He doesn't double predestine, he doesn't doubly predestined, so that would be problematic. God engages in singular predestination and leaves the rest of us to our own devices. So in the category of God's permissive will, he allowed the Pharisees and the religious leaders to disobey his word and stumble over Jesus, who was the true cornerstone, so that God's glory could be maximized as they were destined to do. But ultimately, Oxford Campus, brothers and sisters, it's important for us to remember that rejecting Jesus is a losing strategy. That is not a winning strategy.