Our New Identity - 1 Peter 2:1-10

In this episode of The Long Obedience, Pastor Santosh Ninan explores 1 Peter 2:1-10, challenging believers to reject relational sins that destroy community and instead crave the spiritual nourishment needed for ongoing sanctification. By examining the image of Jesus as the ultimate "living stone," listeners are reminded that their true identity and worth are securely found in being built into God's spiritual house rather than in worldly achievements. Ultimately, the episode reveals that believers are a chosen people and a royal priesthood, uniquely rescued from darkness to declare the praises of a merciful God. 

Transcript

Speaker 0:05

Hello, friends. Welcome to the Long Obedience Podcast. I am your host, Santosh Ninan, and so glad you are with us. This is a teaching podcast where we are studying the book of 1 Peter together. And every once in a while I toss in a book review of some of my favorite books. So we're looking at 1 Peter. Peter is writing to believers who are scattered, experiencing pressure, uncertainty, and suffering because of their faith in Jesus. They're not living in the center of cultural power. They are not the influential people. They are not the ones setting the agenda. He opens the letter in 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 1. He says, To those chosen, living as exiles, dispersed abroad. Chosen, living as exiles. That's really what the book that's the identity of the people. They're chosen and yet they live as exiles in their culture. Peter's message is throughout the letter so far has been your circumstances don't determine your identity, God does. In chapter one, as we looked at it, we really saw that the reality of their situation is that they had become born again through Jesus Christ, and that they have a living hope and an inheritance that cannot perish, spoil, or fade. Now in chapter two, he goes into more admonitions around behavior. The first were kind of about identity. So let's take a look at our chapter today. Therefore, this is 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 1 to 10. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says, See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone. The one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Now to you who believe, this stone is precious, but to those who don't believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone that causes people to stumble, a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they disobey this message, which is also what you were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. So Peter begins this with a call to spiritual growth. He says, it starts off with, therefore. So he's saying, because of your identity, because of all I've talked about, this is what you must do. And he says, rid yourselves of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. Now, each one of those, or any one of those, can destroy a human being and can destroy community. These are relational sins. Malice is the desire to harm others. Deceit is to manipulate people out of towards your selfish ends instead of loving them. Hypocrisy is pretending to be something that you are not, which you can't have normal human relationships, and you can't have normal human community if you are a hypocrite. Envy is resenting the good that God gives someone else. And that creates a barrier between you and the other person because you'll be bitter. Slander is tearing someone down with your words. So Peter doesn't talk about external forces. I find in the church we're always talking about the evil that is out there, the culture that is coming after us. Yet here he's talking about the church. He's talking about internal spiritual dangers that can destroy community. The greatest threat to the church is not what is happening on the outside. That's not what worries me or what scares me. Cultural forces like secularism or wokeism or Christian nationalism. What scares me is stunted Christians who are not growing spiritually, who are not being formed into the image of Jesus Christ. We are being more formed by our culture than we are by the Holy Spirit. You know, we we, the church has survived a lot of attacks throughout the centuries, and it is still here. It is still of a vibrant force. It is going to survive the challenges in the 2020s in the West that seem insurmountable. We are going to survive and we are going to thrive because we follow a savior. We follow a leader who rose from the dead. So there's nothing that can keep the Church of Jesus Christ down. But we do have, I should rephrase that, there is one thing that can keep the Church of Jesus Christ down, and that is a deadness among her members. If we have bitterness, pride, jealousy, and competition in our church communities, that is going to temper our mission. That is going to dull our edge in terms of being witnesses and models of Jesus Christ. And so Peter says get rid of these things. Don't have them with you or in you. And the reason you can get rid of these things is because of the reality that has happened to you. You have been born again. You have been given a new life. And this new life leads to new living. And he uses this uh beautiful picture. Newborn babies, like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk. A newborn baby needs milk, needs nourishment. That's the only thing a newborn baby can take when they are born. And Peter is saying, we need to have a similar hunger for God as the as the desire a newborn baby has for nutrition through milk. But we're not to stay in that fetal position, in that fetal size. We are not to stay as babies. We're told we must grow up in our salvation. Salvation is not one and done. Salvation is an ongoing process. We are saved once, but we are saved, and then we enter into a process called sanctification, which is a process of holiness, which is a process of becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. We are to be mature in our faith. Christianity is not just checking a box or making a decision and then living your life just as you did before. The reality is when you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes inside of you, the Spirit of the living God comes inside of you and starts to work with you to change you and transform you. And so every day you need to be asking yourself this question: Am I becoming more like Jesus? Am I becoming more loving? Am I more gentle? Am I more kind? Am I more forgiving? Am I more passionate? Do I have new desires? Do I have new attitudes? Do I have healthier relationships? Am I more humble? And it all begins with this hunger, like newborn babies crave spiritual milk. And then he moves on and he uses a new image. He talks about stones being built into house. As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him. Jesus Christ is the foundation of the Christian life. And here Peter calls Jesus the living stone, which is kind of weird, right? A stone, if anything does not have life, it's a stone. A stone is a cold, unmoving object. But Jesus is not just a stone. He is the living stone. He was rejected by humanity, he was crucified, he was treated as worthless, but then was God raised him from the dead. The world looked at Jesus at the time and said, He is nothing. God looked in Jesus and said, He is everything. And that is the contrast at the heart of Christianity. Because the world looks at success, influence, beauty, wealth, and power. God looks at faithfulness, humility, love, and obedience. Jesus was rejected by peep by people, but he was the Son of God. And he then he says, Peter says, You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house. So Christianity is not just being forgiven of our sins. That's the beginning of the journey. But then what happens is we are incorporated into something bigger than ourselves. We are incorporated into a house. We are being built into a house. We are the stones. And this is really important if you are struggling with your uh identity or direction or just are feeling lonely. You just have to remind yourself that in Christ you belong, that you have a family, you have a place, you have a community, you have a relational reality, you are a part of what God is building. And then this passage closes out with just this beautiful imagery that Peter uses. He says, You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession. And then Peter uses a bunch of uh passages from the Old Testament to um reaffirm his his uh thesis here. You are chosen, you are royal, you are holy, you are God's possession. Think about the insecurity that people carry within themselves, no matter how popular or how famous or how successful they are on the outside. I think we all carry this little seed of insecurity within us. We ask questions like Am I worth anything? Does my work matter? Do I belong anywhere? Does my life count? And Peter looks at that, looks at the heart of the human being, the heart of the human condition, and he points us to God. He reminds us that worth is not found in achievements or popularity or what others think of you, that our deepest identity is the reality that we belong to God, that we are chosen, that we are loved, that we are his. I just preached a sermon this past Sunday at my church in Saskatoon and Lakeview Church, and I preached on Moses. And it's it's a stunning. I preached Exodus three to four, which is the burning bush and then the commissioning of from God to Moses to go. And it's so stunning that at the beginning, Moses is so insecure and he's so afraid. His first question to God is, Who am I that I should go? And God reassures, actually, what God says is, I will be with you. Who are you, Moses? You are the one that I will be with. So if you're struggling with your identity out there, you and you are a follower of Jesus, you are the one that God is with at school, at work, at home. God is with you. And whatever you do, he is with you, guiding you and leading you. And then this the culmination of this is the reason you have been saved, and the reason that you are the chosen, and the reason that you are called out is that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. That's the end all of human existence, is to worship God, to be caught up in the love of God, to be caught up in the beauty of God, in the splendor of his glory. That is our destiny. We are saved so that we might worship. We are rescued in order that we might proclaim, to tell the story of his grace. And then some of the most powerful words in scripture: once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Think about that. Once you were not a person, but now you are a person of God. To not be a person is to be stripped of all humanity, it is to be completely and totally dehumanized. And Peter is saying that's what we were, but now we are the people of God. He also says that once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy. And I have been meditating on the truth and the reality of mercy for months now. And every morning I wake up and I just say, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of David, have mercy on me, because I am the blind man at the side of the road who needs mercy to do what he has been called to do. The gospel is not bad people becoming good people. The gospel is not immoral people becoming moral people. The gospel is dead people becoming living people. The gospel is outsiders forming a family. The gospel is that those who are far away are brought near. The gospel at those that had no claim and had nothing are now God's treasured possession. The gospel is that those who live in darkness are brought into light. Because the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone. Because the one who is despised and rejected becomes the foundation of a new humanity today. Many of us feel have felt rejected, many of us have felt misunderstood. Many of us have felt doors close, dreams die. But Peter points us to Jesus. Christianity is a faith where our Savior and Lord knows rejection and disappointment, knows what it means to be misunderstood, knows what it means to be rejected. But listen, the stone the builders rejected became the cornerstone. And that means our rejection, the rejection you've experienced, does not have the final word in your life. I think it was Frederick Biekner said that resurrection reminds me that the worst thing is not the last thing. I love that. Resurrection reminds me that the last, that the worst thing is not the last thing. Our failures don't have the final word, our disappointments don't have the final word. God is still building, God is still redeeming, God is still creating, creating beauty out of ashes, beauty out of brokenness. You are a living stone being built into God's house. You are chosen, you are loved, you belong. You have been called out of darkness into the wonderful light. That is the foundation for a long obedience. And do you also see now how this transforms community? Once people know who they are, when they know they are chosen by God, that they are royal priests in his kingdom, that they are holy, that they are people for his possession, that they've been given the awesome title of being God's people, that they have received mercy. People like that will not practice malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander because they have been transformed by feeding on the word of God and having the Holy Spirit transform their passions. And this all comes out of your union with Christ, the chief cornerstone. Stay aligned to Him and live out of your reality. Thanks so much for joining me today. As always, if you enjoyed this podcast, please like and subscribe and give a review wherever you listen. Thanks so much. Have a great day, evening, afternoon, wherever you're at. And may you sense God's peace in all your activities.