Message based on 1 Peter 2:4-10
What is happening to us? Something is happening to every one of us. We are either moving closer to Christ and becoming like him, or farther away and losing our resemblance. Peter, the Rock, knew rocks. The One who rolled the stone from the empty tomb was still turning Peter into the Rock he would become. Peter wrote to first century believers to remind them that they, too, were living stones, coming to the Living Stone, Jesus and being built into a spiritual house to make sacrifices for Christ. Christians find our identity, community, responsibility, and integrity in Christ alone.
Quotes:
Tim Keller: At the bottom of every person’s heart there is an uttermost foundation.
At the beginning of The Two Towers, the second Lord of the Rings movie, Gandalf battles the Balrog while they plummet down an incredible chasm— down, down, down, into the depths of the earth. The name of that place, in J. R. R. Tolkien’s terminology, is ‘the uttermost foundations of stone.’ The uttermost foundations of stone is the bedrock, the bottom. You can’t go any farther down. Everybody’s heart, everybody’s identity, has an uttermost foundation.
F. B. Meyer: Stones touch the Stone and become jewels.
Melanie Brooks: Your job is not your identity.
Duane Brooks: Our identity is found in Christ alone: we come to the living stone and we believe in him and become living stones built into a spiritual house.
Nancy Brooks: We belong to that church.
Anselm of Canterbury: compared a restless believer to a tree that can't thrive because it's "frequently transplanted or often disturbed." Anselm warns:"If he often moves from place to place at his own whim, or remaining in one place is frequently agitated by hatred of it, [he] never achieves stability with roots of love.
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