A Look Ahead

Yesterday I gave a sermon titled "A Look Ahead." The Scripture Text was 1 Peter 2:4-10:

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men 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,
and 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 do not believe,
"The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone," and,
"A stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, 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. (NIV)

At the close of last week's sermon, I asked the people what the Promised Land would look like? To the Israelites looking over the Jordan River just prior to the conquest, they just new that it was a fruitful land. It was described as a land flowing with mild and honey. They knew that it was a land that would give them good crops and good pasture lands for their flocks. But what does God have for us in the coming year? What does our promised land look like this year?

This passage of scripture may not describe the promised land, but it tells us something of who and what we as Christians are. It says that we are living stones being built up into a spiritual house. A house where the Holy Spirit can dwell. That is as Paul says, we are a temple. We are each a part of the temple. The foundation of this temple is Jesus Christ. Many said and many still say, Jesus Christ is nothing much. Jesus is described as a stone that has been discarded, but God made this discarded stone the very cornerstone of His church. The church is built on nothing but the foundation of Jesus Christ.

Peter also tells us that we are a royal priesthood. We are royalty! We are family with God. Wow! But we are not only royalty, but we are priests. In the Old Testament, no one could really approach God except the high priest. We can approach God. We can come close. We are called to offer spiritual sacrifices. I personally am very happy that this is not the literal sacrifice of the Old Testament. This was a very messy business. What are spiritual sacrifices? These are things like worship (We Bring the Sacrifice of Praise) and service. So we are temples -- a place -- and we are royal priests -- what we do.

Peter hasn't finished though. He goes on to tell us something more about who we are. We are God's people chosen by Him. Again, in the Old Testament, only the people of Israel were the people of God. But, now we who were not a people are a people. We once were in darkness, but no our spirits have the light of Christ. So we a temple, and the Priests to offer sacrifices and we are also the people chosen by God to enter the promised land. Now, I am talking primarily to the Bay View family, what is this promised land that we are to enter in 2010?

Since we are so small, whatever God has for us, Growth is the key word. Well, how are we to grow?

• We want to grow in our worship -- as royal priests we want to get better at our worship. This is perhaps our primary task as the people of God.
• We want to grow in numbers -- not for the sake of numbers, but there must be a "critical mass" in order to perform the tasks that God sets before us. Yet, we don't ever want to lose our smallness -- the ability to really see and know one another. The primary venue of our growth will come from our individual Oikoi (those 8-15 people that God has placed around us as our "household"). This growth will also be in diversity as well as numbers.
• We want to grow in our understanding -- we want to know God and His Scripture better.
• We want to grow in our service to one another and to our community.
• We want to grow in our empowerment by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

For us at Bay View, this really is a look at the Promised Land. God has richly blessed us this year. Now he is giving us a sneak preview of what he has for us in the coming year.