God's blueprint for making you like Christ: 1 Peter 2:4-12

I remember the proud day when Hannah and I bought our first home. We had been married for just a few years and our small family was growing. So we needed a larger home to grow into. The house was a fixer-upper, we knew that—exactly how much of a fixer-upper we learned later. But our first clue came from friends, who, after touring the house for the first time, ended their visit by asking, “would you like to move in with us for a while?” Evidently the house looked like an overwhelming project to everyone except us with our naïve optimism.

In 1 Peter 2:5, Peter says that we, ‘like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house.’ God’s plan for our life post-conversion is to be built up into something that is to be used by God. God intends for us to become a house that is for his service. We are not saved just to be saved, but we are saved to serve, and that service is to God. So what is God’s plan for our lives now in service to him?

The building blueprint

Like any good builder, God does not build aimlessly. He has a plan for us and Peter shows us the blueprint. Verse five tells us that we are being built up as that spiritual house and he goes on to give us the details of that house—what our life is to be used for. Peter says we are being built up, ‘to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.’

To be holy is to be set apart and designated as something distinct. In this case, as God’s people, saved by his grace, we are called to a distinct role that is set apart from the rest of the world. God’s people have a special task that is distinct from those who are not Christians. That distinct role is in a priestly role. In the Old Testament, priests were a special group of people who offered sacrifices to God. They were a class, set apart, for the sole purpose directing worship to God. Peter says that we, as God’s people, are called to a priestly purpose too. We are set apart for directing worship to God with our lives—to ‘offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God.’

How is the house going to get built?

As the blueprint for our life is unrolled and spread out on the table, we ought to respond the way my friends did with my first house… maybe there’s somewhere else we could live instead. Because the reality of this plan is that it is far too high and too lofty for each of us. None among us, on our best day and through our best effort, has ever been sufficient to offer a spiritual sacrifice that is acceptable to God, much less live our whole life oriented that way. It does not matter how ambitious or naïve we are—if it were up to us, that building is not going to get built and it is certainly not going to accomplish its’ purpose. As Isaiah 64 says,

We have all become like one who is unclean,

    and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

We all fade like a leaf,

    and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

There is no one who calls upon your name,

    who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us,

    and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.

There is no instruction manual or ‘how-to’ on YouTube that is going to adequately prepare us for the task at hand of building the house God has called us to be. Isaiah tells us that not only are our efforts on our own unclean and polluted, but there is no one who even ‘calls upon God’s name’ or ‘rouses themselves to take hold of God.’ In other words, even if we could build this house, we would not even be interested in the project. All of us, in the flesh, are only capable of building a house for our own purposes and to our own ends.

 But here’s the beauty of God’s building plan, he not only supplies the blueprint for the house, but he supplies the worker to build it too. Consider verse five again and note who is accomplishing the work,

‘…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.’

On our own, and through our own effort, we simply lack the skill and wisdom to build this house. There is no way that we are up to the task that God has before us. But through Jesus Christ, this house is being built. And Peter proves it by giving the testimony of God’s plan and promise to accomplish this by citing the same prophet, Isaiah, who earlier told us we could not build this house ourselves. Peter quotes the hope of Isaiah, writing,

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,    a cornerstone chosen and precious,and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

By faith in Jesus, we are being made into a people who will not be put to shame. That means we will accomplish all that God has called us to be—God will not abandon us or fail to grow us into who we need to be. But that also means that the opposite of Isaiah 64 is now true for us, where all our righteous works were as a polluted garment before, now we have been purified by Christ through the gospel and our worship and work is now acceptable to God through our cornerstone, Jesus Christ, who holds the whole foundation of our life before God together.

A building with a purpose

Peter circles back in the last few verses of this section, reminding us that we are what God has called us to be, writing in verse 9,

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

The plan of God for our life has been made accessible and we have been set free to do it. Hannah and I may have been naïve with our first house, but God has ensured that the house of our life will not fail to be built into what it needs to be. The tall order that is printed on this blueprint will not fail to be built in the lives of those who are trusting in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, we are being made what we need to be and through that same gospel, we are able to live as a people who proclaim his excellencies to a dark and dying world for God’s purpose. Praise God, he has sent a capable builder to do what we could not, and, more than that, to be a cornerstone that ensures that all that we do in a life of obedience to God is made acceptable and to his glory through Christ.

Questions for Reflection:

1.    As you consider God’s blueprint for your life and the life of those around you, what is your response? Excitement for your involvement, doubt that you can do it, apathy toward all he has saved you for, discontentment that this should be your purpose, or something else?

2.    Peter quotes Psalm 118:22. Read Psalm 118:19-24 for context. How should we respond to God’s plan for, and work in our life?

3.    How does reflecting on Christ as the cornerstone give you confidence that the plan of God is accomplished? How does that change the way you obey all that he has commanded in worship and evangelize? How can you focus on that cornerstone more when you doubt your own or fellow Christian’s ability to glorify God with your lives?