Resources:
Notes:
- Peter had one of the closest relationships with Christ but he also had several screw-ups (denied knowing Christ three times).
- 1 Peter 1:3: We have a living hope through Jesus Christ
- 1 Peter 2:1: rid yourself of all malice (“concealed anger”), deceit, and guile
- Malice creates an unforgiving spirit.
- Don’t be a hypocrite, avoid envy.
- Don’t speak evil or slander about others.
- 1 Peter 2:2: Be like a newborn infant.
- Newborns desire milk from their mother to survive. We need to desire the word of God to help us grow.
- Desire means we want something with all of our being (Nelson commentary). We should want to learn more about the Lord because we have been saved.
- Romans 15:4: whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction so that we may have hope.
- If we don’t have a desire for the Word we become stagnant and will not grow in our faith.
- 1 Peter 2:4-5: As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God— you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
- Christ is identified as the cornerstone rejected by the builders in Acts 4:11.
- The stones are ready to be used with the cornerstone to be built into a spiritual house.
- 1 Peter 2:6-8: Jesus is the key foundation stone or “cornerstone.” God placed enormous value on Jesus and chose Him to be the cornerstone. Those who believe in Christ, then, won’t ever be put to shame.
- We have a living hope in Christ as our living stone. We are also living stones that can be built into a spiritual house with Christ as our cornerstone.
- This references Ephesians 2: 19-22: So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
- As living stones being used to build the spiritual house we are all holy priests based on the new covenant – need to better understand this!!!!
- 1 Peter 2:9: we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
- Anyone who comes to Christ will never be cast out. This is what makes us different – we are our own nation because of the kingdom of God.
- 1 Peter 2: Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
- Through faith in Christ, we have received mercy. Our status has been permanently changed. We are not seeking and hoping to become God’s people and receive mercy. In Christ, we are God’s people and have received mercy. The transaction is complete.
