Keys of the Kingdom 5 – The Chosen Rejected

Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious... But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. (1 Peter 2:1–10)

The Old Testament prophets spoke of a mysterious stone—and the New Testament reveals it is Christ, rejected by men but chosen by God.

News of Jesus Spreads

It didn't take long for Jesus' name and fame to spread. After His baptism by John the Baptist, His ministry began in earnest. Without any modern means of communication—pre-Snapchat, pre-Instagram, pre-Facebook, pre-text, pre-email, pre-telephone, pre-television, pre-newspaper, pre-printing press—news still spread quickly about this great man, Jesus of Nazareth.

People had gone out from their cities into the wilderness of Judea near the Jordan to hear John preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Now they moved from John to follow Jesus, who preached much the same message. But there was a major difference, made plain by the miracles that accompanied Jesus. John performed no miracle. People came to see Jesus heal the sick, restore a withered hand, raise a paralyzed man to take up his bed and walk, and cast out demons.

Chosen by Jesus

In the midst of all this, Luke records, "Now it came to pass in those days that Jesus went out to a mountain to pray, and he continued to pray to God all night" (Luke 6:12). Surrounded by multitudes and a growing band of disciples, He withdrew to a mountaintop and prayed all night. The next morning He called His disciples and from them chose twelve, whom He named apostles—Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, Simon the Zealot, Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot.

We all like to be chosen, and if you're to be chosen, how great to be chosen first. In all three Gospel accounts that list the apostles, Peter is always first. Matthew 10:2 even reads, "Now the names of the 12 apostles are these. First, Simon, who is called Peter." Recorded in eternal Scripture: first.

Why Peter? Theories abound—maybe he was the oldest, maybe the most prominent when the Gospels were written, maybe the most outspoken (he had a case of foot-and-mouth syndrome). Maybe it's because he's the only one who walked on water. You can imagine years later: "Peter, you were such a screw-up back then." "Yeah, but I walked on water." But perhaps it has to do with the fact that Peter was given the keys of the kingdom.

The Keys of the Kingdom

In Matthew 16, Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, in the northernmost part of Israel near the borders of Syria and Lebanon, a place full of Gentiles. There the headwaters of the Jordan gush from beneath a red rock cliff, and there many built temples to various pagan deities—a pantheon of Gentile gods. With that backdrop, Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?"

They answered: some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Little has changed in 2,000 years. Ask a co-worker, neighbor, or family member, "Who do you think Jesus is?" and you'll get every kind of opinion—a good man, a good teacher, a prophet. Everybody has an opinion about Jesus.

Then Jesus asked the all-important question every one of us must answer personally: "Who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter spoke up: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." Peter didn't reason his way to this; God revealed it through him. You are the Christ, the anointed Messiah, the fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecy—God in human flesh, God incarnate.

Then comes the prize: "And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." That's a lot better than the keys to a Ferrari. We still honor great people by giving them a ceremonial key to the city; Jesus gave Peter the keys to the kingdom.

What "This Rock" Does Not Mean

Throughout Europe's Renaissance art you can always identify Peter because he holds the keys. At St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City a great statue of a curly-headed man holds two golden keys.

In May 2005 I was in Rome with two friends, Jeff from Chino and Toby from Hanover, Germany. We wanted into Vatican City but had no appointment. Toby, being German, insisted we couldn't cross the rope line; Jeff and I, being American, walked right up to the Swiss guard in his blue, yellow, and red outfit. "Halt! You cannot pass," he said, never breaking his stare at the horizon. After about ten minutes he finally relented—"Okay, go." We spent 45 minutes lost in Vatican City and eventually met two Catholic priests, who told us, "Do you realize what this is? Underneath this, in the necropolis, is the tomb of Peter of Galilee. Upon that rock this has been built, because Jesus said, 'Upon this rock I will build My church.'"

Taken literally, that's church tradition. But is that what Jesus meant? I suggest not—and that Peter understood it differently. Jesus chose His words for a purpose: "You are Peter." In the original language the word is Petros, a little rock hewn from a much larger rock. "And upon this Petra"—the great rock, the large stone—"I will build My church." So what is the great Petra from which little Petros is cut? It is Peter's confession, revealed by God in heaven: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus Is the Bedrock and Foundation of the Church

In Acts 4, shortly after the church's birth, Peter and John went up to the temple to pray at about three in the afternoon. At the gate sat a man lame from birth, begging for alms. Peter said, "Look at me... Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise." He took the man by the hand, and instantly he was healed. The man went into the temple—probably for the first time in his life—walking, leaping, and praising God, and that caused a commotion.

When the religious leaders seized Peter and John, they asked, "By what power or by what name have you done this?" Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, answered: "Let it be known to you all... that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

Point one: Jesus is the bedrock and foundation of the church. By God's revelation Peter had said it in Matthew 16; now by Spirit-inspired preaching he declared it boldly. Even though the religious establishment rejected Him, He is still the chief cornerstone. Every person rightly called a Christian believes and trusts that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. You can go to church, own a Bible, even put a Christian sticker on your car and not believe it—but you cannot be a Christian and not believe it. Any other foundation will not stand against the gates of hell, but the church built on that foundation will.

Jesus Gives Grace to Those Who Come to Him

More than thirty years after that incident, Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:3–4, "If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men but chosen by God and precious." If you have tasted of God's grace, you have done so by coming to Jesus. There is only one way to taste the goodness and graciousness of God, and that is by coming to Christ. And how do you come to Him? By trusting and believing in Him (verses 6–7).

What is a "living stone"? By every observable measure, stones are not alive. For a rock to become alive would require a phenomenal miracle—the same miracle required to make a crucified, dead man live. Jesus was certainly dead; the Roman soldiers pierced His chest and out came blood and water, and His lifeless body was laid in a tomb. Three days later He was alive and the tomb was empty. The only way to taste the grace of God is to come to that living stone and trust the One who was once dead but now lives by the miraculous power of Almighty God.

Point two: Jesus gives grace to those who come to Him, and there is no grace apart from Him. This is the single greatest objection to the Christian faith in 21st-century America—the exclusivity of the claim. But it is not a claim the church made up; it is what Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by Me."

If there truly is only one way, it is not narrow or mean to point it out—it is gracious. Think of a GPS: make a wrong turn and it says "recalculating." If you're on the wrong path, the God Positioning System mercifully tells you so and points you the right way. You can choose to stay lost; that's your prerogative. But I don't want you lost in ignorance. It's actually kind to tell you, "That way ends in death."

Made Alive and Built Up for Acceptable Service

Verse 5: "You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." Just as Christ after His crucifixion was dead and needed miraculous power to be raised, every human being is as dead as the stones on the hillside—dead spiritually, with rock-hard hearts. None of us can live without miraculous power.

But when you come to Christ, the living stone, He becomes the chief cornerstone on which your life is built. He makes you, who were dead in trespasses and sins, a living stone too, and He gathers those stones together into a habitation for the dwelling place of God. This is what Paul also taught in 1 Corinthians—that the believer becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we have this treasure in earthen vessels. We are all just a bunch of cracked pots, and by His grace He fills our broken lives with His glory.

Point three: by grace, Jesus makes us alive and builds us up—to offer acceptable service to God. Not only is Jesus the only way to God; being built upon Him is the only way for your life to offer service acceptable to God. You cannot be acceptable to God outside of Jesus.

Contained in the Scriptures

Peter insists he didn't invent this: "Therefore it is contained in the Scriptures" (verse 6). The only Scriptures he had were what we call the Old Testament. He quotes Isaiah 28:16, written some 700 years earlier: "Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect and precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame." To you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient—who reject Him in unbelief—"the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone." That's a quotation of Psalm 118:22, written a thousand years before Peter.

He goes on, "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense," echoing Isaiah 8:14. This imagery is everywhere. There's the curious passage about Israel in the wilderness with a stone that followed them. There's Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel of a statue—head of gold, chest and arms of silver, bronze body, legs of iron and clay—shattered by a rock cut without hands that became a mountain. Daniel explained the empires: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome—and then a great rock that destroys all human empires. What is that rock in Exodus, Daniel, Isaiah, and the Psalms? It is the stone the builders rejected that has become the chief cornerstone. It is Jesus.

Those who reject Him "stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed." But "you," verse 9, who come to Jesus by believing trust, "are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people." The King James calls us His "peculiar people," and many of us fit that bill perfectly. You are made alive, built upon Him, set apart as priests who go to God on behalf of the people and to the people on behalf of God.

Our Acceptable Service: Proclaiming His Praises

For what purpose? The middle of verse 9: "that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light." Verse 10 adds that all of this is yours not because you are awesome, but because of His mercy—"who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy."

Point four: our acceptable service is proclaiming His praises. If Peter had said your task is to perfectly articulate an ontological argument for God, or to flawlessly answer every teleological objection, every one of us would despair—maybe one percent of people could do it. But God hasn't called you to that. He's called you simply to tell people, "I once was blind, but now I see. I once was lost, and now I'm found." How? By His grace.

Remember the man healed of blindness in John 9. The religious leaders pressed him: "By what power were you made to see? How did this happen?" He answered, "I don't know. One thing I know—I was blind, and now I see." They questioned his parents, then questioned him again, and finally excommunicated him. Why? Because the testimony of a transformed life is something they could not answer. You once were an adulterer, and now you're not. You once were a drug addict, and now you're not. You once were a jerk, and now you're kind. There's no explanation except that the living stone made you a living stone.

So when that friend or co-worker asks a question you can't answer, don't make something up. Just say, "I don't know—let me try to figure that out. But here's what I can tell you: I once was blind, and now I see." May God make us bold to proclaim His praises. Though the world reject Him and hold many opinions about Him, may we boldly declare, "I once was blind, but now I see. I once was lost, now I'm found." Amen.

Closing Prayer

Father God, thank You for Your grace. In tasting of Your grace, we know that it is good. None of us deserves the goodness of Your grace. We thank You for Your forgiveness, for buying us back from sin and death and giving us life when we were dead, and for empowering us by Your Spirit to share the good news with others. I pray right now for any in this place who don't yet believe or trust—maybe invited by a friend, maybe finally walking in after years of driving past—that You would draw them by Your Spirit, and that they would go away today believing and trusting, made alive by Your grace and proclaiming Your praises. In Jesus' name, amen.