Jesus is... — 3.31.19 Sermon

A cornerstone determines the integrity of everything built on it. Opening with the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the failure of poorly built structures, this message moves into 1 Peter 2 to ask what our lives are built upon. The therefore of chapter two carries weight: having been reborn through grace, believers are to shed malice and crave the spiritual milk of the word. Then Peter turns sharply, naming Jesus the living stone, the cornerstone rejected by people, on whom marriage, parenting, words and work must all be founded. The application is the priesthood of all believers. Christians are a royal priesthood called to offer their bodies as living sacrifices, ministers wherever they work. The church is not a building; when part of it disengages, the whole structure is weaker.