The story of Peter in the Bible is a story of a man who experienced a radical, life-changing transformation. The man we first meet in the Gospels is not the same man we read about in the book of Acts. What led to this transformation? I believe that there is one key ingredient to the recipe of his success story. That one thing is he finally understood his true identity. Not just who he was by name, by birth or by experience, but also primarily, who he now was through Christ. I am becoming more convinced that much of the struggles in our Christian walk boil down to the fact that we forget the complete reality of who we are. If we truly and continually walked in that full reality, I believe we would have far less struggles and would make far less mistakes. That identity would enable us to forsake who we would have, could have, or should have been. It is when we forget who we are that we become entangled with the past and unraveled from our future. This is the point Peter makes in these next verses.
Living the transformed life while walking in the world is a tricky minefield at times. There is much that is vying for our attention. Madison Avenue spends countless billions of dollars every year to get you to buy into an identity. Buy this product and you will become this person. Wear this designer brand and you will be somebody. Act like this person and you too will become rich. Unfortunately, this is true for the Church world too. Christian books are a multibillion-dollar business in itself. Believe this, proclaim that, pray this way, sing that worship song—it is endless and is growing every day. It is a two-sided problem though. On one side, there is a market for all of this because so many of us are frantically trying to find ourselves. Those inside the Church are perhaps guiltier than those outside. We read the latest books, run to the latest Christian conferences and workshops, and listen to countless messages on the Internet from countless preachers. On the other side, we have a large crowd of people willing to shovel this stuff out the door as fast as we are able to devour it. Maybe it is time we focus and get back to the basics of what God's Word says about us. It is time to strip away all the other stuff and get down to the purity of what he alone has to say. The only opinion about who we are that matters is God's opinion. We do not need to hear how everyone else is doing it. We just need to hear how God says we should do it. This is exactly what Peter is telling us here. He is showing us by example that if we are going to successfully walk in salvation and character while Living in the world, it will only happen when we fully embrace our identity in Christ.
Who are we?
First, Peter calls us Living Stones. You could write an entire book on this alone, but let me try to break it down into its simplest form. God does not dwell in temples made with stone any longer. When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the Temple was torn in two declaring that we are no longer separated from God's presence. Before Jesus' death and resurrection, God dwelled amongus and manifested his presence through a cloud in the holy of holies in the Temple . Now he dwells within us and his presence is manifested in his people. What Peter is saying is that you are the very dwelling place of God! He has fashioned you as a living stone into his new temple—his living temple, the hearts of his people. That means that you have a one-on-one relationship with the living God of the universe. He dwells in you. The next time someone asks you who you are, tell him or her that you are the dwelling place of God. Live every moment in the reality that God is not only right beside you, but also inside you.
Peter also calls us a Holy Priesthood. This is where walking in the world comes in. The primary function of a priest in the Bible was to serve as an advocate between man and God. The word priest literally means bridge builder. God established the priesthood to build a bridge across the chasm of sin that separated us from him. They did this by offering sacrifices on behalf of the people to God. Jesus offered the final sacrifice once and for all on our behalf by dying on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. He became our final high priest. Now he has designed that we partner with him as his priests to build a bridge between our lost world and the God who sent his Son to die for them. You are a Priest of the Most High and serve as his personal ambassador to the people in your corner of the world. The priests of the Old Testament offered blood sacrifices on the altar in the Temple . We also are called to offer sacrifices but we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God. As we lay down our lives as living sacrifices as priests to a dying world we become a living testimony of the sacrifice Jesus made for them on the cross. The next time someone asks you what you do, tell him or her you build bridges for a living,
Finally, Peter calls us strangers and aliens in this world. This does not sound very flattering but it is extremely powerful. The struggle with trying to walk for Christ in the world is that it is so easy to become like the world that we are living in. Remember that we are called to be holy, or set apart, from the world. I think we would all agree that one of the biggest problems with the modern-day Church is that many in the Church are no different from those outside of it. How can we expect the world to embrace our message if we are no different than they are? That is just asking them to change clubhouses. The only thing strange about us is the fact that we are pretending to be something we are not. Instead of living as aliens in a foreign country, we have become full-fledged citizens of earth. Sadly, the Church today is spending all her time and energy trying to be relevant to the world. We dress like them. Our music sounds like their music. We do not preach sermons anymore; we give "talks." We go out of our way trying not to offend those on the outside, all the while becoming offensive to the Holy Spirit. We are not called to be like the world, but to be like Jesus. In verse 4, Peter refers to him as the Living Stone rejected by men but chosen by God. Which is the better goal—to be chosen by the world, or chosen by God? Which should we fear the most—rejection by God, or rejection by the world? It is time we strive to be different, not so we can claim we are holier than everyone else is, but so the world can see the difference living the transformed life can make. Let us dare to be different!
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