A Portrait of the Church

The following is a lightly-edited text of a Sermon preached on 1 Peter 1:22-2:12 (Good News Bible) at the Evening Service on 20 April 2008

These days people want to paint the church as a whole range of different things. In fact there almost enough portraits of the church to fill an art gallery. For some people the church is the guardian of morality in the nation. The church is there to tell us how to live. The church is there to make sure governments don’t get out of line in the laws they pass. For as many more the church is oppressive, telling people what to do and stopping them from living their lives freely as they choose to do. For other people the church is a living link with history, a kind of working museum that gives us a flavour of what life was like in a simpler, more certain, but definitely bygone era. Others see the church almost entirely in political and practical terms. The church is all about doing good works in the community and helping people in this world and never mind any thought of life in the world to come. Essentially the church is a charity that exists to pay for things like social work, health care and education. Still others see the church as a kind of social club where harmless entertainment is offered to slightly odd people who don’t have anything better to do on a Sunday.

Some of these views contain elements of truth about what the church is. But all of them, all of them, fall hopelessly short of the mark. We see that when we compare views like this with the portrait of the church we find in God’s Word.

I think there are three layers to this portrait that we need to look at tonight, and these are:

1. What the Church’s status is in God’s eyes
2. How Christians are meant to live as the church
3. How the church is supposed to look to those outside it

Or to put it another way:

1. What we are
2. How we are to live
3. How we should look to others

And we’ll spend a few moments looking at these three things tonight.

So the first layer of the portrait of the church we’re looking at is “What we are” according to the passage.

The first thing to notice is this: the church is made up of people who have been born again into new life and have been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There are at least six phrases that point to this in the passage.

In verse 22, the church is made up of people who have “purified themselves”. The Good News Bible is slightly misleading in talking about “purifying yourselves” which could sound like this purifying is a do-it-yourself job. The verse is more accurately translated “purified your souls” rather than “purify yourselves”. We know from the verses prior to where our passage starts that Peter taught that the way the people of God “purify themselves” is by “believing in God” (v.21) and looking not to ourselves but looking to “the costly sacrifice of Christ, who was like a lamb without defect or flaw” (v.19). In our passage, chapter 2, verse 7, Peter calls the church “you that believe”. So Christian’s are first and foremost people who have faith in God and Jesus Christ. They are also people who “have received God’s mercy” according to chapter 2, verse 10. The Church is people who have been saved.

When we say the Church is made up of people who have been purified from their sins, that’s not to say the church is made up of perfect people: none of us are perfect. But it is made up of people who have had their sins taken away and who have been washed clean by the blood of Jesus.

In verse 23, it says the church consists of people who have been “born again” and now have “an immortal parent”. God himself is our Father. Christians are people who have been “born again” and adopted into God’s family. When we become Christians we are changed from being people who are dead in sin to people who are alive with a new kind of life. The Holy Spirit comes upon us and gives us a new heart as the prophet Ezekiel talks about. We are “a new creation” as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17. Again this points towards the fact that Christians, Christ’s people the Church, are people for whom salvation is a reality, a living reality they know in their lives.

The church is also described as people who have really experienced God’s goodness in their lives. In chapter 2, v.3: “You have found out for yourselves how kind the Lord is.” Other translations have “how good the Lord is” here.

Christians are people who have experienced God’s goodness in their lives. This is not to say people in the church don’t have problems and struggles in their lives. Of course we do. Part of experiencing God’s goodness is knowing he is with us when we go through trouble rather than keeps us from all problems. Remember the whole point of Peter’s First Letter is to encourage Christians who are suffering for their faith. He certainly wasn’t saying God being good to his people meant they would have problem-free lives!

Then in verse 4, Christians are described as people have come to Jesus, the Living Stone, and who keep on coming to him. “Come to the Lord, the living stone” it says. Christ is the person we should be coming to all the time, and building our lives on. We need to share our lives with him as we would with our best friend. We should be coming to him when we’re happy and share our joy and our thanksgiving with him. We should be coming to him when we’re sad to share our sorrow with him. We should be coming to him when needing help, or guidance, or encouragement, or sometimes just to be in his company and share a time of quiet fellowship with our Lord in comfortable silence.

That’s half of “what we are” as taught in this passage. Peter then goes on, in a number of descriptions in the passage, to tell us how God thinks of his people in the Church. Let’s look briefly at these now.

Look at chapter 2, verse 5: “Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple.” The NIV is slightly more accurate and brings out Peter’s meaning better. It reads: “you also, like spiritual stones, are being built into a spiritual house.”

In other words, it’s not so much about us “letting ourselves be used” by God, but that God is building us into something bigger than each of us can be on our own. As the chorus puts it, “For I’m building a people of power and I’m making a people of praise.” That’s what this verse is talking about. God is building us into a spiritual house, a temple, where his presence dwells in a greater way than the presence of God dwelt in the Temple in Jerusalem. God dwells not in a temple made by human hands, but inside every Christian. He lives in us by the Holy Spirit who makes his home inside us, and builds us into a home fit for such a guest to stay. When we come to Christ, he takes us as we are, however rough and ready. But he doesn’t leave us that way. He builds us into something better. And he brings each person in his church together like building blocks to make something beautiful and special and dedicated to God’s worship and service. We are like stones that all come together to be built into a majestic temple of worship for God.

Peter then lists four things about the Church in verse 9 that are very significant. He says that the church is “the chosen race” (or “the chosen people”), “the King’s priests” (or more accurately, “a royal priesthood”), “the holy nation”, and “God’s own people”. Each of those phrases tell us something about the church. We are chosen by God. Sinners don’t just get up one day and decide that they’ll believe in Christ. They believe because God chose them for salvation. “You did not choose me, I chose you,” said Christ. The Bible says a lot about God’s choosing who would be saved. I’m not going into the doctrine of election in any detail tonight, but just in passing here we have that doctrine again. The church is a chosen people.

We are also a royal priesthood. Christ is the King and Head of the Church, and every Christian is a priest to the King. I’ve often wondered how ministers at Crathie church feel when they have to preach before the Queen when she’s at Balmoral. Do they get extra nervous? Are they more careful what they say? Do they feel privileged to be ministering to the British monarch? I’ll bet they do. Well each of us is a priest serving a greater king than any earthly monarch. We worship and serve the King of kings and Lord of lords.

And we are a holy nation. As well as being citizens of our country we are also citizens of another Kingdom: the Kingdom of heaven. And that nation consists of people from every tribe and nation and tongue on the earth. This is what Peter means, I think, in 2:11 where he talks about us as “strangers and refugees in this world”. We live here, but in a sense this world is not our home once we are Christians. We live in the world, but we are no longer of the world. We no longer share the world’s values. We no longer admire what this world admires. As the hymn puts it:

“Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show.
Solid joys and lasting treasure,
None but Zion’s children know.”

And we are God’s own people. The Church is God’s own people, the people with whom he is in a special covenant relationship. He is our God, and we are his people. This is the covenant phrase that occurs dozens of times in the Old and New Testament. We are God’s people. We are God’s special treasured possession. We are dear to him, precious, loved, like jewels in a crown as the prophet Zechariah says.

And I think these four things in particular point us to a very important truth about the Church. All of the terms Peter uses here are used in the Old Testament to describe Israel. The truth I think Peter is highlighting here is that the Church is Israel, the Israel of God. And God never abandons that true Israel – his beloved children who trust and follow him. Some Christians think that the Church and the nation of Israel are two separate peoples and both are God’s chosen people, but I don’t think that’s correct. I think passages like this and several others in the New Testament, point to the fact that Israel is the Church in the Old Testament, and the Church is Israel in the New Testament.

What a wonderful picture of what the Church really is Peter paints here. So many wonderful ways he describes us. But that’s not all this passage contains. As well as describing what the Church is, Peter interweaves this with statements about how the church should be living. How each of us should be living. And while we may enjoy hearing all the great things God’s word says about what the church is, we may find it a little more challenging when we look at how our churches match up with how Peter says Christians should be living as the church.

Back in chapter 1, verse 22, Peter says that the Church should be obedient to the truth and should be a people of love: "Love one another earnestly with all your heart." These two things probably sum up a lot of what the Church should be like. The church should be a community of truth and love, of sound doctrine and compassionate care and concern. Neither one to the exclusion of the other. But so often churches do okay in one and neglect the other, or even worse fail to be either. When you see a church paying attention to both things, it’s a very rare and beautiful thing and such a church needs to be congratulated, encouraged and cared for.

Verse 23 tells us how we know the truth. It is through the living and eternal word of God. It is through the Bible. It is through that Word that remains or endures forever, as verse 25 says. So as Christians we should value the Bible and treat it seriously. We should want to hear the truths of the Bible preached. We should want to study the Bible whenever we can, and read it often. It is by the message of the Bible, Good News, the gospel that we are to live. And just as the Church should be a people who value God’s Word written, so we should be a people who value God’s word preached. Do we value what is proclaimed to us, what we hear when God’s word is preached? Do we see it as that message of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ to save us and which we have accepted in faith?

So we are to be people obedient to the truth, people who know what the truth is, people who feed on the truth – like babies feeding on spiritual milk as 2:2 says. And as we feed on God’s truth we grow as Christians.

The more we know and appreciate God’s truth, the more that truth should influence our lives. We are to people of love, and Peter spells out part of what that means in chapter 2:1:

“Rid yourselves then of all evil,” he says. “No more lying or hypocrisy or jealousy or insulting language.”

What’s Peter talking about here? What made him think there would ever be anything like that in churches? Hypocrisy? Jealousy? Insulting Language? Gossip? Rumour mongering? Nasty comments? Surely not! And of course we’ve never seen any of that in our church, have we?

Well maybe we have. But isn’t that a challenge to each one of us? If we dispense with the niceties, isn’t that what goes on in churches all the time?

How do we stop it? Well I think the way we stop it is by stopping doing it ourselves. Never mind anyone else. If I stop it, and you stop it, and everyone stops it, then wouldn’t our churches be transformed? That’s all it takes. Stop yourself. And if everyone does that – it’s ended...today. Simple as that. And if someone else does it, don’t encourage them. No need to get preachy with them. Just move the conversation onto something more positive, or end the conversation. Don’t feed these things with a listening ear. I think it’s as bad to listen and encourage these things as it is to do them.

We need to consider how we live and deliberately choose to do good and not do evil. If we live thoughtlessly, the default setting in our lives is often to do wrong. If we fly on autopilot, it’s easier to fall into bad habits and wrong actions. We need to concentrate to do good. In verse 11 Peter puts it like this:

“Do not give in to bodily passions, which are always at war against the soul.”

Instead we are to be people who live in God’s marvellous light (verse 9), people who have sincere love for others, people who know God’s goodness and mercy and so show goodness and mercy to others. In short, we are to live as people who act as if they know they are all those wonderful things God’s word says we are: a chosen people, a covenant people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and so forth. Live it out then, Peter says. Show people that you are what you claim to be.

And that leads me on to the third thing this passage says about the church: how the church should appear to outsiders.

What I think it really means for us is that the Church should always have a heart for mission, always be looking to fulfil Christ’s commission to go into the world and make disciples for him. We need to be working as a church to attract people to Christ and to bring people to Christ. And we need to work against things that put people off coming to Christ in our church.

Now, the passage is clear that there will be people who will stumble and cannot accept Christ. But let us make sure that we are not stumbling blocks to people coming to faith, or how we do things isn’t a stumbling block, just because we’ve “always done it that way”. If Christ himself is the stone they stumble over and reject, that will be a terrible thing for those who reject him. If we are the reason that someone was put off coming to Christ, that may be a terrible thing for us.

Christ is a stone or a rock. For those for whom that rock is precious, that rock is a shelter and support – a resting place upon which we are rely and trust and build our lives. But for those who reject that rock, the same rock that can support and save those who believe, will ultimately crush those who reject him. That’s why it is important to come to Christ as the sure foundation stone upon which you can build and be built up in your life.

But the passage is also clear that where the church is acting as God wants, the church will be a missionary, outreaching church. Indeed it will be a church on a positive mission to reach people and bring them in rather than simply standing by waiting for people to come in.

Verse 9 says that we are “chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God.” If that doesn’t mean that the church’s mission is to tell others about God, I don’t know what is! We are to tell people the Good News that we have received. We are to let them know what God’s word says, in language that they understand. Unless we speak in words that people who hear us can actually understand, it’s as if we are speaking to them in a foreign language, and in a sense we are not really speaking to them at all. We are speaking over them.

I’m very conscious that I have a tendency to drop into “church speak” sometimes. Theological terminology has its place. It is vital to carefully guard and define the truth, in our creeds and confessions, in our colleges and seminaries, yes even in our church Bible studies. We need it at that level, but we don’t need it on the front line when speaking to people outside the church. We need to translate the Bible into language that people understand. And that may be saying things like “God’s verdict on people who trust in Jesus is that they are not guilty” instead of “God justifies us through faith in Jesus” or saying things like “Jesus dying on the cross means God isn’t angry with you anymore if you believe in him” instead of “Jesus’ death was a propitiation for those who have faith in his blood.”

But as well as our words, Peter also says we should be a missionary, outreaching church by how we live. He just won’t let us separate our faith from our lives. Verse 12, “Your conduct among the heathen should be so good that when they accuse you of being evildoers, they will have to recognise your good deeds and so praise God on the Day of his coming.”

To outsiders, to those who are not Christians, the actions of church members do matter. We might prefer it if this wasn’t true, but the Bible says it is true. What people see us doing. What people hear us saying. If they see we are different from them, it does matter. Now, note that the passage doesn’t say, that if we are really really good in our lives, people will see that and all come running into church to find out how they can be like that too. Peter is realistic. He says that some people will see that and hate it. In fact God’s word is plain here that for some people, it is God’s will that they will not come to Christ and find salvation. Verse 8: “They did not believe in the word; such was God’s will for them.”

So some outsiders will call us evildoers and seek to persecute us, but even they will have to have some kind of grudging respect for us if we live out our faith. They will be forced to acknowledge our good deeds when they come before God, not to “praise” him as the Good News Bible says – but to glorify him on that day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Some will see our lives and hate it, but some will see our lives – if we are living as we should be – and will want to find out more. They will be more open to hearing what we say if they can see we live it out. And God can use our good deeds, our deeds of love and care, to bring people to the church and to Christ. He will use them to achieve his own ends. Our concern should be to live that way because it will please God and can be used by God. We are always witnesses to Christ in our lives. The question is, are we good witnesses or bad witnesses?

When I read a passage like this I am both filled with joy at how beautiful Christ’s bride really is, and I’m filled with sadness at how bruised and a bit grubby she is as she struggles with the wedding preparations. I think the Church is always faced with this tension between what she is underneath all the bruising and dirt and what she will be when the bruising and dirt are cleaned away for the last time and she is presented to Christ as the perfect bride ready for the consummation of her marriage to Christ at the end of time. And perhaps it is in looking forward to the wedding feast that we are able best to prepare the bride and make her ready for that day? Certainly if we take Peter’s message in this passage seriously, it can only be a step in the right direction.