Presented to The Salvation Army Harvest Community, 09 September 2026 by Major Michael Ramsay
22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying
the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another
deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable
seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24
For,
“All
people are like grass,
and
all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the
grass withers and the flowers fall,
25
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
And this is the word that was preached to you. 2:1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and
slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so
that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that
the Lord is good.
Peter tells us that as we obey
God and the Truth, we will love one another truly and deeply. This is a result
of being born again.
Grass doesn't live very long –
especially during water restrictions in the summer or when it is covered by
snow in some parts of this country in the winter. (That is good because it
means I don't have to cut it!) Grass is fragile and dies. This is us. We –
people – don't live very long, maybe 100 or so years. And maybe much
less. But Peter says that the Word of the Lord endures forever and
that those of us who have been born again will be imperishable through the seed
of that enduring word. We will live forever.
Because of this we need to purify
ourselves. How can we do this?
2:1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all
deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies,
crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3
now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by
humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones,
are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture
it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and
the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
7 Now to you who believe, this stone is
precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has
become the cornerstone,” 8 and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a
rock that makes them fall.”
They stumble because they disobey the message—which
is also what they were destined for. 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the
praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once
you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not
received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
We were like grass. Now we are like
stones. As we come to Jesus, the living stone, we are built into his spiritual
house. Peter says that Jesus is the stone that is rejected; he caused
people to fall but we will be built into a house around him that will
stand forever.
Anybody here ever play with
Lego when they were young? Picture this: you build a building. There is one
piece that is just too big, too small, too wide, or the wrong shape – it just
doesn't fit; so when all the pieces are assembled there is one brick still
lying on the floor. That brick is Jesus. Then, in comes your mom and
she steps on it; or, more accurately, you step on it! You are the one who
didn't use it and you step on it – screaming, crying, holding your foot,
hopping up and down, using colourful language. Jesus is that brick that is
rejected and the one who rejects him stumbles (or hops). But that isn't
the end of the story.
Imagine now that there is
a stone block that someone has rejected and others have
fallen over it. Someone (God) finds that stone block and builds
it into this wonderful eternal home that will never topple. In this scenario,
the builder adds you and I and all those born again, as stones, into the house
built around the living stone. We are solid.
Those who disobey Jesus will
stumble over the stone; those of us who obey him, we will be built into
his house and we will be a part of his people, declaring his praises
forever.
Once we were grass that would
perish. Now we are stones built into a spiritual house on that same
ground where the grass once was – and that house, as much as anyone
may huff and puff and try to blow it down, will never perish but will endure
forever and you will be a part of it because you have received God's
mercy
What does it look like in your life when you have received God's mercy and are built into His house?
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