2-4-2023

Good Morning All,

   1 Peter 2:5; “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 

    I enjoyed playing with LEGO blocks when I was a kid.  I enjoyed playing with LEGO blocks when my sons were little.  I enjoy playing LEGO blocks with my grandkids.  I pretty much like playing with LEGO blocks.  They are really a fascinating toy.  They started out as wood and then in 1947 they went to plastic.  They snap securely together but not so much that they can’t be pulled apart.  They have different colors and different sizes and they all snapped together.

    Eventually, they came out as small packages of specific types of toys, ships or airplanes or spacecraft.  Yet they still snap together and are still interchangeable.  You can build a wall or a house out of a couple of ships, a car and a spacecraft or two.  You can take packages that started out as one thing and make them another. 

    Our verse tells a similar story.  We start out as a divergent group of sinners but the Spirit pulls us together and unites us and builds us.  The Spirit builds us into a spiritual house; living stones that build comprise a living building, a live, breathing church.  God took us, odd pieces from other packages, and made us into his church. 

   We are built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.  We are the holy priesthood for God.  All believers are to serve as priests.  As these priests we serve a very special purpose.  We are to dwell in the presence of God and the work that we do is not for our self, but it is for God.  We are his representatives here on earth and we serve in a unique capacity.  We are set apart from the rest of the world living in conformity to God’s will.  Yet we live in the midst of the world bringing hope to the world, bringing comfort to the world, bringing healing to the world in conformity to Christ’s work. 

    The priests ministered to the needs of the people before God.  The priests are the intercessors for the people.  This is what we are to do as well.  We are to minister to the needs of the people.  We minister to those who feel the pain of loss; we minister to those who struggle.  Most of us, at some point in time, struggle with life.  We look at the events of the day or week and just wonder what on earth is going on.  That is the beauty of being like a LEGO block.  We are interconnected with each other and we are interlocked with each other to offer God’s love to each other and to offer to each other support.  This is what Paul meant in Galatians when he wrote we are “to bear one another’s burdens”.  There will be times when we need to lean on each other; so lean.  There will be times when we just can’t bear it alone; so don’t try.  We are built together as a church and just like those LEGOs support each other; so God wants us to support each other.

     We are the living church built to be a priesthood to be the intercessors for a people that hurts and struggles; even if it is you or me who hurts or struggles.  Use all the gifts that God gives you to live this life and trust in his mercy to survive.

God of grace, you have made us a living church to serve you in this hurting world.  Give us the strength to meet the needs of your people, especially those who struggle with the challenges of life.  Send your Spirit of comfort to those in pain both body and soul.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret