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1 Peter 2:2-10

One of the biggest crises among us today in America and the church is an identity crisis. People are confused. Perplexed. Baffled. Or they’ve been hoodwinked or bamboozled. Many, especially in the church, don’t know who they are.

If you don’t know, then others steal your identity, hide it from you and lie about your true identity. America is chock full of identity deceivers and thieves. Follow the money. Bottom line: if you don’t know who you are, you have no sense of purpose. No sense of meaning. No sense of place.

So who are you? The blessed apostle Peter tells you. He’s reliable. He learned it from the Lord Jesus. And it’s very edifying and uplifting. So hang on tight. It will be a wonderful ride today.

First, you’re baptized just like the people to whom Peter wrote in the first century AD. He wrote to newly baptized Christians. And so, you, like these early Christians, are like newborn infants that need to nuzzle up to the breast of mother church in order to drink the pure spiritual milk of God’s Word so that by it you will grow up to salvation. In baptism you have tasted that the Lord is good. Your identity is first and foremost in Christ through holy baptism by which He gave His divine and saving Name joining you salvationally to Himself! No wonder Jesus promises in John 14 that He has a place in heaven prepared FOR YOU! With Jesus you know who and whose you are and where you belong. More on that in a moment.

When you’re a baptized believer in Jesus there is more to your identity. The bounty is wonderful! You are LIVING STONES built into a spiritual temple or house. In addition, you are a HOLY AND ROYAL PRIESTHOOD. Priests who offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Another way of saying it: you are worshipers of the Triune God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Living stones you are! I’ve been called lots of names in my life but no one has ever referred to me in this way! Well, I suppose my spouse has said a few times that I’m as stubborn as a rock! You too? That’s about as far as it goes. In Matthew 16 I remember that Jesus named Cephas “Peter,” which in the Greek is Petros or rock. I wonder if the other disciples called him “Rocky.” I will! He wasn’t so rock solid and firm at first. Not until after Pentecost was Peter solid as a rock. But I digress.

Better get back to your identity. According to Peter or “Rocky,” you are LIVING stones. Not DEAD slabs or rubble but LIVING stones. Alive because you believe in the Jesus, the Living Stone laid in Zion. Rejected by unbelievers He is. They stumble over Him to their eternal hellacious damnation. But, for you, who believe in Him, when you fall on Him in faith, you are saved!

Jesus is God’s cornerstone. The only foundation of our salvation. You are living stones only as you are joined by faith to Living Stone Jesus. Without Jesus, you are just a dead pile of rubble. So, in holy baptism, the Triune God took you, a dead in your sins rock, and made you alive in Christ Jesus, a living stone. A precious stone, worth the price of Jesus’ blood shed on the Good Friday cross!

In addition, you are not a living stone in isolation. You have a place. You are a stone in a temple or house just as you are a priest in a priesthood. There are no loose boulders just as there are no isolated priests. Stones have a building just as priests have a priesthood. My point is this: there is no such thing as an isolated Christian believing on his own or her own. The Holy Spirit who calls you also calls me and gathers us together into congregations that manifest the whole gathered church on earth.

It is a given in the New Testament that Christians congregate. It goes with being baptized. You are living stones of a house built by the Holy Spirit, the church. It’s noteworthy that none of the descriptions of the church are individual in the Scriptures. No “I am the church, you are the church.” The church is always an aggregate whole – a body made up of members, a priesthood of priests, a temple of stones, a household of family members, a nation of citizens, sheep in a sheepfold. When we congregate, especially to worship, we naturally do the things that baptized people do. We are follow the urging of the Holy Spirit who calls us together. Even our Lord Jesus promises to meet us in congregations, where two or three are gather in my Name, there I am in their midst, (Mt 18).

So let’s repent of and be done with this individualized “spirituality” that floats around today especially among us LCMS-ers! If we keep holding to this falsehood, we may just hear Jesus say this to us on the Last Day: “I don’t know you.”

Of course, (I can just hear what you’re saying in your heads right now), if I was on a desert island all alone, Christ would still be with me. True. And if I brought a Bible along with my on this desert island, then that’s all the preaching I would have and it’s all I would need. True. However you’re hardly on an a Gilligan’s desert island here in Nebraska. Are you?

Jesus is so rich in His goodness toward us. He brings us together. He arranges to have His Word taught, read and preached. He has seen to it that you, your children and your grandchildren can be baptized and instructed. He has arranged for us to eat His Good Friday Body and Blood in order to taste and see that the Lord is good! And nothing tastes better than forgiveness, life, and salvation in the Name of Jesus!

So, who are you? You are a living stone built into a spiritual house. You have a place and a purpose. And without you, the building is impoverished, and the priesthood is lacking. Every baptized man, woman, and child has a place and a purpose in Christ’s holy and royal priesthood.

In addition, Peter says that you are a chosen race. In other words, just as OT Israel was once a chosen group of people, so are you! Now, please don’t think of “race” the way our culture does – only in the sense of skin color. Rather, it means a chosen group that is selected to show God’s mercy to sinners to the world. He chose you. You didn’t choose Him. He chose you to show the world that salvation is by grace only and not by works.

There’s even more to your identity. Peter says that you are a ROYAL PRIEST-hood – kings and priests. I know. I know. You don’t feel like kings, queens, princes, princesses and priests. And no one treats you as such. Exactly! BINGO! That’s why Peter takes the time to tell you! You have to be told this truth or you’d never hear it or learn it. So it bears repeating. You are royalty in Christ’s kingdom. You are priests in His priesthood.

And as royal priests you even wear regal and elaborate robes! Yes you do! I know. I know. You don’t see them but you do. You have to be told. Paul, in Galatians 3:27 tells you that in your baptism you were royally and priestly robed – WITH JESUS! “As many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus have been clothed with Christ.” You, a baptized royal priest now wear Christ like a robe 24/7/365. This is one of the reasons why Kuhlman wears vestments. It reminds all of us of the baptismal robe of Christ’s righteousness that we are given to wear.

Now, as priests, you are given to do what priests do. And what’s that? It is described this way by Peter: “to offer spiritual sacrifices.” In Romans 12 Paul calls it “living sacrifices” which is your day to day worship of God in the daily activities of living as a father, mother, son, daughter, worker, citizen, worshiper. In these vocations, you live to sacrificially serve. It’s spelled: L-O-V-E. Not living to be served but to serve and to give your life in sacrificial service to those God has put in your life. This is the liturgy of your priestly, sacrificial life.

Your sacrificial life of service during the week begins in the divine service every Sunday. In the Sunday divine service your priesthood is to hear the Word, receive the Body and Blood, and offer your spiritual sacrifices of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. That’s how you “proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” When you say your “Amen” to Jesus’ Word, you’re doing your priestly work. When you offer prayer, praise and thanksgiving, you are offering spiritual sacrifices, that are acceptable to God the Father because Jesus’ Good Friday sacrifice atoned for all your sin.

Well, your royal and priestly identity and work is a 24-7-365 thing. It takes place every day of your life in the places God has put you. At home with your children, in your community, in your workplace, in the classroom, on the playground, with friends, family , coworkers, neighbors as you live sacrificially for them. You are priests of God blessing, teaching, praying for others. Baptism permits you to worship God, to pray, to praise, to give thanks, to bless others, to teach others. That’s what royal priests do.

Finally, Peter says that you are a holy nation. God’s nation. The United States of America is NOT God’s nation. America is just another nation among the nations in the eyes of God. Israel today is not God’s nation. God’s nation is the church made up of all people from around the world who, through holy baptism, are united with Christ in His death and resurrection. Who are you? You are a holy nation. You may be American or a citizen of some other country, but that’s your temporary citizenship. Your permanent citizenship is in God’s nation – the church.

Once you were not a people. Like Hosea’s son – Lo-ammi – Not My People. What a thing to name a son – “Not my people.” Once you were outside of God’s mercy. Like Hosea’s daugher – Lo-ruhamah – Not Mercied. What a thing to name a daughter, Not Mercied. Imagine Hosea calling the kids for dinner – “Lo-ammi – Not My People! Lo-ruhamah – Not Mercied. Time to eat!” Good grief! But, through faith in Christ, you are God’s mercied people!

Identity crises averted! Identity crisis solved. You know who you are. You are living stones in God’s temple. A chosen race. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. You are God’s prized possession. You are baptized into Jesus Christ, the crucified, risen, and reigning Lord. He is the source of your identity. He is your center of gravity. Built on Him, baptized into Him, believing in Him, you have purpose, meaning and place. What joy!

In the name of Jesus. Amen