Wk 7 // February 22 & 23
Wk 7 // HOW TO BUILD A BETTER LIFE
February 22 & 23, 2025
Small Group Study
SERMON RECAP
Spend a few minutes recapping this week's sermon together.
Tap here to view the sermon notes.
INTRODUCTION
Typically we consider a calling to be something that is associated with professional ministry and pastors. The truth is that many people feel called to their particular line of work, whether it is finance, service, or stay-at-home parenting. Understanding that calling goes beyond vocational ministry is incredibly important for the Christian walk. As Christians, we are called to live in ways that honor God and demonstrate our love toward Him and others.
STUDY [tap on scripture to read]
HAVE A VOLUNTEER READ 1 Peter 2:1-3
Things like malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander hinder our desire for Christ. By getting rid of them, Christians can go after spiritual growth in the same way babies yearn for milk. Peter knew this from experience. He understood the ups and downs of a Christian walk. He had numerous moments that revealed his need for spiritual maturity even with Jesus physically in his midst. Peter also knew that the Lord is good and because of that He wants believers to connect with Him.
HAVE A VOLUNTEER READ 1 Peter 2:4-10
The opening few words of this section are significant because they show that believers are actively participating in God’s work and God’s purpose on a daily basis. Peter was called by Christ, and he came to Christ again and again throughout his life.
Peter referred to Isaiah 28:16 in verse 4 and then quoted it in verse 6. Then in verse 7, Peter quoted Psalm 118:22, naming Jesus as the cornerstone. The stone imagery takes off from there; Christ is the cornerstone, the stone on which the entire building is set. Churches, bodies of believers, are the stones that are built up together to form a spiritual house. These stones work together to form the structure as a church; it is not about any individual but about how individuals can be concerned for one another in the church and for those who will come after them.
The believers that Peter wrote to are given a high honor with how Peter referred to them. They are a spiritual house, a royal and holy priesthood, a holy nation, and a people of Christ’s own possession. The priest in the Old Testament served as a go-between with Israel and God. He would take the nation’s offering to God and pronounce the forgiveness of God to the people. In a similar way believers are now the priesthood, they are able to convey the forgiveness of God to one another and to encourage one another in holiness. The call on the lives of believers, though, does not stop at just a relationship with God or with each other. Peter understood that the lives of believers are lived in view of the unsaved world.
HAVE A VOLUNTEER READ 1 Peter 2:11-12
APPLICATION
PRAYER
Praise God for His calling and work to bring us to Him. The wisdom and love that God has shown in calling us is transformative. Pray for our church, that believers will grow together and encourage one another as we come together as a royal priesthood and a spiritual house.
----------------------------
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY
[for further reading on this passage]
1 PETER 2:1-12
2:1. “Rid” carries the idea of taking off a suit of clothes. Previously, as pagans, these Christians had clothed themselves with all manner of wickedness—deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. They were to remove and throw away such clothing. These words concern believers’ relationships with one another and with the world. Believers are not to deceive others. Deceit includes all hypocrisy—pretending something other than the truth. Neither are believers to envy others. Envy reveals a failure to rejoice in God’s gifts to us and to live in gratitude for His generosity. Slander means “speaking against” others in rumors, false accusations, gossip, or harsh criticism. All such speech violates the command to love that Peter had mentioned a few sentences earlier (1 Pet. 1:22).
2:2. The apostle resumed his earlier analogy of the new birth (1 Pet. 1:23) and compared the readers to newborn infants. This does not necessarily imply they were recent converts or spiritually immature. Peter’s emphasis here was on the natural craving of an infant for its mother’s milk, not on the readers’ spiritual condition. Desire means “to crave.” They were to desire God’s milk with the kind of craving an infant has for its mother’s milk. Peter called this milk unadulterated, meaning “pure”; it is devoid of impurities or anything to dilute it. Furthermore, it is spiritual, as opposed to the physical milk a baby seeks. Obviously Bible study is one source of this milk. The apostle then spelled out the reason for drinking deeply of this milk: that you may grow by it in your salvation. The new birth is only the beginning of our salvation. We must not stop there, as if receiving salvation is all there is. We must continue to grow in that salvation; and we mature only by drinking of the unadulterated spiritual milk that alone produces spiritual growth and maturity.
2:3. Peter then arrived at the point that enables us to understand the nature of this spiritual milk. In saying they had tasted that the Lord is good, Peter implied these Asian Christians should continue to drink what they already tasted. In other words, the spiritual milk they needed centered in Christ Himself. The apostle likely took this idea from Psalm 34:8, which refers to tasting the Lord to see that He, the God of Israel, is good. In applying this verse to our Lord, Peter implied Jesus’ Deity in the strongest way possible. To grow in your Christian life, you absolutely must remain in constant, daily fellowship with Jesus Christ. Daily immersion of yourself in God’s Word is a valuable discipline in drawing you close to your Savior. Periods of deep, concentrated prayer unite your heart with the living Lord. Periods of meditation on God’s Word or listening to what your Lord has to say molds you in His image.
2:4. Many years earlier, Jesus had given Simon the nickname “Rock” (petros in Greek, from which the name Peter comes). Here the apostle nicknamed “Rock” described Jesus as a living stone. (See Psalm 118:22, which refers to the cornerstone that the builders rejected, and also see Peter’s use of this psalm in v. 7.) The world at large had rejected Jesus, but God had chosen Him and declared Him valuable. Jesus is the chosen One, and we are chosen because we are in Him. Our entire identity is wrapped up in Him.
2:5. Because of our relation to the resurrected and living Lord, we too can be called living stones (but not in the same sense as Jesus). Just as stones were used to build the temple of God in Jerusalem, so we are being built into a spiritual house, a temple, to God. God now dwells in His people, not in a building (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19). Then Peter changed to another word picture and described believers as priests who offer spiritual sacrifices. Under the old covenant the priests of Israel sacrificed bulls and goats in the temple. As Christians, we are priests of the new covenant who offer spiritual sacrifices to God. These sacrifices are truly acceptable to God, because they are offered through Jesus Christ. Peter specified the nature of these spiritual gifts in verse 9.
2:6. Peter then cited a series of texts from the Hebrew Scriptures on which he based his comments. “It stands” in Scripture is a solemn formula for citing quotations from Scripture as the Word of God. Peter first quoted Isaiah 28:16 as it appears in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Septuagint was the Bible of many in the early church, particularly those who spoke or read Greek. Isaiah had condemned Israel for rejecting the Lord’s message and for relying on pagan nations for their support. Through Isaiah, God told Israel He was laying the true foundation stone on which His people were to be built. A cornerstone was the great stone lying at the corner of a building uniting one wall to another. This foundational cornerstone supports everything else and ties it all together. The cornerstone God was laying in Zion was either God Himself or the Messiah. Thus whoever believes in Him will never be put to shame. Those trusting in Jesus never have to worry about whether He will disappoint them. God made that clear to Isaiah, to Israel, and to us.
2:7. Peter pointed out a great difference between those who believe in Jesus as their Lord and those who do not. God gives honor to those who believe. The unbelieving, on the other hand, will be disconcerted to discover that the stone they rejected . . . has become the cornerstone. Here Peter quoted Psalm 118:22. This verse could describe an event in the construction of the temple or perhaps it was a proverbial saying from that period. “Cornerstone” here may mean either a foundational cornerstone as in Isaiah 28:16 or the topmost capstone. Though rejected by the leaders of Israel and Rome, Jesus was the most important stone of the true temple, the people of God.
2:8. Peter next quoted Isaiah 8:14. In this verse, Isaiah said God should be a rock of sanctuary to His people. Instead, they failed to obey God, and they stumbled over Him as they would a huge rock placed in their paths. In a similar manner, Jesus the Messiah is a sanctuary to believers, but the One over whom unbelievers stumble. The statement “they were destined for this” expresses God’s sovereignty, but it does not mean unbelievers have no responsibility for disobeying the message. They reject Jesus as Savior and suffer the consequences.
2:9. Peter then identified implications of the new identity that Christians have and are to understand. As Israel was God’s chosen people, believers are a chosen race. We are also a royal priesthood, belonging both to the family of the King and to the priestly family. We are a holy nation, a people for His possession, as Israel had been. Our purpose as the people of God and as priests is to proclaim the praises of God. Here we learn the nature of the spiritual sacrifices of this new priesthood—praising God. Hebrews 13:15 refers to “a sacrifice of praise.” Romans 12:1 speaks of the spiritual worship of offering our “bodies as a living sacrifice” to God. Although Peter did not name the sacrifice of our bodies here, the entire passage implies it. Such a sacrifice of praise is merited by the nature of what God has done for us in Christ. He has called us out of the darkness of our world into His marvelous light in Christ.
2:10. Peter than applied Hosea 2:23 to these largely Gentile congregations. Once they did not belong to God’s people Israel, but then they became part of God’s people, the church. Formerly they knew nothing of God’s mercy to Israel, but then they received mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ. Many believers have a faulty sense of identity as Christians. They may see themselves only as church members or as possessing a certainty of a home in heaven. Such believers can find their lives transformed by understanding they are part of something far greater than themselves. They belong to the new people of God. God now lives in them. They are priests serving before God, offering up the sacrifice of praise to Him amid a perverted and lost world.
2:11. Peter addressed these believers as “temporary residents,” forms of which were used in chapter 1 (vv. 1,17). Like this term, “aliens” also was used first of Jews in the dispersion following the Babylonian exile. Here they refer to Christians as exiles on this earth. As God’s new people and new priesthood, the readers were to draw back from every temptation to satisfy the desires of the flesh. “Fleshly” does not mean simply “bodily.” “Flesh” in the New Testament refers to human desires that do not result from the Holy Spirit’s work. The unspiritual desires war against you, Peter wrote. Fleshly desires are not only sinful, they also are self-destructive.
2:12. Peter called on these believers to live such honorable lives that they would refute all the false accusations against them. Their good works would not only give the lie to every accusation, but their deeds also would convince even their accusers that God was at work in them. “Glorify God” means both to praise God and to confess that God is always right.
February 22 & 23, 2025
Small Group Study
SERMON RECAP
Spend a few minutes recapping this week's sermon together.
Tap here to view the sermon notes.
- What was one takeaway from this week's sermon for you?
- Were there any stories, ideas, or points that stuck out?
- Was there anything that challenged you?
INTRODUCTION
- What did you want to be when you grew up and why?
- Do you feel called to your career? If so, how did you sense that calling?
- What things are we called to other than careers?
Typically we consider a calling to be something that is associated with professional ministry and pastors. The truth is that many people feel called to their particular line of work, whether it is finance, service, or stay-at-home parenting. Understanding that calling goes beyond vocational ministry is incredibly important for the Christian walk. As Christians, we are called to live in ways that honor God and demonstrate our love toward Him and others.
STUDY [tap on scripture to read]
HAVE A VOLUNTEER READ 1 Peter 2:1-3
- Why is it important to rid yourselves of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander?
- What does getting rid of them have to do with yearning for spiritual milk or growing in your salvation?
- Which attribute is the hardest for you to get rid of? Why?
Things like malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander hinder our desire for Christ. By getting rid of them, Christians can go after spiritual growth in the same way babies yearn for milk. Peter knew this from experience. He understood the ups and downs of a Christian walk. He had numerous moments that revealed his need for spiritual maturity even with Jesus physically in his midst. Peter also knew that the Lord is good and because of that He wants believers to connect with Him.
HAVE A VOLUNTEER READ 1 Peter 2:4-10
- What do you think is significant about the phrase “Coming to Him”?
- What are some of the events in Peter’s life that he might have been thinking about when he wrote these words?
The opening few words of this section are significant because they show that believers are actively participating in God’s work and God’s purpose on a daily basis. Peter was called by Christ, and he came to Christ again and again throughout his life.
- What parts of the stone imagery stand out to you the most? Why?
- In verse 5, the stones fit together to form the spiritual house. What is your role in the spiritual house, and how might God’s church suffer if it were built without you?
- Are there attributes of God that you are able to see as more precious because of your interaction with other believers? If so, explain.
Peter referred to Isaiah 28:16 in verse 4 and then quoted it in verse 6. Then in verse 7, Peter quoted Psalm 118:22, naming Jesus as the cornerstone. The stone imagery takes off from there; Christ is the cornerstone, the stone on which the entire building is set. Churches, bodies of believers, are the stones that are built up together to form a spiritual house. These stones work together to form the structure as a church; it is not about any individual but about how individuals can be concerned for one another in the church and for those who will come after them.
- Looking in verses 5 and 9, what are the descriptions of the believers?
- What was the role of a priest for Israel? In what way do believers fill that role for one another?
The believers that Peter wrote to are given a high honor with how Peter referred to them. They are a spiritual house, a royal and holy priesthood, a holy nation, and a people of Christ’s own possession. The priest in the Old Testament served as a go-between with Israel and God. He would take the nation’s offering to God and pronounce the forgiveness of God to the people. In a similar way believers are now the priesthood, they are able to convey the forgiveness of God to one another and to encourage one another in holiness. The call on the lives of believers, though, does not stop at just a relationship with God or with each other. Peter understood that the lives of believers are lived in view of the unsaved world.
HAVE A VOLUNTEER READ 1 Peter 2:11-12
- How is God’s kingdom advanced as a result of doing what Peter asks in these verses?
- What do you think it looks like to “conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles”?
APPLICATION
- What discipline or practice helps you nurture your identity as a follower of Christ?
- How can you be a priest toward your fellow believers?
- In what ways does our church fit together as a spiritual house?
- Do you have any friends, family, or colleagues whom you endeavor to can impact their lives for Jesus this week?
PRAYER
Praise God for His calling and work to bring us to Him. The wisdom and love that God has shown in calling us is transformative. Pray for our church, that believers will grow together and encourage one another as we come together as a royal priesthood and a spiritual house.
----------------------------
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY
[for further reading on this passage]
1 PETER 2:1-12
2:1. “Rid” carries the idea of taking off a suit of clothes. Previously, as pagans, these Christians had clothed themselves with all manner of wickedness—deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. They were to remove and throw away such clothing. These words concern believers’ relationships with one another and with the world. Believers are not to deceive others. Deceit includes all hypocrisy—pretending something other than the truth. Neither are believers to envy others. Envy reveals a failure to rejoice in God’s gifts to us and to live in gratitude for His generosity. Slander means “speaking against” others in rumors, false accusations, gossip, or harsh criticism. All such speech violates the command to love that Peter had mentioned a few sentences earlier (1 Pet. 1:22).
2:2. The apostle resumed his earlier analogy of the new birth (1 Pet. 1:23) and compared the readers to newborn infants. This does not necessarily imply they were recent converts or spiritually immature. Peter’s emphasis here was on the natural craving of an infant for its mother’s milk, not on the readers’ spiritual condition. Desire means “to crave.” They were to desire God’s milk with the kind of craving an infant has for its mother’s milk. Peter called this milk unadulterated, meaning “pure”; it is devoid of impurities or anything to dilute it. Furthermore, it is spiritual, as opposed to the physical milk a baby seeks. Obviously Bible study is one source of this milk. The apostle then spelled out the reason for drinking deeply of this milk: that you may grow by it in your salvation. The new birth is only the beginning of our salvation. We must not stop there, as if receiving salvation is all there is. We must continue to grow in that salvation; and we mature only by drinking of the unadulterated spiritual milk that alone produces spiritual growth and maturity.
2:3. Peter then arrived at the point that enables us to understand the nature of this spiritual milk. In saying they had tasted that the Lord is good, Peter implied these Asian Christians should continue to drink what they already tasted. In other words, the spiritual milk they needed centered in Christ Himself. The apostle likely took this idea from Psalm 34:8, which refers to tasting the Lord to see that He, the God of Israel, is good. In applying this verse to our Lord, Peter implied Jesus’ Deity in the strongest way possible. To grow in your Christian life, you absolutely must remain in constant, daily fellowship with Jesus Christ. Daily immersion of yourself in God’s Word is a valuable discipline in drawing you close to your Savior. Periods of deep, concentrated prayer unite your heart with the living Lord. Periods of meditation on God’s Word or listening to what your Lord has to say molds you in His image.
2:4. Many years earlier, Jesus had given Simon the nickname “Rock” (petros in Greek, from which the name Peter comes). Here the apostle nicknamed “Rock” described Jesus as a living stone. (See Psalm 118:22, which refers to the cornerstone that the builders rejected, and also see Peter’s use of this psalm in v. 7.) The world at large had rejected Jesus, but God had chosen Him and declared Him valuable. Jesus is the chosen One, and we are chosen because we are in Him. Our entire identity is wrapped up in Him.
2:5. Because of our relation to the resurrected and living Lord, we too can be called living stones (but not in the same sense as Jesus). Just as stones were used to build the temple of God in Jerusalem, so we are being built into a spiritual house, a temple, to God. God now dwells in His people, not in a building (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19). Then Peter changed to another word picture and described believers as priests who offer spiritual sacrifices. Under the old covenant the priests of Israel sacrificed bulls and goats in the temple. As Christians, we are priests of the new covenant who offer spiritual sacrifices to God. These sacrifices are truly acceptable to God, because they are offered through Jesus Christ. Peter specified the nature of these spiritual gifts in verse 9.
2:6. Peter then cited a series of texts from the Hebrew Scriptures on which he based his comments. “It stands” in Scripture is a solemn formula for citing quotations from Scripture as the Word of God. Peter first quoted Isaiah 28:16 as it appears in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Septuagint was the Bible of many in the early church, particularly those who spoke or read Greek. Isaiah had condemned Israel for rejecting the Lord’s message and for relying on pagan nations for their support. Through Isaiah, God told Israel He was laying the true foundation stone on which His people were to be built. A cornerstone was the great stone lying at the corner of a building uniting one wall to another. This foundational cornerstone supports everything else and ties it all together. The cornerstone God was laying in Zion was either God Himself or the Messiah. Thus whoever believes in Him will never be put to shame. Those trusting in Jesus never have to worry about whether He will disappoint them. God made that clear to Isaiah, to Israel, and to us.
2:7. Peter pointed out a great difference between those who believe in Jesus as their Lord and those who do not. God gives honor to those who believe. The unbelieving, on the other hand, will be disconcerted to discover that the stone they rejected . . . has become the cornerstone. Here Peter quoted Psalm 118:22. This verse could describe an event in the construction of the temple or perhaps it was a proverbial saying from that period. “Cornerstone” here may mean either a foundational cornerstone as in Isaiah 28:16 or the topmost capstone. Though rejected by the leaders of Israel and Rome, Jesus was the most important stone of the true temple, the people of God.
2:8. Peter next quoted Isaiah 8:14. In this verse, Isaiah said God should be a rock of sanctuary to His people. Instead, they failed to obey God, and they stumbled over Him as they would a huge rock placed in their paths. In a similar manner, Jesus the Messiah is a sanctuary to believers, but the One over whom unbelievers stumble. The statement “they were destined for this” expresses God’s sovereignty, but it does not mean unbelievers have no responsibility for disobeying the message. They reject Jesus as Savior and suffer the consequences.
2:9. Peter then identified implications of the new identity that Christians have and are to understand. As Israel was God’s chosen people, believers are a chosen race. We are also a royal priesthood, belonging both to the family of the King and to the priestly family. We are a holy nation, a people for His possession, as Israel had been. Our purpose as the people of God and as priests is to proclaim the praises of God. Here we learn the nature of the spiritual sacrifices of this new priesthood—praising God. Hebrews 13:15 refers to “a sacrifice of praise.” Romans 12:1 speaks of the spiritual worship of offering our “bodies as a living sacrifice” to God. Although Peter did not name the sacrifice of our bodies here, the entire passage implies it. Such a sacrifice of praise is merited by the nature of what God has done for us in Christ. He has called us out of the darkness of our world into His marvelous light in Christ.
2:10. Peter than applied Hosea 2:23 to these largely Gentile congregations. Once they did not belong to God’s people Israel, but then they became part of God’s people, the church. Formerly they knew nothing of God’s mercy to Israel, but then they received mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ. Many believers have a faulty sense of identity as Christians. They may see themselves only as church members or as possessing a certainty of a home in heaven. Such believers can find their lives transformed by understanding they are part of something far greater than themselves. They belong to the new people of God. God now lives in them. They are priests serving before God, offering up the sacrifice of praise to Him amid a perverted and lost world.
2:11. Peter addressed these believers as “temporary residents,” forms of which were used in chapter 1 (vv. 1,17). Like this term, “aliens” also was used first of Jews in the dispersion following the Babylonian exile. Here they refer to Christians as exiles on this earth. As God’s new people and new priesthood, the readers were to draw back from every temptation to satisfy the desires of the flesh. “Fleshly” does not mean simply “bodily.” “Flesh” in the New Testament refers to human desires that do not result from the Holy Spirit’s work. The unspiritual desires war against you, Peter wrote. Fleshly desires are not only sinful, they also are self-destructive.
2:12. Peter called on these believers to live such honorable lives that they would refute all the false accusations against them. Their good works would not only give the lie to every accusation, but their deeds also would convince even their accusers that God was at work in them. “Glorify God” means both to praise God and to confess that God is always right.