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Jul 05, 2020

Strange Solidarity

Strange Solidarity

Passage: 1 Peter 2:4-10

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Strange Faith

Individualism is the air we breathe. Expressing our truest selves is the highest virtue of our day. Another strange part of believing in Jesus is that who we are becoming as a people is as crucial, if not more, than who we are becoming as individuals. In fact who we are becoming as individuals is bound up with what we are becoming as a community. In that is what you might say is our strange solidarity.

7.05.20 GMR Online Service from Graceworks Media on Vimeo.

Order of Worship

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 118:19-24
PRAYER: Puritan Prayer: The Mediator
OLD TESTAMENT READING: Isaiah 8:14-15 & 28:16-17
CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Peter 2:4-10 ESV
MESSAGE: Strange Solidarity
BENEDICTION: Ephesians 3:20-21

Children's Lesson

Readings & Scripture

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 118:19-24
LEADER: 19 Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. 20 This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it. 21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. 22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

ALL: 23 This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. 24 This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Puritan Prayer: The Mediator
LEADER: Everlasting God. Giver of Life. We approach You with reverence and gratitude.
ALL: Saved by Your mercy and goodness. Undeserved. Astonishing.

LEADER: We confess our rebellious hearts and trust You for an everlasting covenant in Jesus; rejoicing in His accomplished work.

ALL Justified by his blood, we are saved by His life

LEADER: Holy Spirit, grant that we may walk in the healing power of the Resurrection. Finding mercy, joy, honor, and renewal.

ALL: Trusting Your Word and living this good news. Thy Kingdom come.

OT READING: Isaiah 8:14-15 & 28:16-17
LEADER: 14 And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.”
16 therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’ 17 And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”

CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Peter 2:4-10 ESV
LEADER: 4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 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. 6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

BENEDICTION: Ephesians 3:20-21
LEADER: 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

ALL: 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES:

  • Exodus 19:5-6
  • Psalm 67
  • Psalm 87
  • Isaiah 43:3, 20-21
  • Hosea 2:23
  • Luke 20:13--15, 17-18
  • John 1:10-13
  • John 2:19-20
  • John 4:16-26
  • John 17
  • Acts 4:11-12
  • Hebrews 13:15-16

ILLUSTRATIONS:

InView Media Album: 07.05.2020

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Where are your closest family members buried? Name the place or all the places. What all accounts, do you think, for the shift from families being buried together to being buried in various places?
  2. A rhetorical question (though you’re welcome to share your candid thoughts with others): what of your thinking about committing yourself to a church--whether GMR or another--had to do with something other than whether you thought you yourself could grow and mature? What if any thought did you give to whether you sensed that the Body was growing as a Body?
  3. What’s challenging, if not downright uncomfortable, about seeing our own maturity as bound up with the maturing of the whole community? But then again, what’s deficient about thinking of spirituality as a purely individual matter?
  4. What’s the difference between individuality and individualism? How does this passage perhaps affirm the former while confront the latter?
  5. Some have argued that the summary exhortation of the New Testament is “be who you are” (on the basis of what He has done). What might it mean to be a “spiritual house” and a “holy priesthood”?
  6. As for the comparisons of Jesus with a stone, find the four kinds of stone he is compared to. (hint: there are at least four)
  7. What might be expressed in the metaphor describing believers as “living stones”? What is true of stones in their makeup of a building that might be transferable to our thinking about ourselves and each other?
  8. In what words of phrases in this passage do you see the gospel alluded to?
  9. How does believing in the gospel help to trust in this new identity--in particular, how we handle rejection we may face as a consequence of living into it?

QUOTES:

  • “Whatever is right for your life or works best for you is the only truth you can know.”
  • The new generation wants bite-sized spirituality instead of a whole menu of courses. Design thinking can offer this because the whole premise of design is human-centeredness. It can help people shape their spirituality based on their needs. Institutionalized religions somehow forget that at the center of any religion should be the person.” Kursat Ozenc, Ritual Design Lab
  • When we are all our own high priests, who is willing to kneel? Tara Isabella Burton, Strange Rites
  • …when we suffer, if our collective Christian tone is complaint, if we constantly lament our loss of cultural influence or social standing, if we weep and mourn as if Jerusalem has fallen when our chosen political agenda is overlooked, then we expose our true values. - Elliot Clark
  • How easy it is for an American Christian to approach finding the church the way we approach buying cereal at the supermarket? We’re looking for all the right ingredients and rejecting churches because they don’t have our style of worship, our style of preaching, or our types of people. We’re purchasing a product rather than committing ourselves to the body of Christ. - Soon-Chan Rah
  • It is impossible to be in Christ and not belong to others. A Christian, by definition, has a connection with and a responsibility to other Christians. You cannot claim Christ and avoid his people. - Sam Allberry
  • Where are the walls of Sparta? These are the walls of Sparta--every many a brick

BOOKS / DOCS:

  • “On Post-Modern Architecture,” an experience related by the late Ravi Zacharias
  • Uncomfortable, by Brett McCracken
  • Evangelism as Exiles, Elliot Clari