Living Stones: A People of Grace
Chris Cooke · Living Stones: A People of Grace
7 September 2025
https://media.glenabbey.church/talks/living-stones-a-people-of-grace

[0:00] Thank you to Chris and the band and the choir.
[0:08] When I was in primary school, think P5, P6, P7, that sort of age, believe it or not, I was an efficient little worker.
[0:17] I could get my sums done particularly quickly.
[0:20] I could get my English comprehension or whatever it was done particularly quickly.
[0:24] However, I had an arch nemesis by the name of Ian Ross, who, however hard I tried, would always be making that Olympic walker's walk to the teacher's desk with his work before I could ever get there.
[0:40] And I would be 30 seconds behind, and he would look at me with that look of slight disdain and pity as I was always second to him.
[0:49] But that ability to get my work done quickly meant that I had a lot of free time on my hands in school during the day as other people were seeking to finish their work.
[1:02] And in the late 80s, when you were at primary school, you had two ways to spend your free time in your primary class.
[1:09] You could silent read.
[1:11] I don't know what other sort of reading you could do.
[1:14] Or, and I don't know, put up your hand if you remember these things.
[1:17] You had what was called a busy book.
[1:19] Does anybody remember a busy book?
[1:21] No?
[1:22] Only a few of us.
[1:23] Okay.
[1:23] So one or two.
[1:24] Thank you for putting your hands up and at least giving me some encouragement.
[1:27] Right.
[1:27] So you had this busy book and the busy book was basically the teacher's idea just to keep you quiet for as long as possible.
[1:34] And they told you, this is where I want you to express your imagination.
[1:40] In other words, I'm not going to look at anything in it.
[1:42] So do what you like.
[1:44] So I would have, basically my imagination was expressed in one of two ways.
[1:48] First of all, I was a big reader, so I would love to write stories.
[1:52] I was obsessed in particular with time travel.
[1:55] So I would write all sorts of stories about traveling through time.
[2:00] That was one way.
[2:01] The other way was drawing, and I was no artist.
[2:05] So all of my pictures were a variation on a theme.
[2:10] They were all a variation on me as a stick man in the bottom left-hand corner of the page with a football at my right foot.
[2:18] Picture it, okay, and a a football net in the top right-hand corner of the page with a ball bursting through the net, and then the only variation was the type of dashed line that would go all over the place, defying the laws of physics with this super shot that I had scored.
[2:36] That's the way I spent a lot of my time in my busy book.
[2:39] That's how I expressed my imagination.
[2:43] Now, this morning, as we think for ourselves at the beginning of this new year, this new season together as members of this church community, I wonder if I asked you, class, in your busy books,
[3:04] to write a description of or to draw a picture of what your ideal Christian community would look like, what your ideal church family would look like.
[3:19] What would you write?
[3:21] What would you draw?
[3:23] How would you express your imagination?
[3:27] And I was thinking about this for myself, And I was thinking, I would just love a Christian community that was easy.
[3:37] Easy people, no hassle.
[3:42] Kind, generous, don't think too much about themselves, don't take themselves too seriously, care for others.
[3:53] No selfishness, no arrogance, no egos.
[3:58] No conflict.
[3:59] None of that.
[4:02] And I realized as I thought about it, I wouldn't be welcome in my own community, but that's another thing.
[4:08] But what I did then, what I was thinking about this was, I went on to ChatGPT and I asked ChatGPT to give me an image of an ideal church community.
[4:22] and here is what it came up with.
[4:25] Everyone smiling, everybody happy, everybody clean, everybody relaxed, everybody unstressed, everybody seeming to get on with each other, although it does worry me slightly that there are a couple of people fighting over the only Bible in the back of the picture.
[4:39] But interestingly, even ChatGBT has Gilbert in their church.
[4:46] I knew you would be there.
[4:47] I knew you would be.
[4:51] Interestingly, I'm not, of course.
[4:53] So, imagination.
[4:58] Using our imagination can be a wonderful thing.
[5:03] Having vision can be a wonderful thing, but when imagination, when vision tips over, strays into idealism, it can often become a really dangerous thing.
[5:17] one of the books on my summer reading list this summer was Dietrich Bonhoeffer's little book about community life together and in the opening chapter he says these words which have stuck with me throughout the summer he says every human wish stream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is going to survive.
[5:43] He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.
[5:58] Bonhoeffer here, he's alerting us to the danger of our own imagined ideals about Christian community, about church family becoming idols, ideals becoming idols that hinder us from fully engaging in and experiencing the actual gift of community that we've been given by God in his grace.
[6:29] In the words of the song that we were singing at the beginning, and we'll sing in response after communion.
[6:34] For his glory and for our good, by his grace, he has placed us, not in our imagined ideal,
[6:49] but he has placed us in this messy, flawed, deficient family.
[6:57] For his glory and for our good.
[7:03] think about Ephesians 3 his glory so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places
[7:15] so for a few minutes this morning like I say at this beginning of this new season together let's turn our minds and our hearts from our idealized imagined
[7:32] community and turn them still to filling our imaginations, but filling them with what God has for us, what he's promised us through his word, what the actual right here, right now gift he has given us in each other in Christ is.
[7:49] And as we do so, let's ask him by his spirit to soften hearts that need softened this morning, to fill our hearts to overflowing with gratitude and anticipation and wisdom as we look forward to taking our place in this messy, flawed, beautiful,
[8:16] glorious family in the year ahead.
[8:20] And all sorts of places in scripture I could have gone to to help us with that.
[8:24] But this morning, I want to just look at a couple of things that Peter tells us.
[8:29] And we're going to read from his first letter from chapter one, verse 22, through to chapter two, verse 10.
[8:36] Listen to these words.
[8:39] Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love.
[8:44] Love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.
[8:56] For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flowers of grass.
[9:01] The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.
[9:07] And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
[9:11] So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up in your end of salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
[9:26] And as you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 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.
[9:47] For it stands in scripture, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious.
[9:54] And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
[9:57] So the honor is for you who believe.
[10:01] But for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.
[10:09] They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.
[10:13] 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 and into his marvelous light.
[10:32] Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.
[10:38] Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
[10:47] Two things then that I want to pick out of this passage.
[10:52] There's lots more we could do, but I want to leave time for communion at the end.
[10:55] Two truths that I know I too easily in my own life, in the day-to-day challenges of life with other people, lose sight of and need God through his word and by his spirit to re-fire my heart with again and re-fill my imagination with.
[11:14] And the first of those is this, that we are an eternal family.
[11:22] We are an eternal family.
[11:24] Look at what Peter says here.
[11:26] He calls us to love one another earnestly from a pure heart.
[11:31] And the basis for that call to love earnestly is this, because I have been born again of imperishable seed through the living word of God, the gospel, the good news that was preached to me.
[11:45] And you have been born again by that same imperishable seed through the living word of God, the gospel, the good news that was preached to you, we have been born again of the same seed.
[12:00] We are imperishably, immortally, eternally family.
[12:08] You might like that, or you might not like that, but that's the reality.
[12:13] And because together we are the eternal family of the imperishable seed of the word of God, We are actually part of each other's promised inheritance from God.
[12:30] You are part of my inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, and whether you like it or not, I am part of yours.
[12:41] Our promised shared inheritance is a new heaven, new earth community.
[12:46] It's what Revelation 21 calls the holy city.
[12:50] Us together centered around and enjoying the full unhindered glory and presence of God.
[13:00] Represented by the fact that there's no need for a sun, there's no need for a moon because the light will be provided by the glory of God and the lamb will be the lamp.
[13:11] The stunning picture of a community brought together and God dwelling at the center in the fullness of his glory.
[13:22] And if I could see you the way you will be then,
[13:30] I wouldn't want to invest in anything else ever again apart from you and vice versa.
[13:39] So think about the implications of this.
[13:44] Influenced by our culture of hyper-individualism, of disposable relationships, we are so often deeply tempted, aren't we, just to opt out of things whenever they stop working for us.
[14:02] But this, it is the extreme opposite of temporary and disposable.
[14:08] Peter's quote from Isaiah helps us to think through these implications.
[14:12] This quote, all flesh is like grass and all its glory, like the flower of the grass.
[14:17] The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.
[14:22] The reality is this, that there are so many parts of our lives where we only get to paint, where we only get to make our mark on temporary canvases.
[14:33] Our academic achievements, Our professional achievements, our financial successes, our making, a name for ourselves.
[14:45] Even all our family that comes from natural conception of human seed, that's what Peter's talking about here.
[14:52] That's what Isaiah's talking about.
[14:53] It's all transient.
[14:58] It's all passing.
[15:00] It's all vapor.
[15:04] A hundred years from now, no one will know what any of us achieved.
[15:10] And if somehow they do, I doubt they'll even care.
[15:14] But God, in his kindness, in his mercy, has given us the opportunity to make our mark on this eternal canvas, on one another, because we will last into eternity.
[15:30] your investment of love in me, your imperishable seed brother, and my investment of love in you, that lasts into eternity.
[15:40] We get to invest in, we get to grow, we get to shape our eternal inheritance through our earnest love for one another in Christ.
[15:50] The commitment that that takes is massive and it's deeply challenging.
[15:57] But what kindness, what mercy that we're even given the opportunity in the first place.
[16:07] On Tuesday, it was our 25th wedding anniversary.
[16:13] And my wife will hate that I've even told you about that.
[16:16] And I'm surprised there wasn't an intake of breath at how young I am for 20, but sure, anyway.
[16:23] but I was thinking we were actually showing our eldest son and his girlfriend the wedding video a few weeks ago it's been a long time since that was brought out and I was looking at all the people who were there and people who are still involved in our lives to this day in this church and thinking about the eternal mark that they have been able to make on the canvas of me and Sandra over those last number of years.
[16:52] A mark that lasts.
[16:54] What an opportunity.
[16:57] So first, truth to meditate on and pray through.
[17:00] We are eternal family, and that should stir our hearts to thankfulness.
[17:06] The second truth then, we are living stones being built up into that spiritual house, that dwelling place for God in all his fullness, in all his unveiled glory.
[17:18] Again think about this image, contemplate it.
[17:21] We have been granted, Peter says here, the honor that's been bestowed on us.
[17:26] We have been granted the gift of together a God-given purpose.
[17:33] But notice that it is a God-given purpose that can't be stepped into in isolation.
[17:39] It can't be stepped into maintaining a comfortable distance from other believers.
[17:45] You cannot build a spiritual house with one stone.
[17:49] Our purpose, our God-given purpose is found in being built up together into something glorious and beautiful and eternal.
[18:01] And to be built together, you need close proximity.
[18:09] Now, that close proximity would be fine, wouldn't it?
[18:13] If we were all like bricks made out of the old.
[18:17] My idea that I was describing at the beginning was a collection of stones that are straight, that are smooth, that are symmetrical, that are like me.
[18:28] But we are not dead bricks.
[18:33] We are living stones.
[18:35] We've got different personalities.
[18:36] We've got different priorities.
[18:38] We've got different eccentricities.
[18:41] We are new creations in Christ, but we still got some of the old fleshliness hanging around.
[18:47] We've got the sticky out bits of pride and arrogance.
[18:52] We've got the misshapenness of selfishness and envy.
[18:55] We've got the spiky edges of judgmentalism and bitterness.
[19:02] And we come from different backgrounds and different cultures and different generations.
[19:11] And so we come, don't we, with all sorts of our own ideas about what this construction that God is building should look like and what our place in it should be.
[19:21] It's messy.
[19:24] And we might like the idea of being part of God's spiritual dwelling place, but we don't want that particular stone there or this particular stone scraping up against us.
[19:35] That's too painful and irritating and annoying.
[19:37] We're like Linus from Peanuts.
[19:42] when he says, I love mankind, it's people that I can't stand.
[19:48] We're like, God, I want to be part of your spiritual house.
[19:53] Just don't put me beside that stone or that stone or that stone.
[19:58] Give me a bit of space.
[20:02] But we need to remember and keep on remembering in the most challenging moments that those other spiky, misshapen, random living stones are God's gracious gift to us.
[20:17] He hasn't given us our ideal.
[20:19] He hasn't given us what we want right now.
[20:24] He has placed us among these living stones for his glory.
[20:32] And though we struggle to see it, for our good.
[20:36] He will use our proximity to one another as living stones in his transforming work in us.
[20:43] He'll use this stone to file off those sticky out bits.
[20:50] He'll use this stone over here to sand down those rough edges.
[20:54] That stone to gradually, imperceptibly, mold us into a slightly different shape over time and we miss out.
[21:05] Let me make this clear.
[21:06] We miss out on such a key part of God's strategy for our personal transformation when we keep our distance.
[21:16] When we don't embrace the pain of the project and we miss out on the opportunity right now to be part of the most glorious, the most beautiful building project that has ever been seen and will ever be seen.
[21:34] But of course,
[21:39] the consummated beauty, the final glory of the completed dwelling place of God is all utterly dependent on the first stone that is laid, the cornerstone, the living stone, the chosen and precious Son of God, the risen and glorified Jesus.
[22:01] And again,
[22:04] because of the sheer mercy of God, through the cross, through the precious blood of Christ, the lamb without blemish or defect, as Peter says earlier in the chapter, We as living stones have been welcomed into living relationship with him, the living stone.
[22:30] And we are invited.
[22:33] We're invited every day.
[22:35] We're invited every moment to come to him.
[22:39] To look to him in his example.
[22:43] To listen to him, to his voice, to his words.
[22:46] to align ourselves to him and then to relate to one another in him in the power of his spirit given to us.
[22:58] We are given this precious, this wondrous, this intimate, loving relationship with Jesus, the living stone, for our relationships with one another as living stones, as God builds us up into his spiritual house, his dwelling place for eternity.
[23:26] As we come to him, as we look to him, as we line ourselves up on him, not on one another,
[23:36] that's where so often things go badly wrong.
[23:40] Think of Philippians 2.
[23:41] In your relationships with one another, Paul says, have the mindset of Christ, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.
[23:54] Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
[24:12] This is the living stone that we get to come to, that we get to align ourselves to.
[24:20] And as we do so,
[24:23] God will in his kindness fulfill his promises and build us up in Christ, taking the mess of us as living stones and building us into this beautiful dwelling place far beyond what our minds can ever comprehend.
[24:46] So, as we begin a new year, as we begin a new season together, let me ask you to think about this picture.
[24:59] and meditate on the truths in it.
[25:03] Now let me ask you not to let the idol of your ideal hinder your participation in the gift of the real thing.
[25:17] Don't let temporary, transient, perishable priorities hinder you investing in your imperishable, eternal brothers and sisters in Christ and stepping into the opportunity to serve them in earnest love, to make that eternal mark on an eternal canvas.
[25:44] Don't let the inevitable potential pain of being chiseled and being sanded and shaped by your proximity to other spiky, misshapen living stones hinder you drawing near in vulnerability and in love.
[26:10] And don't let the bitterness of old experiences
[26:21] callous your heart so much that it hinders you from stepping into the fresh grace of God in the community that he has for you come to him and keep coming to him
[26:36] the spotless lamb who redeemed you by his blood the living stone look to him and keep looking to him line yourself up on him and keep lining yourself up on him and take your place in your god-given purpose as a living stone and his eternal building project for his glory and for your good which are one and the same thing of course
[27:07] in a moment i'm going to pray and that prayer is going to lead us into sharing communion together, this physical reminder that we've been brought together as family through the sacrifice of Christ.
[27:21] This tangible reminder of our unity in Christ.
[27:25] And let me say if you're a visitor with us, this meal is open to all those who have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior.
[27:34] And on a very practical note, let me remind you that bread is gluten free and that there is wine and juice in the trays.
[27:41] Don't ask me which way around it is.
[27:43] You'll see the lighter colors.
[27:45] But let's pray together.
[27:47] Let's prepare ourselves to share this meal together.
[28:01] And let's just take a moment in the quiet to come to God individually.
[28:13] But as we come to God individually, you can open your eyes at times and look around you and see the living stones that you have been placed amongst.
[28:28] And just ask God, what is he, by his spirit, wanting you to take away
[28:36] from the truth of his word in your life, in your circumstances, in your mindset, in your struggles.
[28:51] I think especially of those people who have been hurt.
[29:01] Who had an idea in their head of what church family should look like.
[29:07] And the reality just wasn't even close.
[29:22] Father, by your spirit, break through those calluses on hearts.
[29:34] so that they might be ready again to,
[29:38] as we talked about earlier, embrace the pain in the beautiful building project that you've invited them into.
[29:53] Father, thank you for your grace, your kindness, your mercy.
[30:04] Thank you for the precious body and blood
[30:11] of the unblemished, spotless lamb
[30:18] who took our place, who paid the price, who redeemed us,
[30:25] who made us your people,
[30:31] your royal priesthood, your holy nation, your special possession.
[30:45] Father, being a living stone among other living stones is not easy.
[30:54] we need your spirit to help us in it we need your spirit almost to be the mortar between these stones
[31:07] help us to look
[31:11] persistently to look consistently at your son the living stone
[31:18] and daily in the joys and in the struggles of relationships with one another.
[31:24] Take our alignment from him.
[31:30] Again, thank you that all of this, the opportunity to be part of what you are doing,
[31:38] the opportunity to make our mark and our inheritance in your kingdom for your glory is all because of your kindness.
[31:49] And all started with the sacrifice of your son, the living stone on the cross.
[31:57] We remind ourselves now of our unity in Christ.
[32:01] And we look to him together.
[32:04] In his name.
[32:06] Amen.
[32:06] Amen.