Psalm 34:8–18 1 Peter 2:1–12 Matthew 5:31–37
Being a Grace-Shaped Church
One of the many blessings of walking a well-marked trail is the reassurance it gives. Even if the path becomes steep, the weather changes, or the way ahead feels uncertain, the signs keep you oriented. They remind you where you are, where you have come from, and where you are going. Scripture does something similar for the people of God. When life becomes painful, confusing, or even hostile, God’s Word gives us the signs we need to keep walking in faith.
Peter’s first readers needed those signs. They were new believers who had already endured various trials because of their faith in Jesus. Yet Peter does not begin by telling them simply to grow up, buck up, or keep quiet. He begins by lifting their eyes to the grace of God. In the opening chapter of his letter, he reminds them of the God who saved them, the mercy by which they were born again, the inheritance kept for them, and the living hope secured through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Only after Peter has saturated them in the greatness of the gospel does he turn to address their response. His pattern is important: grace comes before obedience. Identity comes before behaviour. God’s saving work comes before our faithful walk. So when Peter says, “Therefore,” he is not merely using a transition word; he is pointing us back to everything God has already done. Because God has acted in grace, his people are now called to live as a grace-shaped community.
This passage is also filled with Old Testament quotations and allusions. Peter is writing to believers who knew the Scriptures deeply. A single phrase from the Psalms, the Prophets, or the Torah could call an entire passage to mind. In that sense, Peter places trail markers throughout this text. Each one says, in effect: remember God’s grace; remember your deliverance; remember who you have become in Christ.
You see, the Christian life never graduates from grace. Every call to obedience is an invitation to begin again where salvation began…with God’s gracious initiative.
So, Peter retells the story of Israel in the light of Jesus. God delivers his people, God calls them to be holy, God forms them into a priestly people, and finally God sends them to display his glory among the nations.
The Church, in many ways, is living the Exodus story again, now fulfilled and centred in Jesus.
This pattern of the Exodus gives our passage from 1 Peter its shape:
In the Exodus, God delivers his people by grace.
At Sinai, God calls them to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests.
In the wilderness, they must learn to leave behind the habits of Egypt.
Among the nations, they are called to display the glory of God.
So, Peter begins: “Therefore, laying aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes long for the pure milk of God’s Word, that you may grow up into salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” The “therefore” here reaches back to chapter 1. Because you have been born again, because you have been redeemed, because you have received an imperishable inheritance, and because you have been purified by the living and abiding Word of God, you must now put away the habits that belong to the old life.
Again, this is the pattern of the Exodus before Sinai. The commandments did not create the new life; rather they described the life that already belonged to those whom God had already made new. God had already taken them out of Egypt and brought them to himself to be his own treasured possession – his own community.
So, it is not surprising then that Peter begins by naming five sins that destroy community: malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. It is striking that he begins with relational sins. These are the sins that quietly poison God’s community from within. So, a grace-shaped church cannot cling to the habits that contradict grace…that is self-contradictory.
But notice that Peter does not merely say, “Stop behaving badly.” Rather, he contrasts these destructive sins with a new appetite: “like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of God’s Word.”
Just as newborn children do not need to be persuaded to desire milk…just as life creates an appetite for life…so grace creates a hunger for the Word of God.
You see, obedience is not manufactured by guilt; obedience grows from new life. Sinai never comes before the Exodus.
Now, Peter grounds this call on a quotation from Psalm 34: “now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
Psalm 34 speaks of the Lord’s faithful deliverance of his servant. “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good,” the psalmist says. “Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”
Yet the same psalm immediately connects the experience of God’s goodness with a transformed life, which perhaps is the backdrop to what Peter says here: “Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit,” the Psalmist says. “Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”
Of course Peter expects his readers to hear the whole psalm behind the single phrase. “Now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Those who have tasted the goodness of the Lord must now become people whose speech, desires, and relationships bear witness to that goodness.
You see, grace does not merely comfort us; it changes us. The Lord who has delivered us now also teaches us to seek peace and pursue it.
This is why I believe that verses 4–10 form the heart of this passage. Everything before this leads here, and everything after it flows from here. Peter now gathers some of the greatest images of the Old Testament and shows how they come to fulfilment in Christ and in the people joined to him.
Peter says that Jesus is a living stone rejected by men but that is, in the sight of God, chosen and precious. He is drawing on a statement from Isaiah 28: “Behold, I am the one.” God says, “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.’ And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line.” In its original setting, Isaiah speaks of judgement on false security. God himself lays the only foundation that will stand.
But Peter is also quoting from Psalm 118: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Again for his First Century readers, Jewish believers who were primarily oral learners and who had no doubt memorised huge portions of the Old Testament, one line would summon the whole psalm.
And Psalm 118 is a song of deliverance from oppression, and it is the psalm echoed by the crowds when Jesus entered Jerusalem. The leaders rejected him, but God made him the cornerstone. What human builders dismissed, God established as the foundation of his new creation.
But then comes the astonishing part: believers become what they are joined to. Christ is the Living Stone, and those who come to him become “living stones” being built into a spiritual house. The temple in Jerusalem was built from magnificent but lifeless stones. In stark contrast, God’s new temple is built from living people. His dwelling place is now his redeemed community.
This also recalls the promise of the new covenant. God no longer writes his law merely on tablets of stone. But by his Spirit, he writes his law on living hearts. Ezekiel speaks of this gracious transformation: “I will take you from the nations (remember Peter uses the word ‘exiles’ to describe his readers in chapter 1:1) and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses... And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you... And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.”
But Jeremiah builds on the same thought: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
So, notice the contrast. God’s law was written on tablets of lifeless stone and the Temple in Jerusalem was built from magnificent but lifeless stones. Peter says God's new temple is built from living people who have the law written on our hearts.
But Peter does not stop with the image of the temple. He also says that believers are its priests: we are “a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Israel had been called to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” at Sinai. Although there was a particular priestly order within Israel, the nation as a whole was called to display God’s holy presence before the world. But now Peter applies that calling to all who are united to Christ.
He gathers the language of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah into one glorious declaration: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”
In Exodus 19, God says, “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” In Deuteronomy, he tells Israel, “You are a people holy to the Lord your God... the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession.” Isaiah speaks of a people formed for God’s praise. Peter now declares that this identity belongs to the people gathered in and around Jesus.
This is not a break in God’s purposes but rather their fulfilment. Everything Israel was called to become reaches its goal in Jesus and in the people united to him. The Church is chosen, not for pride, but for proclamation; the Church is holy, not for isolation, but for witness; the Church is a kingdom of priests, not for privilege, but for service…for a witness to the nations.
Peter then reaches into the book of Hosea. “Once,” he says, “you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” Remember, Hosea had named one of his children Lo-Ammi, “Not My People,” as a sign of Israel’s judgement. And yet in the very same text, the Lord also promised restoration: “In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the living God.’” Again he says, “I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people,’ and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”
Peter then adds a second allusion also taken from the book of Hosea: “Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Remember, Hosea’s daughter was named Lo-Ruhamah, “No Mercy,” because judgement had come upon a faithless people. Yet God’s final word is not rejection but covenant mercy. What had been “not mine” became “my people.” What had been “no mercy” became “mercy received.”
That is pure grace. Nothing changed because the people had earned it. God acted in covenant love. Peter says that this same story is now our story. Every Christian has been moved by grace from slavery to freedom, from estrangement into belonging, from judgement into mercy, from darkness into God’s marvellous light.
But Peter does not end with identity alone. He ends with what identity leads towards. He ends with mission. After declaring who the Church is, he shows us how the Church must live: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” Notice the order: “Beloved” comes before “I urge you.” Grace comes before command. Identity comes before behaviour.
Peter calls them sojourners and exiles. That takes us back to the Exodus once more. Israel had been delivered from Egypt but had not yet entered the fullness of the inheritance. The wilderness was not their home. But neither is this present world our final home. Like Peter’s First Century readers, we too are elect exiles of the dispersion. We no longer belong to the kingdom from which we have been rescued, and while it is true that we dwell in the world, we are not of the world.
Just as Israel had been delivered from Egypt, but had not yet entered their inheritance, and the wilderness was not their home, neither is this world as it is now ours. We no longer belong to the kingdom from which we have been rescued, nor do we belong to the wilderness in which we are currently wandering. We are citizens of the promised heavenly kingdom.
Therefore, Peter says, abstain from sinful desires. Not because such desires have the power to undo God’s grace, but because they belong to the former life of slavery to sin, Satan, and death. Grace has changed our citizenship. Grace has changed our appetites. Grace has changed our destination. We are living stones built on Christ. We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and we are God’s own people. Our lives must now witness to the truth of what and who we are.
And then finally, Peter turns outward: “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” The Church exists to make God’s grace visible. We do not live faithfully merely so that the world will admire us. We live faithfully so that, even when misunderstood or opposed, our lives may bear witness to the God who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.
So, throughout this passage Peter weaves together two threads: grace and obedience. But we must notice which thread carries the weight. Grace does. Every command hangs from a reminder of what God has already done. Every “therefore,” every quotation, and every allusion sends us back before it sends us forward.
Back to God’s gracious deliverance. Back to the cross. Back to the resurrection. Back to the mercy that made us God’s people. Back to the grace that gave us new birth. You see, the Christian life is not a journey away from grace toward maturity. No, it is a life built on grace and based on grace, out of which true maturity grows.
So what kind of church displays God’s grace most clearly? Well, not a church that merely knows the right doctrines, though doctrine matters. Not a church that merely follows the right rules, though obedience matters.
No, the kind of church that displays God’s grace most clearly is a church built of living stones upon Christ the cornerstone; a church that has tasted the goodness of the Lord and therefore puts away malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander; a church that knows it has received mercy and therefore becomes merciful; a church that lives sacrificially as a holy priesthood in the world so that others may see its good works and glorify God.
That is a grace-shaped church: rescued by grace, formed by grace, sustained by grace, and sent out by grace to proclaim the excellencies of the One who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2026
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