Christ precious to believers

Text 1 Peter 2:7 Date 13/04/15 Place Leicester University (First session, Banner Ministers Conference)

Let me begin by saying that I count it a great privilege to stand here today and preach at the opening session. I'm very thankful to the organisers for asking me to speak. I've been coming to Banner conferences for over 30 years and have missed very few since I started. I was not here last year as I was kept from attending by a heart condition. In fact it was a year ago tomorrow that I underwent a quadruple heart bypass op and I count it a great privilege to be over that and to be able to preach to you today.

Now when I was asked to speak to you I had that happy experience of knowing just what I wanted to speak about. Not only that but having now reached this point I'm just as enthusiastic to speak on the subject as I was when I chose it. It hasn't gone cold on me. The title is the one that you have seen in your programmes Christ precious to believers.

I want to speak on that great text found in 1 Peter 2:7 Unto you therefore who believe he is precious. I am conscious that it is the first text that Spurgeon ever preached on in a formal church setting. As with so much in the remarkable life of that remarkable man, the circumstances were rather unusual. A man from the Cambridge Village Preachers Association asked the teenaged Spurgeon to walk out to the village of Teversham near Cambridge accompanying a young man who Spurgeon supposed would be the preacher on that occasion. As they walked along and talked, however, it became clear that the other young man had no intention of preaching nor any ability to do so either and so it was Spurgeon himself who had to preach and this was the text he preached - Unto you therefore which believe he is precious.

He once said of that occasion “I do not think I could have said anything upon any other text. Christ was precious to my soul, and I was in the flush of my youthful love, and I could not be silent when a precious Jesus was the subject.”

Spurgeon went on to preach on this same text at least six more times. Many years later he said

“If a raw recruit could speak upon anything, surely this theme would suit him. If one were dying this would be the text, if one were distracted with a thousand cares this would be the text because its teaching is experimental - its meaning wells up from the inner consciousness, and needs neither a clear brain nor an eloquent tongue.”

I was quite encouraged when I read that statement!

Resources. I should say that apart from Spurgeon there are plenty of helps on this text. There are two sermons by the short lived Puritan Andrew Gray. Samuel Davies and Octavius Winslow also published sermons on it and there is an outline by Charles Simeon. The eighteenth century Baptist John Fawcett wrote a little book on it. You can find that online or in a reprint by Joel Beeke's RHB.

Context. So here is our text - Unto you therefore who believe he is precious. We need to begin, of course, with the context.

Perhaps we should say first that Peter likes the word precious. He uses it in verses 4, 6 (different word) and 7. Also 1:7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith - of greater worth (more precious) than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1:18, 19 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ …. 2 Peter 1:1, 4 speak of a faith as precious as ours and God's very great and precious promises.

The text comes in 1 Peter 2. By this stage Peter has introduced his letter and said something about the holy lives he wants his readers to live. Next he speaks of coming to Christ in terms of coming to the living Stone. Believers are rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him and they too are like living stones which, he says, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices, etc. He draws all this from the Old Testament and quotes three Scriptures – two from Isaiah (8 and 28) and one from Psalm 118. These speak of God laying a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone and of Christ as The stone the builders rejected who has become the cornerstone, and, A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall because of their disobedience. These believers Peter writes to are not like these unbelievers but are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that they may declare the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his wonderful light. Having been not a people, … now they are the people of God; having once … not received mercy, … now they have received mercy.

Now it is right in the middle of all this that Peter says to his readers, of the Living Stone, Christ, Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. This in contrast to unbelievers who stumble because they disobey the message - which is also what they were destined for.

So two things. Firstly, notice who Peter is speaking to and of – you who believe. Secondly, and this is the main thing, notice what he says to them about Jesus Christ the Living Stone - to you who believe, (he) is precious.

1. I want to speak to you this evening chiefly as believers

This is a conference for ministers. Most of us here are prospective ministers, ministers, retired ministers or something similar. Quite rightly a lot of what will be said in this conference, I guess, will be spoken to us as ministers. Helps for us as ministers in the ministry, warnings for us as ministers in the ministry, reminders for us as ministers in the ministry and so on.

Now in this first session I don't want to speak to you as pastors or elders as such but as Christians, as believers in our Lord Jesus Christ. Like Peter, I want to speak to you who believe. Now I know that the two overlap and in many ways can't be separated but you understand what I mean. Iain Murray makes the point somewhere that when Dr Lloyd-Jones died he died as a Christian. When towards the end he was asked if he missed preaching he explained that he did not live to preach. He once said “To know God is life eternal. Our work is important, our work is a privilege, but brethren, you should never make it the greatest thing. I did not live for preaching.”

We come to this conference partly because we're ministers. We want to meet fellow pastors and learn from each other. We want to hear messages that help us in some way in our ministries as pastors or whatever. But we also come as ordinary Christians, believers in need of encouragement and help and sometimes warning. Like the Sea of Galilee we constantly give out and if we are to go on doing that we need to take in as well. One of the best ways to do that is at a conference like this.

The question is sometimes asked “Who pastors the pastor?” It seems to me that it is not difficult to answer. It's a little like who cooks for mothers … fixes the mechanic's car … heals the doctor?

Who pastors the pastor? The pastor, of course (the clue is in the name!). However, when we say the pastor must pastor the pastor, we do not mean that he cannot get help, that he must do it all on his own. No, he has many helps available and one thing he needs to do is to get to conferences like this one and take the help that is on offer.

So I want to speak to you all this evening as believers. I don't know how long you've been a believer? Fifty years, 40, 30? I don't know how long you resisted the gospel before you came to faith. I don't know what doubts and fears you may struggle with from day to day. But I do know that you're a professing believer and I know that this verse is for you. It is to you who believe that Peter speaks here in Scripture. It is for you who, like me, have by the grace of God, come to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you have ears to hear, hear what the Spirit says.

Fawcett says that true faith endears Christ to the soul. It enthrones Christ in the heart for that is where he dwells in his people. His fellow Baptist John Gill similarly says that one of the characteristics of faith is that it “makes Christ precious to souls …” it “beholds the glories of Christ's person; the riches of his grace; the treasures and wonders of his love; which render him altogether lovely and the chiefest among ten thousand.”

Here is a way to test your faith. If you find what I have to say boring, it could, of course, be that I've not made it interesting. But it could be that you just don't find speaking about how precious Christ is to believers interesting. If you don't find it interesting then that suggests something is very wrong.

2. And I want to remind you that to you who believe Jesus is precious

Peter actually speaks very succinctly here. Literally “to you therefore precious (is), you who believe”. You know the word he uses for precious or honour. It's that word time. Preachers tend to know it even if their Greek is not very good as it is the word translated honour in 1 Timothy 5:17 where Paul says that elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of a double dose of it. I remember being with a member of my congregation once. His wife's parents were Greek Cypriots and they had a calendar on the wall in modern Greek. It had adverts and although my Greek is not great I could pick out the word time in one of the adverts, where it was clearly serving as the word for price. I pointed it out to my friend. He knew the word. “Yes” he said “that's what my father-in-law wanted to know about when I asked if I could marry Liza”. How much do you earn? What are you worth? That was the question, a very un-British question. So here is a word that can mean price, precious, earnings, value, honour. Now Peter says here that to those who believe in him that Jesus, the Living Stone, is that. He is precious, valuable, worthy. One paraphrase (GNB) has This stone is of great value for you that believe.

I want us to spend the rest of our time thinking together about the question of in what ways, Christ is precious to those who believe. That is a good thing for us to do for a number of reasons.

Why this is worthwhile

1 Because this is one of the ways in which we worship him – by reciting how very precious Jesus is. Isn't that what the psalmist is often doing – going over God's character; who he is and what he has done? 1 Peter 2:9 speaks of believers being a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that they may declare the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his wonderful light.

2 Further, by doing this we remind ourselves of just how great our Saviour is, which is not only for his glory but also for our good. Vaughan Roberts has rightly written that “The rehearsal of great truths about God simultaneously brings praise to him and encouragement to us.”

3 We need, Peter tells us (Chapter 3) to revere Christ in our hearts as Lord and Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. In Song of Solomon (5:9-16) when the Beloved is looking for her lover and charges the daughters of Jerusalem to tell him how faint she is with love, they say to her How is your beloved better than others, most beautiful of women? How is your beloved better than others, that you so charge us? She is more than ready to give the reason for the hope she has. My beloved is radiant and ruddy, she says outstanding among 10,000. His head is purest gold; his hair is wavy and black as a raven. His eyes are like doves by the water streams, washed in milk, mounted like jewels. His cheeks are like beds of spice yielding perfume. His lips ... His arms ... His body … His legs …

She could speak of her precious lover very openly. Can we? We ought to be able to tell people how precious he is to us.

Why Jesus is precious to believers

Here is the leading thought then – to you who believe he is precious. As Peter says earlier in his letter (1:8) so I say to you - You love him, although you have not seen him, and you believe in him, although you do not now see him. But let's flesh that out. Why do you love him? Why do you believe in him? In what ways is he precious to us? To say he is precious is to state the obvious. We need to put some colour into that outline.

There are clearly many ways to do that.

John Fawcett comes up with some 17 different heads under which he looks at this - his History, his Person, Names, Offices and Characters, Blood and Righteousness, etc. Samuel Davies more briefly says Christ is precious in himself and in his office, precious to the angels and to his Father.

Strictly speaking I suppose we should be looking for ideas in the surrounding text. There are three things there. Why is Jesus precious to the believer?

1 Because he is precious to God. He is the living Stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him.

2 Because he is our glory. Like living stones, we are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through him so if we trust in him we will never be put to shame. We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that we may declare his praises.

3 Because of his mercy towards us. He called us out of darkness into his wonderful light so that although we were once not a people, now we are God's people and though once we had not received mercy, now we have.

The theme of this conference is suffering so next I want to take something from Fawcett. He says

Christ is precious to believers because of his Chastisements. This may seem a strange thing to say but if we have any maturity in Christ we know that even these work together for our good and are another reason why Christ is precious to us. We can say with Paul (Rom 5:3, 4) Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Fawcett says

“An ungodly man, in affliction, is like a ship at sea in a storm - without pilot, without anchor, without cable, chart, or compass, or even the most distant view of the haven of rest and safety. It is far otherwise with the afflicted believer. The stormy winds and raging waves of the ocean, in all their fury, beat upon his little bark, and he sometimes cries, All your waves and your billows are gone over me; my strength and my hope from the Lord have perished! But in this distress he is still supported, when he is enabled to reflect, that his God and Father sits upon the floods, and rules the raging of the sea; that all the waves thereof are at his direction, and though they seem to threaten his ruin, they shall answer the purposes of his final safety, by bringing him nearer and nearer to the haven where he would be. He has much satisfaction from a review of his chart and compass; he perceives that he is in a right course, though for the present - the sea is rough and stormy. His anchor is good, his pilot is able and skilful; he confides in him who sits at the helm, with the greatest security, and, at some seasons, the wished-for port of peace and rest appears in view. He then rejoices in prospect of the triumph which will attend his safe arrival, when he shall ride into the harbour, amidst the acclamations of those who are waiting to receive him - to partake of their unmingled joy, and live in eternal repose!”

Fawcett's Baptist contemporary Samuel Pearce wrote a hymn that included theses lines

So in darkest dispensations Doth my faithful Lord appear,

With his richest consolations To reanimate and cheer,

Sweet affliction, sweet affliction, thus to bring my Saviour near

Is Christ precious to you because of his chastisements?

To help us to take this further I want to do what may seem an odd thing to do. I want to turn to a hymn, to John Newton's How sweet the name of Jesus sounds. Newton based his hymn on Song of Solomon 1:3 where the Beloved says Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the young women love you! It could easily have been based on this verse before us. It may seem strange to go to a hymn for sermon divisions but Newton was preacher and a great pastor who knew the power of contemplating the preciousness Christ. So, again, why is Jesus precious to believers?

Because he is the answer to our every need. The hymn gives us firstly an idea of what contemplating the preciousness of Christ can do for us. He begins “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds In a believer’s ear! It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, And drives away his fear. It makes the wounded spirit whole, And calms the troubled breast; ’Tis manna to the hungry soul, And to the weary, rest.”

So here is a way to find soothing in sorrow, healing when wounded, an antidote to fear, wholeness for the wounded spirit, etc, etc.

Are you sorrowing or sad? No doubt there are some like that today. There is soothing for your sorrow in a contemplation of the preciousness of Jesus Christ.

Are you wounded? Your weaknesses have been exposed; you are unsure what to do but you must know it is to the precious Saviour you need to turn.

Are you fearful? There are all sorts of fears – fear of failure, of rejection, of the future. When we see how precious Jesus is, it drives away our fears.

Have you been wounded in your spirit, wounded in action? People have said harsh things, either directly or you have got to hear them? Oh you are so hurt. Where can you turn? Think of the preciousness of our Saviour.

Are there troubles? Again, it is in Jesus and his preciousness that the answers lie.

Are you weary? Often we come to a conference like this feeling weary – hopefully not of the work but often in it. The one who gives rest to the weary is Jesus Christ. Come to me he says all you who are wearied and burdened and I will give you rest. That is one of the things that makes him so precious.

Some of you perhaps you are neither sad nor wounded, troubled nor weary but you are hungry for God. What better way to sate that hunger than by fixing your mind on the preciousness of Christ.

Is Christ precious to you because you see he is the answer to every need?

Because he is our rock, our shield, our hiding place and treasury. “Dear name, the rock on which I build, My shield and hiding place, My never failing treasury, filled With boundless stores of grace!”

Our rock. Here in 1 Peter 2 he is called a rock that makes men fall. In the Old Testament God is often thought of a rock of salvation. In 1 Corinthians 10:4 Paul says of Israel in the desert that they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Christ is to believers their solid support, the rock on which they build, the source of their refreshment.

Our shield and hiding place. Shield, hiding place or refuge are also favourite words for the Psalmist to use when thinking of God. Shield goes back to Abraham's time. Psalm 84:9 says Look on our shield, O God; look with favour on your anointed one. Jesus protects us. He keeps us safe from harm and so he is precious to us.

Our never failing treasury. He truly is our precious and “never failing treasury, filled with boundless stores of grace”. Isaiah 33:5, 6 says The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with his justice and righteousness. He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure. What treasure is yours if you are Christ's.

Is Christ precious to you because he is your rock, your shield, your hiding place and treasury?

Because of his blood and righteousness. One verse in Newton's hymn is not much sung these days. “By Thee my prayers acceptance gain, Although with sin defiled; Satan accuses me in vain, And I am owned a child.”

He is talking about justification. Fawcett says that Jesus is precious because of his blood and righteousness. 1 Peter 1:18, 19 says For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. It is because he was righteous, completely righteous and because he died in our place that there is hope for us. How precious his blood, how precious our Saviour! The more we think of his death the more grateful we ought to be.

Is Christ precious to you because of his blood and righteousness?

Because he is our shepherd, husband, friend; prophet, priest and king. “Jesus! my shepherd, husband, friend.” Newton takes just three of his many names and titles here. Hundreds of others could be added. Let's think just of these, however.

Shepherd. In the New Testament Jesus is called the God Shepherd, the Great Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd. As Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4) he is the model pastor who we are called to emulate but as our Great Shepherd (Hebrews 13:20) and Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14) he saves us by laying down his life and knows us intimately, watching over our coming out and going in with care.

Husband. Hosea 2:16 speaks of a day when God's people will call him my husband. They will no longer call him my master. In 1 Corinthians 11:2 Paul says I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. We too have been promised to a precious husband, with whom we will be forever. What privileges are ours!

Friend. This name also goes back to Abraham, as James reminds us. In John 15:15 Jesus says to his disciples I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. He is the friend who sticks closer than a brother

In another of his hymns Newton says “One there is, above all others, Well deserves the name of friend; His is love beyond a brother’s, Costly, free, and knows no end: They who once His kindness prove, Find it everlasting love!

“Which of all our friends to save us, Could or would have shed their blood? But our Jesus died to have us Reconciled, in Him to God: This was boundless love indeed! Jesus is a friend in need.”

Is Christ precious to you because he is your shepherd, husband and friend?

Newton goes on to speak of Our prophet, priest and king. There is the threefold office of Christ then. The fact he has this threefold office makes him very precious to the believer.

Christ reveals to us all that we need to know for our salvation. He is the greatest prophet, the one who reveals most clearly all these things. Remember how the disciples hearts burned within them as he spoke to them from the Scriptures on the road to Emmaus. All the crowds who heard him agreed that no-one ever spoke like him.

His work as High Priest is especially precious to us – his making the sacrifice that removes all our sins and his constant intercession in heaven for us are very precious indeed.

He is also our king, the one who conquered and subdued us and who rules and defends us from our enemies. What more precious to a people than to have a king who rules well.

Is Christ precious to you because he is your prophet, priest and king?

Because he is our Lord, our life, our way, our end. Newton again “My Lord, my life, my way, my end, Accept the praise I bring”. In Scripture he is called the Lord of Lords, the Lord of glory and the Lord our Righteousness. Think too of John 14:6 I am the way, the truth and the life. In Revelation he declares himself to be the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Amen of God. And so for the Christian he is our way our life and our end as well as being our precious Lord.

Is Christ precious to you because he is your Lord, your way, your life, your end?

Because this is how we want to die and how we want to live. As he comes to a close Newton has us sing “Weak is the effort of my heart, And cold my warmest thought; But when I see Thee as Thou art, I’ll praise Thee as I ought. Till then I would Thy love proclaim With every fleeting breath, And may the music of Thy name Refresh my soul in death!”

Clearly, if even the best preacher here today should tackle this verse Unto you therefore who believe he is precious and even if he were allowed to go on throughout the conference night and day still it would not be possible to properly present the preciousness of Christ. It is impossible for our weak hearts to expound and impossible for our warmest thoughts t convey the preciousness of Jesus to the believer. However, a day is coming when we will see him a she is and when we will praise him as we ought to. What a glorious day that will be!

Is Christ precious to you because though your praise is poor now you will one day praise him as you ought?

Conclusion. Two final thoughts.

Fawcett: “If Jesus Christ is so superlatively precious in himself, we have reason to be ashamed that we love him no more.” How feeble our love often is. Fawcett refers to Foxe writing of an Italian called Mollius who was sometimes observed to be in heaviness, and to weep bitterly. When friends enquired into the cause of his trouble, his usual answer was, 'O! it grieves me, that I cannot bring this heart of mine to love Jesus Christ more fervently.' “May we not” says Fawcett “justly be ashamed that we have this precious Saviour so little in our thoughts?” How little we think of him. It ought not to be like that.

"Is it possible that we should spend any day of our lives without thinking on what Jesus Christ has done for us? His astonishing love, in becoming incarnate, sojourning more than 30 years in this wretched and miserable world, as a man of sorrows, for our sakes; his fulfilling all righteousness for us; his enduring the contradiction of sinners against himself; and his laying down his life in our stead - are subjects of contemplation upon which our minds should perpetually revolve.”

If we thought of him more, we'd speak of him more and we'd pray to him more.

A story (probably authentic) is told of John Newton in his old age. His servant would stand behind him in the pulpit in order to trace out the lines of his sermon as his sight was very bad. One Sunday morning he came to the words in his sermon, “Jesus Christ is precious,” and wishing to emphasise them he repeated, “Jesus Christ is precious.” The servant thinking he was getting confused whispered, “Go on, go on, you said that before”. Newton, looking round, replied, “John, I said that twice and I am going to say it again!” Then with redoubled force he sounded out the words, “JESUS CHRIST IS PRECIOUS!”

The words bear repeating. Let me say it again, Jesus Christ is precious.