look at the words of my text, you
will see that the offices which are attributed to Christ in the New
Testament are gathered up in those which the Apostle here ascribes to
Christ's servants. Jesus Christ in His manhood was the Temple of God.
Jesus Christ in His manhood was the Priest for humanity. Jesus Christ in
His manhood was the sacrifice for the world's sins. And what does Peter
say here? 'Ye are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices.' You draw life from Jesus Christ if you
keep close to Him, and that life makes you, in derived and subordinate
fashion, but in a very real and profound sense, what Jesus Christ was in
the world. The whole blessedness and secret of the gifts which our Lord
comes to bestow upon men may be summed up in that one thought, which is
metaphorically and picturesquely set forth in the language of my text,
and which I put into plainer and more prosaic English when I say--they
that come near Christ become as Christ. As 'living stones' they, too,
share in the life which flows from Him. Touch Him, and His quick Spirit
passes into our hearts. Rest upon that foundation-stone and up from it,
if I may so say, there is drawn, by strange capillary attraction, all
the graces and powers of the Saviour's own life. The building which is
reared upon the Foundation is cemented to the Foundation by the
communication of the life itself, and, coming to the living Rock, we,
too, become alive.

Let us keep ourselves near to Him, for, disconnected, the wire cannot
carry the current, and is only a bit of copper, with no virtue in it, no
power. Attach it once more to the battery and the mysterious energy
flashes through it immediately. 'To Whom coming,' because He lives, 'ye
shall live also.'

III. Lastly:

They who become like Christ because they are near Him, thereby grow
together.

'To whom coming, as unto a living stone, ye also, as living stones, are
built up.' That building up means not only the growth of individual
graces in the Christian character, the building up in each single soul
of more and more perfect resemblance to the Saviour, but from the
context it rather refers to the welding together, into a true and
blessed unity, of all those that partake of that common life. Now, it is
very beautiful to remember, in this connection, to whom this letter was
written. The first words of it are: 'To the strangers _scattered abroad_
throughout,' etc. etc. All over Asia