{"id":30541,"date":"2026-05-03T13:24:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/?post_type=ctc_sermon&#038;p=30541"},"modified":"2026-05-03T13:24:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:24:40","slug":"bricks-and-mortar-a-spiritual-task","status":"publish","type":"ctc_sermon","link":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/?ctc_sermon=bricks-and-mortar-a-spiritual-task","title":{"rendered":"Bricks and mortar.  A spiritual task?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u>1 Peter 2.2\u201310<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation\u2014&nbsp;if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.<\/p>\n<p>Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God\u2019s sight, and&nbsp;like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.&nbsp;For it stands in scripture:<br \/>\n\u2018See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.\u2019<br \/>\nTo you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,<br \/>\n\u2018The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the&nbsp;corner\u2019, and A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.\u2019<br \/>\nThey stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.<\/p>\n<p>But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God\u2019s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.<br \/>\nOnce you were not a people, but now you are God\u2019s people; once you had not received mercy,<br \/>\nbut now you have received mercy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1 Peter 2.2\u201310 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation\u2014&nbsp;if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God\u2019s sight, and&nbsp;like living stones, let yourselves be built into&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":28078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"ctc_sermon_topic":[],"ctc_sermon_book":[446],"ctc_sermon_series":[367,361,477],"ctc_sermon_speaker":[409,347],"ctc_sermon_tag":[],"class_list":["post-30541","ctc_sermon","type-ctc_sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ctc_sermon_book-1-peter","ctc_sermon_series-easter","ctc_sermon_series-sunday-morning","ctc_sermon_series-worship-together-first-sunday-service","ctc_sermon_speaker-martin-dines","ctc_sermon_speaker-ruth-edy-llm","ctfw-has-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/30541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/ctc_sermon"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30541"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/30541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30544,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/30541\/revisions\/30544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_topic&post=30541"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_book&post=30541"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_series&post=30541"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_speaker&post=30541"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_tag&post=30541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}