We focus on Peter's call for persecuted believers to embrace their identity as 'living stones' built upon Christ, the rejected yet divinely chosen cornerstone, reframing suffering and rejection as evidence of divine favor and participation in God's redemptive history. Drawing from Old Testament prophecies in Psalm 118 and Isaiah, we see that Christ's rejection by humanity was foreordained by God and that the Messiah serves as the cornerstone of a spiritual temple—God's church—composed of a chosen, royal priesthood called out of darkness into His marvelous light. The passage underscores that salvation is not by ethnic lineage or law, but by faith in Christ, fulfilling God's eternal purpose to gather both Jews and Gentiles into one people, as foreshadowed in Hosea and realized through the gospel. Believers are thus called to rejoice in their suffering, not as defeat, but as sanctification by God's grace, and to live as a holy nation, offering spiritual sacrifices through Christ, who alone is the way to reconciliation with a holy God.