Sermon
Jesus Christ, The Chief Cornerstone
November 13, 2005
Pastor Donald Sheley

Our lesson this morning comes to us from the writings of Peter. We have learned in the last number of weeks that little has been written on the life and the ministry of Peter, and sometimes maybe his letters have been somewhat neglected by the pulpit. We decided this summer that we were going to spend some time seeing what Peter had to say to us. He's remembered as the man who denied his Christ, but he has written some marvelous truths; surely as his ministry developed and matured, he became a mighty man of God.

Now there are some other things we've learned about Peter. It has been suggested by some historians and some Bible scholars that Peter and Paul had a falling out in the early years of the church ministry, and the reason for that suggestion is that in the second book of Galatians it's recorded or us that Paul and Peter were up in Antioch, and while they were there, Peter found it quite comfortable to participate in religious activities with Gentiles, but some of the folks from Jerusalem had a different opinion. They didn't like Gentiles coming into the Christian church. They felt it was all for the Jewish people, and thus, when the Jewish people arrived from Jerusalem up in Antioch, Peter who had been eating with the Gentiles all of a sudden he moves away from them and he associates only with the Jewish people.

And Paul got aggravated. In fact in very nice words he said you're a great big hypocrite. Now he says it a little better and easier in the Scriptures, but that's exactly what...Peter, you have been eating with us all this time and all of a sudden these folks arrive from Jerusalem and you know that they do not have a high opinion of the Gentiles and therefore you've moved away from the Gentiles.

It's believed by Bible scholars that that became a point of division between these two great men of the Bible, Peter and Paul. When you read the book of Acts, which is the record of the history of the first thirty years of the church, you'll find that the first chapters give Peter all the preeminence, you go into chapters 14, 15 and onwards, Paul gets all the attention.

There's obviously a split that does take place, and the historians suggest that what actually happened, Peter probably felt that it was time to heal this matter because he now has learned that Paul is in prison over in Rome, and it's in the year about 66-67 A.D. and so Peter makes his way to Rome to heal this breach between he and Paul, but he arrives too late. The soldiers had already cut off the head of the apostle Paul. And thus Peter picks up the torch, continues on his ministry.

But Peter also runs into something else he didn't expect there in Rome, because what had happened on July 19 A.D. 64 Nero had set the city of Rome afire. He wanted to start a new building program and he didn't have open spaces so he decided to burn down the old buildings. The fire lasted for three and a half days. They tried to put it out, but he had others arranged so that they could light more fires and the city burned for days. And it wasn't very long the old city of Rome was in ashes. Of course the folks that were left were few, but they were angry at Nero because of what he had done and they knew it was his act of preparing for this building project, and so there is tremendous bitterness in the populace of Rome against Nero.

Nero decides to turn the attention away himself and he lays all the blame on the Christians - The Christians did this. And as a result, persecution settled upon the Christians and they're fleeing from the city of Rome. In fact, they are going all over...notice in the first verse of Peter's letter here, he says, "To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." These were locations which today we would call modern Turkey and in that area. So they are leaving Rome and they are heading east, and some of them are giving their lives, and thus Peter writes this letter. We must always keep this in mind.

There's an underlying theme, and that is, he wants to encourage these Christians who are suffering persecution and trial. So everything he says, his goal is to somehow lift their hearts in their faith. And it's interesting when we read through this particular five books that what Peter constantly is doing is drawing the attention to the eternal and taking their focus off of the transient things of time.

Now we have arrived in our letter at chapter 2 verse 4, and what we're doing over these weeks we're just kind of working our way through verse after verse, sometimes even word after word, because it's so filled with glorious truths. So take your Bible and let's read together. I'll read it or you, verse 4: "Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, "Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame." Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone," and "A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense." They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

Let's take a few moments and go to our notes and I'll start there. Throughout the Scripture, various metaphors are used to describe the person of Christ. Now the metaphor that Peter picks up from ancient scripture is that of a cornerstone.

Now some of us graduated from school a long time ago. I was in college 50 some odd years ago, and so when I mention metaphor sometimes it's needful that we go back to the dictionary and find out what the definition of a metaphor is. So I had to do that. Now here's what the dictionary says: it's a figure of speech in which a term is applied to something it does not literally denote in order to imply a resemblance.

Now let me illustrate - Jesus said, I am the door. You know He's not a door, but He says I am the door of the sheep, and implied here is He's the entrance into the eternal fold. So He uses the metaphor, a door. He also says I am the good shepherd; He also says I am the bread of life. Paul refers to an ancient happening when Moses strikes the rock and water gushes forth, and so Paul says and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. So here's a metaphor He is described as a rock.

The next day, this is John 1:29, John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" Jesus said I am the true vine, and He also said I am the light of the world. So these are word descriptions that bring out some characteristic of Christ and His ministry.

Back to our notes. Peter reaches back into the Old Testament, as well as the words of Christ, to give us the title...Jesus Christ, the Chief Cornerstone. Now, I had not for a long time done a research on the cornerstone, but I was amazed to find so many Scripture verses about the cornerstone.

You say, preacher, before you get very far I don't know what a cornerstone is. So tell me what a cornerstone is. Well go to page 4 in your notes, and again I went to my dictionary because we live in a nation where cornerstones I don't think are as important as they were in Europe when they built these massive buildings with great big stones, massive stones. But here is what the dictionary says, I'm down about two thirds in the page, it says that it's "A stone which lies at the corner of two walls and serves to unite them; specifically, a stone built into a corner of the foundation of an important edifice as the actual or nominal starting point in the building.

Now if we were to visit some of those marvelous buildings there in Europe, if you walk around you'll find sometimes in the corner of a building and it's marked the cornerstone. It's where two major walls come together and often it's a massive stone. I read of one building that had a massive stone that weighed 24 tons. But it's on that cornerstone that ties the two walls together and it becomes the starting point; that is the point from which they start the building, so it is a crucial bearing upon the construction. So that's a cornerstone. And Jesus says here that He is the cornerstone.

Look at what it says in Psalm 118: "Open to me the gates of righteousness;" I'm back to my notes, page 1, and "I will go through them, and I will praise the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord, through which the righteous shall enter. I will praise You, for You have answered me, and have become my salvation. The Stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."

I'm at page 2. Now in this original Old Testament setting, the "cornerstone" is a reference to the nation of Israel. The powers of the world flung it aside as useless; but God destined it for the most honorable and important place in the building of His kingdom in the world.

Let me explain - when you look on the map of that eastern part of the Mediterranean, you'll notice this long very narrow piece of real estate. It's about 70 miles wide. It's about 120 miles long. To the west is the Mediterranean Sea, to the north is Lebanon, up here is Turkey, and then you have Italy and Spain and so forth. Down here we have Egypt and we have the African continent. If we go beyond this 70 miles out here is the deserts of Moab. I mean it's a place you never want to go, and so if you're down in Iraq or Iran the way you got into the African continent, you'd have to go up through around Syria and down through Damascus, and now you come through the land bridge and across to Egypt and now you're in the African continent.

If you're traveling from Egypt and you want to go to Europe, you've got to go through this land mass, and thus it was a piece of real estate in ancient times that was used where the great conquerors who would move from Europe into Africa and from Africa into Europe, and when you read the history of Palestine there were only a few years in centuries that it was not under control of some foreign government. And so the foreign governments just considered it a land bridge. There were only maybe 3 or 4 million at most people who lived there, and that would be probably a larger amount. And thus it was a little useless nation as far as the world was concerned. The only way to bypass and get into Africa or into Europe.

But think - out of that little land mass comes the Redeemer of the world, for Jesus was born in that land mass. And He has touched the lives of millions down for 2000 years, and even this day you can pick up your newspaper and that little land mass still holds tremendous prominence in the history of our world today, but flung aside by the rest of the world.

Read on with me in my notes, I say, the words express Israel's consciousness of its mission and its destiny in the purpose of God, and Jesus took these words and applied them to Himself. It looked as if He was utterly rejected by men, but in the purpose of God He was the cornerstone of the edifice of the eternal Kingdom of God, honored above all.

Now one of the most illuminating parables Jesus ever told was the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, and again He goes back into that ancient text to pull out that metaphor that He's the cornerstone. Listen to the parable: "Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. "

In ancient times if you had a large, massive estate, instead of farming it yourself you leased it out to somebody. You would say, now Harold, you can till this land but when I come back at harvest time I want 25% of the crop. That will be your payment against the least. So the owner of the vineyard sends his servants to collect his due.

"And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. 'Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?'"

And the folks who stood around him said, well, "'He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.' Jesus said to them, 'Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes'?
Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomsoever it falls, it will grind him to powder.' Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them."

Now that's interesting. He's talking about a vineyard. He's talking about those wicked men killing the servants, but they knew He was talking about them. How did they know? Well hold your finger in your Bible there and go back with me to Isaiah chapter 5 - if you'd like to turn there. It's a fascinating portion of Scripture. In other words they're standing there and Jesus is talking about a vineyard; how did they know He was talking about them? Look at what it says in Isaiah 5: "Now let me sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard: My Well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; so He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.

'And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, please, between Me and My vineyard. What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned; and break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned or dug, but there shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.'"

Listen to the next verse: "For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant plant. " They knew that that old, ancient prophet had likened the nation of Israel to the vineyard of God. So back to our text in our notes - when Jesus said I am that cornerstone, they knew He was talking about Himself.

Look at the bottom of the page in my notes. In this parable, Jesus is showing how the nation of Israel had again and again refused to listen to the prophets and had persecuted them, and how this refusal was to reach its climax with His own death. But beyond that death He saw the triumph and He told of that triumph in the words of this ancient Psalm.

Now there are other locations in the Scripture where the cornerstone is mentioned. Notice here in Isaiah 28:16: "Therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation; he who believes will not be in haste." So thus again, it's a reference to Israel. The sure and precious stone is God's unfailing relationship to His people, a relationship which was to culminate in the coming of the Messiah. And once again the early Christian writers took this passage and applied it to Jesus Christ as the precious and immovable foundation stone of God.

You'll notice again in Isaiah 8:13 we have a similar reference to the stone. And I'm dropping down because time is moving quickly. Look at what Paul...he writes in Ephesians: "Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone." He is saying the Christian Church is build upon the writings of the prophets, and the activity and the ministry of the apostles, and Jesus Christ is the cornerstone; so our Christian faith is built on the great truths of the Old Testament, the great truths of the New Testament, and the person Himself, Jesus Christ.

Now I'll let you read the notes for lunch today, but let's quickly go back to our Bible, and I want you to just see how Peter fits this concept of the cornerstone into his letter. So let's just take our Bibles now and see how Peter does that. He is saying, in verse 4, "Coming to Him", that's coming to Christ. Now it could either mean this was the moment they became knowledgeable of Christ and had put their trust in Jesus Christ, so he may be referencing here that moment when they came to faith in Christ, because when we often speak of people making a commitment of their lives to Christ, we say when you come to Christ. So Peter is saying "Coming to Him".

It could also mean once we're Christians we have this wonderful privilege that's ours to come to His throne anytime we want to in prayer. We have that privilege. So it could mean continuously coming to Him as believers or it could mean coming to Him and finding faith and life in Christ. So "Coming to Him as to a living stone". Why did he say living? Because Christ is alive. They didn't keep Him in that tomb. He's alive forever more and He reigneth in the heavens as our great mediator, so He's referenced as being alive.

I had a unique experience last night. In our last evening service I had a lovely lady come. She's just six months from China, and she has no Christian background at all - nothing - no religious background. I said are you animist? are you Shinto? Is there some particular faith that you believe? She said I don't know anything about any religion. She said I came here to learn about Jesus, and I said, well, I'll tell you what; right after the service we'll go in room 101 and I'll talk to you about Jesus, so we did that. I said you know Jesus was the Son of God and He came to this world and they nailed Him to a cross, and they put Him in a tomb, and He came out of that tomb. And her eyes just...you mean He came alive? Oh, I said, yes. You mean He came back from the dead? I said, yes He did. Now I had her attention.

Peter says our faith is in the living Christ, the living stone. Rejected? Yes. He came to His own, Peter tells us, but His own received Him not. And maybe when Peter wrote that word there were some tears that dropped from his eyes because he remembered when he rejected Christ. The little lady at the trial of Jesus said aren't you one of His? He said I don't even know Him. Are you sure? Well I'll prove it by swearing. And he finally just let out curse words and as a result she left him alone, but he denied, he rejected Christ.

He said rejected, yes, indeed by men, including me, Peter could write, but chosen by God and precious. You remember at His baptism the voice came from heaven, this is My beloved Son, in who I am well pleased. Peter said He may have been rejected by me and by our nation, but God indicated the preciousness of His Son as one who was chosen.

He said, "you also, as living stones," so now he brings us into the picture and he calls us living stones. Why did he call us living stones? Because when we invite Jesus Christ into our heart and life His very life comes within us. We are alive in Christ. We have the gift of life eternal, and thus Peter says we become alive in Christ. We are now a part of His eternal family and He is the living stone to which we are now connected. And he said as living stones we are being built up into a spiritual house.

We may look at each other today, and we come from various backgrounds and we might come from different cultures, but we are here as a spiritual house. We have been brought together because our faith is in Christ, His life is within us, and His goal is to build this spiritual house into a church that radiates His glory and His praise. That's His purpose.

Look at what he says. He said we are being built up a spiritual house and we are a holy priesthood. Now Peter was aware of the way that the Jewish people worshiped. There was only one group of people that were allowed to go into that sacred presence of God, and that was the children from Aaron; they were the tribe of Aaron. From that priestly tribe they were the only ones that had the privilege, and once a year they could go into that holy place to present the offering for the sins of the nation, but that was only allowed for one person.

But Peter knew that when Jesus Christ hung on that cross, and the event is almost over, He lifts His voice and says, it is finished. And in that place of worship, which for centuries there was a veil that dropped down and said this is where God lives, this is where you live, don't come in, that veil was ripped from top to bottom in the temple by God Almighty which simply says now we don't need a priest anymore we can enter into His very presence anytime, anyplace. Now you see Peter is writing this letter to discouraged Christians who are under deep persecution and here's what he's reminding them, don't forget who you are. You are living stones filled with the very life of God, and that stone is the cornerstone upon which life is built. Jesus said if you build on My words when the storms of life come, you will stand those storms.

What Peter is saying is because Christ is our cornerstone, He's the very core, He's where we start life, we're now a part of a great eternal building, the Church of Jesus Christ. And not only being a part of His building, we have the wonderful privilege of walking into God's presence, any moment, anytime. I don't know how that gets you? But to me that's a wonder of wonders. That all I've got to do is lift my heart and say, Jesus, and I'm in His presence. That's amazing to me.

So what Peter is saying is no matter what's going on out here, all the turbulence and all the trials and all the persecutions, you've got a relationship with the cornerstone upon which true eternal life is built, and you have the glorious privilege of being a part of that spiritual building that He is building, and you have the privilege of walking into His presence.

You know, I've had the joy of being your pastor for nearly half a century, and I can assure you that over the 50 years there's been a lot of turbulence at times. When you deal with hundreds and thousands of people, that turbulence, and their needs, and their heartaches are always there. But when we bought this old building it was a supermarket and had catwalks all the way around the edge in which they ran the ducts for the heating and the electrical and so forth, and 30 years ago I found a place back here in one of these catwalks and I set that aside. And that's where me and God get together, quite frequently. And what I find is if I find the turbulence, I quickly head for my dugout. I go to the place and there God and I have a wonderful time.

Once I realized that glorious privilege and I've taken advantage of it and I have found His peace, and I have found the courage, and I have found that wisdom, and I have found the strength, then I can come out of my dugout and handle anything God has for me. Peter is saying we live in a turbulent world, but keep a heart that's always in the presence of God. And if you do, you can make it through anything. Amen? Let's pray.

Father, help us to learn that, because so often we turn to all the other answers in life and seek for solutions outside our prayer room. And yet Peter instructs those harassed and persecuted Christians never to forget who they are in Christ, and never to forget they have the unique privilege of talking directly to You, dear God. May we never forget that. I pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you.