The Living Cornerstone

Posted on by korgrocker

“You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honour. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.”
1 Peter 2:4-5 NLT

I recently looked on as a man in the village where I live was laying the foundations for a new house. He approximately dug out the foundations, and poured the concrete, before the arrival a few days later of the builders. But the bricklayers were delayed until they knew exactly where to start building. The surveyors had some fancy equipment that they used to measure and mark the orientation of the walls and finally the builders made a start on the first corner. The knew that they had to get the foundations right, because it was from them that the future of the house would depend. 

Jesus is “the living cornerstone of God’s temple” Peter wrote. But what is this temple? We can find the answer very helpfully and clearly in Ephesians 2:19-22, “So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit”. God’s temple is made up of all the believers in Him. There are no unbelievers in His temple.  Jesus taught twelve men about His kingdom and they founded the temple, or what we call the church, but we remember that Jesus sets the standard for the whole “building”. He is the “living cornerstone”. 

The Old Testament prophets were well aware of the foundational role of the Messiah, still to come. We read in Isaiah 28:16, “Therefore, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “Look! I am placing a foundation stone in Jerusalem, a firm and tested stone. It is a precious cornerstone that is safe to build on. Whoever believes need never be shaken”. 

As we look around us we find that there are many other spiritual foundations other than the one we know and love, the one that “God’s temple” is built upon. Building ourselves into a spiritual temple based on anyone other than Jesus will result in a chaotic collapse when the storms of life come against it. Jesus warned the Pharisees of the danger of rejecting Himself as the Cornerstone, as we read what Jesus said in Mark 12:10-11, “Didn’t you ever read this in the Scriptures? ‘The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is wonderful to see’”. 

We pilgrims are ourselves “stones” that are being built in God’s temple, the church of Jesus Christ. There will be other “stones” around us, but as anyone who has watched a craftsman building a dry stone dyke knows, there are rough edges to be smoothed down to form the wall. So we “living stones” will find that being built into God’s “spiritual Temple” may be a painful process. But there is no other way to be a citizen of God’s Kingdom. Those Christians, people who profess a faith and belief in God, but who refuse to be a part of the church, will sadly miss out on the fullness that God has for them. After all, in Heaven we will be part of a great multitude of fellow believers, worshipping our glorious Heavenly Father. No solitude there!

“Living stones”, the “living cornerstone”, “spiritual temple”, “holy priests“. All these entities represent a new kingdom, totally foreign to our everyday world. But we note that this kingdom pleases God. As such we want to be a part of it. So, fellow pilgrim “stones” join with me in the praise and worship of the “living Cornerstone” Jesus Himself.

Dear Lord Jesus. We reach out to You today, grateful for the opportunity to be part of what You are building, a temple that will be finally completed on the day when You return. Amen.

Blessings Together

Posted on by korgrocker

“As soon as I have delivered this money and completed this good deed of theirs, I will come to see you on my way to Spain. And I am sure that when I come, Christ will richly bless our time together.”
Romans 15:28-29 NLT

Paul was looking forward to meeting with the believers in Rome and sharing a time of rich blessings. And not just a normal fellowship time, but one which would be “richly bless[ed]” by Christ. There is something special that will happen when Christians meet together. The common belief and faith in God draws Christians from all walks of life, even different ethnicities, together in a rich fellowship. It’s because God, through His grace and mercy, has forgiven us for all our sins. The coming together as believers is a foretaste of what will happen one day when we are all in Heaven. Joined together in perfect fellowship, as we all worship God together.

Gavin Calver, the CEO of the Evangelical Alliance, shared recently that he and 22 of his fellow church members went for a Men’s curry night earlier this year. The owner of the restaurant was intrigued, because there were 15 different nationalities and an age range from 16 to 80 represented in the group. He concluded that they must all be Christians because there was no other organisation that could unite such a diverse group of men. Christians, when they fellowship together, are immediately noticed. And if Christ is in the midst there is no stopping the impact it will have on the world around us.

How do we pilgrims feel when we are around other Christians? Is it something we look forward to, or is it a chore that we have to endure? This is where the “one another’s” comes into play. We read in Romans 12:10 (AMP), “Be devoted to one another with [authentic] brotherly affection [as members of one family], give preference to one another in honour“. Sometimes we find it difficult to work this out in practice, particularly if there is a person we cannot stand. But often God takes us into situations where He is wearing away the rough edges and prejudices that we carry with us, preparing us for the life to come. We read in 1 Peter 2:5, “And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God“. We have to remember that the analogy Peter used about being built as living stones in a temple is very apt and accurate. We are not bricks, factory produced and all exactly the same. We are unique and individual “stones” and to enable us to fit to the next “stone”, some rough edges might have to be chipped away. Of course we would much prefer God to use His hammer and chisel on the next “stone” but most of the time we discover that it is in fact our rough edges that he removes.

So rather than shy away from others in our churches, we should seek out the “one another’s”, always looking for opportunities for fellowship. And by doing so we will indeed find the rich blessings that Paul wrote about.

Dear Father God. In Your master plan, You are building is into a spiritual temple to Your glory. Rather than fight it, please help us to submit to Your loving reshaping. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Body Parts

Posted on by korgrocker

“Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.”
Romans 12:4-5 NLT

Paul describes what “Christ’s body”, the Church, is like, with a comparison with the human body. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 he writes, “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptised into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit”. The common bond that binds together the body of Christ is the baptism in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit who is shared amongst all of us pilgrims. Paul goes on to give more examples. 1 Corinthians 12:18-21, “But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you””. He builds a picture of a group of people, each constructed in an autonomous way with all the body parts they need, who then come together to build a different kind of body, with each part being made up of individual people. A lovely analogy and obviously one much favoured by Paul.

Paul emphasises the “special function” of each part of the human bodies. Our kidneys don’t function in the same way as our livers. Our toes aren’t as dexterous as our fingers, but important none the less. We see with our eyes and hear with our ears. None of this should be a surprise to anyone. But what might be more of a challenge is when we take all the individual people and put them together in our churches. The body of Christ, His Church, also has different body parts. So we have our pastors and evangelists, people engaged in very different functions. And there will be those who perform different parts of the administration, or handling the finance. We have the prophets in our midst, who encourage and build up the people with their messages of love and hope. There are the musicians and singers. The list grows and grows. But imagine the chaos if everyone wanted to be a preacher, or worship leader or …

Do we pilgrims recognise this picture? Are we very much involved and connected to our fellowship of believers? Or are we occasional visitors, who only decide to pay our church a visit when there is nothing else to do? Perhaps it’s raining that day, so the car can’t be washed, or the golf course visited. Paul quite firmly said that we are all parts of the church and, here’s the thing, “we all belong to each other”. We have a responsibility to be committed to a church fellowship. Holding on even when things appear to be difficult. We may not feel we have much of a contribution to make, but, while we are there, God can use us to further and build up His body, the Church. Imagine the impact on a human body if, suddenly, the eyes disappeared. Well, it’s the same with Jesus’ body – imagine what would happen if, one Sunday, the worship leader or preacher fails to turn up. However, the less high profile people in a church are also missed when they fail to appear. Perhaps God wanted to use them that week to provide a simple piece of encouragement, such as a smile or a compliment. 

To be blunt, without us faithfully supporting our local church, it will shrivel and die, something we are danger of seeing in these days. As an example, the Church of Scotland has declined by 34% over the past decade to 60,000 members, with an average age of 62, and hundreds of church buildings will need to be closed because they are non-viable. In the West of Fife, where I live, 3 churches have closed in recent years, with another under threat. And unless there is a reversal of this decline, this denomination will be in danger of disappearing over the next 2 or 3 generations.

But it is not all doom and gloom. G. K. Chesterton once famously said, “On five occasions in history the Church has gone to the dogs, but on each occasion, it was the dogs that died”. We need to remember that Jesus said He will build His church. Matthew 16:18, “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it”. Jesus used Peter as an example of the foundational basis for the Church, His Body. We are all “rocks” if we are rooted and grounded in Jesus, and it is upon us, in this generation, in our communities, that the responsibility for church building lies. Not the physical structures, ornately built with bricks and mortar, populated by stained glass windows and statues, but the living church made up of us believers. In 1 Peter 2:4-5 we read, “You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honour. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God“. So, fellow living stones, we are all constituent parts of God spiritual temple. What an honour! What a God!

Dear Father. We pray for Your forgiveness for those times when we have sat at home rather than join our brothers and sisters in our fellowships. Please help us to find our places in the local church where You have placed us, and where we can flourish, building a Temple where You can live and find a home. In Jesus’ name. Amen.