I AM the Cornerstone

What words, images, or feelings come to mind when you hear the word home? I asked some of my family and friends, and these were the responses: comfort, warmth, familiarity, welcoming, family, safety, and protection. I would add that it is a place where you can be yourself, eat, sleep, and rejuvenate. I hope that home elicits good feelings and images for you. I realize that there may be some who haven’t had a safe or stable home and it’s hard to relate. But home is designed to be good.

People take a lot of pride in building a dream home and crafting the perfect place to live. From the architectural layout to the interior design, each decision is intentional to deliver a lovely dwelling place. People are paid a lot of money to design and construct houses because it takes great skill to do and because people place a great value on their homes.

What does this have to do with God? Well, the Bible often refers to Christ as a rock or cornerstone and uses home-building as imagery many times.

“Therefore the Lord God said: “Look, I have laid a stone in Zion, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will be unshakable.”
Isaiah 28:16 CSB

Who is this tested stone, the precious cornerstone? We can look to the New Testament to tell us.

“So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.”
Ephesians 2:19-20 CSB

It’s Jesus! Our God - the great I AM - is the cornerstone. To understand why this is an appropriate metaphor, you must first know a little about cornerstones.

A cornerstone is the first stone laid for building a structure. It must come first because its setting determines the way every other stone is set. The cornerstone orients the rest of stones to a certain position and direction. If the cornerstone is somehow removed, the entire house would collapse. Like a cornerstone, when we put Jesus first in our lives, we become immovable. That doesn’t mean that trouble will not come our way though. Jesus explains this principle himself after he teaches the Sermon on the Mount in the book of Matthew.

“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.”
Matthew 7:24-27 CSB

In this visual lesson, the storm happens to everyone. The rains and wind are the troubles and problems that life brings - and no one is exempt. The difference is that the one who builds a life on the rock, on Jesus, has a firm foundation and doesn’t fall apart. That’s the unshakable, immovable life Isaiah mentions. When we remove the cornerstone and fail to put Christ first, things definitely fall apart.

But Christ is the cornerstone, not the whole house. Ephesians called us “members of God’s household,” but we can look to another book to give us a deeper understanding of what that means.

“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:

‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’

Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,

‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.’”
1 Peter 2:4-7 NIV

Jesus is again called a stone - a living Stone. A wonderful simile is used here to compare us to living stones that are being built into a spiritual house. If we expand the Ephesians passage from earlier, we will see that we are part of the whole temple that houses God’s Holy Spirit.

“So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.”
Ephesians 2:19-22

Here’s the deal. Those who put his or her faith in Jesus is a stone as well - a stone that depends on the cornerstone for its direction, purpose, and stability. We, together, are building a spiritual house, a holy temple. The grammar nerd in me must harp on the singularity of this. We (plural) are building a (singular) house/temple. I’m not building my own house over here, and neither are you. We are building a house - the church. You’ve probably heard it said that the church is not the building or place where we worship. We are the church. It’s collective and plural, and we need to examine if the house we are building is on the right foundation.

If I’m honest, when I look at the state of the church, especially the western church, I see that fellow living stones are trying to rip up the cornerstone, and it has caused some collapse. Some of you think I am talking about those who have allowed blatant sins like homosexuality or abortion to be acceptable in the church, and yes, that is part of it. But I’m speaking about the more subtle or “respectable" sins too - the ones like pride, gossip, idolatry, and fear - that plague the church. It’s easy to ignore those sins, but they are causing the house to collapse.

Now, I’m not a perfectionist, and I can’t subscribe to any kind of legalism. We are going to mess up and make mistakes. Sometimes our stones will get weathered and chiseled. But the foundation must be Jesus, the Word. We must give him the authority and orient our lives around Him. (See Matthew 21:33-46 for a parable about what happens when we fail to do this.)

Church, we are a house, a home. So remember the feelings of comfort, warmth, safety, familiarity, hospitality, and rest that were stirred up when thinking of home? Are they the same words that come to mind when you think about church? If not, then that is evidence that the house may be on sandy or shaky ground and not the Cornerstone of Christ Jesus. We are supposed to be a place of refuge, rest, help, peace, and comfort to a lost and dying world, but often the world just feels judged or uncomfortable around us. I know that is oversimplifying things, but it is worth being internally reflective to see our part in it all. Maybe you aren’t the problem, but you can’t ignore the problem either because it’s not a you or me issue. It’s a we issue. Not singular. Plural. And the truth is that there is a world around us rejecting the Cornerstone. And are we truly able to offer peace and safety through the gospel, built on solid ground? Or are we building on a beach claiming that it is rock? It’s time to repair the foundation and make sure Christ is who we are building not just our individual lives on, but that we are building the house - the church - on Him as well.

I want you to imagine for a moment that you are building a home. You have told the builders exactly what you want. You gave it a lot of thought because you knew everything your family needs, and the house plans were perfect. You have designed it for family and for hospitality. What if you went to move in and found that the builders had abandoned your plans and done what they pleased? The functional plans you designed were nowhere to be found. The luxurious finishings you had chosen were replaced with cheap knockoffs. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to. When you ask the builders, they say that they didn’t understand your plans. They seemed strange, so they just went with the plans the neighbors all used. And they chose different finishings because they were more popular and saved you money and them extra work. Now, don’t you wonder if that is how God feels sometimes? He has chosen to dwell in us, His people, and has given us the perfect design plans, yet we act as foolish builders, imitating the world and exchanging truth for lies.

His ways are truly better, and we can trust Him. He is a tested stone, a precious and trustworthy cornerstone. Will you build your life on Him?

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