Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2003 : June 22, 2003
The Kind of Church God Wants Us to Be: A Church with Christ As Its Cornerstone
Pentecost 2
In the animated movie Beauty and the Beast by Walt Disney, we are introduced to a very handsome but also very arrogant prince who loves only himself and cares only about himself. One day during a terrible storm, an ugly, feeble old woman comes to his castle asking for shelter for the night. But the arrogant prince laughs at her to her face and slams the door. The old woman places a curse on the arrogant prince, turning him into an ugly and despicable-looking beast that people can only despise and hate. But she says that her curse could only be broken if someone would truly love the beast, as ugly and despicable as he was.
Loving the unlovable -- that is the focus of God's Word we are looking at today in which Peter and John point to Jesus Christ as the cornerstone of their faith. And so as we look once again at the Kind of Church God Wants Us To Be, we see that he wants us to be a Church with Christ as Its Cornerstone.
The words before us from Acts take us back to only a couple of months after Jesus' tragic death and glorious resurrection, shortly after Jesus poured out his Holy Spirit on his disciples. We find Peter and John at the temple. There they met a man who had been crippled from birth. The unfortunate man asked the apostles for money but, instead of giving him any money, Peter gave him something infinitely greater. He said, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." The man was instantly healed. This man who had never known the simple joy of walking down the street, which we don't even think about, had his life transformed. The man then accompanied Peter and John into the temple, walking and jumping and praising God. Peter and John used that opportunity to preach about Jesus who gave the man his healing. No sooner had they begun than the Jewish religious leaders grabbed them and threw them in prison, demanding to know by whose name or by whose power they had done this healing. Our text is the apostle's answer.
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed."
Usually, a person is hauled into court if they do something wrong, but not in this case. Here they were hauled into court for doing something good to someone. That showed just how much the religious leaders of the Jews hated Jesus and all he stood for and everyone who followed him.
Why was Jesus, whom we have described as the Cornerstone, hated by these men? Because he went against everything they believed and held dear. They believed in their own goodness before God. They thought that, as opposed to all the other wretched scum of humanity, God must love them because they obeyed him and his law and lived pious lives. But Jesus had shown that God wasn't pleased at all by their works; in fact, he backed up Isaiah who called their righteous lives filthy rags in God's eyes. These religious leaders didn't like that. They hated him and they hated his message so much, in fact, that they murdered him to get his message out of their ears. But their own hatred and despising of Jesus was in itself a fulfillment of prophecy: Isaiah said, (53:2-3), "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not."
When we read that last phrase, "and we esteemed him not," the "we" should jump out at us. Just like the Jewish leaders we might look like good, upstanding citizens, even good church-going folk, more religious than most of our neighbors who don't bother getting to church on a Sunday morning. As we pass someone on the way to church, do you find yourself thinking: "Huh, I can see that they aren't going to church this morning"? How often haven't we all looked down on someone else because they aren't like us, they don't think like us, they don't do what we want them to do, they don't do what God wants them to do? Oh, we're so much better than some unbeliever, some follower of Islam or Buddha. Because we're Christians. How much time have you taken to share your faith with a Muslim or Buddhist? Can you see how easily we become a Pharisee, how easily we have despised others? The Pharisees despised "sinners" and wanted nothing to do with them. When Jesus hung out with sinners, they hated him, too. How often have we been willing, even eager, to hang out with sinners -- a drug addict, a homosexual, someone in jail for a horrible crime. How often have we been willing to hang out with them to show them the only name that can save -- Jesus?
Peter said, "It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified ..." In other words, you crucified Jesus. You rejected Christ by just being you. Every sin you've committed and ever will commit till your dying day is one more sin that sent Jesus to his death. How ugly we are with arrogance, with sin, with rebellion against the holy God! We, too, hated Christ and often still show our natural hatred every day by sinning in all kinds of ugly and despicable ways. We, too, have looked on Christ, our Cornerstone, and hated him, because we have sinned against him.
Yes, Christ certainly is a cornerstone hated by men -- hated by every sinner. But Christ was also a cornerstone chosen by God.
Verse 11 says: "He is 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.'" Peter called the Jewish leaders "builders," just as the Psalmist had. These religious leaders were to be the ones to guide Israel spiritually. Just as a builder carefully chooses the stones with which to build a stone house, so the religious leaders of the Jews were to choose only the best building material for God's people. They were to choose materials after God's heart. Only the best stones would do for this most important house. And when they came upon a stone that was deformed or not pretty, they were to discard it -- only the best was wanted.
Unfortunately, they weren't choosing stones to build God's house by God's standards, but by their own standards. They wanted what seemed best to them. They were building a synagogue of Satan, not a house for God. So they looked at Jesus of Nazareth and despised him because he didn't tell them what they wanted to hear. They threw him away like a dirty old sock, like a second or third-rate stone, not good enough for them.
But, "He is 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.'" Even though they didn't choose Jesus, God chose him and made him the capstone. For a stone to be used as a capstone, it had to be the best kind of stone, one that everyone would see every time they entered the building because it was used for the finishing touches at the top of the building. This kind of stone could also be translated as "key stone" which is the most important stone in an arch -- the top one that was put in last and held up the rest of the arch. Without it the arch would collapse. The Hebrew term could also be translated as cornerstone, which was the foundation of a building. The cornerstone was the most important stone to be used because if it were cut wrong, then the whole building would be wrong and lop-sided or tilting. But this cornerstone wasn't cut wrong -- it was perfect in every way, ensuring that any stone built on top of it would be right in line as well.
We, along with the Jews, crucified Jesus with our sins. But God raised him from the dead. He lives and he reigns as the head of the Church. Now every single sinner, including you and me with all our ugliness and arrogance as sinners, can look to Christ in faith and be built on him. Only God himself could have loved someone as horribly ugly with sin -- beastly -- and still love us. And that's what he did -- "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." God is the one who gave you that faith. So when God sees you, he no longer sees the arrogant, ugly, beastly sinner who only wants to serve himself. He sees instead the perfect cornerstone of Christ and that you are perfectly in line with him because he took every flaw away from you which should have caused you to be rejected by God. When he died on the cross, he chiseled away forever the ugly bumps and crooked lines that showed you were a sinner. After his blood covered you, it left behind a stone that is perfectly fitted, every line perfect, no ugly protrusions -- flawless. That's what you are to God now -- flawless -- because Jesus took your flaws away for eternity when he was rejected by men and even God himself in our place on the cross.
Christ is the cornerstone rejected and hated by men, but chosen by God, and, therefore, also the only Cornerstone that saves.
Peter said boldly, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Peter called Christ's enemies to repent. No one else could save them. They could never save themselves, and no other thing in the whole universe could save them either. Today, people are so ready to accept other people's religions as an alternative way to be saved. But Jesus says that anything that leads away from him is not only dangerous, but needs avoided at all costs and to be revealed for what it is -- another ploy of the devil to take us off Christ, our Cornerstone. Peter and John dedicated their entire lives to Christ and the truth of salvation by God's grace alone through faith alone that he revealed in himself. You and I do the same. Look at the house you are building. Have you built your life on and around Christ, the rock-solid Cornerstone of your faith, the only name that gives you eternal life, the only name that stands between you and damnation? By trusting him as your Savior, the Holy Spirit has led you to build on the Cornerstone, and your life will show it.
In the end of that Walt Disney movie, a woman was able to love that ugly, arrogant beast, and so the curse on him was broken. But she looked deep inside him and saw someone good. God looked at our ugliness because of our sins, and he saw nothing good, nothing that would lead him to love us. But he loved us anyway, even though you and I were repugnant with sin. But through Christ, our Cornerstone, God sees us as beautiful and handsome as we were meant to be. That's the Church God Wants Us To Be -- a Church with Christ as Its Cornerstone. And although in life the phrase, "And they lived happily ever after," never seems to happen, that's exactly what happens with us, who are built on Christ, our Cornerstone. Amen.
