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“Cornerstones”

Phillip Hood
10/27/24 - Sun PM

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Good evening.

I'll be reading from Matthew chapter 21 and beginning in verse 33.

And I'll be reading from the new King James version, Matthew 21 and beginning in verse 33 in regard to context, verse 23 of the same chapter says now, when Jesus came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted him as he was teaching.

So that is where he is.

Jesus is in the temple and he is speaking to the chief priests and elders of the people.

Beginning in verse 33 here, 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 vine dressers 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 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 sun, 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?

They said to Jesus, 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 whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.

Whenever you first enter your uh foray into public speaking, you'll get a lot of advice and a lot of that advice revolves around um having a really strong introduction and not starting with an excuse or an apology.

And so naturally, about 30 minutes ago, I decided to get rid of my introduction and deliver an off scripted uh anecdote instead.

Um That's usually when my mom and my wife start panicking, having no idea what I'm about to say.

Um But in my family, there's a running joke and that running joke is that, uh, if anything goes wrong and anything happens at all, that was unfortunate.

It's Jonathan's fault.

Um, it's not Dave, not Jennifer, it's not me, it's Jonathan's fault.

And, um, I know that to be true because about 45 50 minutes ago, um, Jonathan handed me my outline because he had told me he would print it for me.

And what he said to me was, I hope you didn't have any formatting.

And the very first thing I noticed was that instead of 113 pages, he handed me 12.

So if anything seems unprepared or stumbling or faltering, it can't possibly be any lack of preparation on my part.

It's Jonathan's fault.

Um More seriously, I appreciate Daniel uh taking a fairly lengthy reading and for throwing everybody off by breaking from tradition and using the new King James instead of the ESV.

Um we have quite a bit to unpack in that parable if we were going to spend all our time in that parable, but I really want to pay attention just to the end of it.

And the very last verse there, verse 45.

Now, when the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking of them.

But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitudes because they knew they took him for a prophet.

And so in verse 42 Jesus references all the way back to Psalm 2712 and informs us that that's a Messianic Psalm saying that the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.

So the Pharisees realized very quickly that they are the builders and they're the ones doing the rejecting.

But what were they rejecting?

They're rejecting Jesus and his teaching.

So Jesus isn't just rebuking them.

He's claiming to be our cornerstone.

This is echoed by Paul in Ephesians two starting in verse 218.

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 in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit.

So that reason for using the New King James instead of the E SV is because of a both significant and minor.

At the same time difference.

In translation, the New King James version says the chief cornerstone, whereas the ESV just says cornerstone and if you were to look up, uh the difference between those a chief cornerstone is typically the last stone placed in a structure that might hold two walls together or be the keystone of an arch that keeps it from falling down.

Whereas a cornerstone is typically the first stone placed in a structure against which all other building materials are aligned and measured.

Despite that semantic difference, they're pretty similar concepts.

And the end result is the same that Jesus Christ is what holds us together and solidifies us in our foundation and in our faith being built up as a holy temple.

So what would a cornerstone do for our life?

It would be what we can align with and measure ourselves against.

But if we stopped there and said that Jesus is our cornerstone and we should measure against him, it might be hard to know when it was time to overturn tables in the temple.

And when it was time to accept death meekly or when it was time to rebuke or when it was time to spend sympathetic time with the tax collectors and centers.

But luckily, we don't have just one cornerstone.

The Bible continues to tell us structures on which we can build our faith.

And one of those teachings, one of those cornerstones is given by Jesus himself in Matthew 213 starting in verse 216.

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the sadducees, they gathered together.

Then one of them, a lawyer asked him a question testing him and saying, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law.

Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the first and great commandment and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

And Jesus says, at the end of that is important.

He's saying this is a cornerstone, all of the law and prophets can be hung on this commandment.

That sounds a lot like that.

Chief cornerstone idea where the last stone that's placed in can hold together everything else.

So Jesus says, here's another commandment along which we can frame everything.

You might notice that as you go through the scriptures, there's times that something might seem confusing or contradictory, the Israelites were commanded to give sacrifice.

But then we're told to obey what better to s than to sacrifice.

And then later, we're told that the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin, but these passages don't invalidate one another.

They give us different angles with which to look at our life and box in and frame that holy temple that is being built up within us.

We can turn elsewhere for similar cornerstones.

The ecclesiastical writer spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what was his framing, what was the meaning of life and from under the sun, looking around, looking at all the experiences that we go through in life and the purpose of all of it.

His conclusion in chapter 237 was vanity of vanities.

All is vanity.

Because under the sun without looking at anything else, there is no hope.

There's nothing to be living for life is meaningless uh bundle of energy.

Decided at one point it wanted to be matter and then broke all of the laws of physics to create the laws of physics.

And here we are doing nothing for nothing, to die, for nothing and to go to nothing.

But luckily, the writer of Ecclesiastes didn't stop there.

He continued on and said moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge.

Yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs, the preacher sought to find acceptable words.

What was written was upright, words of truth.

The words of the wise are like goads and the words of scholars are like well driven nails given by one shepherd and further my son be admonished by these of making many books.

There is no end and much steady is wearisome to the flesh.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God and keep his commandments for this is man's all that's a cornerstone.

Now is the writer saying that without God, all is meaningless, but framing our life within knowing that we are created beings that have both an origin and a destination that we have purpose and our lives are meaningful.

That's something that we can build a foundation on and frame everything else in our lives.

So once again, we have another cornerstone given.

And this evening, I actually want to spend most of our time on yet another that cornerstone is given in Mica Micah was a prophet in the Southern kingdom of Judah.

And he prophesized about many things.

He prophesized about the fall of Samaria, about the fall of Jerusalem and about the fall of enemies of Israel, a bit of destruction for everybody.

But his claim to fame was being one of the earliest, if not the earliest to testify about the coming destruction of Jerusalem.

But after spending chapters and chapters, talking about all of the destruction that was coming.

He tells the people what they can do what's expected of them in order to avoid it.

In Micah 212, he says, he has shown you oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you?

But to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

And so I want to spend some time tonight talking about what it means to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God. First.

What does it mean to do justly, it's hard to find any metric of justice without first figuring out a metric of truth.

So first, it means to love the truth.

First, Thessalonians five verse 18 says, rejoice, always pray without ceasing in everything.

Give thanks for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, test all things hold fast.

What is good in order to test all things and hold fast, what is good?

There must be something that is true and objective to measure ourselves against.

You can continue on into Second Thessalonians where we're warned of a lawless one, a deceiver that will come and draw them in a way who will be, who will give in to their strong delusions about what is right believing a lie because they never learned to love the truth.

And so we can't do justice unless we have a standard of objectivity and truth.

And understand that there is absolute truth against which we can test all things and hold fast to what is good.

But secondly, it means that we must dispel with partiality.

When Peter went to talk to Cornelius in acts 228, this was the first that the Jews were crossing over into understanding that the gentiles too would receive salvation.

And in acts 22142, verse 2611 Peter opened his mouth and said in truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality.

But in every nation, whoever fears Him and whoever works righteousness is accepted by Him, the word which God sent to the Children of Israel preaching peace through Jesus Christ.

He is Lord of all that word, you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit.

And with power who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him and then falling down to verse 44.

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word.

And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished as many as came with Peter because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the gentiles.

Also for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.

Then Peter answered, can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized to have received the Holy Spirit just as we have, and he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.

Then they asked him to stay a few days.

And so we see that with God, there is no partiality and that the Jews were called to get rid of their insulated viewpoint on life and accept other races and peoples.

And that they too would be brethren under Christ.

So it is impossible to love justice while holding on to that partiality.

And we see that continued as you go into acts 11 and the apostles and brethren who are in Judea heard that the gentiles had also received the word of God.

And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him saying you went in to uncircumcised man and ate with them.

But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning.

And Peter goes on to talk about both his vision that he received where God tells him not to call unclean that which God has deemed clean.

But also tells them about how the Holy Spirit descended upon the gentiles, just like it descended upon the apostles at the beginning.

And there was a strong and positive reaction from those brethren and Judea.

When they heard these things, they became silent and they glorified God saying that God has also granted to the gentiles, repentance to life.

But doing justice also means that we must insist on a compliance with a standard in James four and verse 17, we're told therefore to Him, who knows to do good and does not do it to Him.

It is sin.

We can go back to some of that discussion on partiality.

It wasn't good enough that Saul was the king whenever he failed to utterly destroy the Lord's enemies, he was held accountable.

David similarly could not escape being held against the standard.

Nor is I when he attempted to burn incense, that standard doesn't change for anyone.

And just as God holds all men accountable to the same standard.

Doing justice demands that we must do so as well.

And so if you're an employer, do you have a fair standard against which all people are held?

If you're an elder, do you lead in love but require compliance with God's law?

And if you're on the internet do you love truth or do you love conspiracy?

Each of these contribute to doing justice.

But if we're to hold each other accountable and dole out justice, how does that reconcile with loving mercy?

This can be kind of perceived the same way as some of those discussions we talked about earlier, almost contradictory.

And so in order to figure out what it means to love mercy, we have to explore a little bit about how God showed mercy to us.

We can see this a discussion about mercy and the discussion of what it means to have a new covenant in Hebrews eight starting in verse seven.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second because finding faults within.

He says, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to leave them out of the land of Egypt because they did not continue in my covenant.

And I disregarded them, says the Lord for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.

After those days says, the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

None of them shall teach his neighbor and none his brother saying, know the Lord for all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them.

For, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds.

I will remember no more.

And then in Romans five and verse eight, God demonstrates his own love toward us.

And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And so, while we could go through quite a few passages about what we are due, what is just for the way that we might have lived our lives at some point, mercy is God giving us a path to salvation.

It is showing that there is a continual seeking of a way to find reconciliation even though there is the willingness to follow through on justice, that mercy requires doing something.

It requires repentance uh for us, a turning of our from our old ways to walk in new ways.

And that's shown also in how we forgive others in Luke 17, starting in verse one, he said to the disciples.

It is impossible that no offenses should come.

But woe to him through who who they do come.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than that he should offend.

One of these little ones, take heed to yourselves.

If your brother sins against you rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him and if he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times in a day returns to you saying I repent you shall forgive him.

And so you see that there is a requirement given on that forgiveness and it is that there is repentance.

And so while loving mercy, while doing justice might, might look something like having a objective standard that we're willing to enforce and uphold that is impartial and applies to all while seeking opportunities to utilize merciful outcomes.

For those who have seen what justice entails and turned away from wrongdoing.

Another way to help understand what mercy might mean is to look at what it does not mean in Matthew 18, starting in verse 21 Peter came and said to him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me?

And I forgive him up to seven times.

And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 21423 times seven.

Therefore, the kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.

And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.

But as he was not able to pay his master, commanded that he be sold with his wife and Children and all that he had and that payment be made.

The servant therefore fell down before him saying master have patience with me and I will pay you all.

Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt.

That's mercy.

But the servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 to NAAI and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat saying, pay me what you owe.

So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him saying, have patience with me and I will pay you all and he would not but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.

So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved and came and told their master all that had been done.

Then his master after he had called him, said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.

Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you.

And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.

So my heavenly father will also do if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother, his trespasses.

And so loving mercy seems to invoke yet another cornerstone which is in Matthew 712, whatever you want men to do to you do also to them.

For this is the law and profits.

We see again there, the example that forgiveness requires repentance.

And so when someone has wronged us, we should be ready and willing to forgive, but we also must demand repentance. Ok?

And we can continue that idea of maybe first looking at what we shouldn't do to find out what we should when it comes to the idea of what it means to walk humbly with our God in Luke 18 and verse nine, he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.

Two men went up to the temple to pray.

One, a pharisee and the other, a tax collector, the pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God.

I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers or even as this tax collector, I fast twice a week.

I give tithes of all that I possess and the tax collector standing afar off would not be, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying God be merciful to me, a sinner.

I tell you that this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

If you've ever heard someone say, thank God that we're not like some religious group, some political party, some other person that's not walking, humbly humility is acknowledging that Christ found us in our weakness.

And that through Him, we can be made strong.

And so first walking humbly is acknowledging that anything that is good or righteous that can be found in us points to and it's because of Christ.

First Corinthians tells us in chapter eight verse one that we know that all of us possess knowledge, this knowledge puffs up.

But love builds up if anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

But if anyone loves God, he is known by God, so we're starting to get a bit of an idea of what it means to walk humbly.

It's not the arrogance of letting everyone know how right we are, how sure we are of ourselves.

It's a love for others that seeks to bring all to the truth to an objective truth, walking humbly is walking in love and acknowledging that there might be the lost around us that are seeking truth and bringing them into it.

But walking humbly does not mean walking without confidence.

The instruction doesn't stop it, just walking humbly.

It's to walk humbly with our God in Colossians one and verse nine, we're told for this reason.

Also, since the day we heard it do not cease to pray.

We do not cease to pray for you.

And to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that you may walk worthy of the Lord fully pleasing Him being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power, for all patience and long suffering with joy.

So with a passage like this, it's impossible to know that we're walking worthy without walking in confidence that we're assured of our salvation.

In Hebrews chapter 13, we're told to let our conduct be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have for.

He himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

So we may boldly say the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear what can man do to me?

It's impossible to be bold without being confident and it's impossible to have that boldness without having it in our salvation.

Similarly, Matthew chapter five and verse 16 tells us to let our light shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our father in heaven.

It's impossible to let our light, our light shine before men.

If humility is being scared or weak or meek about the confidence that we have in Christ Jesus.

So there's something to be said for the confidence that we can have in our faith and we know that we should walk confidently because we're certainly commanded to walk worthy.

And if you know that you're worthy, you have confidence in the way that you live in the decisions you make and in the way that you interpret the commands of God.

It also gives us confidence in our self worth, our image and the way that we present ourselves to others.

There is a stark contrast between walking without humble confidence and walking with a prideful arrogance.

Do we view ourselves as being better than others?

Or do we strive to understand where they are coming from?

And the scriptures are littered with passages about understanding like first Peter 37, telling husbands to live in understanding with their wives or Romans 12 that tells us that as much as it depends on us, that we should live peaceably with all.

It's difficult to live peaceably or to live with understanding if we're walking pridefully or with arrogance.

And that humble walk with God also focuses on one other point which is that it is us with God.

It's not a comparison to those around us.

It's not showing that I may never have the eloquence of Alan or the intelligence of Jonathan to give him a compliment instead of only tearing him down tonight.

Um But that's not what I'm called to do.

I'm not called to walk the way everybody else does that I think is faithful.

I'm called to walk with God.

He has shown you a man what is good and what does the Lord require of you?

But to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

I hope you've been able to follow this sometimes meandering journey to explore one of the cornerstones of our faith.

It seems that sometimes the Bible is almost paradoxically simple and complex at the same time, because there are these straightforward principles, these cornerstones that can guide our understanding of complex topics and give us confidence that when we aren't quite sure what's going on, we're not quite sure what this means or what we should do next, that we can turn to one of these cornerstones and ask ourselves how our path fits within it and then have confidence that even if we're a little confused that we're OK. This extends everywhere in our life to interpreting a passage and understanding how to apply it.

Um or any other applications that we might have for ourselves, we can ask ourselves how does what I'm going to do next?

Help me to love God or to love my neighbor as myself because the right path or the right application will certainly do so.

Or when we're trying to figure out a secular decision to make or what our politics should be or how we should live, we can ask ourselves which path is most doing of justice, most loving mercy and most walking humbly with our God.

These cornerstones help us to frame everything.

It's our tradition to offer uh the Lord's invitation at the end of every sermon, it's not ours.

It's the Lord's and His is very simple from Matthew chapter 11 and verse 28 come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

And after telling us about how he will find rest for our souls that we can have rest in him.

He later on in Matthew 2142 said, 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.

So what does it mean to have rest in Jesus or to use him as our cornerstone?

It's first that the rest of security we have in our cornerstone is a piece of knowing that we can make decisions with these foundations in mind and not second guess ourselves or doubt what we're doing.

Second, it's the hope we have in our future that there's a destination for us and the solace we have in knowing our origin where we came from.

And finally, it's the joy that we can have in living a life that's worth living full of purpose and meaning to come into contact with Jesus and to have that purpose and meaning, we learned that after we have heard the word believed it repented of our sins and confessed that in Romans six verse two, how shall we who died to sin, live any longer in it or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ, Jesus were baptized into his death.

Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father.

Even so we also should walk in newness of life and having done that to be baptized and, and buried with Christ and baptism.

We know that it's true.

It's written in first Corinthians 611, we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified as we talked about this morning in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God, let's stand and sing.