August 24

Listen to what the Expositor's Bible Commentary states in regards to a "capstone" as mentioned in Psalm 118:22, "The capstone was an important stone that held two rows of stones together in a corner (cornerstone) or stabilized the stones at the foundation or elsewhere." Jesus is referred to as the "chief cornerstone" by Paul in Ephesians 2:20. Again Paul (Romans 9:33) and also Peter (1 Peter 2:6-8) point to Isaiah 28:16 as a prophetic Messianic metaphor, referring to the coming Messiah (Jesus) as a "precious cornerstone."

In Psalm 118:22, I am intrigued by the picture of the builder having rejected a stone. The cornerstone needed to be reliable and attractive, sturdy and aesthetically pleasing. This stone needed to be strong enough to fulfill a vital purpose and also appealing enough for a place of prominence in construction. The builder has a trained eye. "Builders" as referred to in Psalm 118 carried with them generations of training, handed down from parent to child. Our geological science today was not present then. They held a stone and in their hands, in their eyes, centuries of knowledge created a well honed intuition. They were expert craftsmen...and they were wrong.

Each of us is building a life. Our lives, our values, our sense of right and wrong have been passed down to us through centuries of culture. The wisdom of this Psalm is to confront us that our judgments are flawed. Our trained humanity, our natural intuition is incapable of choosing the right "cornerstone" for our lives. Everything about Jesus is contradictory to our natural self.

If you are sharing Jesus with people around you and they seem to be disinterested, suspicious, even contentious... be patient. They are the master craftsmen of Psalm 118. Can you imagine walking onto an job site in ancient times, going to the rubble pile and picking up a stone buried there and taking it to the head craftsman and convincing him and that this stone is supposed to not only serve as a cornerstone but the chief cornerstone of the entire structure! You might be thrown back into the rubble pile with the stone!

Nick Hokkanen on Saturday night preached about Reaching, and during his sermon he said that we cannot do the Holy Spirit's job, brilliant. We find this in 1 Corinthians 12:3. Appreciate the magnitude of the offer that you present to people in sharing Jesus. We are not trying to encourage them to live out what they already believe, although sometimes that is the case, but rather completely abandon their personal value system, cultural norms that for them have worked their way into their lives through generations of influence. There is a vast difference between being intentional and being hurried. Don't be hurried in sharing Jesus. The Holy Spirit has been working on that person's heart from the foundations of the earth! We have a part to play, most certainly (Luke 10:2), but the Holy Spirit is the only One who can administrate the supernatural work of a cornerstone replacement project!

Pastor Fred