“Make Christ Alone Your Cornerstone”
Psalm 118:22

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Cornerstone Laying—October 14, 2018

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

This is a fascinating and very helpful book from my library.  It lists, in Hebrew and Greek, every quotation from the Old Testament that is found in the New Testament. 

There is one verse from the Old Testament that is quoted in the New Testament many more times than any other.  Like me, you may be surprised to learn that the one verse from the Old Testament quoted most often in the New Testament is a verse not all that familiar to us, Psalm 118, verse 22, part of today’s Introit: “The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”

That verse IS a very important prophecy about the Messiah.  It tells us how the Messiah would be received by his own people, and especially how the Messiah would be received by the “builders,” that is, the religious leaders of his people. 

You would think that after waiting expectantly thousands of years for the Messiah to come, they would welcome Jesus with joy.  But, Psalm 118 prophesies the exact opposite, prophesies that the Messiah would be rejected by his own people, and especially rejected by the “builders,” the religious leaders: “The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”  John’s Gospel sadly reports the fulfillment of this prophecy: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

Today, the cornerstones of buildings are purely decorative.  They serve no functional purpose, and they are often the last stone to be put into place, like the cornerstone by the front door of this building, and the cornerstone we are laying today for our Building Addition and Modernization Project. 

But, in ancient times the cornerstone was THE most important stone in the whole building.  One perfectly square block, the first block to be laid in the building’s courses.  It had to be perfectly square because the rest of the building would be built off of it.  If the cornerstone was crooked, the building would come out crooked.  If the cornerstone was defective, the building would be defective.

Matthew, Mark and Luke all record Jesus quoting Psalm 118 as a prophecy about himself, and then the reaction of the religious leaders: “‘Haven’t you read this scripture: “The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.  The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes”?’  Then they looked for a way to arrest Jesus, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them.” 

Why did they receive him not?  Why did they reject him?  Because they had rejected the doctrinal cornerstone God laid in the Old Testament, salvation through faith in the Messiah.  Instead, they developed their own religious system, built off a different, defective cornerstone, the false cornerstone of trying to earn salvation with good works. 

They had no place for a Savior in their religion because they thought they could and would save themselves.  They had rejected the perfect cornerstone of salvation through faith in the Messiah, and instead built their religion off the crooked cornerstone of salvation by works.  “The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”  The sad irony is, the very leaders of the Messianic religion ended up rejecting the Messiah.  That is why Jesus calls them hypocrites.

We must confess there are many times when we also are hypocrites.  For, like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, we claim to be Christians, but we often build our lives on some other cornerstone.  Instead of building our lives on the cornerstone of Christ, and his word, and his will, we often build our lives on some other cornerstone, such as the false cornerstone of materialism, the crooked cornerstone of worldly pleasures, the defective cornerstone of self-centeredness.

Peter says in Acts, “He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the chief cornerstone.’  Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”  The cornerstone of our Christian faith is the Good News that you are saved by God’s grace on account of Jesus Christ.  All your sins are forgiven because he, as your substitute, lived a life of perfect obedience, and bore your sins in his body on the cross.  Make that Good News your personal cornerstone of your life.

Jesus told this parable:  “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 

Like a building built with a defective cornerstone, a religion or a life built on any cornerstone other than Jesus Christ is defective and will not stand.  As Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “For no one can lay any other foundation than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” 

“The stone the builders rejected.”  Christendom today is in grave danger of committing the same mistake as the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.  There are many sad examples of denominations that were once Bible-believing, but are being led horribly astray by their own hypocritical religious leaders, rejecting the true cornerstone of Christ and his Word.

“The stone the builders rejected.”  Don’t let that happen in your own life.  Build your life on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ and the Good News of salvation through faith in him.

“The stone the builders rejected.”  Don’t let that ever happen to your CHURCH.  There are two books sealed in a niche of the cornerstone that we are laying today; two books that are traditional for the cornerstones of Lutheran churches; probably the same two books that were placed in that niche in 1884; probably the same two books you would find if you opened the cornerstone laid for this building in 1959: the Holy Bible, and the Book of Concord, which contains the doctrinal statements of the Lutheran Church.  Those two books inside our cornerstones signify that we who worship in this church still believe and teach and confess—and strive follow in our own lives—the old-time religion, proclaimed in the Bible, brought to light again in the Lutheran Reformation, and devoutly believed by our forebearers who founded this congregation 150 years ago.

As I said in my pastoral letter that was sealed inside the cornerstone we lay today: “It is our fervent hope and prayer that, amidst all the challenges of an increasingly changing world, culture, and society, our descendants in this place will remain faithful over the years and throughout the generations to come to the true teachings of our Triune God.”

Make Christ Alone Your Cornerstone.

Amen.