In Matthew 16:18b we read a very familiar statement of
Jesus. “Upon this rock I will build my
church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Jesus told Peter that upon the rock of the
identity of Christ He would build His church.
Not only was the identity of Christ a factor in this building but also
Peter had to know who he was. Peter just
prior to this had Jesus recalibrate as it were his identity. He was known as Simon the reed which speaks
of a wavering in the wind, to Peter the rock.
It is the same for us today. We
need not only have a revelation of the Christ but who we are in Him. Jesus saw beyond the surface to the great stability in Peter's life.
Those of us who have gone to one of the home improvement
stores to buy building materials have surely experienced searching through
lumber piles to find a straight board. I
always like it when I find a freshly opened sling of 2x4’s so I don’t have to
move aside so many warped and twisted sticks to get what I need. It is very difficult to build anything
straight with a bunch of bent boards.
Many of us have also experienced being one of those rejected
boards so to speak. We may have been the
last one chosen for the team or just left out all together. We may have made a mess of our lives through
poor choices resulting in being rejected from employment or any number of
things in life. All these experiences
help form our identity, the person we think we are. It is possible after being rejected so many
times we conclude that we are useless, and take on a false identity. Some have even accepted the label and wear
with a sense of pride. It might say “I
am a reject and I expect you to reject me”.
And surely with God’s high and holy standards we do not even consider
the possibilities of being used by Him.
In recent days we have heard the term remnant used to
describe a group of people that God will raise up in the last days to do the
works that Jesus did and even greater works.
It is a mysterious sounding title for a group of people but I always
think of carpet remnants, a collection of left over pieces of rug not needed to
complete the installation. They just
didn’t fit into the structure of the builder’s project. These left over sections of carpet are
sometimes gathered up and placed in a store for sale. Many people come to check their colors and
size them up to see if any would fit into their plans but too often they are
just further rejected.
If this sounds familiar or you can identify with these
rejected building materials you are in good company. Jesus Himself was the stone rejected by the
builders but has become the head of the corner.
He is the Chief corner stone and the one who is in charge of gathering
the building materials for His church. He was despised and rejected of men, a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as were our faces from Him. (see Isaiah 53:3). He is gathering a remnant, a group of
rejected people that the builders tossed aside.
All those who have been warped, twisted and bent out of shape are just
what He is looking for. The ones who
were not good enough or did not have a pleasant appearance are on His shopping
list. God is the master builder and
knows how to fit every piece into the place designed for it.
I remember back in the seventies burl wood furniture, clocks
and end tables just to name a few were very popular. A burl is like a huge wart that sometimes
grows into the main trunk of a tree.
Loggers often leave that section of the tree behind because it doesn’t
make good lumber it is too tough to work with.
But there were those furniture builders who would go around looking for
those discarded chunks of log because they knew what was on the inside and what
they could become. Though these pieces
of wood were very difficult to work with, once the master builder completed the
transformation they were the most beautiful and stunning pieces of furniture
around.
Likewise God is at work gathering together those that the builders
rejected forming and shaping them into a building, beautiful beyond anything
before seen. We must not allow our
former identity to hinder us taking our rightful place. We need not only have a revelation of the
Christ but a revelation of who they are in Him.
Refuse to be disqualified by defects but allow God to redeem every one
and turn it into a jewel. God never
intended that we become a bunch of warped, twisted or bent rejects but like the
master wood carver, He sees on the inside the beauty hidden there. Just as the ugly wart-like burl on the side
of a tree is discarded by the woodsman but saved by the craftsman, so God takes
what the devil meant to exclude or disqualify us and turns it into something
beautiful and precious.
The demons of Hell have been at work to defile and
disqualify us from being used by God but the very ones that they have opposed
so violently will be the ones to put the final nail in their coffin so to
speak. Jesus said “I will build my
church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
