Jesus Is Building His Church

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.”