Week 2 Day 6 - Yoked & Yielded

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Day 6 – Yoked & Yielded Together in Edifying

DEPENDENT ON THE FOUNDATION (1 Peter 2:4, NIV)

     ⁴ As you come to Him, the living Stone -- rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him -- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house...”

     In these last three analogies of the body, the bride, and the building, we see both the interdependency we have with one another and the dependency we have on Christ (see chart on page 35). Like bricks on a building, we must support of one another. Like the foundation of a house, we need Christ to keep our building intact.

    Jesus used the analogy of wise and foolish builders. Both had structures, winds, rains, and floods. The difference between the two buildings was not the building at all, but one had a foundation of a rock, the other of sand.

    If we look closer at the parable, found at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we see that it was not even hearing the words of Christ which made the difference, but rather acting on the words of Christ (“whoever hears these sayings of Mine and does them,” Matthew 7:24, Luke 6:47).

Christ Lays the Foundation for the Building

         Dependent on the Cornerstone/Foundation. Just as we saw that Christ was the Head of the Body and the Bridegroom for the Bride, we see the church is dependent on Christ as the foundation of the building.

         In our passage at the top of the page, Peter explained that all of us as members of God’s building are living stones. The church was not built on a man, certainly not shifting Simon Peter, but on the confession that Peter made in Matthew 16:16: that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God”.

     When Peter made that confession, Jesus responded,“You are Peter (petros, a stone), and upon this Rock (Petra, a cornerstone for foundation), I will build My church.” (Matthew 16:18. See also Matthew 7:24 and Luke 6:48, where Petra is shown as a foundation.)

    Peter used petra to refer to Christ, quoting Isaiah 8:14, when he called Christ the “rock of offense,” 1 Peter 2:8 (see the same reference in Romans 9:33). Paul also uses the word Petra, saying “that spiritual Rock…was Christ,” (1 Corinthians 10:4). As members of God’s building, we are all living stones built on and dependent on that foundational confession.

         Ephesians 2:20 says the church was “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

         Dependent on the Foundation. As God’s building, we depend on one another. Paul said, “You are God’s field, God’s building...For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid which is Jesus Christ...Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?...For the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.” (1 Corinthians 3:9-17). We are to build up each other as members of the church. That is what the Bible calls edification.

    Edification, building up one another. was Paul’s continued theme in Ephesians 2:21-22, “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.”

         From these analogies of the church, whether we are a body, a bride, or a building; a family, a fellowship, or a flock, we see that we depend on Christ, and are interdependent on each other as members of one another.

Next Week: Membership Means Identification