That Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone is the true sense of His teaching. He is saying, “If you want a construction that will last for this life and for eternity, build on me.” Do you do it? If so, you can sing,
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
Christianity is Jesus Christ. And thus, the life of blessing promised by Christianity must be constructed on Him.
The second important point to be seen in these verses is this: A life built upon Jesus Christ will stand. That is a simple point, of course, but we need to have it clear in our thinking and to get it planted deeply in our minds. A life built upon Jesus will stand, even in the midst of the tribulations of this life or the judgments of eternity.
We are going to have tribulations. These are the common lot of man, but only the Christian who is building upon Christ and whose mind is captive to the will of God can triumph over them gloriously (Rom. 5:3). In the book of Job there is a passage in which one of Job’s comforters says. “Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground, yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 3:6-7). The image is highly poetic. It tells us that each generation of men can be compared to a stack of cordwood that is placed upon the burning embers of the past. That is our destiny, to pass through fire and in due time to be released forever by burning. And thus, every child of Adam—you and I and countless millions of others will experience sorrow, pain, suffering, disappointment, and eventually death.
What is the solution? Not escape certainly, for escape is impossible. The solution is to build upon the sure foundation. And so Jesus says that although the rain will fall, the floods will rise, and the wind will blow, nevertheless, the life that is constructed upon Him will survive the blast and endure forever.
