Keep Your Hands Off My Stones

Sept. 14

Read: Galatians 1:11-2:10 ; Exodus 20:25

Keep Your Hands Off My Stones

“If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.” - Exodus 20:25

One of the things I love about my kids - especially my daughter Ansley - is how much wonder they find in creation around them. For Ansley in particular it is in stones and gems. For example, on her 10th birthday we went gem mining together because that is what she wanted to do! She has collected beautiful stones from all over the nation on our family adventures. She sees the beauty in stones… in what you may describe as something that God created exactly the way it is… without human hands. Now, I understand that the natural elements do shape stones; but to be fair - it is God who controls the natural elements. At the end of the day - a stone in the wild is God’s handiwork… exactly the way that God made it. It is precisely the shape, texture, and color that the Lord designed it to be. I love the way that my kids… along with many other children … see this beauty in what God has made. There is something precious with taking hold of something shaped by God exactly as it is supposed to be!

Us humans have a bad habit though. More often than not we feel compelled to have to “put our mark” on something. We don’t really do too well with leaving things as God has made them… as God has designed them. We like to “meddle”. We look at God’s creation, his design, his plan, his purposes, his blessings… you name it … and we want to “wield our own tools on it”. This creates a problem - why? Because when we “wield our tool on” what God has designed we end up “profaning” it! Look at the verse from Exodus above. Read it again. God was describing to his people how to worship him and how to construct an altar to bring him offerings on. Notice how he says that the stones used for the altar must not be “hewn stones”. These stones are to be “wild”… natural… stones exactly the way GOD MADE THEM. These stones are not be be “shaped’ by human hands. The people are not to look at these natural / wild stones and decide that one part needs to come off or that they need to be flattened or shaped to fit with something else in a particular way. God says “NO WAY” ! What God wants us to bring him our worship and offerings upon is an “altar” made up of “stones” that HE has made… built from things that have not been manipulated by human hands… by human tools… by human agendas and ideas. As soon as our human “tools” are “wielded” upon God’s “stones” then they are profaned! When we try to shape God’s workmanship into our own ideas/ structures / altars we just end up profaning them. In short… humans just mess things up when we get our hands on things without God’s help and direction!

This is exactly what is happening in the book of Galatians as well as for us today! God has given us this precious stone… this “gem”… that is the Gospel that comes to use through Christ. In typical human fashion - there are those who want to take the Gospel in its raw, God-shaped and created form, and shape it… they want to “wield their tools” upon it and in the end it is profaned. There have always been those who want to try and make the Gospel of Christ “fit” into what they are building… what they are constructing. These are the people who pick up the Gospel in its “raw form”… the way that God shaped it (like a wild stone) and they want to make it “hewn”. They want to make it less “wild”… less “raw”… they feel like they need to put their own “mark on it”. They want the “altar” that they build to look nice and tidy… not wild and rugged the way that God has called for. The end result is a “man-made gospel”. This is the OPPOSITE of what Paul delivered to the Church:

“For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (v. 1:11,12)

Those Christian leaders that we follow must be ones who are doggedly committed to delivering only what God gives them. As leaders ourselves, we must seek to avoid the constant temptation to “add to” the Gospel of Jesus or try to “shape it” into what is nice and tidy for us. As God’s children, he is calling us to continually come to him… rely upon him… depend on him… and HE gives us anew - each day - the “Good News”. Notice how Paul spent 17 YEARS just soaking in the message God gave him… committed to it not being corrupted by human tools and human hands. Paul had already once fallen pray to worshipping man-made conventions more than God. (cf. Gal. 1:13-24) He wasn’t about to do it again. His eyes had been opened by the Lord. God showed up and “he who had set me apart before I was born (God), and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me…” (v.15) God opened Pauls eyes to the “good news” of Christ. Jesus - the stone that the builders rejected… GOD’S stone… not a stone corrupted or shaped by human tools! (cf. Eph. 2:20)

There are those people around us who despise the freedom we enjoy in Christ and whose desire is to enslave us once again:

“Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.” (v.4,5)

Do you see this? There are those who “sneak in” … they want to “spy out our freedom in Christ”. What is their goal? To “bring us into slavery”. This sort of corruption is why it is so important that we “preserve the TRUE Gospel message of freedom in Christ”. We cannot “yield in submission even for a moment” to these people! As we read further in Galatians we will see what exactly it is that seeks to “enslave us” again. But for now, this is what is most important for us to grasp and realize:

God has given us something beautiful and fit for presenting our offerings to him upon. We need to not try and shape it with our own human tools! God has delivered to us - in Jesus Christ - something that is so beautiful, good, and “God-shaped” that we are / will be tempted to try and “buff it up” a little. As singer Jess Ray says regarding to Gospel of Jesus: “It may be too good to be understood, But it's not too good to be true”! I am praying that the Lord will prepare our hearts to repent of the ways we have “added to” or try to “polish and shape” this precious cornerstone that we have been given in Jesus. I will give you a hint as to where we are going in the coming chapters: It has to do with “the law”… with these perceived “rules and mandates” that we continue to put one another under. What if we simply cannot grasp the love, mercy, and freedom we have in Christ so we try to “add to” the good news with our own rules and conventions to make it seem more feasible / plausible for us? What if this is just another way we try to “make our mark” on what God has freely crafted and given to us? What if in the end, these “rules” actually do more to distract us from Christ than they do set us free in Jesus? More to come… until then - STOP TRYING TO USE YOUR TOOLS ON GOD’S STONES. Love you guys! - JDP