On the way to the Cross, Jesus is facing increasing opposition, rejection, and threats on His life from the religious authorities around Him. The tension is rising. And He's facing it head-on.

As the conflict increases, Jesus’ struggle reveals more of the nature of the opposition around Him, and the lies in us that lead into a mindset...

Lived-in lies like, “I don’t belong.”

Or, “I just have to do better.”

Or, “Because I messed up, God won’t take care of me.”

Jesus is teasing out the hypocrisy in the heart, rooted in partial-truths.

The intentions may seem right, but our living is actually opposed to His ways.

Jesus says to the religious leaders,

“‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.’ Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him" (Luke 20:17-18).

Check out last Sunday's sermon, "Half a Circle" from The Shape of our Story series.

Even in the face of their threats, Jesus is so kind to beckon them out of their hypocrisy.

His teaching and parables expose a system of beliefs beneath the religious leaders' righteous exterior (see Matthew 21:33-46). And He invites them to reconsider their ways of thinking.

He calls them to examine the core-beliefs in which they've built their religious system.

This cornerstone language is rich in Hebrew prophesy and roots back to the picture of an archway or gate, with a stone that supports it.

Picture this arch as the gateway of your life.

A mindset, built of assumptions from yourself and others, ideologies both inherited and assumed that you believe.

In a way, you step through those core-beliefs like a doorway. And through it you enter the city of your relationships, career, dreams, desires, disappointments, responsibilities, etc.

When you walk through this gateway, you enter a way of living. A holistic, integrated life based on assumptions and beliefs.

To the degree it's built on partial truths, is the degree to which corruption or hypocrisy fill that city.

Isaiah uses the same cornerstone language,

"'We have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter’; therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste (NLT: need never be shaken).’”(Isaiah 28:15b-16)

And Jesus now invites them to leave this false way of living and come through His gateway, His archway, with His own life as the cornerstone.

In the shadow of His death, Jesus gives them two options...

1. “When that stone falls on anyone, it will crush him."

We can remain in our false ways and be crushed (literally turned to dust, and blown away like chaff).

2. "Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces."

Or, we can come and break agreement with our lies at His gateway into real Life.

We literally need to fall on the stone that is Jesus. In His presence, we release and renounce the lie that has led to a mindset, and invite His ways to speak fresh Truth to us.

The pain of rejecting a lie is for us to come to Jesus and experience feelings of breaking; A sort of spiritual catharsis arises as we break the false ways and heal into His Truth.

Or, we can remain in our gateway, counseled by the lies we live in, lies that will eventually crush us when, "whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops" (Luke 12:3).