The metaphor seems to be abandoned in the last words of our text, but
it is only apparently so. 'He that believeth shall not make haste.' So,
then, we build by believing. The act of building is simple faith in
Jesus Christ. We _come_ to Him, as the Apostle Peter has it in his
quotation of this text--come to Him as unto a living stone, and the
coming and the building are both of them metaphors for the one simple
thing, trust in the Lord. The bond that unites men on earth with Christ
in Heaven, is the exercise of simple faith in Him. By it they come into
contact with Him, and receive from Him the security and the blessing
that He can bestow. Nothing else brings a man into living fellowship
with Him. When we trust in the Lord we, as it were, are bedded into
Him; and resting upon Him with all our weight, then we are safe. That
confidence involves the abandonment of all the 'refuges of lies.' There
must be utter self-distrust and forsaking and turning away from every
dependence upon anything else, if we are to trust ourselves to Jesus
Christ. But the figure of a foundation which gives security and
stability to the stones laid upon it, does not exhaust all the
blessedness of this building upon Christ. For when we really rest upon
Him, there comes from the foundation up through all the courses a vital
power. Thus Peter puts it: 'To whom, coming as unto a living stone, ye
also as living stones are built up.' We might illustrate this by the
supposition of some fortress perched upon a rock, and in the heart of
the rock a clear fountain, which is guided by some pipe or other into
the innermost rooms of the citadel. Thus, builded upon Christ, 'our
defence shall be the munitions of rocks, and our waters shall be sure.'
From Him, the foundation, there will rise into all the stones, built
upon Him, the power of His own endless life, and they, too, become
living stones.