Luke 20:14-18: in context

In the parable of the wicked tenants, the vineyard owner sends his beloved son, and the tenants kill him to seize the inheritance. Jesus asks what the owner will do, and answers: he will destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. His hearers recoil. But Jesus looks at them and quotes Scripture: the stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The son they would reject and kill, God would make the very foundation of his purposes; the rejected stone would become the cornerstone.

The image Jesus draws from Scripture is arresting: the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The builders, those whose task was to build, examined the stone and rejected it, casting it aside as worthless, unfit for their purposes. But God took that very rejected stone and made it the cornerstone, the most important stone of all, on which the whole structure rests. What the builders discarded, God exalted to the highest place. And this is a picture of Christ himself: rejected by those who should have received him, cast aside as worthless, and yet made by God the cornerstone of his whole saving purpose. This reveals how God works, often reversing human judgments. People rejected Christ, and people still reject him, judging him worthless, casting him aside, building their lives on other foundations. But God has made the rejected Christ the cornerstone; what human builders discarded, God has exalted to the place of highest honor and made the foundation of everything. The judgment of people is not the final word; God exalts what people reject. There is salvation in no one else, Peter says of this same rejected stone; the one people cast aside is the only foundation on which anyone can be saved. And this presses a decision on us. The rejected stone has become the cornerstone; and Jesus says that everyone who falls on this stone will be broken, and it will crush the one on whom it falls. We cannot be neutral toward the cornerstone; we either build on it or stumble over it. To reject the stone God has made the cornerstone is to be broken; to build on it is to be secured on the foundation God has laid. This searches whether we build on Christ or reject him. The builders rejected the stone, and God made it the cornerstone; and each of us either receives the rejected-but-exalted Christ as the foundation of our life, or, like the builders, rejects him and builds on something else. But there is no other foundation; the stone the builders rejected is the cornerstone God has laid, and the only sure foundation for a life. This calls us to build on Christ, the rejected stone God has exalted to the cornerstone, rather than joining the builders who cast him aside. What people rejected, God has made the foundation of everything; and the wise build their lives on the cornerstone God has laid, receiving the Christ whom people reject but God exalts.

Do I build my life on Christ, the stone the builders rejected which God has made the cornerstone, or do I, like the builders, cast him aside and build on some other foundation, and can Jesus' word that the rejected stone has become the cornerstone, and that we either build on it or stumble over it, move me to receive the Christ whom people reject but God has exalted, building my life on the only sure foundation God has laid rather than joining those who discard the very stone on which everything rests?