Alba 2-26-2023
BUILD ON A SURE FOUNDATION
Ephesians 2:19-22
Here is a brick. I suppose you figured that out. Originally I used this brick with others and some boards and made a book case about five shelves high. It wasn't very steady, but it worked for me when I was single and no children could get hurt if it fell over.
Now my daughter, Alison, uses them as a border for some plants in the back yard. That works fairly well actually. But I suppose this brick may be a little disappointed. If it could think, it might have expected to have had a different outcome.
Perhaps it could have been part of a very impressive structure. Joined with other bricks it may have been part of a tower in the town square, or a stately building downtown. Or perhaps a simple cottage where a family would take great pride in its charming appearance.
Put this brick with others and it could really be something. But bricks do not build a building all by themselves. A foundation needs to be prepared first, and then they can be laid carefully together.
In order for some of the bricks to fit properly, they may have to be cut or a part chipped off so that they fit properly. That’s exactly what Jesus does when He builds His church. He takes a bunch of bricks that aren’t much good on their own, and He fits them together as a master builder, with Himself being the very cornerstone. That's what scripture calls Him.
Our text today is found in Ephesians 2:19-22. Let's turn there and read.
19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Notice, Jesus doesn't use bricks to build His church. He uses people. Imperfect people at that. We are those transgressors and sinners that are referred to at the first of this chapter.
And somehow we convince ourselves that there are reasons beyond our control that cause us to sin. Listen, sin is not airborne. A man doesn't come home from work and say to his wife, “I got some sin on me today”.
No, sin just sits there and looks at you. It has no place in your life until you pick it up and put it into action.
But thankfully, Jesus went to the cross and took our penalty for the sins we have committed. Call it what you want, but the Lord Jesus did not come to this earth to die for a mere indiscretion.
He did not die for a mistake on our part. He did not die for a small wrongdoing of ours. Jesus came to this world to die for SIN. We can't dress it up, make light of it or call it something that it is not.
But Jesus is the Messiah who died, was buried and raised on the third day, shedding His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. And because of that, if we have come to Him in obedient faith, we are no longer strangers and foreigners to the things of God.
In Jesus, in spite of our past sins, we are shaped into usable building blocks for His church. In Him we become, “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God”. We are His building.
Any building needs a good foundation. Verse 20 says that we have “been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets”. It is on their instruction, words given to them by God, that we have this foundation on which we, the church, the body of Christ, are built.
This foundation is found in the very Words of God which we hold in our hands today, the Bible. The apostles Matthew and John give us gospel accounts about the life and ministry of Jesus.
Mark and Luke use the testimony of the apostles to share more information about our Lord. And the apostle Paul uses his letters to the churches to further instruct us in how we should live our lives as Christians.
These men, the apostles and the prophets, have laid a foundation for us. So what kind of foundation is it? All we need to do is look further into scripture to find out.
For example, I Corinthians 3:11 says, “no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” So the church is built on Jesus, the one of whom the apostles testify. They have laid the foundation for our faith in Jesus.
It all comes back to Jesus, because as verse 20 says, He is the cornerstone. Today, the cornerstone of a structure is largely symbolic. Often it is put in place when the building is already completed inscribed with a date the building was constructed.
But the stone that is being described here has its roots in ancient masonry. It was the brick or stone by which the builder lined up the whole building. Often it was the first brick or stone to be laid.
Virtually every ancient Hebrew understood the importance of the cornerstone, for it determined the stability of the foundation and the character of the entire building.
The Jerusalem Temple itself had huge foundation stones, the greatest of which was twenty-nine feet in length, the size of a railroad boxcar!
The “chief cornerstone” was the primary foundation stone at the corner of the structure. There was not one single line or angle of the building which was not determined by and adjusted to the perfect symmetry of that stone.
The actual foundation stone is Christ Jesus Himself. It is He who supports and holds together both the foundation and the walls. It is Jesus who gives to the structure its unity and its strength.
Matthew Parker told about himself and said that sometimes we examine ourselves and find we have a faulty foundation. He said this: “We either find this out at an early age, as I did, or sometimes later on in life when we have been committed for some time to a particular philosophy or way of living, and we discovered through trial and error that the way we have been living is indeed faulty.”
He said the atheism of his youth was a shallow, empty foundation. It offered no future, no life. And he tried to end it all, but failed. He said, “Sometimes failure is a good thing.”
He said, “I exhausted what atheism had to offer and found it wanting. It’s ultimate message is that nothing really matters. You just try to make the best life you can before you die and become worm food.”
Thankfully he discovered a solid foundation upon which he could build his life. He is now a minister of the gospel, sharing the good news that there is hope beyond the grave.
It is faith in Jesus which gives the foundation needed for a life that truly satisfies. He is the chief cornerstone, the keystone for the whole building. Pull this brick out and everything falls. And we, His church, are built upon that foundation.
Ever play Jenga? It’s a simple game. You start with a bunch of rectangular blocks. They’re stacked in a way that makes a little tower.
Then, one by one, you’re supposed to remove a block from all levels of the tower. At first, it seems like the tower can still stand, missing just a few blocks. Then, it starts to lean and teeter.
One by one, as the blocks are removed, the structure weakens, until finally, the loser removes the block that sends it falling over.
This structure of which you and I are a part isn’t made to stand with blocks missing. To be its best, it has to have every block in place. We are all needed in the Lord's church.
Peter says in 1 Peter 2:5, “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” The Lord is building a spiritual house (called “the household of God,” and “His dwelling place”). All of us who are in Christ are God’s building blocks. All of us are important to His church.
We are living stones. We are the material our Lord uses to build His spiritual house. But we need to be fit together in order to grow “into a holy temple in the Lord.”
In order for that to happen, He has to chisel away and cut out those parts of our bricks that would detract from the finished product, or that would keep us from fitting properly with the other bricks.
Although Jesus is concerned with the individual bricks, His overall purpose is to create a building that will bring glory to Himself. And He makes a place for every believer in that building, giving each of us responsibilities to carry on His work.
There is an old story how a loaded station wagon pulls into the only remaining campsite. Four youngsters leap from the vehicle and begin feverishly unloading gear and setting up a tent. The boys then rush off to gather firewood, while the girls and their mother set up the camp stove and cooking utensils.
Nearby, a fellow camper is marveling at the scene. He says to the youngsters' father: "That, sir, is some display of teamwork." The father said, "I have a system. No one goes to the bathroom until the camp is set up.” That's one way to get the work done.
Notice that everyone did their part. Buildings use different sizes of building bricks or stone. The Lord’s church also has many different kinds of people as living stones for the Lord’s living temple.
We are God’s building materials. Verse 22 says, “in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit”. “Being built” refers to an ongoing process. As others are being added, we ourselves are growing. We are growing together.
The church that Jesus is building is a continuous project. It's an ongoing construction. This temple not yet finished. The Church grows by the addition of new stones, or of souls called by grace, and added to it. But true church growth isn’t merely numbers. The church really grows when each member is remaining loyal to Jesus.
Don’t be like the churchgoer whose minister unexpectedly dropped by his work place. And the preacher not knowing exactly where his station was asked the receptionist, “Excuse me, can you tell brother so-so that his pastor is here to see him.”
And she replies, “Pastor? As in church pastor? You mean to tell me that he actually attends a church. From the way he acts around here you wouldn’t think he could spell Jesus.”
Let me ask this question, how do you see yourself? Are you someone who goes to church, or are you someone who is the church? There is a big difference.
Jesus wants others to be able to look at us and see Him. It should not be that if someone asks if we are Christians, our mouth says yes, but our actions say, “Well it depends on the situation.”
Each of us each day have significant choices to make concerning the holy temple in which we live. There is a blueprint to follow. We find it in the Bible. The Bible calls us to daily self-examination. Daily we are to look at our life and compare it to the life of Jesus.
We are to build our lives on the foundation that is faith in Jesus Christ who suffered on the cross so that we could be free of sin before God.
When Jesus walked with the disciples near the temple in Jerusalem, the disciples commented about the massive stones that made up the temple building. Jesus told them those stones would be destroyed. And they were about 40 years later when the Romans destroyed it.
But He had also said that he would rebuild the temple in three days. When Jesus said that He was talking about His body; His living temple. And three days after they thought His body was destroyed, He rose victorious over death!
And now, our bodies are a temple for the Lord. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”
As living stones in His temple we should resemble and possess the characteristics of the cornerstone. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. It is Christ in us, the hope of glory.
At the dedication of the temple in the Old Testament Solomon rightly questioned whether God could dwell in a building made by the hands of men.
“But will God really dwell on earth?” He asked. Then he declared, “The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27 NIV)
Solomon recognized that just a stone building could not contain God, but it should direct people to more important things. He challenged the people to look beyond the physical building saying:
“May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers. But your hearts must be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.” (1 Kings 8:58, 61 NIV)
We are the building, the house of God. It is not made of concrete blocks, wood, hay or straw. It is built with people who were strangers and foreigners, but are now “members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.”
Jesus told a parable about a wise man who built his house upon the rock. And a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.
The recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria where thousands of people died in crumbling buildings remind us that we need to be positive that our lives are built upon the only solid foundation that will keep us from eternal harm, faith in Jesus Christ.
So that when troubles rain down on us, and the winds of false doctrines blow and the flood of sin swirls around us, we will remain safe on the sure foundation we have in Jesus.
CLOSE:
CLINKER BRICKS
Clinker bricks are bricks that did not quite make it. For some reason or another, they come out of the kiln misshapen or deformed.
There is a story about a Presbyterian Church in New York State that was intentionally built of clinker bricks.
Apparently, the congregation wanted to send a message, so they build their church of imperfect, rejected bricks.
[“Clinker bricks and Ebenezers,” May 2, 1999, Exeter Congregational United Church of Christ Web Site, users.rcn.com.]
The message is that we are all clinker bricks, we are sinners, we are imperfect people full of follies and foibles, but through Christ we become living stones in His church.
We do not become living stones because we are so great. It is Christ Jesus who is great.
He brings us to Himself through faith, repentance, confession and baptism so that He can use us as lively stones, being built up a spiritual house acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
