St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Pentecost 9 – August 7^th and 10^th, 2003

"Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."

Dear people in God’s Kingdom

Call me what you want, I must admit that I enjoy the study of History. It is interesting to me to see why such great empires and people grew so very strong and why they then fell. I enjoy looking back at different people and different countries and cultures as they fit into the history of this world. I enjoy it as you see how people from the past accomplished such great things without the technology and advanced machines and tools we have today. One thing that marvels me to this day is the great Pyramids that were built by the ancient Egyptians. Every time that I think about these magnificent structure that were built so many thousands of years ago, it ceases to amaze me. They are so perfect and so very large. They are so structurally sound. Just think of the engineering minds the Egyptians must have had -- to make sure that all the large stones were cut and placed in just the right spots in perfect alignment. Just think what engineering it must have taken to make sure that they didn’t even stray a few feet from the dimensions they were looking for. The foundation and the first few stones laid must have been so very important. If they were even off a few inches on the first stones, imagine how lopsided or unsafe they would have been as they were stacked higher and higher. I don’t know how many large stones it took to build each pyramid, but stone was so important as they built the Pyramids.

As we sit here today we realize that God’s Church is also built on a foundation and it has a key stone or cornerstone that is very important for the rest of his Church. The foundation of God’s perfect Word and the Cornerstone of Jesus Christ himself are perfect. Upon this wonderful foundation and cornerstone His Church is built. Today we will let the apostle Paul talk to us using this theme:

The first 19 verses of this chapter are used by the Apostle Paul to remind us of the wonderful work of our God in heaven. Paul reminds us that our hearts were lost in sin and that we followed our sinful desires rather than God’s desires. In verses eight and nine we hear the familiar words, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works so that no one can boast." God has done all the work of bringing us to faith and changing our hearts. Paul also reminds us that God saved all people both Jews and Gentiles alike. It is God’s love that brought us into his family. We have a special unity that transcends race or gender.

These last couple of verse of Chapter two which are our text for today are meant to remind us that we have a unity and a strength by being in God’s Kingdom that is greater than anything this world has to offer – and here is why. First of all we are, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets," I’m not a structural engineer, but I know enough to realize that the foundation of any sort of structure is very important. Even a simple deck built in your backyard needs to be built on a firm foundation. You might not even see the foundation of a building, but you will find out in a hurry if it is a good foundation. A building will begin to shift very quickly or buckle if things fail on the foundation. On the East Coast people like to build homes very near to the Atlantic Ocean. They don’t build their homes on the foundation of the sand, rather they drive down large poles thirty or forty feet or even more that hit the hard rock far beneath the sand and use that as their foundation. In this way they can resist the hurricanes and storms that the ocean might bring.

As we look at the foundation of God’s Church we see that it is built on the foundation of the "apostle’s and prophets." Does this mean that we are following the words of the Apostles like Paul and Peter or the Prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah? The Apostle Paul is not speaking of them just as men, but as the inspired men that the Holy Spirit used to write down the Holy Scriptures. Jesus is the the heart and center of there words. In simple terms we can say that to build on the prophets and apostles means that were built on Christ.

In contrast look at how many people are building on some pretty weak foundations. There are many people who have left God’s Word in the background. It is too strict and rigid. It is too outdated and old. It hasn’t kept up with the times. Just was reading this week about the Episcopal Church, which elected an openly gay person to be the head bishop of their churchbody. God’s Word is not the foundation in that church and sadly enough it is not the foundation an many other churches.

And yet at the same time, we would have to admit that it isn’t always the foundation in our lives. Yes, we know God’s Word is important and we wouldn’t go anywhere else to find answers, but how many of us have really lost ourselves in God’s Word? How many of us have a strong desire to find out more about how great God’s Love is for me and all people? What kind of standards have we set up for ourselves when it comes to firmly rooting ourselves on God’s Word? How many of us can honestly say that we opened our Bibles this past week? How many of us can honestly say that we have opened our Catechisms to review the wonderful truths we learned when we were Confirmed? How many of us can honestly say that that going to Church or Bible Class is near the top of things I want to do in the coming weeks? It is easy to say God’s Word is our foundation, but are we using the foundation that God has provided as well as we can?

As we dig further into the foundation of God’s Word we will soon realize that there is one key person and that one key person is Jesus Christ. Our text tells us, ^"built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord." While the foundation is crucial it is also just as important that the cornerstone or capstone as it is sometimes called be perfect. The stone that we are talking about now is the stone that is laid first and everything else is lined up with it or it is the capstone that is at the top of an arch that holds all the other stones in place. Either of these two stones are very important. They are necessary and they are needed.

As Paul says, "In Jesus the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord." What happens all to often is that people read the Bible for some wrong reasons. They think that the Bible is a great "help" book to soave all my life’s problems. Others think that the Bible is a "rule" book that is meant to keep us on the straight and narrow. While these two ideas are found in the Bible, they are not the central purpose of the Bible. The Bible was given to us so that we may know who Jesus is and find eternal life in Jesus as John writes, "But the Scriptures are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." (John 20:31).

As condemned sinners we need to know the only answer for our lost condition. The foundation of the Bible tells us who that person is and tells us all that Jesus has done to change our spiritual condition. God’s Church is held together by the blood of Jesus and through our faith that he Holy Spirit has created in our hearts we are bricks in his holy temple. In a love that we will never be able to understand, he humbled himself to live on this earth and to take on human flesh. He lived for 33 years without even one single sin. He also humbled himself even to the point of death on the cross to pay the price for all our sins. Without this cornerstone, there would be no heavenly Kingdom.

But sadly there are all too many people who forget how important the work of Jesus is. We take for granted that he gave all of these things to us. Sometimes we may replace the cornerstone of Jesus with a feeling of I can take care of things on my own. All I need to do is be good. Others have placed rules, regulations and traditions in front of the pure and simple message of Jesus and his work. Other times we might forget that the forgiveness that Jesus won for us is deeper and wider than we can ever imagine. We might forget to confess to Jesus and hold on to his forgiving grace – thinking that my life has been too terrible. Thank goodness we have the perfect cornerstone that holds us in place and keeps us in place.

The foundation and cornerstone are the most important parts of a building. There is no one that is denying this point. But for a building to move forward, we need bricks. Just think how many bricks were used to build our new School and Church. Just think what our building would look like if we didn’t have any bricks. There would be no walls and if there were no walls then we couldn’t have a roof. The building wouldn’t be complete. While God doesn’t need us, in love he still has chosen us to be in his eternal building. – his Holy Christian Church. We are not talking about a certain building or Church body. We are talking about the gathering of Christians from all places and times united through our faith in Jesus.

Paul describes us as God’s temple, ^"In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

" The Holy Spirit has made his dwelling is us. We are being built together by the faith the Holy Spirit has created through the all powerful Gospel message of Jesus, our cornerstone. This temple being built is a holy temple, because only those whose hearts are led to truly believe in Jesus’ blood for forgiveness are bricks in this temple. There are no people sneaking in. Faith in the blood of Jesus has made us holy and perfect.

As bricks in God’s temple who are called holy by the innocent blood of Jesus, we soon realize that our bodies and lives are not our own. We are not living for ourselves and for our own pleasure, but rather for Christ the chief corner stone and foundation of our lives. Our goal in life is not just to make sure that we are satisfied and content, but to make sure that everything we do or say is done to God’s glory. God through his gospel has called us into his holy temple and this act of extreme love by God leads us to say thanks to God with our words and actions.

What kind of bricks are we? Are we bricks that are strong in the Lord or are we slowly crumbling because we have strayed or are straying some from the sure foundation of Jesus and His Word and have looked elsewhere for the hope and comfort we need? Are we still setting ourselves squarely on the foundation that Jesus has laid for us or are we wandering back and forth as we make our journey to our eternal home in heaven? Are we lined up perfectly with what God’s Word and what God’s will is for my life, or am I more often than not going my own way and plan to come back to the foundation of Jesus and his Word some time later when it fits better in my life or I’m not so busy with work and my family?

God has given us the foundation and cornerstone of Jesus to reassure us that even when we have strayed or lost sight of what is important, God’s forgiveness is still there. While we all know that even a small faith is enough to keep us in God’s Church, we also realize that God has told us to always seek with his help to align ourselves more closely with Jesus and what his Word tells us. This is the strength that God has promised and is ours as children in God’s holy temple. We thank God that we are in this Church, and we pray that God would keep us in his Church until the time he calls us home to heaven. Amen.