Lord Jesus Christ, the Church’s head,
You are her one foundation;
In You she trusts, before you bows,
And waits for Your salvation.
Built on this Rock secure, Your church shall endure
Though all the world decay and all things pass away,
O hear, O hear us, Jesus

The hymn that we sang before our sermon was drawing on the imagery of our text today, the Epistle reading from Ephesians 2, specifically, from verses 19-22: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” In other words, the Church is “God’s Building Project.”

The fact that the Church is God’s building project–that makes a big difference. The Church is not some manmade creation. Rather, it is a divine institution, founded by Christ Himself and central to God’s plan for the ages. God will not abandon His church. He will not abandon us. He will not abandon you.

This is good to hear, because the devil, the prince of this world wants to destroy the Church. He wants to drag every last believer back into the sin and false wisdom of this world. It is easy to get discouraged in our daily struggles individually, but even as a congregation, or even looking at the various congregations within our own synod or throughout the world as there seems to be so many congregations and church bodies leaving the path of God’s Word and doing their own thing, following the ways of the world, abandoning Christ for an ungodly/worldly message with only the trimmings of Christianity and “holy speak” using Jesus’ name in vain. It is easy to get caught up in negativity, a questioning hopelessness as to our future and the future of the Church at large when looking at these things. We definitely need encouragement.

And that’s what God’s word gives us today. Encouragement. Encouragement for us in the Church, at a time when anxiety, apathy, and aggression are swirling all about us. It’s good to know we are God’s building project.

Paul wrote this text to the church at Ephesus. Ephesus was located on the west side of Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, and it was one the largest cities in the first-century world. The church there at Ephesus was made up mostly of Gentiles, people who had come out of pagan idolatry. So Paul reminds them of what they had come out of when they had come into the church: “Remember…that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

Friends, this describes where we would be apart from Christ and outside of the Church. You and I would be aliens and strangers with regard to God and His people. We would be outside the kingdom of God, not knowing the precious promises of salvation. That’s a terrible place to be. Think of it. To have no hope–no hope for the future, no hope for what lies beyond this life. To be without God in the world. That’s pretty scary and sad. But most people in our world, the unbelievers–they don’t even realize what a terrible situation they are in.

We were that way. We too were dead in our trespasses and sins. Ours sins alienated us from God. We were far off. We have at times drifted away, turned away, run away from God. You and I should be included in that sorry lot. We too have sinned. It comes easy to us: natural to us, according to our sinful nature. We do things, we think things, we say things, that go against God’s commandments. We are not eager and zealous to do God’s will. We mainly just want to do our own will, and who cares what God says? Other people are there to please us and do things for us–that’s the world we create in our minds. That’s the sinful nature alive in us and producing such bad fruit in our lives. This sin separates us again from God, and it puts up walls between us and other people. That’s where we would be on our own, apart from what God has done for us in Christ.

That is what is so profound about God and His love for us. Why would He think to build anything with such weak, frail, rotten material as me, you, or any human in their spiritual fallenness? Because that is what He does. That is who He is. Though there was righteous hostility between God and us because of our sin, and hostility on our part because of our wanting to remain in our sins… God has taken what is from our body of sin and breaks it and crushes it and places it upon Jesus Christ and His flesh who then, in turn has broken that hostility and that separation by the unity of His Divinity and humanity in His body taking our sin to the cross, receiving the punishment for sin, which we deserve. This is how we are brought near to God: through the sacrificial blood of Christ. By His shed blood poured out for us at His crucifixion.

That is the, if you will, “the liquid cement”, for covering over our sin and weakness, binding and bonding us to God and the structure of His Holy temple with the prophets, apostles, the saints of old and the saints, yet to come. Molded, fitted, shaped, by the Holy Spirit upon Jesus Christ where the blood of Jesus Christ is applied to us.

Where is it applied? His blood is applied to us in Holy Baptism when in the water, the invisible blood of Christ is applied to us by the power of God’s name and His Word of promise. There we were taken outside of time and our old spirit of flesh was crucified with Christ, buried, and we were raised with the Holy Spirit, and now the spirit of God dwells within us by faith. That is what St. Paul means when he said: “In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” You are indeed the temple of the Holy Spirit as an individual who is part of the whole temple as a member of the Church. God indeed dwells in you, so far as you have faith.

Does that mean the project is finished? No. As Paul said, “you are being built”. Even as I spoke of earlier, we are constantly being battered like buildings by the winds and waves of the spirit of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh which continues to surface. We wear down from this onslaught, our eyes become downcast toward the grind and disappointments and taunts of this world. We sin and parts of us crumble, the concrete bonds that we should have to the holiness of the Lord, we often knock off ourselves because of our selfishness and pride. We wander back into the dark and temporary priorities of this life as our main focus and eternal hope begins to dim.

So the Lord calls us, even now in this sermon, this liturgy, in His Word of Holy Scripture through the witness of our fellow believers, by His voice to come back from afar, to come again by His peace, to Himself. Sometimes almost dragging us reluctantly He brings us back to His workshop, back to the place where we must again be broken down, to be reshaped and reformed into and by Christ. We hear the Law which shows us our sin, we repent and are sorrowful for what we have done and not done, but with hope, we turn. And we plead for mercy for the sake of the blood of Jesus Christ. And God forgives us and renews us in our baptism in Absolution. We hear once more that because Jesus has died upon the cross for our sins, God will not forsake the humble, but serves us not only a proclamation of forgiveness for those sins, but gives us once more a full measure of His Holy Spirit where He gives us the blood of Jesus Christ. In the great feast of the Sacrament of the Altar we are drawn ever nearer to the place where we will be permanently a “completed building project” to the place of rest and fullest assembly in the heavenly places. We eat and drink Christ’s body and blood in the bread and wine. Christ comes to us, and we celebrate with the whole church, the victory of Jesus Christ and His marriage and promise to the Church completed in Him. Though we do not perceive with our earthly eyes or tongues, we are bound to the Lord and to the fellowship of all the saints in the household of God through the blood of Christ here given.

So be encouraged. The Lord is not done working with you and on you and me. He will not abandon you. Remember where you came from. Remember in humble and repentant joy, your own weakness, but remember God’s strength for you in Jesus Christ. Remember whose you are and all the promises and grace that come with it. Pray for strength and remember where you are going: to be with Christ your Savior in God’s glory for eternity.

As we sang:
O Lord, let this Your little flock, Your name alone confessing,
Continue in Your loving care, True unity possessing,
Your sacraments, O Lord, and Your saving Word
To us Lord pure retain. Grant that they may remain
our only strength and comfort.

And for your Gospel let us dare to sacrifice all treasure,
Teach us to bear Your blessed cross, To find in You all pleasure,
O grant us steadfastness in joy and distress,
Lest we Lord You forsake. Let us by grace partake
of endless joy and gladness,
for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas