1 Corinthians 3:10,11,16-23

The Seventh Sunday After the Epiphany

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

What’s Church For? Building

1 Corinthians 3:10, 11, 16-23

10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 

16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple. 18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. (NIV)

Whether or not a person has even an ounce of know-how when it comes to what all is involved in the process of building construction, most find it pretty fascinating to see the whole process take place from start to finish, to see the building gradually take shape over time.  From the moment an area becomes cleared and fenced in, we’re curious to see what building will go there and what it will look like when it’s finished.  Once the foundation is poured, we get an idea of how large or small the building will be.  After the framing is up, we can visualize the general shape of the building.  As walls and windows fill in the final details, we have a pretty clear picture of what the finished product will look like, leaving basically just the colors and finishing touches to be carried out.  Then, after the last nail has been pounded and the final brush stroke has been painted, the tools, work trucks, and workers disappear, on their way to the next job because the construction is complete and the building has been finished.

Paul’s illustration for the Corinthians leads us to imagine a similar process taking place within the Church.  He pictured the work of the church as putting up a building with a foundation.  As the architect, Paul had to make sure that he started with the proper foundation, and that others would, too.  Then, as in any building project, it is always necessary in church building to proceed with caution, being careful not to cut corners or do things haphazardly. 

As we see this morning from Paul’s letter, there are natural points of comparison between a literal, brick and mortar building project and the building that goes on within the Church.  There is, however, one major difference: the building that goes on within the Church is ongoing; it will never be complete (until the Last Day, when the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, returns).  That can be an easy enough reality for Christians to overlook – particularly Christians who gather together in a physical church building, and even more so for those who were involved in constructing that physical building.  We have a tendency to fall into a complacent mentality that feels as if the goal was to put up a building, and once we have our building, then the work of building the Church is finished.  But nowhere in here (Bible) does God ever once give the impression to Christians that his purpose for our lives is to put up church buildings, or that once we have, well, we can sit back and enjoy using it to meet our own needs until he takes us home to heaven.  Church is for building, but that building doesn’t stop once a brick and mortar sanctuary has been constructed; Church building is ongoing.

The imagery of ongoing building and repair in the Church is one that is consistent in Scripture.  Think back to the Baptizer’s message, one that he applied from the prophet Isaiah: “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God’s salvation” (Luke 3:4-6).  Any new development or city planning requires infrastructure.  There need to be roads in order to get to the buildings that are built.  John the Baptist used that picture of road building and construction to illustrate the constant need for the believer’s life to be one of repentance.  The potholes of sin that are permanently popping up in my heart need to be repaired, and repentance, which not only acknowledges those potholes, but also recognizes that the blood of Jesus is the only thing that will repair them, is the only solution.

Like John the Baptist, Peter also used the picture of ongoing building to depict what goes on within the Church.  Referring to Jesus, he wrote, “As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4,5).  “Are being built,” Peter wrote, not “were built” or “have been built.”  The building project within the Church is ongoing, and it will be until the final Day when the Architect returns and every impurity from the building project will be removed and only the beautiful, the perfect, the holy Church, built through the hammer and nails used to pound our Savior to the cross, will remain.

Until that Last Day, Paul’s Church building blueprint in 1 Corinthians, reminds us of how important the foundation is. “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care.  For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (v. 10-11).  Paul reminded the Corinthians about the two most important details of laying the proper foundation.  Of primary importance is that the foundation is Jesus Christ.  Jesus himself emphasized this truth when he told the parable of the wise and foolish builders in Matthew 7.  Only the house built on the rock solid foundation of Jesus Christ will last.  Paul’s second point about that foundation of Jesus Christ was that such a foundation is poured only by God’s grace.  Grace alone led Paul to serve as an expert builder, knowing that only one foundation would last.  Grace alone is what prompted God to reveal his Son as the only suitable foundation upon which to build the Church.

As the Corinthians were in danger of discovering, nothing else matters in Church building if the foundation isn’t right.  When one does not continue to build with the caution Paul urges, the results can look a lot like the division that was starting to fracture the congregation.  Members of the congregation started to build on the faulty foundations of various leaders within the congregation, and in the process the integrity of the true foundation, Jesus Christ, was being compromised.  When that is allowed to happen, the end result is inevitable: just like the house built on sand, any church not built on the foundation of Jesus Christ crumbles.  When it comes to Church building, the foundation is everything.  Jesus Christ is everything.

When the concrete has cured and the right foundation of Jesus Christ has been properly poured, the next phases of construction are ready to take place.  And, as Paul reminded the Corinthians, Church building was not about lumber and other raw materials, it was about people.  “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? … for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple” (v.16,17b).  Consider the significance of Paul’s words here as they relate to Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church and School.  How often, when we hear or speak that name, don’t we immediately think of 9191 Fletcher Parkway, La Mesa, CA 91942?  That’s Shepherd of the Hills, right?  Across from the Michael’s and the Souplantation, at the intersection of Dallas/Southern and Fletcher Parkway, that’s where you’ll find Shepherd of the Hills, correct?  But if that’s the case, then did Shepherd of the Hills not really exist almost 50 years ago, when several families began to meet each Sunday for worship at Grossmont College under the same name?  Of course it existed!  Why?  Because a church is not a “what?,” but a “who?”  The Church is not a building; it’s people.  Shepherd of the Hills is not a this sanctuary, the MP room, the classrooms, the playground, or the parking lot, etc.; rather it is the Drapers, the Jaegers, the Schoonovers, the Smiths, the Bakers, the Whites, the McDonoughs, and all the other souls equally treasured by God that have gathered and continue to gather around Jesus’ Word and sacrament.  Shepherd of the Hills is not made up of stucco and studs, but flesh and blood; it’s not a building, but people.

So now, if we’re talking about Church building this morning, what does Paul show us we’re really talking about?  People building.  “You together are that temple” (v.17), Paul wrote.  To build up the Church, you build up the people, and how is that done?  The answer is in what we’ve been talking about the previous four Sundays.  What do “Unity,” “Boasting,” “Power,” and “Wisdom” all have in common?  It’s the Word of God, which reveals to us the all important foundation that Paul speaks about this morning, Jesus Christ.  Where Jesus Christ is preached, where Jesus Christ is proclaimed, there alone the Holy Spirit builds his temple.  There alone he dwells.  Isn’t that what Jesus had in mind when people were asking where his kingdom was, and he responded by saying it wasn’t here or there, but within you?  Wherever the wrecking ball of God’s law deals its crushing blows to our sinful, selfish pride, and the gospel of forgiveness repairs and renews, there is where Church building is going on, and there is where Christ’s Church will always exist.

And dare we forget it, let us remember the One responsible for the building.  Although Christ’s Church is made up of people, it isn’t people who build his Church, but Christ himself.  It isn’t a pastor or a teacher or the right lay leader in the right place at the right time; it is Christ who builds his Church.  It is the Holy Spirit who enriches and enlightens our little ones through the Word taught at our elementary school and in Sunday school.  It is the Holy Spirit who sustains and strengthens us all through the Bible as it is read and studied in our homes and here in worship and Bible studies.  God alone is credited with Church building, which prompted Paul to write, “So then, no more boasting about human leaders!” (v.21).  But if we can’t boast in human leaders, why then does Paul write, “all things yours” (v.21)?  Because God has given you and me, the Church, all the tools needed for him to build us up.  We lack nothing, for we have his law and gospel, word and sacrament, water and bread & wine, body and blood – we have everything needed for Church building – all of it is ours, and all of it came from him.  Let us use his tools faithfully, so that on the foundation of Jesus Christ, the Lord might continue to build, which is, finally, what Church is for.  Amen.

                                                               

“For the freer confidence is from one’s own works, and the more exclusively it is directed toward Christ alone, so much better is the Christian it makes.” (Luther)