(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 09/16/07)

INTRODUCTION:

In 1981, there was a 17-year-old kid walking along Kurfurstendamm, the most prominent upscale, retail avenue in West Berlin.  Claiming a prominent position in the skyline is the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche (Memorial Church).  After it was bombed by the Allied forces during WWII, the people of Berlin chose not to repair it, but to leave it as a monument memorializing the brutality of war.  I was that 17-year-old kid. 

Obviously, the sight of that church made a lasting impression.  It’s an image that comes quickly to mind when the hymn verse says, “…even when steeples are falling.  Crumbled have spires in every land…”  In stark contrast to an image like that we also have the first eight words of that hymn verse:

Built On The Rock The Church Shall Stand

On this anniversary weekend, we’re taking a brief break from the appointed lessons of the church year to listen to the Holy Spirit speak to us not only about our church but about the Church, the Holy Christian Church.  Which TV commercial best describes the Church – Kaiser Permanente (the church is thriving), or the car insurance commercial depicting the unexpected collision (the church is crashing)?  Is the steeple of Christ’s Church rising or is there an epidemic of spires crumbling?  Jesus’ words to Peter are for people like you and me, people who need to know and who need to bear in mind what the church is and what it is not.   

There is a blessed, genuine (almost giddy happiness), unshakeable strength that believers have and that the Church has, but this happiness and strength don’t come first and foremost from “church things”.  The blessed happiness and strength of individual believers and the blessed happiness and strength of the Christian Church rest on God the Father’s revelation of his Son – nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.  The unmovable, solid rock on which the Church is built is the confession that Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal Son of God in a fully human body, the single person through whom God chose to rescue every person.

1 Corinthians 3:11 – No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.  What is the Holy Christian Church all about, what is our church to be all about?  Buildings and budgets, programs and picnics, windows and workdays all have their place, but the place they have is not the foundation.  Four acres, twenty-two acres, ten acres, Scenic Hwy, Webb Gin House Road, old building that felt like a cozy church, current building, new building (with a double question mark behind it) all have been and can be blessings, but they’re not that on which the church is built.  Called workers – two teachers for K-8, three teachers, two teachers, preschool teachers; one pastor, a pastor and a vicar, two pastors, a pastor and a staff minister, one pastor, back to a pastor and a vicar again – workers come and go, a foundation has to remain stationary.  The finances of a synod-funded mission church, a “self-supporting” church, budget in the red, in the black, in the red, in the black – money matters are as flip-flopping as a politician’s promises, but the cattle on a thousand hills belongs to the Lord.  Jesus has never needed a dime to build his Church.  All these things have their place, but that place is not the foundation.

The church is people.  The Christian Church is people founded on Christ.  It’s people like sinful, impetuous, well-meaning but misguided Peter to whom God the Father revealed the truth: This carpenter from Nazareth you’re walking around with created the world and was sent to the world to save the world.  It’s people like you, as God convinces you that on your own you don’t have a chance to measure up, but that in Christ you measure up to God’s standards in every way.  The Christ is the one on whom God the Father poured the anointing oil and said, “You’re the priest who will sacrifice yourself for the sin of the world.  You’re the prophet who will tell the great good news of forgiveness from God.  You’re the king who will reign in the hearts of those who trust that they are lost and condemned without you as their substitute.” 

Blessed are you, Simon, and blessed are you, genuinely happy and in good shape with God, as you look beneath your feet and see, “God has placed me on the foundation of Jesus.”  Jesus, the bearer of all sin, the doer of God’s will is the foundation of the church.  On that rock you and the church will not crumble but stand – safe.

There may be many methods but there will always and only be one means for building up the church – the use of the keys.  Applying the law and the gospel is the only means for building up the church.  The church is not a social club seeking members.  It is believers in Jesus paralyzing impenitent sinners with fear to hear that they are locked out of heaven, but it is at the same time believers in Jesus inviting penitent sinners near to hear that in Christ they’ve been declared saints and citizens of heaven. 

That’s how we became Christ’s people and that’s the only way more people become Christ’s people.  It will not work and it will not grow the church to tell inactive members or next door neighbors nothing more than, “We’d be happy to have you join us.”  Invitations are great but there will have to be more than that.  Any indifferent or impenitent person in our church and our community has to hear, as do we, “Your sins are your own.”  Law-breakers perish, shut out from heaven.  To every person who trembles at that truth, including us, the gospel brings peace.  “You feel God is punishing you, that he could never forgive you, that he hasn’t forgiven you, that he doesn’t love you?  That is not true.  God punished Jesus for all your sins.  Jesus was saddled with the guilt of the world and he carried it to a cross of shame and gave his life to pay for it.  The door of heaven stands open.  Your guilt has been deposited in the one place where it will remain dead and never come back to life – the empty grave of Jesus.”  I’m preaching that right now as the message to share, but it sounds awfully good, doesn’t it, because it’s the message God has for you, the message someone shared with you.

Built on the Rock the church shall stand.  The means for building the church is the keys Jesus has placed in your hands.  You have Jesus’ authority to humbly terrify impenitent sinners with the closed door of heaven and to joyfully relieve penitent sinners with the open door of heaven, opened to them and to us and to all by the Christ, the Son of the living God.  The work of the church is to use those keys.  Our identity as a church, if I can be so bold as to say it, needs to be defined by a return to or a recapturing of the mentality of a mission church.  Which nearby city will be the location of the next church?  Which nearby person will be the next person you talk to about Jesus?  You have the keys.  I don’t need to say, “Let’s use them.”  That’s Jesus’ line.  The Savior who has given them to you works through you to put them to good use.

Collectively, how can we all put them to the best use?  I’ve heard people talk about our immediate future in terms of property use, programs, staffing and buildings.  I have an opinion about such things, and I’m sure you do, too.  Such considerations have their place, but the place they have does not carry the label, “Things that will make our church thrive.”  God the Father’s revelation of his Son Jesus as the Savior is the foundation of the Christian Church and the foundation of this church – nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. 

Falling steeples?... Crumbling spires?... If you are under the impression that the Christian Church in general or our church in particular has taken some shots, then open your arms and put a big squeeze on these words.  There isn’t any wicked, evil thing coming from any person, from any unbeliever, from Satan or from hell itself that can win out against believers in Jesus.  Jesus said, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  Whatever forces of evil are messing around, they are not messing with us.  They’re messing with Jesus.  Bad idea! They’re not going to win.

The pastor who first installed me as a pastor was fond of saying, “It’s not my church.”  He wasn’t endorsing laziness or shirking responsibility.  He was remembering that the one who is the foundation of the church is the one who said, “I will build my church.”  It’s Jesus’ Church and he will build it.  For confidence and optimism and inspiration for the days to come, that will be sufficient.

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