Pentecost/Forward in Christ WELS 150 Celebration Sunday
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
- Ephesians 2:19-20, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House) 1984.
Dear Friends in Christ,
In our first Scripture lesson we heard the historic account of Pentecost, often referred to as the birthday of the New Testament Church. Appropriately enough, this is the day that we, along with hundreds of other Wisconsin Synod Lutheran churches nationwide (and in fact, worldwide), are also observing the 150th birthday of our church body.
Before we go even one sentence farther, let it be clearly understood and emphasized that it is grace alone that allows us to celebrate this event. Any emphasis on man’s decisions or doings as the reason we have come to this happy point in our synodical history would be entirely inappropriate and misplaced.
Certainly God used certain people as His instruments to stay the course over the past 150 years, and for them we are grateful to Him. The commemorative book you will be receiving today makes for fascinating reading, and you will be introduced to some of the individuals and major decisions that have played a prominent role in the formation and continuation of the WELS. But we give honor first and foremost to our good and gracious God who guided, sustained and gave the necessary strength to all who have contributed to making us what we are – a confessional, Bible-based, Christian church body…
Our text for this occasion is from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. It, too, is especially fitting both for Pentecost as well as our Forward in Christ celebration. In it the Apostle Paul uses various illustrations to gratefully remind us who we are – both as individuals and as a church body. Who are we? This is the answer and reasoning our text provides:
WE ARE GOD’S HOUSEHOLD
1. God’s Word is our Foundation
2. Jesus Christ is our Cornerstone
Before we work our way through this portion of Scripture, allow me to give you a little background on the people (Ephesians) to whom Paul originally addressed these words. Within the Christian congregation in the city of Ephesus we see evidence of both the Spirit of Pentecost and the spirit of Pentecost. What I mean is this…
The congregation itself was made up of Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles). The Holy Spirit (of Pentecost) was active in bringing both of these groups of people to faith. Through the preaching of Paul, Jewish people who had the Old Testament – but had been steeped in the faulty religious idea of working their way to heaven through their own good deeds – came to understand Jesus as the only way of salvation. And the Gentile people came to the light of knowing Jesus from the darkness of their heathen and pagan pasts.
The fact that these two groups of people formed one Christian congregation was, humanly speaking, amazing, because normally they didn’t want anything to do with each other. In fact, it’s not too strong a term to say that in their pre-Christian days they despised each other. But here they were – together in Christ and moving forward in Christ. The Holy Spirit had led them to understand that what they shared in Jesus and the Gospel message was far greater than their individual differences and backgrounds. The spirit (of Pentecost) they exhibited was one of love for their Savior that translated into love for each other and reaching out to others…
In the opening words of our text, it would seem that Paul is especially addressing those believers with a Gentile background. (That, by the way, makes it applicable to most of us because historically and ethnically we fall under this category.) After speaking of the oneness that Jesus creates between Jews and Gentiles, he writes: "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household…"
Some interesting designations here. The idea of being a foreigner and an alien means not being a part of a particular people or culture. Spiritually speaking, that’s what the Gentile Ephesian Christians at one time were – they were not a part of the people of God. They were outside the household of God. But now Paul says they are in it. What changed?
What changed is that the Holy Spirit working through the Gospel preaching of Paul brought them to faith. But not just any kind of faith (today, for example, we hear people talk about faith in human nature or faith in themselves or faith in the goodness of man. Paul has nothing like that in mind). This is a faith that is "built on the foundation of the Apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."
Let’s move from the past to the present and apply this to ourselves. We too, were once spiritual foreigners and aliens and outside the household of God. But God the Holy Spirit brought us in, just as He did the Ephesian Gentiles. For many of us this was through our baptism as infants. At that time a miracle took place as the Holy Spirit created faith in our hearts and made us members of God’s household. At that time we were given a spiritual foundation…
And the foundation of the Christian’s faith is the Word of God (referred to here by the designation of "Apostles and prophets"), and the central message or chief cornerstone of that foundational Word is Jesus Christ. Let’s talk about this…
What is our faith founded upon – as individuals, as a church, and as a church body? The Word of God. We can add to that. The verbally inspired Word of God. We can still add to that. The verbally inspired and inerrant Word of God. Our faith is founded upon the one true God, and the one true God has actually spoken to us and has actually stooped to reveal Himself to us in His Word...
How do we know that? Paul would later write to his young colleague Timothy and tell him how all of Scripture is God breathed. Peter would write and tell us in his second letter how God the Holy Spirit so "carried along" the writers of the Bible that what they wrote were not their own words, but the very words of God. Scripture is full of references to this grand and glorious fact: The Bible is the very Word of God...
I don’t have to tell you that this is no longer commonly held, even by many church bodies that call themselves Christian and give lip service to how much they revere the Bible. But with their next breath they will say that the Bible is historically conditioned, and that we know things now that people didn’t know back then (we last heard this from the ELCA on the subject of same sex unions and how today we are much more enlightened about sexuality than the people of Bible times). They will say that ancient man in his limited understanding made up stories like creation to try to comprehend something so complex as the universe, so the Bible can’t really be trusted in such scientific matters. They will say that the Bible is inspirational and inspiring, but not inspired...
Truly one of the blessings that God has given us in our church body for this last century and a half is a solid, unyielding commitment to the Bible as truth. If God incarnate, Jesus Christ, said that the Scriptures cannot be broken (that is, they are the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth), let us thank God that we belong to a church body that falls in line with His, rather than the world’s, way of thinking about the Bible.
And central to the Bible is Jesus Christ. He is the cornerstone. The message of justification by faith – we are saved through faith alone in the work of Jesus Christ – is, in the words of the Lutheran reformers of the 16th century, the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls. In other words, if a church or church body isn’t straight on this foundational truth, everything else will be off kilter as well.
Moreover, the Gospel message of Jesus Christ is the scarlet thread which runs through all of Scripture; He is the theme of the entire Bible. Martin Luther once made the comment that every verse of every chapter of every book in the Bible somehow talks about Jesus Christ. That’s an interesting observation. Think about that when you’re doing your personal Bible reading and are in a historical section of the Old Testament. Think about how everything took place so that God could preserve a nation from whom the Savior of the world would come. Think about how God orchestrated events so that when the fullness of time had come He would send His Son into the world...
In fact, to every verse in the Bible we can apply the pronouncement that the Apostle John attached to the end of His gospel: "These words 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."
The bottom line is this: Jesus Christ – the crucified but risen Savior; the substitute sacrifice for all our sins; the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – is the cornerstone of both the Scriptures as well as our personal faith.
Let us thank God for that for 150 years we are a part of a church body that is christo-centric (Christ centered) and evangelical (gospel preaching). While others have moved to speaking out only on social issues, let us rejoice that God has kept us preaching Christ crucified...
And let us now pray that we as a church body will go forward in Christ. If we use Paul’s imagery of the church as a building (foundation, cornerstone), let us also add to this picture the fact that the walls are expandable. In the words of the hymn: "There still is room, His house is not yet filled. Not all the guests are there…"
As a church and a church body, let us pray that we never lose a mission zeal and mission spirit. Let us pray that the Great Commission (today’s Gospel lesson) never leave the forefront of our consciousness. Because when it does, our church and our church body will begin to die – first from the inside, then from the outside.
And finally let us pray that we will remain strong and true to the Word. Within the Ephesian congregation there is a model of committed Christianity, but there is also a warning. Toward the end of the first century, approximately 40 or 50 years after Paul began this congregation, Ephesus is one of 7 churches mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Jesus instructed John to write the following words to them: To the angel [pastor] of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven golden lampstands: I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
Jesus commends the Ephesian church for her commitment to sound doctrine. But then He has this to say: Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first...
What was the first love that they had forsaken? Was it perhaps a failure to practice what they preached? Did it have to do with believing all the right things, but not acting on them in Christian love? Did they set up false alternatives between being orthodox and being loving, thinking that they could only be one or the other? Had they lost their pentecostal zeal of reaching out to others as had once been done for them? We don’t know what exactly it was that Jesus criticized them for...
But this we know: we can pray that we don’t fall into the same patterns that provoked such words from our Savior. And as we celebrate 150 years of grace, let us also pray fervently that we – as individuals, a church and a church body – never forsake our first love: Jesus Christ and living in Him and for Him.
So, who are we – as individuals, as St. John’s church, as a member of the church body known as the WELS? We are God’s household, built on the foundation of the Word of God, Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone. This is a great truth worthy of daily thanksgiving. May God preserve us in this faith, and may He allow us, strengthen and embolden us to be ever moving FORWARD IN CHRIST. Amen.