Stones on a Foundation

During the 12th century, there was an architect in Italy known as Diotesalvi. Not much is known about this man, including his first name, but inscriptions on a couple of buildings bear his name, along with a notation describing him as “master of this work.”

He is known to have designed and overseen construction on at least one church and a grand baptistry nearby. And he is thought also to have been the architect for a chapel, a belltower, and a famous landmark that you’ve all heard of and seen in various photos.

A few of Diotesalvi’s works have something in common: They lean. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the belltower of St. Nicholas, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which are all located in the town of Pisa, all suffer from the same problems. They are built on marshy land, and their foundations weren’t large enough to keep them level.

Now, you’ve heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I’m sure. Let me tell you a little about it.

The tower is 50 feet in diameter at its base, and it stands eight stories tall, about 186 feet at its highest point. But its foundation is only eight feet thick, and the unstable soil upon which it was built caused the tower to tilt from the time the second story began to be built.

In fact, engineers say the whole thing would have collapsed during construction if the work had not been halted for nearly 100 years because of wars involving the then-republic of Pisa.

The pause in construction allowed the soil to shift and compact, and construction was finally completed in 1372, two hundred years after it started.

By 1990, the tower’s tilt had reached 5.5 degrees, which doesn’t sound like much until you see the photos.

The tower was closed to the public for a time, and work was done to remove some of the subsoil from under the high side and essentially push the building into a more upright stance.

Today, the tower has a tilt of 3.97 degrees. It is once again open to the public, and engineers have said that it is stable for at least another 300 years.

I’d love to visit Italy and see some of that nation’s architectural wonders, including this one, but I can promise you that if I ever go there, I’m not going to climb that tower and test whether the engineers are right.

And if this architect, Diotesalvi, were alive today, he wouldn’t be on my short list of people to design my next house.

He made a crucial mistake with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and based on the fact that it’s not the only building he designed in that town with a leaning problem, it seems that the mistake he made with the tower was one he repeated over and over again.

He did not lay a firm foundation.

Now, today, we are continuing our series on “The Church — Revealed” with a look at another of the metaphors the Bible uses to describe this new thing that Jesus instituted and that came into existence on the Day of Pentecost, which — by God’s sovereign design — we are celebrating today.

We have talked about the church as the flock of believers following the Good Shepherd. We have talked about the church as the obedient Bride of Christ, our bridegroom. We have talked about the church as a kingdom of priests interceding for the people under our High Priest, Jesus.

And today, we will talk about the church as the household and temple of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Jesus, the chief cornerstone.

We’re going to be looking at a passage in Ephesians, chapter 2, this morning, along with another from 1 Peter, chapter 2.

It’s interesting that the Apostles Paul and Peter both used this figure of speech of believers being stones of a house built upon a foundation and the cornerstone of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps they both had in mind the parable Jesus had taught about the wise man who built his house upon a rock.

And this makes sense. Our faith must be founded on something solid — not on the shifting sands of our changing culture, but rather on Him who is the Solid Rock, on Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Only faith that has its foundation in the unchanging character of God Himself can ever be sure.

We who have followed Jesus in faith can have blessed assurance of our salvation, because our faith is in the Son of God. Our faith is in Him who is the image of the same unchanging, invisible God in whom Abraham and the Patriarchs believed and were counted as righteous.

So, yes, I DO think that Paul and Peter were thinking of Jesus’ parable of the wise man who built his house upon the rock when they wrote these passages.

But I think they were also looking way back into history, to a promise that God had made to King David in 2 Samuel. And that’s where I want to start our journey through the Bible this morning, in chapter 7 of 2 Samuel.

As you’re turning there, let me remind you of what’s happening in this passage. David has built himself a palace, and God has given him rest from his enemies.

And as David considers the blessings he’s been given, he tells the prophet Nathan that he wants to build a house for God in Jerusalem.

He wants to build a temple to replace the tabernacle — the tent that had housed the ark of the covenant ever since the people of Israel had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before entering the Promised Land.

Nathan says David should do whatever is on his mind and then goes home. But that night, God spoke to Nathan and told him he’d jumped the gun in his response to the king.

“When did I say that I needed a house?” God says to Nathan.

And so, picking up in verse 8 of chapter 7 ...

2 Samuel 7:8–17 NASB95

8 “Now therefore, thus you shall say to My servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people Israel. 9 “I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make you a great name, like the names of the great men who are on the earth. 10 “I will also appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly, 11 even from the day that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. The Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you. 12 “When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 “He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, 15 but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.” ’ ” 17 In accordance with all these words and all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David.

So, just when David has decided that he is going to bless God by building a permanent place for His presence in Israel, God turns around and blesses David in ways that the king never could have imagined.

God promises to give David a name — a legacy that would endure forever. He promises David a house, a dynasty of kings — the only true kings of Israel and the line through which Jesus, the final and eternal king, would come.

He promises David a kingdom, the people of Israel and their land, which will be returned to them in the Millennial reign of Jesus. And He promises an eternal throne. This kingdom that is promised will remain forever through Jesus Christ.

Now, what you need to know about this passage is that it is prophecy, and in the Bible, prophecy can deal with near-term events, and it can deal with long-term events, and the two terms are often mixed up together.

So, some of this prophecy would be fulfilled in David’s lifetime. Some of it would be fulfilled in the lifetime of Solomon, his heir. Some of it would be fulfilled in the incarnation of Jesus, who was a direct descendant of David.

And some is yet to be fulfilled; it will only be fulfilled in Christ’s Millennial reign, after the Great Tribulation and after the risen and glorified Jesus has returned to earth to take His rightful throne in Jerusalem.

God would not allow David to build a house for Him, because David had been a man of war, and his hands were covered in blood, as it were.

But David’s son, Solomon, had submitted himself to David’s religious instruction and had placed his faith in God, and so God would allow Solomon to build this temple.

I think it’s clear that’s part of what God is prophesying through Nathan in verses 12 and 13.

But there’s more going on here. When God says in verse 13 that He will establish the throne of David’s descendant forever, he is making a statement that goes well beyond the future reign of King Solomon.

This is Messianic language. It refers to Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords, who came into the world as a man, declaring that “The Kingdom of God is at hand.”

And if the second part of verse 13 is Messianic in character, then we should wonder if the first part might not also be a Messianic prophecy, rather than simply God’s way of saying that Solomon would build the temple in Jerusalem.

Certainly that’s what happened, and God was pleased with Solomon for this offering. But I think there is a long-term prophecy in play here, as well.

I think God is giving here a glimpse of the church that Jesus will build upon Himself as the chief cornerstone and the Apostles as the foundation stones, with we believers as the living stones who make a house for His name.

Now, the reason I wanted to give you this little history lesson is to remind you how important it is to know and understand the Old Testament. Because the Old Testament was given to Israel to point them to Christ, the messiah who was promised from Genesis, chapter 3 onward.

And yet, what happened when the Messiah came was that He was rejected by Israel. They hated Him for His claim to be the Son of God. They hated Him for saying that He and the Father were one. And so, they rejected Him. They crucified Him.

But this, too, was part of God’s plan to redeem fallen mankind. He would use the stone that the builders rejected to build His house.

Turn to 1 Peter, chapter 2, and let’s see how Peter describes the church that Jesus is building into a house for God’s name.

We’ll pick up with verse 4.

1 Peter 2:4–8 NASB95

And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,” and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

Peter is writing to believers in Asia Minor to encourage them in the faith and to remind them to be devoted to one another and to the Lord. And he uses the metaphor of a spiritual house to make his point here.

We come to Jesus, who is a living stone, chosen by God, who considers Him to be of great value. Indeed, Jesus is of such value to God that God chooses Him to be the cornerstone for this spiritual house.

Now, the cornerstone was the stone that was laid first, even before the foundation was laid. It was the stone that determined the orientation and level of all the other stones.

If the cornerstone was out of square, the building would be out of square. If the cornerstone was not level, the building would not be level. It would tilt and collapse.

But all who are built on this cornerstone — all who believe in Him — will not be disappointed. This can also read, “They will not be put to shame.”

Imagine how shameful it must have been to that architect in Italy for his great tower to be found to be leaning when the builders got to the second story.

What Peter is saying here is that the only way for this spiritual house of God — this place in which the royal priesthood of believers offers itself as a sacrifice to God — the only way for it to be what it is intended to be is for it to be built upon the chosen and immensely valuable cornerstone of Christ.

We cannot be the church we were meant to be if we allow ourselves to be built upon anything other than Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

This means, for example, that we cannot fit our faith into our politics. If anything, we must fit our politics into our faith. And wherever our politics don’t fit the faith we proclaim, if we’re going to be the true church, then we must jettison the political baggage.

We cannot, as another example, be people who idolize security or safety or comfort if we are going to follow the Christ who said, “He who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.”

Indeed, Peter writes about this in this same chapter, in verses 20 and 21.

1 Peter 2:20–21 NASB95

For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps,

We who are being built upon the chief cornerstone must be oriented in the same direction that He is oriented. We must be willing to follow His example.

And what WAS His example? Hauled before the Jewish and then Roman authorities and charged with blasphemy for speaking the truth about who He was, Jesus could have called down fire from heaven to consume those who were torturing Him, to burn up the cross they were going to nail Him to.

But instead, what did He do? He suffered the torture in silence. He carried that cross Himself. He hung on it as they spat on Him and gambled for His clothing. And He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

He showed grace and mercy for those who treated Him so unjustly. He took upon Himself the punishment that they deserved for the very sins of rejecting Him and murdering Him.

Oh, what a savior!

And He did all this so that we who have followed Him in faith can become a fragrant spiritual sacrifice to the Father.

The Apostle Paul elaborates on this theme in his letter to the Ephesians. We’ll pick up in verse 19.

Ephesians 2:19–22 NASB95

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Now, the believers in Ephesus were mostly Gentiles. Gentiles were denied access to the main part of the temple in Jerusalem. In fact, there was a wall between the Gentile area and the Jewish area of that temple, and if a Gentile crossed over the wall, he was under sentence of death.

But what Paul is saying here is that there is no longer any wall. We are no longer strangers and aliens forbidden to worship God in the house that had been built for His presence.

In fact, we are now PART of His household. Indeed, not just part of His household, but part of the building itself, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets — in other words built on their teachings — and upon Jesus Christ, the cornerstone.

And what Jesus is building here is a holy temple in the Lord, a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Whereas God’s presence in the Jerusalem temple was within the holy of holies — that place where only the chief priest could go and then only once a year — we have within us individually and so much more as the corporate church God Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit.

He dwells within the church. And if He dwells within the church, then the church must be soundly built. It must be fitted together with care upon the solid and level foundation of the Apostles and of Jesus, the cornerstone.

This means that what we do here corporately — together as the gathered church — matters. It’s far more than a spiritual booster shot to get you through the week. It’s far more than a little bit of fellowship with people you enjoy spending an hour or so with once a week.

It hurts me to see people who have proclaimed themselves to be followers of Christ making a habit of being absent from this fellowship.

You have been called to a particular church for a particular reason. You have been given some spiritual gift that is intended to be used for the edification of the corporate church and for the “one anothering” of your fellow believers.

Lewis Sperry Chafer wrote about this problem. He said that this doctrine of the stones and the chief cornerstone shows us that we believers are all interdependent upon one another. And “a building is weakened and on its way to dissolution by the removal of one stone from the structure....” (Chafer, Systematic Theology, 64.)

If we are going to be the church we are meant to be, then we must first be built upon the chief cornerstone.

We must allow ourselves, based upon the foundation laid by the teaching of the apostles, to be oriented according to the lines of that cornerstone. We must be a church aligned with the values of Jesus and nothing else.

But we must then allow our stones to BE part of the structure He is building.

Brothers and sisters, I have said this before, and I will say it again: You need the church, and the church needs you.

If you are a follower of Christ, then your place is somewhere within the walls of this glorious house He is building for His Father’s name.

God looked ahead from the time of David and saw the church. He saw how it would look and the purpose it would serve by drawing the lost world to Him through Jesus.

And when He did, He saw your living stone. He saw you. And He saw the role you would play in His church.

He saw the special gift He would give you that would allow you to be fitted in to the structure as a whole, the gift that would enable you to support and lift up the rest of the structure.

You are needed here, and you need to be here.

Let us all work together, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to be built into a church that is worthy of God’s name, a church that is a fragrant sacrifice, acceptable to God.

Let us be a church that is far more than a building, much more than a place we gather from week to week.

Let us commit ourselves to being a gathered people among whom God’s Spirit lives and breathes with such power that He uses us to bring life into this dead and decaying world that surrounds us.

[I challenge you this morning to take seriously this commandment to follow in your Savior’s steps. I challenge you this morning to commit your very life to this construction project. I challenge you this morning to search your heart for what God is calling you to do and then to commit yourself to it.]