Well, good morning. We don't have the piano stopping
playing to let everybody know it's time, but it is time. If you would, open your Bibles
with me to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, we bow before you.
So thankful that you've given us another opportunity to meet
together and to worship your precious name. Father, I pray
that you send your spirit upon us, enable us to do that this
morning, to worship you. To open your word and to hear
word from thee. To not hear the thoughts and
ideas of men, but Father, to hear word from thee. By your
spirit, you may take your word and apply it to our hearts. to
each heart here this morning that we might believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, that we might find rest and comfort and assurance
in believing Him and looking to Him. Father, let everything
that is said and done here this morning be done to the preeminence
of Christ our Savior. And what we pray for ourselves,
we pray for our children's classes going on right now. We pray for
our brother Eric in Wheelersburg this morning. Father, bless. Bless for your great namesake.
Get glory to your name in this dark, dark day in which we live. And Father, we pray for those
who are hurting and need you especially. There's so many right
now here and in other places, Father, we pray you'd be with
your people, that you'd heal, that you'd comfort. Father, we
pray a special blessing for our brother D. Parks and his family
at this time, Father, that you'd be with them in a very special
way. Be with your people. Comfort
their hearts with your presence. While we don't understand and
these things are so painful to the flesh, Father, only you can
comfort the hearts of your people. And we pray that you would. And
all these things we ask in that name which is above every name,
the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. I've titled our lesson this morning
The Foundation of the apostles and prophets. Our text begins
in Ephesians 2 verse 19. Now therefore, you no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household
of God. And you're built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in
whom all the building fitly framed together groweth into a holy
temple in the Lord. in whom he also are built together
for an habitation of God through the spirit. Now, what does it
mean to be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets?
You know, it's not to be built upon the apostles and prophets
themselves, is it? Even if we would build upon the
very best of men, it's just sinking sand. What this means is being
built on the same foundation of faith that the apostles and
the prophets had. It means being built upon the
same foundation of faith as Abel, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
and Moses, and David, and Solomon, and Isaiah. And the foundation
of their faith, the foundation of their salvation, was the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now if God has saved us, he saved
us the same way he saved them. If God has saved us, we are built. Our hope, our salvation, our
faith is built. upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the foundation of everything that we believe. If we're built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, we can sing, truly,
my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
Now that's what that means. Now here's the important question.
How can I tell if I'm built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets? I want to give you three ways from our text
this morning. The first one is this. I'm built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. If the foundation
of my faith is Christ himself, Paul says in verse 20, you're
built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ himself. Now the foundation of our faith
is not points of doctrine. I know there are points of doctrine
that differentiate us from different, you know, Armenian free will,
Catholic, charismatic, whatever. There are different points of
doctrine that obviously makes us different than them, but the
salvation of our souls is not dependent upon points of doctrine
that we can argue and we can defend and we can prove by human
logic. If God has saved us, the foundation
of our salvation is Jesus Christ himself. It's Christ. Now I say that, don't ever mistake
this. Doctrine is vitally important. Christ can't be preached unless
we preach true doctrine. It's utterly impossible. We have
to hear the truth of who Christ is. And you've heard people say
this, don't preach doctrine to me. And I think what a lot of
times what they mean by that, don't, don't preach law, don't
preach, you know, this, this dry, you know, that I understand
that don't preach doctrine to me, but I tell you what I say
to anybody that I want to sit and listen to, I say, preach
doctrine to me as long as it points me to Christ, as long
as it points me to Christ. And the reason I say that is
this. Christ can't be known without true doctrine. You can't know
who Christ is unless you hear the doctrine of the scriptures.
And doctrine is not just points, you know, that John Calvin wrote
down somewhere on a piece of paper. Doctrine is teaching. Doctrine is true teaching about
who Christ is and what he's accomplished. That's why I say we can't know
Christ without doctrine. Now, don't mistake the importance
of true doctrine, but also don't mistake this. Don't fall into
this trap. I'm not saved by knowing true doctrine. You aren't either. How are we saved? By knowing
and trusting Christ himself. Not knowing things about Christ,
knowing Christ himself. There's a big, big difference
in knowing things about Christ and knowing Christ. Knowing Christ. See, doctrine is only good as
it points us to trusting Christ. It tells us who he is, so we
love him and trust him. If knowing doctrine puffs us
up because, oh, I know all this. I know something somebody else
doesn't. Then, brother, we've missed the use, the proper use
of doctrine. In that case, if I get so puffed
up in knowing my doctrine, I know something somebody else doesn't,
look at these Armenians, look at these free will, you know,
I make fun of them because what I know and they don't know, you
know what? My doctrine has caused me to
miss Christ. So don't fall into that trap.
The foundation of salvation is Jesus Christ himself. Christ himself is my wisdom. Now, if I'm going to be saved,
I've got to have some wisdom and I don't have it by nature.
Christ is my wisdom. The only way I can know how can
God be just and still justify the ungodly like me? How's that
possible? The only way that's possible
is in Christ. He is the wisdom of God. Only
Christ answers Job's age old question. How shall a man be
just with God? No other way but in Christ. Christ
is the wisdom of God. And Christ himself is my righteousness. Righteousness is not my obedience.
I was listening to a man on the radio this morning And normally,
I just turn the radio off. I don't want anything like that
in my head in the way here. But something caught my ear. And I left it on, listening to
him. And he was saying some things. I thought, he's going somewhere
good here. He saw him, then he ruined it. Our righteousness,
he says, how we live. No, sir. My righteousness is not my obedience. It's not my morality before me.
And I mean, I hope I'm a moral person before me. And I hope
I can act in such a way that I kind of hide the sinful wretchedness
of my heart. But that's not my righteousness. Christ himself is my righteousness. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord, our
righteousness. Brother, I'm trusting a person. Aren't you? I'm in love with
a person. I certainly don't want to trust
anything I've done. The thing of salvation is knowing a person
and loving a person. It's a relationship with a person.
Christ is my righteousness. Christ himself is my holiness. Holiness is not me sinning less. This fellow I listened to on
the radio this morning, he said, now believers are holy, and I
thought, Okay, let's hear this. How's he going to explain this? And he said when God saves a
person, he begins the process of making them holy. Making them
more and more and more holy. He said now, how did he say it? Positionally before God we're
holy, but practically we're not and we get more and more holy
as we go. If that's true, I'm not saved
and you aren't either. Matter of fact, When I look at
myself, I think I'm getting less holy. Don't you? In that growing
in grace, I see myself as less holy, so I'm more dependent on
Christ, who is my holiness. In Christ, I am righteous and
holy. That's the only way I can be
holy. Christ himself is my redemption. My redemption cannot be earned
with the silver and gold of my works. It'll perish just like
silver and gold will. Christ himself is my redemption. Redemption is not a thing. Redemption's
a person, a person. Redemption is not just the work
of Christ. Redemption is Christ himself. I was talking to a man one time
and he, there was lots of confusion and he said, well, he said, all
I know is this, I'm trusting in that work that Christ finished
on the cross. And I told him, be careful because
salvation is not trusting a work. Salvation is trusting a person.
I tried to say that gently, but now there's a big difference
in trusting a work entrusting a person. That's the last conversation
that man I ever had, but I know that's true. What I'm telling
you, cause look back at Exodus chapter 15, we looked at this, just this
part of this chapter, just a few weeks ago, Exodus chapter 15,
Christ himself is my salvation. This is the song of praise that
Moses led the children of Israel, in singing after they crossed
the Red Sea and Pharaoh and his host were drowned in the Red
Sea. The Lord is my strength and song. He is become my salvation. He personally is my salvation. He's my God and I'll prepare
for him a habitation. My father's God and I will exalt
him. But he personally is my salvation. And the point is this, if God
has saved me, God has saved you, Christ is the foundation of our
faith because Christ is my salvation. He is my salvation. As a matter
of fact, Christ is everything. He's everything to me. Peter
said, unto you therefore which believe, he is precious. Not things we hear about him.
He is precious. Salvation is a relationship with
a person. It's union with a person and
I tell you why he's so precious because he is all of my salvation. All right. Number two, I'm built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. If Christ is my
cornerstone, verse 20 in our text, he says, you're built upon
the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself
being the chief cornerstone. Now what is a cornerstone? Now,
the word cornerstone and how it's used has a couple different
meanings. The first thing is this. A cornerstone
holds two walls together. You got two walls at a 90 degree
angle. What holds them together? It's
the cornerstone that holds them together, that keeps them from
both falling down. That's what Christ is to the
church. He holds everything. It's him. He is held by his power. You can know all the true doctrine
you want. If we're not anchored on Christ himself, we're going
to perish. Everything's going to fall down.
The cornerstone is also the first stone that the builders set when
they start construction on a building. And everything else in the building
is measured from that cornerstone. You know, as you're building
a wall, you don't measure, okay, where, you know, how many bricks
it is until I get to the end, and then, okay, that's the end
of that wall. The end of that wall is measured from the cornerstone.
And the measure of that corner and that, it's all from the cornerstone. Everything else in the building
is built upon the cornerstone. It depends upon the cornerstone.
So in other words, the cornerstone guides where everything goes
in the building, doesn't it? It guides everything. If God
has saved you, the Lord Jesus Christ is your cornerstone. Christ,
the son of God, was the first stone set when the father chose
the people to say. Christ, he said, the son, he's
my first elect. And everybody else has elected
him. Christ was the one chosen first. And the salvation of God's
elect all depends upon him, all on him. Now if God has saved
you, you just know this inherently. You know where you're supposed
to be by looking at Christ. By looking at Christ. If you
hear somebody preaching something that's not true, you know you're
not supposed to be there. By looking at Christ, what he's
saying doesn't match Christ. It doesn't measure up to Christ. You don't have to look at the
stones next to you and what they're doing to figure out where you're
supposed to be, do you? No, you look to the cornerstone.
And that tells you where you're supposed to be. And if every
stone in the building, if every stone in the wall is all looking
to Christ, it's all dependent upon Christ. The wall will stay
straight. Otherwise it's going to bow.
Look at first Peter chapter two, first Peter chapter two. in verse four, to whom coming as into a living
stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious.
You also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and
holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
by Jesus Christ. See, Christ is the living, is
the, is the stone, the cornerstone, the living stone, that's chosen
of God to be the cornerstone of his people. And all the church
is built on him. See, the church is not a building. I find myself all the time saying
this to Janet while I'm going over to the church. I'm going
over to the church. I'm going to work or do something
over here. And I always think, you should say the church building.
She knows what I mean. But we say, this building's not
the church. It's fine. We say, I'm going
to church. But the church is not a building. The church is
every believer who built together on Christ. That's the church.
And Peter calls believers living stones. As long as the believers
measures where we're supposed to be from Christ, that wall
will stay straight and will be living stones. The wall will
stay straight. The walls of God's church, I
mean, first of all, you know they're going to stay straight
because God's built it. He's not going to build a wall that's
going to bow. But the wall stays straight. as long as the placement
of each stone is measured from a fixed point. Now, I don't know that. That's
just what I read. I don't know how to do that,
but that's just what I read. Alec can build a wall. He can
build a house, and he can probably explain that better than I can,
but this is what I know about God's church. The fixed point
is Christ. He's the fixed point, and if
he's the fixed point, the wall, the building, the foundation,
The roof, everything in the building will never fall as long as Christ
is the fixed point. Now you may be like me and worry,
I don't know how to build a wall. I can't even accurately measure
where I'm supposed to be from Christ. I might misread the tape
measure or something. How am I supposed to measure
and know where I'm supposed to be? You don't have to worry about
that. You don't have to worry about
that. We're not the ones who are building God's church. Our
Savior's taking care of that himself. Hold your place there
in 1 Peter. We'll come back there in a second.
Look at Matthew chapter 16. The Savior's gonna take care
of building his church. We don't have to worry that we're
not good builders. He is. Matthew 16. Verse 13. When Jesus came into the coast
of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, whom do
men say that I, the son of man, am? And they say, some say that
thou art John the Baptist. Some Elias and others Jeremiah
are one of the prophets. That's what other men said. Here's
the question. He saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and
said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus
answered and said unto him, blessed art thou Simon Barjona for flesh
and blood have not revealed it unto thee, but my father, which
is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that
thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, you
know, the savior is not saying he's going to build his church
on Peter. If the Lord's going to build his church upon Peter,
it fell down. before the Lord was even crucified.
And Peter denied him, didn't he? No. I mean, I'm going to tell on Earl. He got
up on a roof yesterday in the wind. Earl, that wind would have
blown Peter over, wouldn't it? If the church depended upon Peter,
the slightest breeze would have ruined the whole thing. So the
Lord's not saying he's going to build his church on Peter.
What he's saying is this. He's going to build his entire
church on the confession of faith, what Peter said. Salvation is in Christ alone. I believe thou art the Christ,
the son of the living God. And our Savior says, now on that
confession, I'm going to build my church. And Christ is the
wise master builder. He builds his church. He knows
right where to put every one of his people in Christ so that
they're safe and secure in him. Now, each of us is where the
Lord's put us. We're here because this is where the Lord put us.
Well, then I'm to serve where the Lord put me. Not looking
for greener pastures, not looking for something better, serve where
the Lord put us because he put us in the right place, I can
tell you that. Now, look back at 1 Peter 2. See, since Christ
is the cornerstone of his church, every believer is safe hiding
in Christ. First Peter two verse six. Wherefore
also it is contained in the scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion, a chief
cornerstone elect. I chose him, appointed him. He's
precious. And he that believeth on him
shall not be confounded. And here's how you can tell if
you're built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
If the only place that you want to hide from God's wrath against
your sin is in Christ, you're on that foundation. If you're
hiding in Christ, your soul is eternally safe. You'll never
be confounded. And that word confounded means
ashamed. If you're hiding in Christ, you'll never be ashamed. Christ has taken away everything
that would ever cause you shame. He took away your sin. Sin's
what causes shame, isn't it? Adam never felt shame until he
took of that fruit and ate it. Sin's what causes shame. Christ
has taken the sin of his people away. There's no shame in him.
If you're hiding in Christ, you'll never be ashamed because you're
found naked because you've been clothed in the righteousness
of Christ. If you're hiding in Christ, the
chief cornerstone, you'll never be ashamed because you've been
found guilty. can't be found guilty because
you're innocent in Christ. If you're hiding in Christ, you'll
never be ashamed because you found out you were deceived into
trusting something that wasn't true. That you were trusting
Christ and he wasn't able to save you and now you're ashamed.
That's not possible because he's able to save to the uttermost
all that come unto God by him. Look back at Isaiah chapter 28.
This is the passage that Peter's quoting where he says it's contained
in the scripture. Here it is. Isaiah 28. Verse 16. Therefore thus saith
the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone,
a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth,
shall not make haste. Whoever it is that's believing
in Christ is not going to be making haste, fleeing real fast
from something that's going to destroy him. Because if you're
in Christ, nothing can destroy you. Nothing can reach you. He's
the tried cornerstone. God's wrath has already fallen
on him. He suffered, he died, and he
rose again. It didn't destroy him. Now you
hide in him and you'll never be destroyed. Now here's the
third thing. Look back in our text. Ephesians
two, I'm built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
If the Lord has made me a living stone, first 21 in whom all the
building fitly framed together, grow with an unto and holy temple
in the Lord in whom he also are built together for an habitation
of God through the spirit. And you notice here, Paul says
the very same thing Peter said over there. First Peter two believers
are living stones. The only way these stones can
grow together is if they're living. Something dead doesn't grow.
They're living stones, so they grow together. And if you're
built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, this
is what you know. You have spiritual life because
God gave it to you. He gave it to you. You didn't
do anything to earn it or deserve it or get it. He gave it to you. You know you have life because
Christ died for you. He died the death that you deserve.
And if you have spiritual life, you know this, I'm built upon
Christ. I get my life from being joined
to Christ, the chief cornerstone, the same way the branch gets
its life from being joined to the vine. This life comes from
union with Christ. And if you're built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, this is what you know
about spiritual life. You know beyond a shadow of a
doubt you've got two natures in you. You know it beyond a
shadow of a doubt. You've got that old dead sinful
nature of the flesh that you always had and God's caused a
new holy righteous nature to be born in you. The only way
you know that you have a nature of the flesh is you've got a
holy nature that can see it. I love what Brother Nyberg says,
only the new man can see the sin of the old man. That's the
only way you know that you have two natures. The only way you can be holy,
what Paul calls you here as holy, is if God calls you to be born
again with a new nature. A nature that's holy. The only people who don't believe
in the two natures of a believer are people who only have one.
That's just a fact of the matter. If God has saved you, you know
this. God's given me a new nature.
That's the only way we can be called a holy temple. God made
us holy in Christ. And the whole church, every believer
is part of the building of God, the body of Christ. But each
individual believer is also a temple of the living God. That's how
each one of these individual stones are all living stones. Each individual believer is the
temple of God. And those stones all make up
the temple of God. If that makes any sense to you,
Now you think, how can that be? Paul says in verse 22, every
believer is the habitation of God. God, the Holy Spirit dwells
in the hearts of each one of his people. And I can show you
that, look at first Corinthians chapter three. First Corinthians chapter three. from verse 16. Know ye not that you are the
temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you. Now,
the only way you can be the temple of God is if the spirit was in
you. The temple in Jerusalem and the tabernacle before it.
What was in the Holy of Holies? The Shekinah glory of God, that's
where God dwelt. God dwelt there. He said, this
is where I want to meet with me and God dwelt there. If God
has saved you, he dwells in your heart, and that makes you the
temple of God. Now, the only way you can know
that's true is if you've experienced it. And if you've experienced
it, God saved you. You're built upon the foundation
of the apostles and the prophets, the same foundation of faith
that Abel had when he was offering that lamb 6,000 years ago. The foundation hadn't changed.
The Savior hadn't changed, salvation hadn't changed. Because the building,
the foundation never changes. I hope that'll be a blessing
to you.