The Church’s One Foundation

Text: 1 Corinthians 3:9-11, Ephesians 1:20-23, Ephesians 2:17-21, Ephesians 5:25-27, Colossians 1:17-20

My senior prom didn’t go like I expected. I invited a boy that I really liked, drove my mom crazy shopping for just the right dark blue dress with sparkles, and when the night arrived I felt like a princess in braces. Over dinner, however, my date noticed my adorable best friend, dressed in black and glittering with charming conversation, completely oblivious to him. He continued to notice her all night. And well into the morning hours, I listened to him recount her virtues and wonder at her beauty.

I felt silly. Worse, I felt insignificant and expendable, my blue dress and smudged eyeliner just an embarrassment. In the years that followed, I have learned not to base my self-worth on the opinion of teenage boys. In fact, I have learned that my self-worth isn’t even the point of my story. But I have not lost my longing to be treasured.

The story of Christ and His church is like a true fairy tale. He slays the dragon, rescues the princess, and takes her home to His kingdom. From heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride.

As the church, we are Christ’s treasured bride. And He gives us our place, value, and significance. Don’t worry about your sparkly dress; Christ has something even better to offer. “He did this to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:27).

But the story of Christ and His church is greater, because this story isn’t about the worthiness of the church. The church isn’t the bride of Christ because we are the prettiest, cleverest, or even the most obedient. Christ is the one who makes us worthy, and we can find that self-worth in Him, for He is sure, steadfast, and faithful.

Christ Himself is the center and foundation of the church (1 Corinthians 3:11). Samuel Stone wrote this hymn to highlight “the one holy church, and the communion of the saints” part of the Apostle’s Creed. And it’s such a good reminder that those whose foundation is based on Christ are all united in the one holy church.

In all of my longing to be treasured, I can miss the actual treasure: Christ. But instead of building my life on false hopes and imagined romances, I can look to the one foundation “who is also the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:18). In fact, I don’t need to build my life at all; Paul writes that we are “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20). So the building is already accomplished. God has already done the work of building the church on the foundation of Christ.

Now my job is to rest in Christ, to lean on Him and the foundation that He has already laid. My worth and my security come from Christ alone. He is our hope and our treasure.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide!

The Church’s One Foundation
Samuel J. Stone, 1866

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide!

For an added layer of worship during reading plan, we’ve created a Spotify playlist for Hymns V! You can find the complete SRT/HRT Hymns V Playlist here, or listen to the first track on the player below. Enjoy!